The group, launched as a more traditional media critic, has all but abandoned its monitoring of newspapers and other television networks and is narrowing its focus to Fox and a handful of conservative websites, which its leaders view as political organizations and the “nerve center” of the conservative movement. The shift reflects the centrality of the cable channel to the contemporary conservative movement, as well as the loathing it inspires among liberals — not least among the donors who fund Media Matters’ staff of about 90, who are arrayed in neat rows in a giant war room above Massachusetts Avenue.

“The strategy that we had had toward Fox was basically a strategy of containment,” said Brock, Media Matters’ chairman and founder and a former conservative journalist, adding that the group’s main aim had been to challenge the factual claims of the channel and to attempt to prevent them from reaching the mainstream media.

The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”

In an interview and a 2010 planning memo shared with POLITICO, Brock listed the fronts on which Media Matters — which he said is operating on a $10 million-plus annual budget — is working to chip away at Fox and its parent company, News Corp. They include its bread-and-butter distribution of embarrassing clips and attempts to rebut Fox points, as well as a series of under-the-radar tactics.

Media Matters, Brock said, is assembling opposition research files not only on Fox’s top executives but on a series of midlevel officials. It has hired an activist who has led a successful campaign to press advertisers to avoid Glenn Beck’s show. The group is assembling a legal team to help people who have clashed with Fox to file lawsuits for defamation, invasion of privacy or other causes. And it has hired two experienced reporters, Joe Strupp and Alexander Zaitchik, to dig into Fox’s operation to help assemble a book on the network, due out in 2012 from Vintage/Anchor. (In the interest of full disclosure, Media Matters last month also issued a report criticizing “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy’s criticism of this reporter’s blog.)

Brock said Media Matters also plans to run a broad campaign against Fox’s parent company, News Corp., an effort which most likely will involve opening a United Kingdom arm in London to attack the company’s interests there. The group hired an executive from MoveOn.org to work on developing campaigns among News Corp. shareholders and also is looking for ways to turn regulators in the U.S., U.K., and elsewhere against the network.

The group will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests — whether that be here or looking at what’s going on in London right now,” Brock said, referring to News Corp.’s — apparently successful — move to take a majority stake in the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Media Matters, the George Soros-backed legion of liberal agit-prop shock troops based in the nation's capital, has declared war on Fox News, and in the process quite possibly stepped across the line of legality.

David Brock, MM's founder, was quoted Saturday by Politico promising that his organization is mounting "guerrila warfare and sabotage" against Fox News, which he said "is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.”

To that end, Brock told Politico that MM will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests ..." Murdoch is the founder of Fox News and a media titan with newspaper, broadcast, Internet and other media countries around the world.

There is nothing in the Politico article to suggest that Brock, who was paid just under $300,000 in 2009, according to the group's most recently available tax return, plans to ask the IRS to change his organization's tax status as a 501(C)(3) tax-exempt educational foundation.

Being a C3 puts MM in the non-profit, non-commercial sector, and it also bars the organization from participating in partisan political activity. This new, more aggressive stance, however, appears to run directly counter to the government's requirements for maintaining a C3 tax status.

Being a C3 puts MM in the non-profit, non-commercial sector, and it also bars the organization from participating in partisan political activity. This new, more aggressive stance, however, appears to run directly counter to the government's requirements for maintaining a C3 tax status.

Ray Jay wrote:

Being a C3 puts MM in the non-profit, non-commercial sector, and it also bars the organization from participating in partisan political activity. This new, more aggressive stance, however, appears to run directly counter to the government's requirements for maintaining a C3 tax status.

Without commenting on the bigger picture, I just wanted to say that this is an untrue statement. 501(c)(3)'s are allowed to engage in all sorts of political activity based on filing certain forms and adhering to certain financial limitations. They are not allowed to endorse specific candidates for office. They may also need to amend their IRS filings.

Ray Jay, CPA

Doctor Fate wrote:For years, liberals here have often cited Media Matters as an allegedly unbiased source and pushed back against statements and evidence to the contrary.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:For years, liberals here have often cited Media Matters as an allegedly unbiased source and pushed back against statements and evidence to the contrary.

By 'liberals' do you actually mean one person?

I don't recall anyone other than Ricky linking to them (and not very often) . . .

I do like the retrospectivity though. What they do now invalidates every possible link to them ever, ever?

A left wing group act in a partisan way, and the reaction from the right wingers (going by Steve and Tom here) is to jump up and down and, ummm, act all partisan. This all helps get over the widening political gap how, exactly?

There are two reasons why my posting has slowed down in the past few weeks. Firstly I moved house and we have a lot of decorating and sorting out to do.

secondly, because every politcal thread seems to be a pissing contest between the right wingers to see how much they can damn all the 'liberals' for whatever straw man it is they have a bee in their bonnet about.

Doctor Fate wrote:

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:For years, liberals here have often cited Media Matters as an allegedly unbiased source and pushed back against statements and evidence to the contrary.

By 'liberals' do you actually mean one person?

Well, no. There have been a few.

I believe you may have called me out (some time ago), asking me to prove they were liberal.

rickyp wrote:I haven't sourced Media Matters in a year and a half... (Seriously, look it up)

More to the point, of course they have a liberal bias. But they are also, well were also, (I haven't read antyhing from them in a year), industrious and scrupulous about the way they constructed their critiques. Sources, evidence, examples and excerpts all ponderously laid out to demonstrate the failures of their target. (Pretty boring reading usually)

danivon wrote:That's not the same as denying that they are. I wonder if cognitive dissonance is affecting you...

A left wing group act in a partisan way, and the reaction from the right wingers (going by Steve and Tom here)

Face it Ricky, the reason Media Matters exists is becuase George Soros is laundering his money there to wage his political war on conservatives.

rickyp wrote:ruff

Face it Ricky, the reason Media Matters exists is becuase George Soros is laundering his money there to wage his political war on conservatives.

Laundering money? Quite an assertion.
But of course they only exist primarily because of Soros. He is allowed to fund political activity isn't he - in the same way the Koch brothers do?
Just wondering why its so evil for him to fund something but not Koch or Rupert Murdoch?

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