A comparison of methods

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Certain people continue to believe that if they can show that the other side has done something, than that excuses them for doing the same thing-- for whatever reason. Does it? No. I don't think it does. Here is the most recent example:

So example 1: Media Matters:
Originally posted a video clip of Beck's cronies sidekicks blaming the latest Manchester shooting on Olberman.

The original title "Beck sidekicks Gray and Burguiere: Keith Olberman and media responsible for Manchester shooting." This title is followed a clip of them talking. The clip cuts before they continue on to state that they were trying to make a comparison, so it would seem that they are stating this earnestly.

Here is the public correction:
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201008060020
*CORRECTION: The original headline on this clip did not make clear that Beck's co-hosts were being satirical when they linked MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to the Manchester shooting. The original clip also did not include their subsequent statements that Olbermann was not responsible for the shooting. Media Matters regrets the error.

Now, the right wing has been jumping all over this egregious cutting of a clip. It's good to know that these people have come to reality and realized that they shouldn't be defending editing clips to say other than they mean at least right? Maybe one of them will admit they were wrong about that now? Perhaps they will condemn any future or past attempts to purposely edit video to try to make people believe something other than the truth? I'm sure now that they have come to reason they will condemn these too. Right?

But seriously. Do you think that the Media Matters edit was on purpose? Every right-wing pundit seems to be sure of it. Do you think their correction was sufficient? Do you think this equates on any level with Mr. Breitbart's smear video? And maybe some people might think this, do you think this somehow excuses right-wing attempts to persuade people to believe things that are not true using video?

As to my opinion: If there ends up being evidence that it was on purpose in order to make these people look bad, whomever is responsible probably better resign, because that's the opposite of integrity. I doubt it was on purpose though because it would be so easy to look up and see it's not true. I think someone did something really sloppy. I don't know too much about Media Matters though-- I don't know how they get their articles or postings, is it like an ireport thing? Or did some editor really screw the pooch? I don't know.
---
And as a second small issue: the actual tape posted:
Does Beck's fearmongering and the tea partiers resorting to believing the government is going to take their guns and resort to communism equate to Olberman claiming that people are being racist and a black guy shooting a bunch of people for racism equate? Does someone doing things Olberman never said equate to some people believing something Beck said? what is this i dont even Nevermind, don't discuss that one.

Comments

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

You're no fun at all.

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

I sense this increasingly on the cable news channels. At first, I was just annoyed at their almost laser-like focus on Eastern seaboard weather reporting, but I realized that all of their reporting was focused there. Now, it seems to me that the political pundits think that DC is the center of the universe. They are actually shocked when people like Obama come in from "outside the beltway", or "not ready for primetime" people like Palin dare to take on the old money (who invariably are friends of the pundits). I think it's taken me a decade to see this, but I didn't waste so much time on it before.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

Beck's fearmongering is definitely a problem -- it spreads misinformation, it scares people, and for people who dont look at multiple sources of news it literally lies to them about the truth.

Of course, considering the long history of right-wing pundits presenting 20-second clips of something said, missing the 5-minute explanation leading up to it... I think the editing of tapes to spin opinion is quite deliberate and purposefull.

Media matters probably did what they did on purpose. Of course, it's hypocritical in the extreme for the pundits who edit tapes for a living to jump up and down over this and ignore their own history of doing this -- and when I say pundits, I am referring to right-wing pundits since the number of occurrences where this is seen seems to be greater.

There is a reason Faux News has the reputation it has.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Media matters probably did what they did on purpose.

You think so? I never really thought of them as wanting to make their point "by any means" -- they like being right. I don't think they did this on purpose based on the organizational track record and the fact that in their line of work, imperfect dosen't fly.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

I believe Breitbart deliberately smears people because he did it to ACORN and Van Jones and in each case he was able to do damage to them and to democrats in media using less than truthful content. He realized that it doesn't matter if what you are saying is totally true or not if it fits in to a media narrative that enough people want to believe you can manufacture "truth." He was almost successful with Sherrod, the only flaw being that there were sympathetic witnesses who were there willing to counter the charges. (The wife of the farmer) In the future he will be more careful about check for that before he runs with something.

Can anyone show that Media Matters has a similar pattern of behavior? (That's a real question, not just a rhetorical device.)

Lastly, and this is the difference that seals it: Media matters has retracted and apologized. Breitbart has not.

An apology is a powerful thing. I'm still waiting.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely on this.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

#9 of The Stupid Arguments That Need To Die (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/211129.html) seems to be the most widely used one, indeed.

[chemchick.livejournal.com]

lol.

I have nothing to add. :(

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think #7 is more common, or maybe it just irritates me more. (Using "obviously" is another example -- if what you're saying is obvious, the "obviously" is redundant, if it's not obvious it's untrue. Unfortunately, I tend to use "obviously" all the time.)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I would believe that it was on purpose. It doesn't really sound like the kind of edit that would happen accidentally. The correction may be sufficient just because it wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I don't know, it just doesn't pass the stupidity test for me.

