White Noise

by digby

The New York Times does a nice feature today on Media Matters, running down how it works and speculating about its effect on the election.

But the most interesting, and predictable, part is this:

“I don’t pay any attention to them,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of The Rothenberg Political Report, a Washington newsletter. “Whether it’s conservatives evaluating the media, or liberals evaluating the media, I just have no confidence in any of the ideological stuff.”

Moreover, for all the organization’s culling, the sheer number of items it pumps out can be overwhelming to those reporters who cover the news media, or the campaign.

“At the risk of incurring their wrath,” said Mark Z. Barabak, a political reporter for The Los Angeles Times who has covered the Obama and McCain campaigns, “I think it does become, at a certain point, white noise.”

Similarly, David Folkenflik, the media correspondent for National Public Radio, said: “They’re looking at every dangling participle, every dependent clause, every semicolon, every quotation — to see if it there’s some way it unfairly frames a cause, a party, a candidate, that they may have some feelings for.”

That said, Mr. Folkenflik said the organization was a source of useful leads, in part because of the “breadth of their research.”


Yes, they are ridiculously thorough, which is the kind of thing mainstream reporters and political analysts just hate. Stuart Rothenberg simply discounts all information that doesn't come from allegedly neutral sources. I'd love to know what he thinks those are. (I guess all those videos and documentation from Media Matters are just so booooring to have to look through to evaluate if what they are saying is true. So much easier to just put your fingers in your ears and your faith in Cokie Roberts.)

But this is really funny coming from one of Newtie's creations:

“I think they are one of the most destructive organizations associated with American politics today,” said Frank Luntz, a pollster for Rudolph W. Giuliani and Newt Gingrich who this year has led on-camera voter focus groups on Fox News, a frequent Media Matters target. “They are vicious. They only understand one thing: attack, attack, attack.”

“If I were a Democrat, I would tell them to shut up,” Mr. Luntz said. “If I were a Republican, I would tell my candidates to ignore them.”
I'll bet he would:

Pollster Frank Luntz is crying foul after MSNBC canceled his long-scheduled focus group two days before the debate. Luntz, who is under contract to MSNBC, had already spent $30,000 on recruits for several focus groups and invited reporters in Florida to watch -- only to be told that the network didn't want to declare a winner in the debate.

"I think they buckled to political pressure," says Luntz, who has advised Republicans from Newt Gingrich to Rudy Giuliani but says he's done no GOP work since 2001. "They caved. . . . Why is it that Democrats are allowed to do this" after leaving politics, "but Republicans aren't?"

But MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines says: "We made a decision not to use focus groups as part of our debate coverage. This decision had nothing to do with Frank's past work or politics. We think our viewers should be able to make up their own minds without 'scientific' help" -- despite the fact that the network has prominently featured Luntz and his on-air focus groups for four years.

Luntz has criticized President Bush on occasion, and his non-televised focus group, ironically, favored Kerry in the debate. Some NBC executives find him extremely fair but believe his longtime GOP links create a perception problem.

"For me, nothing is more important than getting it right," Luntz says. He says MSNBC bowed to pressure from conservative-turned-liberal activist David Brock in dumping him and that the network hasn't even agreed to use him as an analyst -- sans focus groups -- in this week's debates.
Luntz, of course, never left Republican politics. And he never stopped being a jackass:

LUNTZ: I always use the line for Nancy Pelosi, "You get one shot at a facelift. If it doesn't work the first time, let it go."


Just in case anyone wonders about the tedious "white noise" Media Matters is boring reporters with, here are just a few headlines from today:




Who cares about all that icky stuff? What I want to know is whether or not Obama snapped at reporters for dogging him and his daughter on their way to a Holloween party. Now that's important stuff.


Update:
I'd forgotten that Rothenberg was embarrassed by Media Matters quite recently for saying this:

Voters shouldn't judge a candidate by his skin color. Maybe, but is it any more unfair than, for example, saying that because McCain and President Bush are both Republicans that a McCain administration would produce a third Bush term? No, it isn't.


I think he probably believes that.


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