"Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content..."

"... and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform. Media Matters designed both these images and its resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp."

Says the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, quoted by CNN Business in "Pro-Nazi posts next to Apple ads: Elon Musk’s X sues watchdog for its damning report." 

“If you know me, you know I’m committed to truth and fairness,” [X CEO Linda] Yaccarino posted. “Here’s the truth. Not a single authentic user on X saw IBM’s, Comcast’s, or Oracle’s ads next to the content in Media Matters’ article.”

"CNN’s new hire, former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI), has used his first two appearances on the network to push a conspiracy theory that has already been widely debunked — including by CNN’s own reporting."

"The debunked Crowdstrike conspiracy theory is at the center of the impeachment inquiry into whether President Donald Trump improperly withheld congressionally approved military aid from Ukraine. The theory posits that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of the Democrats -- conveniently exonerating Russia’s efforts to aid Trump -- and that a Ukrainian-owned company tried to cover the tracks and took the Democratic National Committee’s computer server that was hacked to Ukraine. In reality, the FBI and Congress have investigated the 2016 election and found that Russia meddled extensively to push for Trump’s win. The company at the center of the conspiracy theory -- CrowdStrike -- is headquartered in the United States, not Ukraine. And there was never a physical DNC server that could’ve been taken to Ukraine.... Duffy has used his first two appearances on CNN to argue that Trump was right to pressure Ukraine to look into the conspiracy theory, even though it 'may be' debunked. In both instances, Duffy received strong pushback, begging the question why CNN would hire a bad-faith conspiracy theorist who undermines CNN’s own reporting and needs to be fact-checked on-air."

From "CNN hired Sean Duffy, who immediately pushed conspiracy theories that CNN had already debunked" (Media Matters).

It's so easy to answer the question why CNN would hire a bad-faith conspiracy theorist who undermines CNN’s own reporting and needs to be fact-checked on-air!

I don't know if that's a fair characterization of Duffy (and I haven't followed the Crowdstrike business), but let's do it as a hypothetical and leave Duffy and Crowdstrike out of this.

CNN hires a bad-faith conspiracy theorist who undermines CNN’s own reporting and needs to be fact-checked on-air. Why? A network strongly biased against Trump wants to have some claim of balance — of showing both sides and having someone who ostensibly defends Trump. Because of their actual bias, they choose someone who will make weak, inflammatory arguments, and the other people on the show will make sport of him for the entertainment and edification of the anti-Trump audience.

Is Duffy a mere punching bag, or is he performing a role similar to what Juan Williams does on Fox News (on "The Five")? I don't know. I don't watch CNN.

"The Justice Department has been caught colluding..."

"... with left-wing media 'watchdog' Media Matters to suppress critics who’ve embarrassed the Obama administration."

"It'll be a fahntahzztic evahnahng, ahnnd you cahhhnn join us."

I know this is a few days old, but I've been laughing at it for a few days, and I'm convinced now that it is ageless, so embed I must:



I could swear that at 0:22, she says "We're saving the 2 best teats in the house for you," but Meade won't agree.

I'm just trying to imagine the life a person would have to live to develop these mannerisms and affectations. Perhaps Anna Wintour came upon this personal style through hard work and wonderful creativity, but it's just so freaky! Why did the Obama campaign folk imagine this wasn't horribly, embarrassingly out of touch with Americans? That's the question.

By the way, is Wintour American? Because if she is, what the hell is that accent? Some kind of Jackie-Kennedy-gone-mad inflection? Okay, she was born in England. So I can't fathom depth of the phoniness. It's a mystery. And I think she is an American citizen now, so it's not that ridiculous for the campaign to want to use her as a lure for donors. But... someone in that campaign should have realized how mockable this would be and said no.

Now, I'm seeing that Media Matters is boldly coming to the rescue by accusing "Right-Wing Media" of "Unleash[ing]" a "Sexist" attack.

Here's a feminist clue from me to Media Matters: If you think it's "sexist" to make fun of how a particular woman looks and talks, but you don't have an equivalent principle with respect to making fun of how a particular man looks and talks, then you are being sexist. No special protection for the ladies — especially when they step into the political arena.

Rush Limbaugh haters listen as a group because it's "actually really empowering."

There are "folks who are live chatting ‘The Rush Limbaugh Show’ on Facebook every day."

