Talk:Media Matters for America

MMfA correctness

The misinformation that Media Matters brings forward is not just a preception, but subsantiated and fact based. Calicocat 29 June 2005 00:52 (UTC)

According to whom? --Badlydrawnjeff 14:02, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

According to facts. I visit Media Matters occasionally, and the vast majority of their articles have direct quotations, audio clips, or a video feed. From what I've seen, their articles tend to be accurate. Where their bias is important is that they only point out conservative misinformation and ignore liberal misinformation, and as we all know, both sides are really good at lying. (Although lying is disinformation not misinformation.) --Atsquish 22:53, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

I think what everyone may be seeing is the subconcious bias of the reporters themselves. While you can have a reporter who is careful to bring up all sides of a debate the reports values will have an impact. For instance the decision on what stories to cover and for how long is based on what they think would get the most ratings. For a reporter they ask themselves what seems the

more interesting topic. Things that are not cut and dry Republican or Democrat but very much so Conservative and Liberal can be misrepresented. For instance conservatives complain about the huge amout of reporting the number of weapons the US has compared. There are also framing topics and such, this link can go into more depth, as will Moral Politics by George Lakoff, or any cognative science study. Framing invloves using single words to envoke an entire agrument. Partial Birth, pro-life, pro-choice, are probably the top three recognized for what they are. Conservatives have also sucessfully changed Liberal around. Which is why the Right-Wing pounded John Kerry for being the most Liberal senator in congress. They also used the Flip-Flopper frame very effectivly. So effective, even I don't know of any Kerry framing at all, and I vote democrat/green. As such Media Matters cannot be perfect everytime. They will miss subtle Liberal bias becuase it does not strike them as off or aruable. they will point out direct lies, but it is much harder to get around ones own bias. --Indolering

Wow, a liberal organisation dedicated to cataloguing right-wing bias isn't cataloguing left-wing bias, despite that not being their stated purpose? How shocking!

I wasn't saying that at all. They will miss more left wing insinuations, and not notice the liberal focus. They do watch the major news networks and point out blatent lies. -Indolering

MMfA questionable analysis

I object to this line: "On occasion, MMfA's analysis has been proven to be faulty." Whether it is true or not, the paragraph that follows it certainly comes nowhere near proving its analysis to be faulty. -Euler

I did too. I have been monitoring Media Matters for something that might be. I think I found it:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200508100002 I see no insinuation here. If someone backs me up I will change it.-Indolering

Okay, I added in a carefully worded section on questionable analisys. No organization is perfect, and MMfA shouldn't be assumed to be so. While there are many many illigitamate complaints against MMfA I found what I think is at least an ambigious analisys. I am not trying to sling mud. If anyone can edit it to be any more even keel please do so. I just spent and hour on a paragraph, so I don't think I can do any better. -Indolering

The following carelessly-written, non-NPOV screed was added in a single edit from an anonymous IP address.

I see the NPOV point. I worked on this for a couple hours. Please try and take out fangs form your critisism, however constructive it may be. If someone could help me correct the NPOV I would appreciate that. It think the section/point is very important and should not be left out.-Indolering

While MMfA usually only presents direct lies they also often object to insinuations. Many are blatent, like this Fox News report covering the Supreme Court ruling in Kelo vs. New London.

Fox coverage of a statement from "Government Officials" that American troops would come home when the Iraqi army was "trained and equiped" to handle insugent attacks raised such critisizm from MMfA. The Fox news report stated that, "Officials have said our fighting men and women will come home when Iraqi security forces are trained and equipped to combat the terrorist insurgency there by themselves. U.S. commanders have said there are 136,000 Iraqis properly trained and equipped, but some critics of the administration have put that figure as low as 3,000."

The MMfA anlysis claims that the report insinuated the "136,000 Iraqis trained and equiped" was enough to take over for US troops. The MMfA report cites Pentagon reports and quote officials as to how 136,000 troops have been through basic training they are not all trained and equipped for military operations. While the Fox report also quoted a lower figure MMfA argues that the Pentagon never said that say 136,000 troops were ready for military combat operations. The source(s) MMfA believes Fox is refrencing states that they are not all counter-terrorist personell. Since Fox did not cite a source for the figure this makes the MMfA claim debatable. If it is true the subtle bias could be explained that it was mistake or subconcious bias from the reporter.

Critical Statements By Targets

I added this piece:

Media Matters have however come under sharp criticism from some of the subjects of their 'fact checking.' Bill O'Reilly, host of the USA's top rated cable news show 'The O'Reilly Factor', has countered their claims on his program and refers to Media Matters as a 'far left wing outfit' and 'dishonest smear merchants.'

I felt it was fair considering how much O'Reilly is unfairly trashed by media matters on both their site and THIS ONE. (See Bill O'Reilly commentator)

Plus, my insertion follows the spirit of the O'Reilly Wikipedia entry under Cindy Sheehan where it ends with a quote questioning HIS credibility.

I'm assuming what's good for the goose is good for the gander in Wikipedia.

Am I right or are only left wingers quotes critical of O'Reilly allowed to stay? — Preceding unsigned comment added by BigDaddy777 (talk • contribs) 17:26, 1 September (UTC)

Hi. This is an encyclopedia, not a blog. If your additions are encyclopedic, they will stay. If they are not, they will go. In this case, your contribution was mostly encyclopedic, except for the error in fact that you included, and thus I expect that it will remain in the article, in one form or another. I think it is probably best, however, to put criticizms of MMFA in a seperate section. Perhaps you could find some more of them and create that section? Hipocrite 19:10, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Hey Hipocrite,

Look at the Bill O'Reilly commentator entry and THEN lecture me on the difference between an encyclopedia entry and a blog!! Every week this entry seems to chronicle the latest distorted ani-O'Reilly takes on conflicts he's had with people in the news from Neil Boortz to Cindy Sheehan.

And BTW...If you think it's "probably best, however, to put criticizms of MMFA in a seperate section" then why not apply the same standard to the O'Reilly entry???

His entry is RIDDLED with cheap shots, inuendo, poison arrows comments and other distortions of incidents he was involved in.

Oh, I forgot, it's OK to do that to O'Reilly.

He's not a left-winger...

Hi. WP:AGF is a policy you should defidentally read. You may notice I have no editing history at this article - that's because I don't know enough about the subject matter to comment. I do, however, know a lot about wikipedia, and writing for it. I'm here to help you improve our encyclopedia. The first thing - on talk pages, to sign things, you can type the tilde (~) 4 times - it'll give you something like this, except for you instead of for me: Hipocrite 20:21, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Now, let's you and I fix this article up to make it WP:NPOV. What do you think the biggest concrete problem is (IE, no more whining about liberal bias, but actually finding something we can do)? Let's find it, and fix it! Hipocrite 20:21, 1 September 2005 (UTC)