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From Roll Call, subscription only. Here's the relevant bit: Looks like the letter had an impact. Although MSNBC did not respond to Brock, a spokeswoman for the network told HOH late Wednesday that the network has decided “not to go with Frank for the debate.” In fact, MSNBC won’t conduct polling at all now, she said. Brock was delighted to hear the news. “It is encouraging that MSNBC responded to criticism in a constructive way. Clearly they realized that employing a partisan pollster does not reflect well on them as a responsible media outlet.” --------------------- From Media Matters: From: Jeremy...

MMFA sends letter to Wal-Mart, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble asking these top booksellers to review policies on selling Unfit for Command Dear CEO: In light of an August 19 report in The Washington Post (titled "Records Counter a Critic of Kerry") proving that a key allegation in the new book Unfit for Command by John E. O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi is fraudulent, I'm writing to express my concern that by continuing to sell Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry as a work of nonfiction, prominent book retailers are complicit in a literary hoax....

Media Matters for America Asks Top Booksellers to Review Policies on Selling 'Unfit for Command'; David Brock Calls AntiKerry Veterans Book 'the Hitler Diaries of this political season' To: National Desk, Political Reporter Contact: Naomi Seligman of Media Matters for America, 202-756-4108 WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 /U.S. Newswire/ -- On the heels of the August 19, 2004 Washington Post article shining the light that a key allegation in "Unfit for Command" is false, Media Matters for America (MMFA) called on three of the nation's leading booksellers to, at the very least, inform customers about the book's false allegations and lies. David...

DAVID BROCK THINKS AMERICA has been duped. How else to explain the popularity of talk radio and the Fox News Channel, the success of conservative books or the sprawling right-wing presence on the Internet? The rise of the right is the result of a nefarious, decades-old campaign by conservatives to create a myth of liberal media bias. Money from wealthy benefactors has and is being used to influence the press and consciously brainwash Americans. The mainstream media are a front group for the Republican Party. And Americans don't even know it. That is the conclusion that people less intelligent than...

David Brock has written a new book called The Republican Noise Machine: How It Corrupts Our Democracy. In it, he purports to expose the vast right-wing media conspiracy, a menace Brock claims to know first-hand as someone who was once a cog in its malignant machine. First-hand knowledge is an important claim for Brock because, as a famous self-confessed prevaricator, he is aware that he stands on shaky ground as he attempts to extend the successful career he has made out of his confession of malfeasance and the political reversal it announced. A similar dilemma haunts the postpartum lives of...

(CNSNews.com) - Democracy Radio, one of the liberal groups that wants to boot Rush Limbaugh off Armed Forces Radio, sees radio as the route to voters' hearts. "With the full support of right wing organizations, conservative talk show hosts now are clearly playing a critical role in shaping the attitudes of many Americans which, in turn, are having an effect on the outcome of elections," Democracy Radio says on its website. "As long as elections continue to be as close as the presidential election of 2000, talk radio will continue to play a meaningful role." Democracy Radio -- along with...

(CNSNews.com) - Liberal groups that want to bounce Rush Limbaugh's radio show off Armed Forces Radio have found a Senate ally. Sen. Tom Harkins (D-Iowa) announced on Wednesday that he has successfully amended the Fiscal Year 2005 Defense Authorization bill, adding a provision that calls on American Forces Radio and Television Service to provide political balance in its public affairs programming. Harkin was quoted as saying that American Forces Radio and Television Service is funded by taxpayers of all political persuasions, and therefore it should "make a greater effort to provide balanced representation of political viewpoints on its airwaves to...

Washington (CNSNews.com) - Former conservative author-turned-liberal activist David Brock, whose new book and website are devoted to denouncing conservative media outlets, says network news personalities have privately praised him and told him, "Thank God you are doing this..." Brock, the author of The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy, told an audience of several hundred fellow liberal activists about off-the-air exchanges he has had with network news hosts. Brock spoke Thursday in Washington at the "Take Back America" conference, which is billed as a gathering of progressive activists. "In the past few weeks -- as I...

Remember David Brock? Sure you do. He’s the former self-described “right-wing hit man” who famously transformed himself into a left-wing hit man, although he would probably rather call himself an advocate for “progressive” causes. His latest cause is a campaign to drive Rush Limbaugh from the lineup of the American Forces Radio and Television Service, formerly known as Armed Service Radio. Last week, Brock wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld citing comments from Limbaugh suggesting that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison was not as big a deal as some commentators have made it...

Arianna Huffington has written a new book, "Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning America Back." It’s pointless to debate Ms. Huffington’s newfound ideology since there is no guarantee that between the time these words are typed and published she won’t have embraced yet a different cause. It is, however, instructive to note that when she left the conservative movement behind, she forgot to pack the truth into her suitcase. Huffington recounts a nightmare event for her – the "Conservative Summit" hosted by the National Review magazine back in early 1993. She tells how the event began "in bombastic...