According to  Media Matters online outreach director Jay Carmona, who offers an interesting tip: "Just make sure that you take some time to talk about why certain things he says are wrong or messed up with your group, and that can actually be super, super empowering to do that."

Ha ha. Make sure you talk about why what he says is wrong. Did Carmona mean to reveal a fear that if people listen to Rush every day, they might unwittingly end up persuaded?

 “Make sure that you also, just in general — if something is freaking you out and you are feeling really bad listening to Rush Limbaugh — take a break. Give yourself the time and the space that you need to listen to the stuff because it can be difficult at times,” she said.

It's so dangerous, listening to Rush... especially if you're as much of an emotional wreck as Carmona seems to think you are.

"Is the Department of Justice sanitizing its connection to Media Matters for America?"

"Needless to say, nobody’s talking over at DoJ... at least they’re tacitly admitting that getting caught at treating with MMfA too openly is a public relations disaster…"

Treating with?

Could the people inclined to inform us about this Fast & Furious episode please write more competently? I went to that link (at RedState) after reading this story at Breitbart where I couldn't find a quotable sentence. It seems like an important story. How about making it easy to share?

IN THE COMMENTS: mariner said:

"Treating with" is "making nice with" or "allying with".

I haven't seen that usage in a long time.

So "treat" in the sense used in "treaty"? I don't remember ever seeing that. But let me check the OED. The oldest meaning of "treat" as a verb is:

intr. To deal or carry on negotiations (with another) with a view to settling terms; to discuss terms of settlement; to bargain, negotiate.

I'm surprised at this usage, which I think I would have picked up if I'd seen it written in something from the 19th century or earlier....

1617 F. Moryson Itinerary i. 195, I‥. was forced to treat with unknowne Merchants for taking money upon exchange.

I would have understood that easily. I'm not sure that's the usage needed in the quote in the original post, since the point is that the DOJ and Media Matters were already in an alliance, and it was showing, not that they were negotiating in public.

"David Brock is so outraged at Rush Limbaugh’s words of three weeks ago that he started organizing a protest — almost 3 years ago."

Writes a "Rush Limbaugh Show" spokesman:

It was planned ahead and activated at the first moment Brock could manipulate a media frenzy.... Media Matters for America stands for censorship, and nothing more than that....

They distribute target lists of advertiser phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook links and Twitter handles, and then they come out of nowhere, en masse, against selected advertisers in rotation. They barrage small business with threats until they cancel their advertising....

But Media Matters says you can’t talk to ["The Rush Limbaugh Show"] audience anymore. And when these businesses shrink, because they’ve lost access to half their customers; when they lay off employees or even shut down, whom will Media Matters blame? Probably not themselves.

Media Matters makes a montage of the Glenn Beck show.

Media Matters hates Glenn Beck, but this montage is pretty damned entertaining, perhaps because the Fox News channel show is ending. Tonight is the last installment:

An advertising boycott that began after Beck said Obama had a “deep-seated hatred for white people” led to more than 400 advertisers telling Fox they didn’t want their commercials seen on his show.

Fox and Beck headed for a divorce, their relationship largely soured by control issues. Beck has set up his own diversified business, as he makes speeches, writes books and owns a website along with GBTV, which is run by a former Fox executive.

That Media Matters montage made me...
	... think about why I love Glenn Beck.
	... wish I'd paid more attention to what might have been a great show.
	... think about why I hate Glenn Beck.
	... realize that man needed to be exiled to the internet.
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"What happened after the Obama election, I think, is that Fox morphed into something that isn’t even recognizable as a form of media."

"It looks more like a political committee than what it looked like pre-Obama, which was essentially talk radio on television. It’s more dangerous now; it’s more lethal. And so as Fox has doubled down, we’ve doubled down."

We  = David Brock and his Foxophobic enterprise Media Matters for America.

Brock has used his buck-raking ability to turn Media Matters into a political force. What began in 2004 as a ten-person shop with a $3 million annual budget now has around 90 employees and plans to spend $15 million this year. In a fancy office building on Massachusetts Avenue, the organization’s researchers work in six-hour monitoring shifts, from five in the morning till one at night, watching Fox or listening to talk radio in the hope that Rush or Sean or some other conservative yakker will step in it. They’re seldom disappointed. “I knew that as soon as you started shining a light on these people,” Brock says, “there was enough outrageous and despicable and offensive and false commentary that you could make a splash.”

