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**Make sure to read all the way to bottom and WATCH VIDEO at end***
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From The Daily Caller:
June 29, 2011
By Jeff Poor
Over the past few months, the antics of liberal advocacy group Media Matters have been chronicled and in some cases have received accolades from the media.
One such report was a March 22 story by The Washington Post on the organization’s boot camp for wonks. But does Media Matters’ political involvement violate the terms for its tax-exempt status?
Baier posed the question to the panel on Tuesday’s “Special Report” on the Fox News Channel. Media Matters has been engaged in a war on Baier’s network. And according to Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, it’s clear that the organization isn’t a “charitable or educational organization” as it is described, but rather a political group.
“Well, it’s obviously is not [a charitable or educational organization,” Krauthammer said. “But is it still within the interpretation of the law? So on the legality of this, I think the strongest argument against them, against Media Matters is that as we heard in the James Rosen report, 12 years ago the IRS ruled that a Republican-run academy to train people to be pundits and speak against the Democrats on the air was ruled non-charitable, and thus not eligible for any charitable exertions.” [emphasis added]
“I think you can strongly argue that Media Matters which ran as a post head reported exactly the same kind of camp, training academy for its liberal advocacy would be subject to exactly the same ruling,” he continued. “So legally speaking I think it would be denied charitable status.”
Krauthammer didn’t say Media Matters should be prevented from engaging in its advocacy, but instead said they shouldn’t be subsidized by the government by not having to pay taxes.
“As a matter of sort of not law, but the Democratic practice, Media Matters is obviously not a media investigative organization that looks at everything,” Krauthammer said. “It’s in a war on Fox. And you’re allowed to do that in a democracy. You can be nasty as you want. The only thing is don’t ask for a government subsidy. Nobody wants to stop them or to shut Media Matters down. It’s a question of whether your tax money and mine ought to be supporting it.”
More plus video HERE……
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Related link:
O’Reilly Calls For Formal Objection Filed Against Media Matters’ Tax-Exempt Status
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Of interesting NOTE HERE:
One of Media Matters “stars” is Robert McChesney
WHO is Robert (Bob) McChesney?
Media Matters with Bob McChesney
Sundays at 1 pm Central on AM580
Media Matters features host Bob McChesney in conversation with a variety of guests. Listeners may call with comments or questions.
Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “The media are central to all our lives,” he says. “Yet the media are the most frequently misunderstood parts of our lives. We want to help people understand the role of media in society.”
http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters
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NOW taking this a wee bit further about Bob McChesney:
Robert McChesney is the founder of the “media reform” organization Free Press, and a board member of Norman Solomon‘sInstitute for Public Accuracy. He is also a former editor and current board member of the Marxist magazine Monthly Review, which has a fifty-year history of supporting Communist movements and regimes.
In a 2000 article — titled “Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle” — in the socialist periodical Monthly Review, McChesney wrote, “Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.”
In 2001 McChesney became co-editor (with John Bellamy Foster) of Monthly Review. In 2004 McChesney ceased to be an editor, but he continues to write for Monthly Review and is a director of its tax-exempt Monthly Review Foundation, which operates both the journal and its book-publishing arm, Monthly Review Press.
Since 2002 McChesney has hosted his own Sunday radio show, Media Matters, on WILL radio, the campus affiliate of National Public Radio. His guest list there and on another program he hosted from 1995-1999 on the Madison, Wisconsin radio station WORT-FM reads like a “Who’s Who” of the extreme left. Guests have included Barbara Ehrenreich, Z Magazine editor Michael Albert, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting founder Jeff Cohen, CounterPunch editor Alexander Cockburn, The Progressive magazine editor Matthew Rothschild, editorial cartoonist Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins), and Marxist professor Howard Zinn.
Blaming the media for having “helped anoint a president” in 2000, McChesney referred to President Bush as “the moronic child of privilege.” Wrote McChesney in the spring of 2003:
“[C]onsider the manner in which the press reported President Bush’s ‘victory’ in the 2000 election. It is now clear that the majority of the people in Florida who went to vote for president in November 2000 intended to vote for Al Gore. . . . But Al Gore isn’t president. Why is that? Or to put it another way, why didn’t the press coverage assure that the true winner would assume office? . . . The primary reason is due to sourcing: throughout November and early December of 2000, the news media were being told by all Republicans that the Republicans had won the election and Al Gore was trying to steal it. The Democrats, on the other hand, were far less antagonistic and showed much less enthusiasm to fight for what they had won. Hence the news coverage, reflecting what their sources were telling them, tended to reflect the idea that the Republicans had won and the Democrats were grasping for straws. . . . Once the Supreme Court made its final decision, the media were elated to announce that our national nightmare was over.”
Elaborating further on this theme, McChesney wrote:
“No one should be surprised by the polls showing that close to 90 percent of Americans are satisfied with the performance of their selected President, or that close to 80 percent of the citizenry applaud his Administration’s seat-of-the-pants management of an undeclared war. After all, most Americans get their information from media that have pledged to give the American people only the President’s side of the story.”
The foregoing analysis was made just after a short, almost casualty-free, successful war in Iraq. When consolidating victory proved more difficult and a domestic opposition developed, the President’s poll numbers fell dramatically and media coverage of his administration was overwhelmingly negative. Yet McChesney did not retract his earlier assertions.
