The more I watched Fox News and the Daily Caller's endless campaign against Media Matters for American (MMFA), the more conservatives threw up all over each other. In my last video and blog post, I only listed three myths the right wing throws against Media Matters. Now I'm going to go more in detail with the claims of illegality put on Media Matters by the right wing.
I was actually surprised to see Brent Bozell President of the Media Research Center (MRC) go on television to discuss to the recent stories the Daily Caller has put out about Media Matters.
During his interview with Sean Hannity, Bozell actually said he has a policy not to talk about MMFA “Well, let me first preface this by saying as a matter of policy I refuse to talk about this organization. I’m making an exception tonight because I do want to comment on it tonight,”Now that sounds similar to what happened nine months ago when the MRC dodged an appearance Roland Martin discussing the media's role in Obama releasing his long form birth certificate. Knowing MMFA would appear with them Martin said they declined saying "they don't debate Media Matters".
Now its important to know the difference between Media Matters and the Media Research Center since both are considered to be counter parts of each other ideologically. MRC focuses on so called "liberal media bias" and MMFA focuses on conservative misinformation. In my last video and blog post I mentioned how MMFA played a role for me leaving the right wing. MRC also played a role when I compared the two organization. I realized accuracy in the news media is more important than the bias. I'll discuss more about the Media Research Center's propaganda model later.
Bozell made my point when he falsely claimed in order to make a case on MMFA's bias that MMFA took issue with Fox News' conservative commentators and found no bias in its "straight reporting," He said, “They (Media Matters) don’t talk about Bret Baier… they don’t talk about the news, they talk about the commentators.” On the contrary, doing a simple search on their website, and you'll find hundreds of articles criticizing bias from “objective” hosts such as Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum, Megyn Kelly and others. So the word "research" in MRC's name must only be a brand name.
When Bozell was asked by Politico about the parallel between Media Matters and the Media Research Center given that they both criticize the media and they're both are tax exempt organizations, he said:
“Media Matters stands accused of violating its tax-deductible status, and I think that fact speaks for itself.” [Politico 7/1/11]That was all Bozell had as a response. Apparently according to Bozell's logic until someone accuses his organization of violating its tax exempt status, then their is a parallel. Actually, you can find many parallels between the things the Media Research Center has been of doing and what the Media Matters is also doing that right wing claims is illegal.
Both are in full compliance with the law, but the right wing misinterpreting it much like they do the First Amendment is putting the Media Research Center in the rumble.
- Both organizations (MRC and MMFA) are 501(c)(3) tax exempt organizations.
- Both are ideologically partisan with what with they write about.
- Both have pressured advertisers of to drop programs for certain content.
- Both have agreed or had agreed that pressuring advertisers to drop an offensive program is not being anti-free speech or pro-censorship which is the charge as of now being put on Media Matters.