Hanlon's Razor:
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.


It would just be entirely too obvious of an edit.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

Media Matters has a bad habit of twisting the truth to fit their means. I guess their claim is that if Fox does it* and is seen as a legit news organization, maybe they will be, too.

* - I DON'T think that Fox manipulates clips, but that seems to be the opinion of the sheep who pay attention to anything MMFA says.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

LOL

[reflaxion.livejournal.com]

Google search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=fox+news+fake+footage&aq=0&aqi=g3&aql=&oq=fox+news+fake+&gs_rfai=CERpkdWRhTN0ZmYyFBNKKpJwGAAAAqgQFT9C2Yv0). Just start clicking links, I don't have time for this shit.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I request that you either read your icon, or retract it.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

I don't THINK that Fox manipulates clips I AM SURE OF IT

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

But seriously. Do you think that the Media Matters edit was on purpose?

Yes. It's what they do.

Do you think their correction was sufficient?

Not really, no.

Do you think this equates on any level with Mr. Breitbart's smear video?

It's worse.

do you think this somehow excuses right-wing attempts to persuade people to believe things that are not true using video?

All it does is further discredit Media Matters, not that it's hard to do.

don't know too much about Media Matters though-- I don't know how they get their articles or postings, is it like an ireport thing? Or did some editor really screw the pooch? I don't know.

It's just a bunch of folks who are paid to read, watch, and listen to conservative media and then write about how they think they're wrong.

Does Beck's fearmongering and the tea partiers resorting to believing the government is going to take their guns and resort to communism equate to Olberman claiming that people are being racist and a black guy shooting a bunch of people for racism equate?

No, Olbermann's much worse.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Do you think this equates on any level with Mr. Breitbart's smear video?

It's worse.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

I have Media Matters on my blogroll mostly because they allow me to keep track of the most ridiculous things Beck et al are up to without my having to actually watch. But much as I enjoy their stuff, I certainly wouldn't present them as paragons of objective journalism. They try to identify the most incendiary clips they can find and they then post them usually with little or no attention to context, etc. This doesn't really surprise me at all and it's not really atypical.

I suppose it's comparable to what Breitbart did. But the "victims" of the Media Matters shenanigans are people who are national TV or radio announcers who have an excellent way to defend themselves. Breitbart's victim was somebody who hadn't been implicitly agreeing to have video clips of hers posted in a public forum and had no means of defending herself as evidence by her quickly losing her job. In that respect, what Breitbart did was worse, and I think it's an important difference.

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the fact that Media matters has retracted and apologized. Breitbart still has not.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The better comparison is Olbermann comparing the Citizens United decision to the Dred Scott case.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

That said there's no moral equivalence between a bunch of semi-anonymous bloggers and sitting United States Congressmen. The Progressive crazies are the former, the Right-Wingers are legitimized by the latter.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Cable news is slowly turning into a deserted garbage pile. The majority of Americans have already written it off, and what remains consists largely of lower middle class white folk watching Fox News. Everyone else has already gone outside and forgotten about it. Cable news is just too full of itself to notice that they're becoming the run-down ghetto park of the media.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right. I remember a long time ago, when I had basic cable or less that a highlight of traveling was being able to access CNN in my hotel room. But now, although I have about a bazillion cable channels, I can't remember the last time I've watched CNN or MSNBC, let alone Fox News.

[mylaptopisevil.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't shock me if Media Matters was just being lazy, as opposed to being openly hostile. It's not like they lack ammo to show that people are acting batshit insane, so they got desperate and just had to scramble together this one bit.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

- You know, in fairness to Rush, those two out of literally dozens of racist things were not necessarily accurate. We were never able to find them. We’ve had people call us trying to find it. We don’t know where they came from. They could just be Internet apparitions. But you know, that being said, anyone who wants to know how racist he is, we’re happy to give them other examples.


- Karl Frisch of Media Matters.

I think that this shows that Media Matters is openly hostile to Conservatives. Sure these two quotes weren't from Rush but he is a racist so it doesn't matter.

We know our sources are bias, lets not justify their bias by saying "aww shucks their just good old boys havin' fun!"

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Media Matters, like Glen Beck , fact check dot org and other such research sites are very useful and very interesting but when I use them I always consider the source. I know that 90% of the news I intake is bias*. If you Google Media Matters lies you find some fun mistakes they've made. I've done the same thing with fact check, and Glen Beck.

I thought this story was dumb from the onset. Especially because I listen to Glenn Beck. He often says things like "and Media Matters is going to take this out of context..." (which is why I started going to that site).

Always use the jump the shark rule with any sort of site. If it seems unbelievable or over the top, be suspicious.

*purposely so. It's better to know you're being manipulated than to believe you're getting unbiased information. This is true in the business world as well.)

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Like MSNBC, I think Media Matters has managed to brainwash itself and upon seeing the video was unable to peel aside their own template (that the right is crazy insane with hate and rage) to realize it was satire.