The MSM’s ‘Media Matters’ Blackout
The MSM is enjoying a very quiet laugh at the expense of one of their competitors: the Fox News Channel. They’re not saying a word about the all-encompassing, possibly illegal abuse Fox News is experiencing at the hands of the George Soros-funded (to the tune of $1M) Media Matters for America.
Media Matters was co-founded by current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, something which she proudly proclaims. Her fellow founder is David Brock, the fallen conservative journalist who thereafter drifted leftward. Media Matters is an alleged media “monitor,” describing itself on its website thusly:
Launched in May 2004, Media Matters for America put in place, for the first time, the means to systematically monitor a cross section of print, broadcast, cable, radio, and Internet media outlets for conservative misinformation (emphasis mine).
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Around March of this year, Brock announced Media Matters was dramatically diminishing said “cross section” by openly declaring “war on Fox.” (The official announcement came just after Soros’ $1M check cleared.) The above link is to the only mainstream outlet I could find that mentions this story.
Brock says Media Matters will hound Fox News with “guerrilla warfare and sabotage.” For instance:
Media Matters, Brock said, is assembling opposition research files not only on Fox’s top executives but on a series of midlevel officials. It has hired an activist who has led a successful campaign to press advertisers to avoid Glenn Beck’s show. The group is assembling a legal team to help people who have clashed with Fox to file lawsuits for defamation, invasion of privacy, or other causes. And it has hired two experienced reporters, Joe Strupp and Alexander Zaitchik, to dig into Fox’s operation to help assemble a book on the network, due out in 2012 from Vintage/Anchor.
This isn’t “media analysis.” This is a multi-million dollar leftist PR hit squad. Brock is doing all of this because he claims Fox News has become the titular head of the Republican Party.
And herein lies a legal problem for Media Matters.
Media Matters is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)3 organization. Esteemed attorney C. Boyden Grey explains what that means:
(T)hat is, an organization that can receive tax-deductible contributions to engage in educational activities. The more precise purpose was to counter alleged media bias and so to “identify occurrences of excessive bias in the American media, educate the public as to their existence, and to work with members of the media to reduce them.”
What (Media Matters for America) MMA actually is doing, however, moves far afield from identifying possible bias to mounting a campaign to undermine a major media outlet and to promote the Democratic Party and progressive causes associated with it. Mr. Brock himself has described this new strategy as “a war on Fox,” an effort “to disrupt [Rupert Murdoch‘s] commercial interests” and look for ways to turn regulators against News Corp.’s media outlets.
MMA’s activities should disallow its tax-exempt status in two fundamental ways. First, IRS rulings make clear that attacks on individuals, statement of positions that are unsupported by facts, and use of inflammatory language and other distortions will cost an organization its tax-free status. Second, in declaring “guerrilla warfare” on Fox as the “leader” and “mouthpiece” of the Republican Party and in developing a sophisticated Democratic-leaning media training boot camp, MMA has transformed itself into an aggressive advocate for Democratic and progressive causes and thus produced a second deviation from exempt educational activities.
Per Brock’s own words, if he views Fox News as the head of the Republican Party and has publicly dedicated his organization to going after it, than Media Matters has ceased to be an “educational” entity and has become a political one.
Where will we go to get our “free press” back if the Left can kill off any opposing view with Big Government extralegal power paid for with our own tax dollars.
Pajamas Media, for a start! Andrew Breitbart… Bill Whittle…
Protect freedom of the press on the Internet!
The MSM is dead. Hopefully dead and buried after the 2012 election. They tend to be zombies anyway in their actions and thought patterns.
This is total war between Media Matters and FOX News, as well it should be. FOX News is the only platform big enough to take this organization down, and it will. Like the muckrakers from the early 20th Century, FOX News is exposing Media Matters for what it is, an organization that is trying to defraud the Federal Government out of money while being supported by one of the most corrupt individuals on this planet, George Soros. With bad guys like that, I think FOX News will not only triumph, but it will actually gain them more respect than they already have.
Conservative churches like the one I attend are always careful to dance around political issues, careful to avoid recommending particular candidates. Their pastors recognize the value of tax exempt status and the rules attendant. And yet, lefty groups like MMA flagrantly abuse this status and their too sympathetic media outlets ignore the abuses. Intellectually and morally bankrupt behavior, to be sure.
And yet, the churches that support Democrats a flagrant violators of the “no politics” rule, and suffer no penalty.
Yesterday HuffPo had a MMFA column in which Glenn Beck was said to be “defiling” Israel with his presence there, since they allege he’s an anti-Semite.
This claim alone is so ridiculous that I don’t know how anyone can believe anything those guys say. Stuff like this destroys any ceredibility they may have had.
Yes, there are liberals making this claim that Beck is an antisemite. I had quite an interchange on an academic discussion group here: http://clarespark.com/2011/07/08/is-glenn-beck-and-antisemite/. I convinced nobody. By the way, Mormons are said to be pro-Israel and philosemitic.
George Soros is an actual NAZI. Not one by name, and not one by analogy. He actually assisted them, thus he is one. Anyone that supports him, works for him, or stands on his side is for all practical purposes a NAZI. Shun them, spurn them, anyone that stands on his side is your enemy. The only way for us to fight back is to take a strong position against Soros’ machine, and that means informing your friends and family of this. Make this personal. These are the people that WILL point you out the first chance they get so do them the same favor.
Unrepentant, Unreformed National Socialist huh?
Nothing a long fall from a short rope or a case of lead poison can’t solve!
A seem to remember a massive instance of these solutions happening at a certain minor city.
Nuremberg, that was the spot! Looks like they missed at least one.