<p>"Former right-wing operative David Brock is urging the Pentagon to get Rush Limbaugh off American Forces Radio," Terence Samuel reports in the Washington Whispers column of U.S. News & World Report.</p> <p>"Brock, now president of Media Matters for America, a group formed to combat the influence of conservative media outlets, says that the government shouldn't be sponsoring what Limbaugh is peddling. The popular talk show host, whose radio program is heard at military installations worldwide, has said that what happened at Abu Ghraib was little more than what happens at a fraternity hazing. 'It is abhorrent that the American taxpayer is paying to broadcast what is in effect pro-torture propaganda to American troops,' Brock wrote to [Defense Secretary Donald H.] Rumsfeld. No Pentagon response so far."</p>

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version May 28, 2004, 8:44 a.m. A New Attack on RushDavid Brock doesn't want American soldiers to hear Limbaugh. David Brock, the former self-described "right-wing hit man" turned "progressive" activist, is escalating his campaign against conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. Brock runs a new organization called Media Matters for America, which, according to Brock, was created to fight "conservative misinformation" in the media (see "David Brock is Buzzing Again," NR, June 14, 2004). Earlier this month, Brock and Media Matters produced a television commercial attacking Limbaugh...

David Brock Is Buzzing Again And the gadfly’s main target is Rush (and Bush, of course). EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appears in the June 14, 2004, issue of National Review. Susie Tompkins Buell was very, very impressed with David Brock. A California businesswoman who co-founded the fashion giant Esprit and went on to become a major donor to Democratic causes, Buell was in Washington last fall attending a meeting of friends and supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when she met Brock, the self-described former "right-wing hit man." Buell listened as Brock, now a defector to "progressive" causes, presented plans...

Right-wing pundits play doctor; diagnose Gore as "insane" Responding to former Vice President Al Gore's May 26 speech (sponsored by MoveOn.org and delivered at New York University), in which Gore called for the resignation of six top Bush administration officials, right-wing pundits seemed to read from the same anti-Gore script: resorting to satirical speculation about his psychiatric state -- in one case, attacking the speech itself as "hate speech" and, in another case, as eliciting "the biggest cheers ... from caves in Afghanistan and diehards in Fallujah." Charles Krauthammer, on FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume, on May...

CNN reported "speculation" that Al Qaeda prefers Kerry; Center for American Progress urged: "E-mail Kelli Arena" On CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports on May 27, CNN justice correspondent Kelli Arena reported, "[T]here is some speculation that Al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House." The Center for American Progress (CAP) reported Arena’s statement on its Web page titled "The Progress Report": "Yesterday, CNN Justice Department correspondent Kelli Arena spread the unsubstantiated myth that al Qaeda has a preference in the upcoming U.S. elections." CAP noted, "Arena’s comment came on...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article appears in the June 14, 2004, issue of National Review. Susie Tompkins Buell was very, very impressed with David Brock. A California businesswoman who co-founded the fashion giant Esprit and went on to become a major donor to Democratic causes, Buell was in Washington last fall attending a meeting of friends and supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when she met Brock, the self-described former "right-wing hit man." Buell listened as Brock, now a defector to "progressive" causes, presented plans for Media Matters for America, his new Internet-based project to monitor and criticize conservative media. In...

Every time David Brock writes a book bashing conservatives, NBC’s Today gives him a platform to promote it as they did on Tuesday to discuss his latest book, The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy. But this time Today added a twist: Katie Couric didn’t fully buy into his premise and she actually suggested there is credence to the idea that the mainstream media tilts left. Couric contended that “most people, I think, on the street would say the media it tends, tend to be more liberal than conservative" and she proposed: “Aren't most people in...

Only because a friend reminded me did I even recall a hot journalistic project launched by Steven Brill back in the days of the high-tech bubble. Brill called it, with all due modesty, Brill's Content. It was supposed to serve as a "media watchdog," but instead became an attack dog, most famously in its inaugural issue smear of Kenneth Starr. Brill invested millions, his rag went nowhere fast, and some three years later it shut down, unread and unmourned. More interesting was that racy Salon had written it off long before as a "snooze." Now comes a successor of sorts...

Letter from David Brock, Founder of Media Matters for America Dear Friends, Welcome to Media Matters for America, a new Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Because a healthy democracy depends on public access to accurate and reliable information, Media Matters for America is dedicated to alerting news outlets and consumers to conservative misinformation -- wherever we find it, in every news cycle -- and to spurring progressive activism based on standards and accountability in media. In the mid-1990s, as a conservative media insider, I saw...

Democratic Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, who each day roams the Senate floor protecting the minority party and pummeling George W. Bush, showed up Wednesday carrying a paperback book. It was David Brock's Blinded by the Right, and Reid used it as a blunt weapon against President Bush's choice of Judge Laurence Silberman as Republican co-chairman of the bipartisan commission to investigate Iraq intelligence failures. Reid cited at length Brock's screed against the author's erstwhile conservative colleagues, including his former mentor, Judge Silberman. Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, another Senate Democratic leader, on cue showed up to join the...