Posted on 03/26/2011 7:04:52 AM PDT by kristinn
The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.
The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as a political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires among liberals — not least among the donors who fund Media Matters’ staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.
“The strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said Brock, Media Matters’ chairman and founder and a former conservative journalist, adding that the group’s main aim had been to challenge the factual claims of the channel and to attempt to prevent them from reaching the mainstream media.
The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”
In an interview and a 2010 planning memo shared with POLITICO, Brock listed the fronts on which Media Matters – which he said is operating on a $10 million-plus annual budget — is working to chip away at Fox and its parent company, News Corp. They include its bread-and-butter distribution of embarrassing clips and attempts to rebut Fox points but also a series of under-the-radar tactics.
Media Matters, Brock said, is assembling opposition research files not only on Fox’s top executives but on a series of midlevel officials. It has hired an activist who has led a successful campaign to press advertisers to avoid Glenn Beck’s show. The group is assembling a legal team to help people who have clashed with Fox file lawsuits for defamation, invasion of privacy or other causes. And it has hired two experienced reporters, Joe Strupp and Alexander Zaitchik, to dig into Fox’s operation and to help assemble a book on the network, due out in 2012 from Vintage/Anchor. (In the interest of full disclosure, Media Matters last month also issued a report criticizing “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy’s criticism of this reporter’s blog.)
Brock said Media Matters also plans to run a broad campaign against Fox’s parent company, News Corp., an effort which will most likely involve opening a United Kingdom arm in London to attack the company’s interests there. The group hired an executive from MoveOn.org to work on developing campaigns among News Corp. shareholders and is also looking for ways to turn regulators in the U.S., U.K., and elsewhere against the network.
The group will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests — whether that be here or looking at what’s going on in London right now,” Brock said, referring to News Corp.’s — apparently successful — move to take a majority stake in the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
SNIP
But Media Matters says its digging has begun to pay off. The group has trickled out a series of emails from Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon, leaks from inside the network, which show him, for instance, circulating a memo on “Obama’s references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists.”
The leaks are part of a broader project to take advantage of internal dissent, Media Matters Executive Vice President Ari Rabin-Havt said.
“We made a list of every single person who works for Fox and tried to figure out who might be disgruntled and why, and we went out to try to meet them,” he said. “Clearly, somebody in that organization is giving us primary source documents.”
Media Matters, he said, is also conducting “opposition research” on a dozen or so “mid- and senior-level execs and producers,” a campaign style move that he and Brock said would simply involve recording their public appearances and digging into public records associated with them.
And Brock’s 2010 planning memo offers a glimpse at Media Matters’ shift from media critic to a new species of political animal.
“Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press,” its memo says. “Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”
Soros must have given them another check from his ill gotten gains. They used the last one up on anal lube, leather chaps and man panties.
These nitwits target Fox, and the first one to be leaving is “Perky” Couric.
Re Garrett: I think you’ve nailed it.
MM will not rest until ALL media outlets are either neutralized or placed under the Obama-Democrat Party Commie umbrella. - Remember Pravda?
Are you now or have you ever been a Fox News watcher....
Are you now or have you ever been a Fox News watcher....
CS Lewis describes the “progressive” element of 1940’s England and the philosophy of control very well in the third book of his space trilogy - “That Hideous Strength”. Some of the story elements may now work now, but the empirical realities of the story... oh so apply for today
The World really had just fought a war of good vs. evil. We are in the mid stages now from that opening war. We are in the battle for the ideological soul of man and soon will be in battle (with Islam) for the religious soul of mankind — all good vs. evil skirmishes. For Christians, the overall war has already been won! But we have to still live in the interim.
“Truth” can be manufactured and used as a weapon. We see that every day. Real truth is embodied and leads to understanding and real life.
Our quest is discernment and then becoming a beacon.
Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just watch Glen Beck? Do they think they can stop the truth? Do they have enough fingers to put in the dikes?
Pray for America
Be careful, putting down is often more difficult than picking up.
It’s a good thing these Goebbel’s propagandists are crawling out of their rat holes and publicly identifying themselves. They’ve become demonstrative toward their fellow traitor in the whitehouse, thinking they have his protection and admiration, while also displaying an irrational boldness that’s fed by psychotic arrogance.
It's time to go thermo-nuclear on Soros and Media Matters.
