Since this is politics & not art I’m putting it here and not in Cafe Society.
Media matters is a progressive/liberal website that was started in may 2004 and keeps tabs on what they see as distortions, cruelty and myths put out by conservatives (there are conservative sites that do the same things like the media research center if you are interested). Bill O’Reilly seems afraid of the organization media matters as he got very defensive about the subject.
http://www.counterbias.com/088.html
When Bill O’Reilly had discovered, on-air, that Krugman had obtained a questionable O’Reilly quote from Media Matters For America (located at mediamatters.org), a “Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media”, he became agitated.
O’Reilly has referred to them as vile, despicible people, compared them to Castro and the KKK, written them off as left wing nuts, etc. Media matters claims to have collected 75 myths, distortions and questionable quotes by O’Reilly in 2004 alone, making him misinformer of the year. However they only list 10, so I am not sure if/what those other 65 are.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200412230006
Just recently they wrote about several myths he’d written including that he never makes personal attacks, has never attacked Cindy Sheehan and that Ann Coulter doesn’t lie.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200606140004
http://mediamatters.org/items/200606090014
Supposedly the CEO of Media Matters, David Brock, has offered 4 times to appear on the O’Reilly factor to defend Media matters and never recieved a reply from O’Reilly.
Is this story as blatantly obvious as it seems? I admit to being a liberal and even though I try not to, I am somewhat biased against O’Reilly but even this seems over the top. It seems to me that media matters is an organization that is idealogically biased, but is pretty level headed and fact based that is keeping tabs on manipulations by O’Reilly and O’Reilly is not only reacting like a psychopath to legitimate criticism (comparing media matters to Goebbels, the KKK, Castro, Mao Zedong) but isn’t willing to allow the CEO on to defend himself or publicize his views, even though he routinely calls people cowards for not facing him.
There has to be another side to this story. Is there, or is O’Reilly really this over the top? If so, why don’t more people seem to know it? O’Reilly always presents himself as the most trustworthy guy on TV. What bothers me is that it seems like O’Reilly is unwilling to allow Brock on to defend MM, but he still goes on the radio and claims that nobody from MM will respond to him.
Media matters has been in trouble for manipulations over their relationship with Soros
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewSpecialReports.asp?Page=\SpecialReports\archive\200503\SPE20050303a.html
For people who listen to O’Reilly, what is his reason for avoiding David Brock? Does he not even mention the topic or does he write MM and Brock off as unwilling to come on his show or what?
What is the other side to this story? Is there another side? Does media matters have problems and manipulations of its own? From what I can tell if this is true then this issue makes O’Reilly more radical than Michael Savage.