I appreciate their work! Keep clipping those clips and serving them up. As you monitor FoxNews and Limbaugh, I'll monitor you and whatever the hell you've morphed into. To me, it's all recognizable as media. And I'm always looking for juicy bits to chew on.

Part of Media Matters’ strength is its staff’s almost unfathomable endurance. “People who work here have to have a personality that enjoys getting angry watching Fox for six hours every day but then being patient enough to want to fact-check every second of it,” explains Ari Rabin-Havt, Media Matters’ executive vice-president. 

Ha. I love the way New York Magazine, writing this lengthy piece, goes to the Media Matters executives. I'd like to hear from those employees who do the detail work, "getting angry" for the rich execs. They're supposed to be all about truth and anger and for the left...  always for the left. How does that feel, as you comb through all those video files, looking for trouble truth — but only one perspective of the truth — and cull the clips that make the truth that your bosses want to tell as truthy as possible? Are you angry enough all the time, angry in the right way, angry about truth as you do the bidding of guys who are raking in money to get at the people you're paid to hate for them? What are you paid?

The group demands accuracy from those staffers. Last year, according to Rabin-Havt, Media Matters produced 20,000 pieces of content and issued only 24 corrections. “There’s the expectation that you can’t get something wrong,” he says. “There are consequences for mistakes. One person was fired for an error last year.”

Oh! How ineffably virtuous of you! Get to work, staffers! Stay angry, stay truthy, cut clips that stoke hatred of the right, but don't cut them to the point where we have to issue a correction, or we will cut you.

(Hey, that guy who got cut should write an exposé of what goes on inside Media Matters.)

If NPR must now prove it is principled, what a bloodbath is coming!

NPR fired Juan Williams and justified it, via CEO Vivian Schiller, by invoking an official editorial policy:

"[A 'news analyst' has] a very different role than that of a commentator or columnist. News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that's what’s happened in this situation. As you all well know, we offer views of all kinds on your air every day, but those views are expressed by those we interview — not our reporters and analysts....

"... NPR’s ethics code [states]: 'In appearing on TV or other media. ... NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. They should not participate in shows ... that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.”

"More fundamentally, 'In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists  should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.'"

Now, NPR is in a position where it must prove that's not a pretext by applying that policy, with comparable severity, to its other on-air personalities. Lefties and righties are getting into this game. The lefties are targeting Mara Liasson. Here's Eric Boehlert at Media Matters:

[I]f you look at NPR's code of ethics, there's simply no way Liasson should be making appearances on Fox....

Liasson is part of the Fox News family. Period. For instance, Liasson appears on the Fox News website as a "Fox News contributor," not as "Fox News contributor to the sorta/kinda serious shows." The only way she'd really be able to defend her continued alliance would be to argue that Fox News in its entirely (i.e. Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity) is a serious endeavor worthy of NPR's status. But if Liasson can't defend all of Fox News, then her half-pregnant approach (i.e. she's only employed by a tiny portion of Fox News) just doesn't fly.

On the right, at the Weekly Standard, Stephen F. Hayes points at Nina Totenberg:

Over the past month, in her regular appearances on “Inside Washington,” she has: criticized a ruling of the Roberts Court as scandalous; claimed that Michelle Obama gives people “warm and fuzzy” feelings; called Bill Clinton “the most gifted politician I’ve ever seen;” and lamented that the Democratic Party is diverse enough to include moderates that want to extend all Bush tax cuts....

Her most partisan comment came when Charles Krauthammer pointed out that 31 Democrats in the House had written to Nancy Pelosi to call for extending the Bush tax cuts, Totenberg wished them out of the party. “When a party actually has a huge majority, it has a huge diversity.  And that is part of the problem that Democrats have.  But would I like it to be otherwise?  Of course.”

Hayes goes on, marshaling the evidence. You get the idea. It's open season on NPR news analysts... with 11 days to go before election day. A grisly October surprise.

Rush Limbaugh thinks Obama is icy cold — like Michael Dukakis... and Buck Turgidson.