“the nation’s largest defense contractor,told Neal Cavuto:”
I’m old enough to remember Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning.”In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Here’s a great place to get info on Media Matters:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7150
“In his farewell address to the nation, President Eisenhower warned that we should beware the unchecked power of the military-industrial complex. This speech is one of the greatest in American history, and prescient in understanding what was coming.”
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
If Major Garrett’s performance was militantly non-partisan, what in the world would his partisan persona do? Call for the deaths of anyone who doesn’t support the Won???
Media Matters is registered as a 501(c)(3).....that’s interesting. That’s how they funnel all the funny money.
“Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press,” its memo says.There is absolutely nothing wrong with criticizing people who call themselves "the press." Fox does that just like the rest of journalism does. The difference being, Fox isn't joined at the hip with the rest of journalism - so the rest of journalism attempts to peck it to death rather than defending it the way they would defend CBS if it had broadcast patently misleading/false misinformation (not that CBS would ever do that </sarcasm> ).
“Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”From the foundation of the Republic, there was never a bright line - or really, any line at all - between "news organizations" and leadership of political parties. There could be a Jeopardy! category of "Newspapers with 'Democrat' in their name." Right through the Civil War era, newspapers were fractiously independent of each other, but not of political sympathies/affiliations.When President Washington's administration split into factions behind Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state, and Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the treasury, so too did the American press. In 1789, Federalist had helped John Fenno to launch a semiweekly newspaper in the capital of Philadelphia called The Gazette of the United States. Initially, with no advertising and few subscribers, the Gazette was kept afloat by public patronage; Fenno received printing orders from the Treasury, commissions to publish the federal laws from the State Department, and other jobs from the Senate. But as Fenno increasingly cast his lot with Hamilton, Jefferson became disquieted and, through Madison, urged Philip Freneau to come to Philadelphia to start a rival semiweekly. Jefferson lacked Hamilton's deep official pockets but arranged Freneau's appointment as clerk for foreign languages. Jefferson apologized for the minuscule annual salary of $250, but he added that "it gives so little to do, as not to interfere with any other calling the person may choose, which would not absent him from the seat of government." Jefferson and Madison acted as subscription agents compiling names of supporters and urging like-minded friends to take the paper.There being no implication of government funding of Fox News, these guys have no legitimate beef against Fox News. OTOH there is a perfectly legitimate case against NPR/CPB/PBS, which does use government funding to commit journalism. To claim that journalism is objective is absurd - the only way to even attempt being objective is to dissociate oneself from any implication that one's own objectivity is to be taken for granted. The person who makes open disclaimer of any motives he has for holding the opinions he espouses - e.g., any holdings of stock he may have in a particular company under discussion - may at least be trying to be objective. The person who does not do so is not trying to be objective - and won't be objective by accident.The appearance of Freaau's National Gazette in 1791 aggravated the divide with Hamilton. The split went public the next year when Hamilton wrote pseudonymous letters to Fenno's Gazette, revealing Freneau's State Department employment and charging that Jefferson was "institutor and patron" of the new paper. Freneau dryly noted in print that his compensation was paltry next to Fenno's, but he felt obliged to swear in an affidavit that "the Editor has consulted his own judgement alone in the conducting of it - free - unfettered - and uninfluenced." Jefferson responded to President Washington's dismay, asserting (technically correctly) that he had never written or provided any direction to Freneau. Nevertheless, when Jefferson resigned as secretary of state in 1793, Freneau lost his clerkship, and the paper expired.
Governing with the News by Timothy E. Cook
Need to eliminate all of the 501c3’s no matter whose side they’re on.
According to the IRS.gov website, it looks like Media Matters may have a problem:
To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3), and none of its earnings may inure to any private shareholder or individual. In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.
Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) are commonly referred to as charitable organizations. Organizations described in section 501(c)(3), other than testing for public safety organizations, are eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions in accordance with Code section 170.
The organization must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests, and no part of a section 501(c)(3) organization’s net earnings may inure to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual. If the organization engages in an excess benefit transaction with a person having substantial influence over the organization, an excise tax may be imposed on the person and any organization managers agreeing to the transaction.
Section 501(c)(3) organizations are restricted in how much political and legislative (lobbying) activities they may conduct. For a detailed discussion, see Political and Lobbying Activities. For more information about lobbying activities by charities, see the article Lobbying Issues; for more information about political activities of charities, see the FY-2002 CPE topic Election Year Issues.
Additional Information
Application Process Step by Step: Questions and answers that will help an organization determine if it is eligible to apply for recognition of exemption from federal income taxation under IRC section 501(a) and, if so, how to proceed.
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