Unless you missed it this week:

• Media Matters still refuses to condemn the violence in the Media Matters-endorsed OWS movement.
• Media Matters also refuses to answer why a “media site” is seemingly in violation of the rules binding 501 c(3)s by politicking. They were caught sending out emails to their “Democrat allies” last week.
• After failing to force censorship of Big Journalism’s Dana Loesch the week prior (and again today), Media Matters is attempting the same blacklist technique with Red State’s Erick Erickson. What’s unclear is whether the motivation comes from their intolerance of diverse thought on the airwaves or bitterness at the lack of invitations MMFA staffers, namely Editor Eric Boehlert, receive themselves from networks.
• MMFA Editor Boehlert also refused to condemn or disavow his site’s use of the slur “Israel firster.” MMFA has received heavy criticism for its continued use of the slur, even after its use was criticized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and MMFA ally and former journolister Spencer Ackerman.
• MMFA still hasn’t walked back its claim that the insider trading scandal, which resulted in the now-passed STOCK Act, wasn’t ‘a big deal.’

OUTSTANDING ITEMS

Media Matters has yet to correct these glaring mistakes:

(more…)

Tablet magazine, the new online Jewish-themed publication that focuses on a broad range of current affairs topics, has taken Media Matters for America (MMfA) and the Center for American Progress (CAP) to task for using antisemitic language in criticizing Israel.

Illustration from Tablet: Daniel Hertzberg

In two separate articles, Tablet takes on the organizations that are the core of the Democrats’ media and policy strategy, joining a debate in which the defenders of MMfA and CAP have resorted to the worn-out fallacy that their critics are trying to silence debate on Israel.

One article by Spencer Ackerman–whose blog was once hosted by CAP–addresses “fellow progressives” and insists that while criticism of Israel is sometimes appropriate, those who use anti-Jewish tropes–like specious charges of dual loyalty and “Israel first”–undermine the case they are trying to make. He singles out Media Matters, CAP, and the radical pro-Palestinian lobby J Street, among others, for their rhetorical record of bigotry:

Some on the left have recently taken to using the term “Israel Firster” and similar rhetoric to suggest that some conservative American Jewish reporters, pundits, and policymakers are more concerned with the interests of the Jewish state than those of the United States….

“Israel Firster” has a nasty anti-Semitic pedigree, one that many Jews will intuitively understand without knowing its specific history. It turns out white supremacist Willis Carto was reportedly the first to use it, and David Duke popularized it through his propaganda network. And yet [Media Matters' M.J.] Rosenberg and others actually claim they’re using it to stimulate “debate,” rather than effectively mirroring the tactics of some of the people they criticize….

(more…)

Enjoy:

For an example of Ackerman’s incredibly unsophisticated and embarrassingly juvenile “foreign correspondence” please go here, if you can stand it.

It’s unfair to analyze Spencer Ackerman, arguably the most immature and ugly contributor to the now infamous JournoList, through the hyperbolic battlefield exchanges of prosaic political warfare that exist between pundits of the Left and Right on the Internet. But there is ample reason to view him as one of, if not, the worst of the offenders.

The record reveals that he was all too happy to light the torches for a mob of journalistic-malpractitioners intent on leaving integrity behind on this, or that, malevolent and persecutive march - so long as it advanced their political agenda. Evidence of his more notable transgressions has been widely reported. Another example of Ackerman’s orgasmic-like fantasy plate glass window tossing fetish behavior towards his political opposition was reported by the Daily Caller.

Having taken the time to try and understand who he was and the forces that shaped man-child Spencer Ackerman back before he became nestled snug in his singularly-minded D.C. womb, I think I understand his need for a womb with a plate glass window Washington, - call it, Spencer Ackerman’s Washington womb with a view. It may be the only environment in which he can exist, given the abuses and rejections the less than talented scribe believes he has endured over his still young years.

At one point, Ackerman suggested that fellow members of the listserv should fight the way the right is fueling the Rev. Jeremiah Wright story by choosing one of Obama’s conservative critics, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.” … , “what I like less is being governed by racists and warmongers and criminals.”