Don't let the horrible photo chosen by Media Matters here stop you from listening to the audio. It's an excellent performance by Rush, including his approximation of the George C. Scott performance:



The transcript — along with the Dukakis and "Dr. Strangelove" clips — is here. He's talking about the new Bob Woodward book:

Woodward asks about terrorism, terror attacks, and so forth. Obama says, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever, we absorbed it, and we're stronger." That, to me, is the equivalent of Dukakis being asked, "If your wife were raped and murdered, would you favor the death penalty?" So Woodward says, "What about terrorism?" Obama figures, "Ah, we can handle it. We can absorb it. We're even stronger." That's not cool. That is cold, and it reminded me of something. One of my all-time favorite movies is Dr. Strangelove. A Stanley Kubrick movie. And one of the characters in this movie is General Buck Turgidson....

And Buck Turgidson is one of these stereotypical generals. He just wants to nuke the world. He just loves war and hates the Russians, hates the commies. He just wants to nuke everything. And Buck Turgidson said, "Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching the moment of truth, both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always pleasant thing. But it's necessary now to make a choice: To choose between two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable postwar environments, one where you get 20 million people killed, the other where you'd get 150 million people killed." Turgidson was saying, "Let's send more B-52s! Let's just wipe these people out while we're at it, since we can't call this one back. Let's just be rid of them. We'll kill 20 million of them and that's it. They can't kill any of ours. It's a livable situation, Mr. President."

Peter Sellers playing President Merkin Muffley says, "You're talking about mass murder, general, not war," and Turgidson replies, "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed but I do say no more than ten to 20 million killed tops, depending on the breaks." Here's a guy totally cold and unaffected by the possibility of ten to 20 million people being killed in an accident and wants to say, "Let's go wipe 'em out even further." The president can't believe what he's hearing. You have Dukakis, "If your wife was raped and murdered, would you favor the death penalty?" "No, Bernard. As you know, I've long and consistently opposed the death penalty during all my life." Obama is asked, "Mr. President, what is your attitude on terrorism?"

"Well, we could absorb one of those, a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it but even a 9/11, but even the biggest attack ever we absorbed it and we're stronger. We can deal with it." All these examples are of leftists and they are cold, removed, unemotional, unaffected, uninvolved.

Did he just call Turgidson a leftist?

Anyway, you know how it must pain the average-citizen leftist to hear that Obama, like Dukakis, is cold and unemotional. It can't be true! Obama is about empathy.

[Click here for video of George Lakoff explaining Obama's "empathy campaign."]

Remember when Bill Clinton made us — some of us — think he feels our pain? Obama, aloof, observes that we have an excellent capacity to absorb pain. We're pain sponges, apparently, so there's nothing to get too worked up about.

I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks....

Dr. Laura Schlessinger says she's going to end her radio show and everyone seems to believe her.

But I don't! I accused Dr. Laura of doing a media stunt — saying the n-word over and over on the radio — to get attention, and — lo and behold! — she gets right onto the Larry King show. So far, so good, with this stunt.

Having made it to center stage, she makes a dramatic announcement:

“I want to regain my First Amendment rights,” she said. “I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that.”

But she stressed that she was not retiring, only ending her show, and would continue to write books and appear at speaking engagements.

“I’m not quitting,” she told Larry King. “I feel energized actually — stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.”...

Shortly after Dr. Schlessinger made her announcement, one of the groups that had called for advertisers to back away from her show, Media Matters for America, issued a statement applauding the outcome.

She's not quitting right away. That's a key clue. She's just "made a decision not to renew her contract when it expires at the end of the year." She's fighting back, lighting a fire under her supporters, betting — I think — that her audience will increase as a result of the new attention.

Media Matters may want to intimidate advertisers, and without advertisers her new contract negotiations would not have gone well. It's better to quit than to go down defeated.  But the controversy is also great leverage. If her ratings go up — and I bet they do — the advertisers will be there.

Think about it: Rush Limbaugh is still on the air, with plenty of advertisers. If the Media Matters strategy for destroying radio careers worked, he'd have been gone long ago. Yeah, the strategy sort of worked against Imus, but only temporarily, and it made him seem important and relevant (even as the "nappy-headed hos" incident was probably painful for him). 

So the time for end-of-the-year contract negotiations will come up for Dr. Laura, and we'll see what happens. I predict she'll be offered good money, and she'll announce a change of plans, along with heaps of self-praise for her bravery standing up for her First Amendment rights. Remember, she "feels energized," and she wants"to say what’s on [her] mind and in [her] heart," and she won't tolerate "some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent."

