One of the strategies Media Matters employs in trying to make sure that all reporters only provide a left-leaning vision of America is to release the hounds on smaller reporters working for regional papers. They throw the weight of their nationwide fundraising and contact list, as well as the bloggers who carry their water, onto reporters who are just trying to cover the news as it relates to the towns around them.
Reporters who weren’t cooperative might feel the sting of a Media Matters campaign against them. “If you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper,†a Media Matters source said, “all of a sudden they’d get a thousand hostile emails. Sometimes they’d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who weren’t used to that kind of scrutiny.â€
It’s not a surprise at all, but it is useful to be reminded when it is coming straight from the mouths of former employees.
I highlight this because I think this shows why we should recognize when local papers get the stories on Second Amendment issues right. With Media Matters accepting funds specifically to attack any remotely fair or even slightly pro-rights reporting, they have an incentive to try and scare or shut down reporters who give gun owners a fair shake. (Meanwhile, it would be interesting to know how much of the Joyce Foundation money for anti-gun reporting went to paying the salaries of those who carried guns for the organization illegally.) They simply cannot handle the idea that anyone in the press would even acknowledge the Second Amendment as an individual right or be fair and balanced. If that happens, Media Matters would rather see those reporters “melt down” than keep writing.
Maybe we should start doing whip-around kudos to people that write honest news stories. If we can congratulate them on their fair and unbiased reporting of the news before Media (doesn’t)Matters cut blocks them, they would know they are not alone in the cold. Another example of things we could do to use the carrot, rather than the internet stick.
“Meanwhile, it would be interesting to know how much of the Joyce Foundation money for anti-gun reporting went to paying the salaries of those who carried guns for the organization illegally.” as a 501c3 isn’t a large portion of their books open to public scrutiny?
No. Also, it wouldn’t be broken down that specifically anywhere but the grant application (assuming the grant application asks for a breakdown in any salary costs that they are asking to be covered).
Public forms 990 detail the breakdown of funding by category, but not by donor. Donors are largely shielded. What you can see is grants versus actual fundraising, though. Also salaries of the top officers and board members.
Sorry. Quick edit. I meant to reply to the thread above you.
I read the Daily Caller teaser. Interesting stuff, but I expect more from them. Don’t take on Media Matters and call them journo-hacks and then report a story with zero attribution. That’s a bit hypocritical.
I hope this ‘article’ today was just the teaser they suggest it was. They said they had a series of stories – one hopes they actually have more than a bunch of anonymously-sourced anecdotes from “people who know”. I swear to God that reading that article today was like reading ‘articles’ from Cosmo (hey, I’ve been stuck in doctor’s waiting rooms and desperately bored).
“A Person said…”
“Someone who knows…”
“An insider claims…”
I won’t take it seriously until we get the names of those so-called Media Matters insiders and get real people on record. If what was printed about MM is half true, there should be ex-employees coming out of the woodwork to settle scores. The DC claims they got these people. Now let’s see if they can back up those claims.
I don’t like journo-hacks regardless of their point of view. Even when I want the claims to be true.
Considering that they have regular meetings with the white house staff and its occupant, why would this be suprising? Just another arm – literally – of the regime.