… In other words, find a right winger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear.

(more…)

ROBERT GIBBS:  The MSM are still holding the line, Mr. President, but the whole MSNBC crew has revolted.

DAVID AXELROD:  Schultz, Olbermann, Maddow, Matthews–tonight they begin their on-air nude marathon hunger strike, sir.  They’ll nibble on Brie and drink nothing but Perrier until you acknowledge your debt to them and restore the public option.

OBAMA:  Man!  Eighteen months ago those people thought I walked on water.  Now they crucify me because I can’t transmogrify private coverage into single payer.  Uh, Bob, who’s that sittin’ over there in the corner?

GIBBS:  His name’s Ezra Klein, sir, founder of the now defunct JournoList web clique I told you about.

OBAMA: What’s he doing here?

GIBBS:  You wanted our Latino media on the same page in the months before midterms, sir.  He’s reconstituted JournoList, only this time with 400 Hispanic journalists and bloggers.  They’ll communicate in coded Spanish–Ezra’s minor– to reduce the chance of exposure. Sort of like Codetalkers en Espanol.

OBAMA: Si, se puede!

AXELROD: We figured it would be helpful to have him attend our strategy sessions and hear firsthand the spin he’ll be disseminating.  He’s been instructed not to look you in the eye or speak unless he’s spoken to, sir. After all, he’s only 14… (more…)

First off, I want to express my gratitude to Tucker Carlson, The Daily Caller, Jonathan Strong and whoever released the JournoList archives for doing a remarkably righteous service for their country. Those of us who have watched the media for any amount of time aren’t at all surprised by these revelations, but it sure is good to have our worst fears (and then some) confirmed, and to have these manipulative, race-baiting liars dragged out into the sunlight where they belong.

Ezra Klein, JournoList founder

Before we get started, one little, itsy-bitsy request: Please, please, please name the JournoListers from Politico. You know, Nothing To See Here Politico?  No need to speak anyone’s name out loud. Just come a little closer and whisper them in my ear. Or we can do a Bob Woodward. I’ll call you, start going down the list of Politico ”reporters,” and then when I get to the right name(s) you simply hang up. Email me at: jnolte@DefeatPolitico.com.

The founder and ringmaster of JournoList is the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, who we should also thank for falling back-assward into a service for his country by putting the cabal together. Though it was purely by accident, if it wasn’t for Klein, America wouldn’t now have all kinds of  proof (and more to come — tee hee) of just how morally and professionally corrupted the left-wing media is. (more…)

The Daily Caller is currently running a series of articles proving the collusion we’ve long suspected among members of the media. The articles expose the thoughts of some of the liberal writers that belonged to JournoList, a now-defunct listserv of hundreds of left wing journalists, educators, and pundits, in relation to revelations about then-candidate Obama’s relationship to his pastor Jeremiah Wright, John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate and other weighty matters.

Matthew Yglesias, JournoList member

As you may suspect, it seems that every blogger on the center-right has an opinion about the revelation—for most Americans, actually just a confirmation—of the naked collusion among journalists in support of left-wing Democratic politics, politicians, and policy.

But this collusion is more than just an example of media corruption. It is an example of these journalists and pundits using their positions, accumulated credibility, and power to thwart the freedom of speech from the inside. Allow yourself just a few minutes to consider the ramifications of this surrender of ethics and their demand for conformity, and you will be terrified. (more…)

JournoList is back.  As Jonathan Strong makes clear in the latest Daily Caller revelations from the Journolist archives, the (publicly) unspoken strategy of the MSM mandarins is to support and protect their liberal/left favorite politicians and policies.  Understanding the tactics they use to achieve their goals – tactics I deal with frequently in litigation – is the first step in the counterattack.

The template for responding to breaking news that undermines their political favorites is almost always the same, a three step process designed to undercut the validity of the story, destroy the credibility of the storyteller, and then ensure that no one outside the new conservative media ever hears about it – or at least about the most important elements.  And the Daily Caller’s story illustrates them all.