Stay tuned.

Over at Media Matters, Eric Boehlert is writing about me.

Eric Boehlert. Eric Boehlert? Oh, I know where I read his name recently. He's a character in Iowahawk's brilliant "I'll Take a Cashier's Check, Mr. Breitbart." He's the one handing out the assignments:

EZRA KLEIN: hey boehlert whats the assignment

ERIC BOEHLERT: 3 part essay

ERIC BOEHLERT: 1. Explain why unemployment report shows stimulus is working

ERIC BOEHLERT: 2. link BP oil spill to teabaggers

ERIC BOEHLERT: 3. spin latest Gallups

JOSH MARSHALL: crap crap crap and I have a lab assignment for global warming due

ERIC ALTERMAN: o fack me looks like an all niter...

Ha. But why is he on my case? "Ann Althouse continues to blog about Journolist; appears to have no idea what it was," he says. Well, then, release the archive so I can cure my terrible ignorance. That's all I want.

Althouse continues to post item after item about Journolist, despite the fact that... Althouse has no idea what Journolist was.

Stop me before I blog ignorantly again, Eric. Send me the archive. Or send it to Breitbart and collect $100,000 and I'll get to it that way.

Boehlert goes on to quote me saying that if I were to sue a Journolist member for defamation — something I'm not inkleined to do — I would be able to get discovery into the archive. Eric B. says:

Althouse, a law school prof and very public blogger, was thinking out loud about suing the owner of Journolist to find out if any of the 400 journalists on the listserv ever wrote anything nasty about her in their private emails. (Ego much?)

Eric Boehlert continues to write about me like that even though he has no idea what the thing I wrote that he just quoted says.  I cited a specific item of defamation against me that was published on the web and that remains there. If I were to sue based on that remark, I would be able to get discovery into relevant evidence about that claim. Moreover, I know that there are specific, related remarks about me in the Journolist archive, because that remark was tweeted, in Ezra Klein's own words, "after I was alerted to her thread on Journolist."

Boehlert imagines that one of my commenters nails his argument for him. Here's that comment:

I would think a law professor might have a better grasp of this. But on what grounds would you seek the archives? To borrow a popular argument of the right, where in the Constitution does it say you have the right to know what others are saying about you, especially when you have no proof they are saying anything defamatory about you.

Clue to Boehlert: Not all law is in the Constitution. The tort of defamation is a matter of state law. The extent of discovery is a matter of procedural law. I don't need a constitutional right. (Conceivably, there is a right that would bar my access to the archive, but I don't need a constitutional right to discovery if I bring a defamation claim.)

So, Boehlert, your post is incredibly lame, but, as a law professor, I'll give you a rewrite. I think Media Matters portrays itself as a champion of truth, so... see if you can get a little closer to something that feels a little more truth-y.

***

On a related note: Yesterday, James Taranto, in Best of the Web, opined that a journalist's shield law would prevent discovery into the Journolist archive in a defamation suit:

Seems to us it would depend on the venue. Most states have some sort of shield law protecting reporters from having to disclose confidential sources, but the specifics vary from state to state. In federal court, however, there is no such privilege.

The privilege is about shielding confidential news sources — informants. The Journolist archive contains the statements of journalists talking to each other. I don't see how the privilege could apply.

[Journalists] should, of course, have all the legal protections of the First Amendment, which among other things mean that Althouse almost certainly would not win her defamation suit against Klein. His offending tweet, it seems to us, is a constitutionally protected opinion rather than a false statement of fact.

One reason I have no interest in suing is that I want the broadest First Amendment rights here. I would not want to have to argue that the statement in question — "Ann Althouse sure has a lot of anti-semitic commenters" — is not an opinion but a false statement of fact. But I'm afraid it is, quite plainly, a false statement of fact.

"The right-wing reaction was predictable. Blogger Ann Althouse called it a 'dick move' and suggested a boycott of Minnesota."

MediaMatters makes a no-sense-of-humor move.

Boycott Minnesota? I'd never boycott Minnesota! I'd have to give up Bob Dylan. That won't happen. I wouldn't even boycott Prince... or the Coen Brothers. Really, politics just aren't that important to me. MediaMatters needs to get a life.

Media Matters doesn't understand the word "despite."

Talk about dumb. And you know, spelling a name wrong some of the time is actually dumber than spelling it wrong all of the time.