Posted on 05/03/2004 9:33:24 AM PDT by pookie18
The influence earned by the MRC is the model for a new liberal group which will monitor the so-called conservative media. A New York Times story on Monday by Jim Rutenberg, on how David Brock will start a new Internet site this week that he says will monitor the conservative media and correct erroneous assertions in real time, relayed how Brock hopes to emulate the MRC: Mr. Brock said he hoped his new project could be as influential as the Media Research Center, a conservative media monitoring group run by L. Brent Bozell III that frequently calls attention to what it calls examples of liberal bias in the news media. Its findings often become subjects for conservative radio and cable talk shows.
An excerpt from New Internet Site Turns Critical Eyes and Ears to the Right, a May 3 Business section story by Rutenberg:
David Brock, the former right-wing journalist turned liberal, describes himself as once having been a rather large cog in the machinery of the conservative media....
With more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals, Mr. Brock will start a new Internet site this week that he says will monitor the conservative media and correct erroneous assertions in real time.
The site, called Media Matters, was devised as part of a larger media apparatus being built by liberals to combat what they say is the overwhelming influence of conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.
Mr. Brock's project was developed with help from the newly formed Center for American Progress, the policy group headed by John D. Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff. And Mr. Brock said he hoped it could help provide fodder for fledgling liberal radio talk shows being started across the country, including those of the comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.
For Mr. Brock, 41, the project is yet another considerable step in his public evolution from conservative muckraker to liberal activist. That evolution began after Mr. Brock began publicly apologizing in the late 1990's for reporting that brutally criticized Anita F. Hill and a report that Arkansas state troopers had helped Bill Clinton procure paramours when he was the governor of Arkansas, the veracity of which he is no longer sure....
Mr. Brock said he hoped his new project could be as influential as the Media Research Center, a conservative media monitoring group run by L. Brent Bozell III that frequently calls attention to what it calls examples of liberal bias in the news media. Its findings often become subjects for conservative radio and cable talk shows.
Mr. Brock argued that such monitoring groups have helped build the conservative media's influence, in part by making mainstream journalists toe a more conservative line by convincing them that they are liberally biased.
"The right wing in this country has dominated the debate over liberal bias," Mr. Brock said during an interview Friday. "By dominating that debate, my belief is they've moved the media itself to the right and therefore they've moved American politics to the right."
He added, "I wanted to create an institution to combat what they're doing."...
In Mr. Brock's new K Street offices on Friday morning, a team of nearly a half-dozen researchers, overseen by Katie Barge, who last worked for the opposition research arm of Senator John Edwards's presidential campaign, sat before a bank of computers and televisions in a room that was otherwise dark.
Some of the researchers wore headphones as they scanned episodes of cable news programs stored on digital recording devices, among them "Hannity & Colmes" on Fox News Channel, "Dennis Miller" on CNBC and "Scarborough Country" on MSNBC. Two researchers have been assigned to cover Mr. Limbaugh, whose program they will regularly transcribe....
While Mr. Bozell did not argue with Mr. Brock's assertion that his group opened the door to greater influence for more conservative outlets, he did not agree with his central premise that conservative commentators had made the mainstream media more conservative.
"I don't think we have pushed the mainstream media to the right," Mr. Bozell said. "I think what we have done is to neutralize their credibility, and every survey in the world shows that the public doesn't believe that these reporters are objective."
But, he said, Mr. Brock's new venture would have greater problems than that. "The problem is that David Brock is a certified liar," he said. "He will forever have a credibility problem. One doesn't know what to believe in David Brock."...
Among Mr. Brock's donors is Leo Hindery Jr., the former cable magnate; Susie Tompkins Buell, who is co-founder of the fashion company Esprit and is close to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and Ms. Buell's husband Mark; and James C. Hormel, a San Francisco philanthropist whose appointment as ambassador to Luxembourg was delayed for a year and a half in the late 1990's by conservative lawmakers protesting what they called his promotion of a "gay lifestyle."...
END of Excerpt
For the New York Times story in full: www.nytimes.com
# Speaking of those who think the media are biased to the right, Janeane Garofalo is the scheduled guest on tonights (Monday) Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. Bob Woodward is scheduled to appear Tuesday night on NBCs Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
I guess it never occurred to them that the reason the MRC is so successful is that liberal media lies far, far more than the conservative media, thereby keeping the MRC well-armed with material.
If he wants to "provide fodder" for Air America, I'm thinking he'd better hurry up. The news I'm reading about Air America suggests the clock is running out. Isn't it amazing, too, how all the "dumb" conservatives have managed to take over the media outlets? And those media people are all so smart, too!
You miss the obvious point. Limbaugh et al are commentators, of course they are bias, that is their job. MRC targets news sources, not commentators.
With more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals, Mr. Brock will start a new Internet site this week that he says will monitor the conservative media... (all FOX of it)
Mr. Brock argued that such monitoring groups have helped build the conservative media's influence, in part by making mainstream journalists toe a more conservative line by convincing them that they are liberally biased.
On, Off, or grab it for a Media Shenanigans/Schadenfreude/PNMCH ping:
http://www.freerepublic.com/~anamusedspectator/
Gee, there certainly isn't any bias in that description, now, is there? How about conservative journalist turned left-wing?
Now they actually have to put out real money for a Brocking Frankens, And The Franken Brockers Who Brock Them website...
Brock will have to spend the first million just trying to FIND the "conservative media"... ;-)
I have to think, yes... they must.
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