We’ve already seen in the past how symbiotic the relationship is between MSNBC (whose ratings are cratering among adults 25-54) and Media Matters. Witness the now infamous “interview” conducted by suspended MSNBC employee David Shuster and Andrew Breitbart.  His question at the 2:55 mark repeats an attack that appeared on Media Matters the very same day of the interview, January 28.


To make things even cozier, after Breitbart’s segment with Shuster, the not-quite-canned-yet reporter then turned to his next guest, Eric Boehlert, Senior Fellow at (you guessed it) Media Matters.  Let’s just say the line of questioning was a little friendlier for Boehlert.  Sample question:

What about the standard that is used at websites like  Andrew Breitbart’s, the idea that even today you can go ahead and talk about “alleged crimes” of ACORN employees when there has (sic) been no crimes alleged… what’s that about?

But now, the MSNBC/MMFA ecosystem has come full circle as they now appear to work in mysterious tandem with each other to not just report stories, but to help create stories, report stories, and then cross-promote those stories.

Last week Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of News Corp. which owns many media entities around the world including Fox News here in America, sat for a program called “The Kalb Report” which was taped before a live audience at George Washington University.  Murdoch then took questions from the audience during a Q & A portion of the program.  One question came from Ari Rabin-Havt, Vice President of Media Matters.


The next evening, the exchange became the #1 story on MSNBC’s Countdown With Keith Olbermann as well as a segment on The Rachel Maddow Show.  The former featured the host asking:  “Is Rupert Murdoch now, or has he ever been stupid?” and the latter had the host pretending to be Fox News employees saying “I thought you were going to tell the boss, no, I thought you were going to tell the boss,” as if daily decisions at a media empire like News Corp. are supposed to be routinely run by the chairman.

One other important thing to note, although Olbermann does tell his viewers that the question was posed by “a person from Media Matters,” Maddow neglected to inform her viewers of this somewhat important detail.



Then the next day Media Matters highlighted both segments on their website with video clips.  They inserted it into their rotating gallery on the front page of their site, and as of this writing, the post is still there*, praising Maddow and Olbermann for focusing on the story they created in the first place.

boehlert

So, let’s breakdown this food chain, shall we?

  1. Media Matters plants one of their executives in the audience to ask a question about Fox News hoping to elicit and awkward or “gotcha” moment.
  2. MSNBC highlights the moment on their prime time shows, giving them an opportunity to attack their rival and competitor with ammunition provided by the “non-profit” Media Matters.
  3. Media Matters then promotes MSNBC’s promotion of the story Media Matters created.

And thus the circle of jerks, er, life continues.   MSNBC and MMFA, what would they do without each other?  Perhaps more to the point: what wouldn’t they do?

*UPDATE:  Hours after this post published, Media Matters removed the story from their main page rotating gallery.