Armageddon Rex
The central problem is the Republicans’ failure to meet violence with violence. At the very least, Republicans should be using their guns to kill thugs actually attacking patriots. That is perfectly legal, and would send a message that we won’t be second-class citizens any more.
one thing i am having trouble with is the oft used “soros’ $1 million contribution”
how far does $1 million go for media matters?
soros supposedly gave the money a few years ago; or, does he continually shell out $1 million a month to keep these unprofitable propaganda mills running
are we giving soros too much credit in his role in all this?
the $1 million is too much like the austin powers “$1 million”
Why waste energy on this? The Old MSM will NEVER go after Media Matters on this or even give it coverage. The reason is simple. they are in total agreement with this “campaign” and view Media Matters as their “shock troops” (which they can safely disavow if anything goes south.)
The Left hates Fox’s guts (and Rupert Murdoch) because they (a) Have developed a successful business plan that allows them to thrive in a time of Old Media constriction and (b) They represent and give voice to that dispised group, American conservatives, that don’t agree with “august” institutions like the New York Times. The Left yearns for the “good old days” when when the pompous, inbred and oh-so-”ethical” doyens of CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS the NYT and WaPO could cut things up every day and give us only that news they believed we should hear.
Make no mistake – The sclerotic “old news” outlets hate Fox because they are a successful business competitor. Fox and Co. also outrage the good-old-boy sensibilities of old news by appealing to a despised demographic that should be neither seen nor heard. It’s funny because the Left is always talking about how we should “speak truth to power” and “stick up for the little guy.” These mantras don’t apply when they are the “powerful” and somebody has the nerve to call them out.
“First, IRS rulings make clear that attacks on individuals, statement of positions that are unsupported by facts, and use of inflammatory language and other distortions will cost an organization its tax-free status.”
I’d actually be worried about using this, as “positions… unsupported by facts” and “inflammatory language” are all too often held to be accurate descriptions of traditionsl churches’ teachings on sexual morality and same-sex marriage, among other issues.
If we give the government the power to revoke tax exempt status based on one group finding your advocacy language “inflammatory”, I think that particular cure is worse than the disease. Heck, I’m not even sure I like making tax-exempt status dependent on somebody’s assessment of political “neutrality” or not; who decides when education has crossed the line into advocacy?
Make it a purely neutral financial assessment: as long as organizational income is always funnelled back into operations rather than towards personal stakeholder profit (beyond a necessary minimum, nothing is *completely* non-profit), you can claim tax-exempt status. The government should have no means to punish you merely for the content of your speech, whether through criminal law or taxation penalty.
We need a class action lawsuit filed against Media Matters, asking for an expedited hearing with the IRS (and the Supremes, if necessary) regarding its’ tax exempt status. Putting, and keeping pressure on them, including deploying Alinsky tactics used by liberals and Obama’s organization many times against conservatives, will ultimately help build a case against George Soros’ activities – which deserve an investigation all its’ own.
These Soros-backed organizations will eventually run from the sunlight – or be so burnt by it that they will lose their ability to attack.
Soros in his own words.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/open-society-soros-explains-the-anti-capitalist-pro-marxist-tactics-he-uses-to-fundamentally-transform-countries/
For the British perspective of the war on conservative broadcasting, read James Delingpole’s Telegraph blog of yesterday. The old statist media in England, along with the socialist lefties in government, are warring to shut down conservatives. They are afraid Mr. Murdoch will have a channel like Fox or Fox Business to rain on their parade, so they are doing everything possible to prevent it. How different is this from what Chavez has done in Venezuela? Or Castro in Cuba?
Seton Motley makes an excellent point. While it may be impossible to get the IRS to investigate the usual suspects in nonprofit tax fraud, that doesn’t mean we can’t comb through records and expose them so the public may witness the double-standards and protected-class status of these folks.
Every Secretary of State office ought to have some registry for non-profits, and many states carry them on-line. They are supposed to file 501-c3s that document private and (separately) public sources of funding, along with listing all personnel who earn money from them (above a certain threshold) and names of officers.
It’s interesting reading.
The Obama IRS did start an investigation on this subject, of tax excempt organizations engaging in politics, but it targeted solely conservative/libertarian organizations. If the investigation had included corrupt Soros organizations like this one, I might have applauded the investigation. But as usual Obama choose cronyism and partisanship over even handed principle, and wound up lookkng like the Nixon IRS.
I polish my sigil and pray for the wrinkle cream to make George Soros disappear !
But I know some who are working on a ‘special observation group’ that might be faster than an old family seal – it would include a large number of the current administration and some of their moneyed supporters – all to just disappear – indeed a wonderful concept!
“Where is George”?
“He was here a minute ago – counting his money – now he is just gone!”
Soros is the evil in this scenario and his distribution network must be stopped – a banding together of concerned citizens could start the ball rolling toward that end.
On the lighter side – if we could convince the Brotherhood that the guy was a thief – they would do a couple of hand chops and he would have to ‘hand out his blood money with his teeth’!
It seems a smart guy as Soros can cash in everybody. Why in the world we are giving his network tax exemption? Each piece of his network is bound to hurt our extraordinary country and our world best friend. He hate America and hate Israel. Enough with this guy, stop him limit his Leftists bias attacks against Capitalism freedom.
“The MSM is enjoying a very quiet laugh at the expense of one of their competitors: the Fox News Channel. They’re not saying a word about the all-encompassing, possibly illegal abuse Fox News is experiencing at the hands of the George Soros-funded (to the tune of $1M) Media Matters for America.”
Gee …. do we cover a confirmed multi-media, multi-country-spanning hacking scandal including the hacking of a murdered girls’ phone, as well as NYC-police-verified attempts to hack 9/11 victims’ phones, OR do we cover a boring non-story about a web site that has had a little success calling out FOX news for exactly the kind of scumbag behavior that the phone hacking scandal confirms?
I don’t know, this is a tough one, guys ….