The first step is to minimize the story.  So, the arm of the Democrat Party named ACORN feels it’s just fine to give advice to would be child sex traffickers?  It’s nothing – it’s just a side show that happened in once…okay, twice…I mean three times…I mean… anyway, it’s not important.  How about New Black Panthers intimidating voters?  Well, it’s just one precinct in Philadelphia and all the voters there were probably voting for Obama anyway so it’s really not that important.  Maybe a government bureaucrat admitting – publicly and proudly – that she treats white farmers in need of assistance worse than black ones?  Well, that’s one woman and she’s off in the boonies of Georgia!  It’s not important. (more…)

JournoList archives revealed by Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller this morning are remarkably similar to what I imagined they would be: a bunch of — how did the boss put it? Oh, yes — insufferable assholes conniving, colluding and more than willing to lie and engage in character assassination in order to put a Democrat in the White House.

Spencer “call them racists” Ackerman

Then-Senator Barack Obama, The Man Who Would Be President, spent 20 years sitting in a church run by a racist demagogue and hater of all things America (government-created AIDS, we had 9/11 coming, “God damn America!”) and rather than investigate that relationship and report on whether or not Obama’s absurd claim that he knew nothing about such incendiary and racist statements was true, the media obsessed over Sarah Palin’s children and wardrobe.

The ONLY explanation for this is a JournoList. (more…)

JournoList scandal is back and prepare for it to be a driving force in the news for quite some time. The Daily Caller published an article tonight indicating they’ve obtained emails from the JournoList and the initial details are as damning as we expected when the list-serv, founded by the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein in 2007, surfaced with the Dave Weigel kerfuffle last month.

Snippets from the article below, but make sure to read the whole thing at the Daily Caller and return to Big Journalism early and often as we unpack the details that emerge and track the fallout from this seminal event in the history of left-wing media bias.  It’s unclear exactly what the Daily Caller has, but there’s certainly no indication from this article they’ve already laid all their cards out on the table.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.” (more…)

Welcome to the Journolist Top Secret Progressive He-Man Wingnut Haters Club and L33t H4xoR Chat Room. Disclaimer: this is a private discussion forum intended solely for the benefit of JournoList members. Reproduction, transmission, redistribution, or description, in whole or in part, of any content (including, but not limited to, private insults, insider innuendo, political manifestos, hair styling tips and/or gossip) without the expressed written consent of the commissioner is strictly prohibited. Please read and agree to the User Consent Form. And, as always, remember the first rule of JournoList: there is no JournoList.

EZRA KLEIN has entered the room.
MATTHEW YGLESIAS has entered the room.
ERIC BOEHLERT has entered the room.
JOSH MARSHALL has entered the room.

EZRA KLEIN: wassup

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: my dick

JOSH MARSHALL: lolz!!!

EZRA KLEIN: hahahahahaha

MATTHEW YGLESIAS: whos got assignmt for 1st period talking points for tomorrow

JOSH MARSHALL: boehlert was supposed to get them from Mr Soros

JOSH MARSHALL: boehlert???

EZRA KLEIN: yo eric where r u

ERIC BOEHLERT: sorry went off to get a red bull

JOSH MARSHALL: ridin tha bull (more…)

In the first (and still best) “Austin Powers” film, a United Nations representative makes a faux pas and calls the film’s villain “Mr. Evil.”

“It’s Dr. Evil,” he huffs. “I didn’t spend six years in Evil Medical School to be called ‘mister,’ thank you very much.”

This is how I feel when I’m referred to as a “blogger,” sometimes with a political qualifier like “liberal” or “conservative” attached. I’m a reporter. I’ve been a reporter since high school. Like a lot of other people, I lucked into some reporting jobs that took advantage of the speed of the web — thus, I blogged. And I left the Washington Post because I was intoxicated by this medium and the privileges of reporting. The leak of my private e-mails wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago; but then, neither would have my career been possible.

Let’s go back to the start. I started in journalism in a fairly typical manner, by discovering how much I liked writing articles and doing interviews at my high school paper. I chose to go to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. It was there that I became editor of the campus’s weekly conservative paper, and became plugged into the campus conservative journalism network.

Was I really that conservative? Yes. (more…)