Media Matters Led Rush Boycott Scheme; Reported On Advertisers Dropping Limbaugh Without Noting They Themselves Were Contacting Advertisers Urging Them To Boycott

Educational purposes?

In the Village Voice interview, Carusone acknowledges he talked to advertisers all weekend, and that the Carbonite Saturday night announcement was a key turning point:

I started talking to advertisers on Thursday, and got a lot of feedback on Friday, and I knew a lot of movement was taking place. This was important to think about from a business perspective. The very clearest example was when Carbonite came out on Saturday night. That was significant because they had been one of his biggest advertisers, and they announced their drop after the so called apology. They said the apology didn’t matter. Rush had exposed himself as too volatile to do business with.

Carusone doesn’t state that he communicated with Carbonite, but it’s certainly implied in his interview.

While Carusone was contacting advertisers, Media Matters began running almost daily counts of how many advertisers had “dropped” Limbaugh. Media Matters did not disclose that advertisers were “dropping” Limbaugh as a result of the efforts of Media Matters’ own employee, Carusone.

Carusone did not try to hide his efforts in his media interviews, but Media Matters itself did not attribute the success of the campaign to its own efforts.

The weekend Twitter and Facebook campaign by Carusone paid dividends, as many of the initial advertisers cited online complaints as one of the reasons for dropping Limbaugh.

Media Matters also inflated the numbers, including advertisers who never advertised on Limbaugh but merely acknowledged a pre-existing policy. Yet those inflated numbers (50? 100? 140?) then were picked up by the media, to create the appearance of momentum.

One of the things I know as a partisan is that fellow partisans give you a little leeway when you're bullshitting -- for the cause. In 2008, I could pretend I thought McCain was going to win, and Republicans might perform okay in Congress.

No one came up to me later and said "You lied." People understood.

Media Matters is a dishonest, unethical organization. Does this ever provoke any response from the media giddily running its non-stories?

No. Because they're partisans, and they understand that sometimes The Team needs to bullshit a little.

Compare this with the true exposes posted by Breitbart. The ACORN sting? 100% true. Yet the media hated him for it, and claimed James O'Keefe had "deceptively edited" his videos, though to this day they remain conspicuously vague as to where the deceptive edits occurred.

I understand why announced partisans might give me, an announced partisan, some leeway on this stuff.

What's the media's excuse for giving leeway to Media Matters?

They have no excuse, but the reason is exactly the same.

posted by Ace at 12:28 PM

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