David Brock's explosive book, Blinded By The Right,
was a very important breakthrough. It corrborated much
that we had learned about the "vast reich-wing
conspiracy" in Hunting of the President
(Lyons/Conason), BUT from the inside...Now Brock is
offering a vital new resource to the Information
Rebellion: www.mediamatters.org...or as the LNS
says...It's the Media, Stupid...
David Brock, www.mediamatters.org: Media Matters for America is prepared to go toe-to-toe with these right-wing media monitoring groups. We will comprehensively monitor a cross-section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets. Our website will be the principal vehicle for
disseminating our research. On the left side of our
website, we will post rapid-response items documenting
conservative misinformation in each news cycle. The
right side of the site will feature longer research
and analytic reports. Two reports -- "Meet the New
Rush, Same as the Old Rush" and "Backdating the
Recession" -- can be found on our site today as Media
Matters for America kicks off.
Break the Bush Cabal Stranglehold on the "US
Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004:
Defeat Bush (again!)
http://mediamatters.org/items/200405010001
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 firsthand (and participated in) the damage done to
our democracy when conservative misinformation
masquerades as journalism. In my book Blinded by the
Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative (2002), I
revealed how this misinformation -- deliberately
bought and paid for by covert political forces --
enveloped the media, poisoned public discourse, and
nearly toppled a president.
Today, the misinformation pumped out by the
conservative media machine -- a multibillion-dollar
network of talk radio shows, cable television, heavily
subsidized newspapers and magazines, political
pundits, partisan thinks tanks, and high-traffic
Internet sites -- is even more pervasive, spreading
like a virus into professional media venues. Rush
Limbaugh analyzed election night results for NBC News.
Ann Coulter marches through major TV studios with her
allegations of "treason" against half the American
populace. Rupert Murdoch's top-rated FOX News Channel
exerts pressure up and down the TV dial to compromise
standards. And it is an open secret that in newsrooms
across the country, the right-wing Drudge Report
website -- judged to be only 80 percent accurate by
its proprietor -- is the home page for many editors,
reporters, and TV and radio producers.
The net effect of these corrosive trends has been to
skew the media playing field to the right -- and, with
it, the public debate. With progressives focusing on
specific issues and public policy battles,
conservatives have been working for decades, subtly
amassing media power and influence. According to a new
poll conducted by the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group
and commissioned by Media Matters for America, a
plurality of the American electorate has concluded
that conservatives have more power and influence in
the media today than do liberals.
The conservative media machine dominates our
discourse, not because it is based in fact or logic
but because it operates with almost total impunity.
That ends today, as Media Matters for America puts in
place, for the first time, the means to systematically
monitor the media for conservative misinformation --
every day, in real time -- in 2004 and beyond.
Media monitoring is not a novel idea. Since the 1960s,
the conservative movement has spent tens of millions
of dollars on four organizations to tar the nation's
foremost journalistic institutions -- such as The New
York Times and the broadcast TV networks -- with
thinly supported allegations of "liberal bias." These
right-wing media monitoring outfits are themselves
important cogs in the conservative media machine,
working to stigmatize legitimate journalistic inquiry
as politically motivated and to quash dissent from the
conservative line.
Media Matters for America is prepared to go toe-to-toe
with these right-wing media monitoring groups. We will
comprehensively monitor a cross-section of print,
broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets.
Our website will be the principal vehicle for
disseminating our research. On the left side of our
website, we will post rapid-response items documenting
conservative misinformation in each news cycle. The
right side of the site will feature longer research
and analytic reports. Two reports -- "Meet the New
Rush, Same as the Old Rush" and "Backdating the
Recession" -- can be found on our site today as Media
Matters for America kicks off.
In addition, Media Matters for America is inaugurating
four special projects for 2004. Our Democracy Project
will closely track and swiftly correct conservative
media misinformation on major current political
issues, with the goal of discouraging responsible news
outlets from giving it credence. Media Matters for
America's Radio Project will comprehensively monitor,
analyze, and correct targeted political talk radio
shows. We begin this month with Rush Limbaugh, who is
"more influential than ... Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw or
Peter Jennings," according to Washington Post media
critic Howard Kurtz. The premise of our Columnist
Project is that while opinion writers are entitled to
make up their views, they are not entitled to make up
their facts (click here for New York Times ombudsman
Daniel Okrent's recent column on the subject);
therefore, Media Matters for America will monitor to
ensure that dozens of syndicated columnists -- and the
newspapers that publish them -- maintain journalistic
standards in their opinion columns.
Finally, Media Matters for America will build a
community of activists who will take action against
conservative misinformation in the media. Our Activism
Project is in the planning stages, and I will report
back soon on how you can organize and mobilize
effectively, including through the use of Web-based
tools that Media Matters for America is developing to
keep the media free from malignant conservative
influence.
In conclusion, Media Matters for America's
truth-seeking perspective is one that all Americans --
liberal, moderate, and conservative -- are invited to
rally around. Among the many lessons I learned from
inside the conservative media is that lies and
falsehoods damage progressive interests. I also
recognize that conservative consumers of news are
victimized by the misinformation they receive from the
conservative media.
It is well past time that all Americans, regardless of
ideology, demand the accurate, reliable, and credible
information and views from the media upon which the
proper functioning of our democracy depends. I hope
you'll join me -- and the staff and supporters of
Media Matters for America -- in this vital cause.
David Brock
Posted to the web on Saturday May 1, 2004 at 1:05 PM
EST