Only one provable lie?

Media Matters for America

“The media says, ‘Breitbart lies, Breitbart lies.’ Give me one example of a provable lie,” Breitbart said on stage at the Weiner presser. “One, journalist, one, put your reputation on the line here, one provable lie.”

How about a whole list of provable lies, you scum?

BIG FAT LIE:

Breitbart coordinated release of conservative activists’ undercover ACORN videos. On September 10, 2009, conservative activist and videographer James O’Keefe posted an entry to BigGovernment.com in which he revealed that he and fellow activist Hannah Giles had posed as a pimp and prostitute at a Baltimore ACORN Housing office and secretly filmed their meetings with ACORN staffers. As O’Keefe wrote, their intention was to take “advantage of ACORN’s regard for thug criminality by posing the most ridiculous criminal scenario we could think of and seeing if they would comply — which they did without hesitation,” the “scenario” being the “trafficking of young helpless girls and tax evasion.”

Except they didn’t.  Upon viewing the un-edited videos, it was revealed that the ACORN workers did nothing wrong or illegal.  As it turns out, O’Keefe, Giles, and Breitbart are the liars in the ACORN case.

That’s one.

BIG FAT LIE:

Breitbart eagerly embraced and promoted [Jim] Hoft’s false attacks on [Kevin] Jennings.  Writing for the website Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft has authored a series of factually dubious attacks on Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings and the organization Jennings founded and previously led, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Hoft’s Jennings posts — which he has labeled “Fistgate,” even though many of those allegations have little or nothing to do with the sexual practice of fisting — often draw upon the work of MassResistance, a Massachusetts based anti-gay organization that has been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

When you lie down with dogs…expect to get up with provable lies.

That’s two.

Introducing Financial Media Matters

It’s good to know that the folks from Media Matters have now launched a new site: Financial Media Matters.  Hopefully, this site will bring light to the lies that are told not just on CNBC, although it gets the most light, of late, especially since Jim Cramer’s brutal slap-down by Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, but across the financial talking heads.  If anything is sorely needed right now is some honesty in reporting financial news.

This is one to add to your Favorites.  It is bound to be a keeper.

If you missed the urban legend on Dodd getting a “sweetheart” deal from Countrywide here it is.  This is a good read.

And if you are looking for some good news in the whole financial meltdown, then wait no longer:  Madoff bilked millions from the neoconservative “think tank” Scooter Libby and Douglas Feith work for.

: : : : : : : : : :

Media Matters – Toxic Radio Hosts

Media Matters does an outstanding job showing the trickle-down effect from Rush and Hannity really does work.  It gives the conservative regional radio hosts justification (in their minds) for the misinformation that they spread to their listeners, who in turn post on the internet and send these lies or smears to their co-workers.  Here is their summary:

Beyond the echelon of widely known conservative radio hosts with national audiences lies a vast network of lesser-known syndicated and regional radio hosts who have become key components of an echo chamber for conservative talking points and falsehoods. Like their better-known counterparts, these syndicated and regional radio hosts have played active roles this election season in promoting falsehoods and smears in an all-out effort to foment hate and distrust among their listeners for President-elect Barack Obama. While the hosts vary in the degree of vitriol they spew and in their ratio of rebuttable falsehoods to unbridled smears, Media Matters for America and Colorado Media Matters have identified common themes that many, if not all, have promoted over the past year.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism recently released a report, which garnered considerable media attention, concluding that Sen. John McCain received much more “negative” coverage than President-elect Barack Obama during the campaign. But in purporting to compare the media’s coverage of the two candidates, PEJ did not consider talk radio, saying: “Talk radio stories … were not included in this campaign study of tone.” But, beyond arguable flaws in PEJ’s methodology, no study of the “tone” in the media’s coverage of this presidential campaign is complete without inclusion of conservative talk radio. Several of the radio hosts monitored by Media Matters (their shows are described in detail below), as well as their guests, engaged in an all-out effort to foment hate and suspicion of Obama among their listeners, promoting the most baseless and farfetched of smears and advancing falsehoods — including about Obama’s religion and background — that have taken hold among a substantial percentage of the electorate.

The problem is that these regional talk show host’s actually convince their listeners that this is factual information.  I know this to be true because, I had members of my family and friends that were receiving emails that were watered down versions of Limbaugh all the time.  How I found out is, they would forward me these vile emails that I would respond to with facts and links to the actual truth of the matter.  All of them were trying to find out the truth, so they could respond to what they had received by email.  Here are some great examples of what Media Matters uncovered.