Media Matters, the watchdog group that loves to hate Fox News
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2010
It takes only an instant for a visitor to Media Matters for America's headquarters in downtown Washington to sense its mission, if not its methods. A few steps into its modern offices, which resemble a newspaper newsroom, a pair of prominently displayed signs spell out the basics: "Fox Keeps Fear Alive," reads one; "Restore Sanity, Fight Fox," reads its companion.
Fighting Fox is what Media Matters does, relentlessly and obsessively. In the six years since its founding, the watchdog group has evolved from an all-purpose scourge of the conservative media into Fox News Channel's veritable shadow and constant irritant. From well before sunrise to long after it each day, teams of young researchers sift through video clips and transcripts of programs hosted by Fox stars such as Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly to find dubious facts, logical contradictions and poisonous - at least to Media Matters' liberal sensibilities - rhetoric.
Media Matters watches other conservative media figures - your Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages - but Fox has become the focus. On most days, the majority of the blog items, video excerpts and commentaries that the organization posts to its Web site concern some perceived outrage perpetrated by one of Fox's pugnacious hosts and commentators.
(More here.)
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 2, 2010
It takes only an instant for a visitor to Media Matters for America's headquarters in downtown Washington to sense its mission, if not its methods. A few steps into its modern offices, which resemble a newspaper newsroom, a pair of prominently displayed signs spell out the basics: "Fox Keeps Fear Alive," reads one; "Restore Sanity, Fight Fox," reads its companion.
Fighting Fox is what Media Matters does, relentlessly and obsessively. In the six years since its founding, the watchdog group has evolved from an all-purpose scourge of the conservative media into Fox News Channel's veritable shadow and constant irritant. From well before sunrise to long after it each day, teams of young researchers sift through video clips and transcripts of programs hosted by Fox stars such as Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly to find dubious facts, logical contradictions and poisonous - at least to Media Matters' liberal sensibilities - rhetoric.
Media Matters watches other conservative media figures - your Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages - but Fox has become the focus. On most days, the majority of the blog items, video excerpts and commentaries that the organization posts to its Web site concern some perceived outrage perpetrated by one of Fox's pugnacious hosts and commentators.
(More here.)
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