In Professor McChesney’s view, the American media are largely shills for conservatives and the Bush administration, and willing abettors of his unjust wars. As he wrote in 2003:
“What is most striking in the U.S. news coverage following the September 11 attacks of 2001 is how . . . the very debate over whether to go to war, or how best to respond, did not even exist. Tough questions were ignored. Why should we believe that a militarized approach will be effective? Moving beyond the 9-11 attacks, why should the United States be entitled to determine — as judge, jury, and executioner — who is a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer in this global war? What about international law? Most conspicuous was the complete absence of comment on one of the most striking features of the war campaign, something that any credible journalist would be quick to observe: . . . There are very powerful interests in the United States who greatly benefit politically and economically by the establishment of an unchecked war on terrorism. This consortium of interests can be called . . . the military-industrial complex. It blossomed during the Cold War when the fear of Soviet imperialism — real or alleged — justified its creation and expansion. A nation with a historically small military now had a permanent war economy, and powerful special interests benefited by its existence.”
In 2009, McChesney said the following about capitalism and the media:
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“Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself.”
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“There is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles.”
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“We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimalize it, and perhaps even eliminate it.”
In September 2009, McChesney stressed the importance of reforming the media as a preliminary step along the path toward societal transformation. “No one thinks any more that media reform is an issue to solve after the revolution,” he said. “Everyone understands that without media reform, there will be no revolution.”
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2227
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About Free Press:
- Opposes the power of media corporations
- Advocates “net neutrality,” which critics depict as a government takeover of the Internet
Founded in 2002, Free Press and its advocacy arm, the Free Press Action Fund, are tax-exempt “media reform” organizations that seek to counteract the power of big media corporations. Robert McChesney (a radical professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), John Nichols (a Washington correspondent for The Nation), and Josh Silver (who has published extensively on such topics as media policy and campaign finance) co-founded the Free Press groups and currently direct their operations.
In addition to McChesney and Nichols, board members of Free Press include Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women; Janine Jackson of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR); Olga M. Davidson, a visiting associate professor in the Middle Eastern Studies program at Wellesley College; Marcy Carsey, co-founder of the Carsey Werner Company; and Tim Wu, a professor of law at Columbia University.
Board members of the Free Press Action Fund include McChesney, Nichols, Silver, Tim Wu, and Martin Kaplan (Director of the Norman Lear Center). Previous members have included Linda Foley, former President of the Newspaper Guild and Vice-President of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, from 1995 to 2008; Cindy Asner, wife of actor Ed Asner, both of whom are activists with the Progressive Democrats of America; and Norman Solomon, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), on whose board McChesney sits.
Free Press founders McChesney and Nichols have co-authored three books: It’s the Media, Stupid!, Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media, and Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy. The authors and their organization received high praise from the late Marxist professor Howard Zinn, who said: “Free Press is doing the important work of stimulating a national discussion on the role of a free media in this country. It deserves widespread support.”
Free Press receives financial support from George Soros’ Open Society Institute; the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Overbrook Foundation, the Philadelphia Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, the Surdna Foundation *(Andrus family), and the Wallace Global Fund.
While Free Press provides research and resources for progressive advocacy, the Free Press Action Fund lobbies in Washington against media corporations. According to Free Press’ website, “the U.S. media landscape is dominated by massive corporations that, through a history of mergers and acquisitions, have concentrated their control over what we see, hear and read.” Free Press’s “Stop Big Media” campaign aims to counter the interests of these corporations, claiming that they “fail local communities,” “ignore diversity,” and “are bad for democracy.”
Free Press offers its so-called Media Minutes podcasts, which are designed to give listeners the “latest news about media and democracy — in 5 minutes.” Media Minutes is also carried by a number of “independent” radio stations and websites, including a number of Pacifica Radio stations, the Independent Media Center (Indymedia), “Enemy Combatant Radio” in San Francisco, and “Radical Radio” in Seattle.
In November 2003, Free Press organized its first National Conference on Media Reform at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which was keynoted by Bill Moyers. Amy Goodman — host of the national radio program Democracy Now! — was also a featured speaker. Z Magazine reported that this conference prominently featured “El Salvador and Palestine solidarity activists” who “gave updates on their work.”
In May 2005, the Second National Conference for Media Reform took place in St. Louis, Missouri and featured, among others, Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and Code Pink; David Brock, President/CEO of Media Matters for America; then-author/political commentator Al Franken; Amy Goodman; producer/director Robert Greenwald; Janine Jackson of FAIR; author/columnist Naomi Klein; and Democratic Representative Diane Watson.
In January 2007, Free Press sponsored a third conference in Memphis, Tennessee. Featured speakers and panelists were Senator Bernie Sanders, Representative Maurice Hinchey, David Brock, Bill Moyers, Jesse Jackson, Danny Glover, Jane Fonda, Jeff Cohen, and Norman Solomon. Exhibitors at the event included the Revolutionary Communist Party, Mother Jones magazine, Pacifica Radio, Amy Goodman, and a number of representatives of the “9/11 truth movement.” The film Reel Bad Arabs, which argues that Arabs and Muslims unfairly receive negative coverage from the American media and Hollywood, was screened for those in attendance; the film is narrated by Jack Shaheen, who has appeared on Al-Jazeera English TV making charges of anti-Arab media bias. At a panel discussion moderated by Paul Waldman of Media Matters for America, participants argued that the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections had been “stolen” on behalf of George W. Bush.
While many of its conferences have featured speakers advocating a reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, Free Press has focused its efforts on advocating for “net neutrality,” progressive legislation that would allow the government greater regulatory control over the Internet.
[Emphasis added]
MORE HERE……….
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Are the Progressives/Marxists/Leftist Democrats utilizing NEWSPEAK to push their agenda hoping the “useful idiots” will not notice?
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Newspeak:
n.Deliberately ambiguous and contradictory language used to mislead and manipulate the public.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/newspeak#ixzz1QfpMhIsL
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“Useful idiots”
Modern usage
“Useful idiot” is often used as a pejorative term for those who are seen to unwittingly support a malignant cause through their ‘naive’ attempts to be a force for good.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/useful-idiot#ixzz1QfpyV6ks
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