Is Media Matters Uninformed About Pigford Coverage Or Just Lying?
[Guest Post by Lee Stranahan]
Eric Boehlert from Media Matters somehow manages to combine factual inaccuracy with a double fact twist in his latest attack on black farmers. Boehlert’s piece is a riff from the article I wrote this morning about the lack of a conservative equivalent of Media Matters or MoveOn.
My piece wasn’t a complaint about the general lack of coverage on Pigford but Boehlert chooses to twist it that way – so let’s address that accusation. Boehlert says….
I’m hard-pressed to think of another instance in which a media entity like Breitbart’s has invested so much time and energy promoting a single story (his sites have posted more than 100 Pigford-related items in the last year), yet only to see the story receive virtually no pick-up. Anywhere.
No pickup… Not Hot Air. Not Red State. Not Atlas Shrugs. Not Moonbattery. Not a 4000 word piece in National Review. Not Stossel’s segment on Fox News. Not a Fox News segment. (Last one came before Breitbart was on the story.)
So that’s the factual issue. It has gotten pickup, due to our efforts. Has Pigford gotten as much as I’d like? No and I’ve written about that – although the coverage DID pick up after I asked if the right-wing blogosphere was afraid of Pigford. Boehlert tries to make hay from the fact that O’Reilly, Beck, Hannity or Van Sustern have not run with it yet but as we pointed out countless times this is not a soundbite story. It’s not ready made-for-TV. I believe the documentary will have some impact on this. I should also point out that the stories been covered a number of times on radio, and that’s a better format for it.
It’s also important for the Pigford coverage in context. This is a story that is over a decade old. Anyone close to the story will tell you that it has received less coverage than it should have. I believe part of this lack of coverage is a systemic racism that has ignored this issue largely because of it’s a black issue. When I attended a press conference in Washington DC couple of months ago about Pigford and almost none of the press covering the event was white.
After 10 years of story, we came late to the game. So the press that we’ve gotten in the past five months I’ve been on the story is actually pretty significant in the overall scheme of things – and that’s before we’ve released any actual segments from the Pigford Blues documentary I’m working. (The first segment sneak peak is coming later this week.)
I’m proud that the coverage of the story — including at Andrew Breitbart’s sites — has emphasized over and over again tht there was discrimination the USDA and that the farmers who were discriminated against deserve justice.
Read the Media Matters article and you’ll find that this struggle by black farmers isn’t something that Eric Boehlert finds "compelling".
– Lee Stranahan
Are you surprised by that ?
I have some hopes that as more blacks become middle class and get over their flirtation with black liberation theology (a la Rev Wright), they will start shifting right politically.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about Calvin Coolidge. The 1924 election was the last one in which the issues that separated the Republicans and Democrats did not include the size of government. In 1928, Hoover was more progressive than Al Smith.
Mike K (8f3f19) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:08 pmThe Pigford story drives a wedge between the left and blacks, so the left desperately needs it to be seen as a right-wing lie and/or a story that isn’t worth covering.
And you should be proud of what you’ve done. I’m sure this wasn’t easy to research and report given the general resistance to this story, the time that has elapsed, and the fact it involves people who may have been reluctant to talk about what happened.
DRJ (fdd243) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:18 pmThe same black lefties who think a white guy playing a black man on the cleveland show is racist?
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:18 pmGo to the wikipedia article on the cleveland show.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:21 pm“No pickup… Not Hot Air. Not Red State. Not Atlas Shrugs. Not Moonbattery. Not a 4000 word piece in National Review. Not Stossel’s segment on Fox News. Not a Fox News segment. (Last one came before Breitbart was on the story.)”
That’s not “pickup” in the journalistic sense. What you just detailed is a right-wing echo chamber. There is a difference.
Larry Reilly (0e1b2d) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:24 pmThe skinny on Media Matters is always and at all times and in all things: Hyper-informed, lying through their collective teeth.
d(^_^)b
LibertyAtStake (b06e7a) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:24 pmhttp://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
It is a right wing echo chamber.
So says the person who bans people from lgf for disagreeing with them chuckles. 🙄
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 3:50 pmdefrauding the government is wrong even if it’s America’s
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:03 pmRIGHT-WING ECHO CHAMBER
/Petulant little Larry mode off
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:10 pm“Boehlert tries to make hay from the fact that O’Reilly, Beck, Hannity or Van Sustern have not run with it yet but as we pointed out countless times this is not a soundbite story.”
Lee – While ignoring the other coverage the story has received on Fox. It is a typical deceit of Boehlert’s.
daleyrocks (9b57b3) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:10 pmWhat a pathetic tool Charles Johnson A.K.A Larry O’reilly the master baiter is.
DohBiden (984d23) — 4/5/2011 @ 4:21 pmCome on, people, its Eric Boehlert, he was a shill for the left at Salon, ncluding Islamists like Sami El Erian,you expect something different.
narciso (b545d5) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:03 pmMedia Matters is a gang of hired liars headed by a confessed pathological liar for hire, paid for by a wannabe supervillain/convicted insider trader who also lies a lot. It’s kind of like that one ancient concept of the cosmos, only instead of turtles it’s f***ing moonbat liars all the way down.
MSE (a5b2c7) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:22 pmDear Mr Stranahan:
Surely you realize by now that the sources you mentioned — Hot Air, Red State, Atlas Shrugs, Moonbattery, National Review, and Fox News — are simply not considered serious media by anyone at Media Matters, so they’d never look in there in the first place. Apparently the only blog that Media Matters takes seriously is Oliver Willis, ’cause he works there.
The amused Dana (5a4fb2) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:40 pmLibertyAtStake wrote:
Realistically speaking, all Progressives are failed Progressives. Since being successful is anti-progressive, is selfish and libertarian and just plain mean, to be a progressive requires you to be a failure.
The regressive Dana (5a4fb2) — 4/5/2011 @ 5:43 pmBoehlert’s point was that even the right — such as Fox — hadn’t picked up on the story. So i listed a bunch of RW soruces…
I left out the left wing sources because MMfA is at the top of the list.
Stranahan (708cc3) — 4/5/2011 @ 6:35 pm“Boehlert’s point was that even the right — such as Fox — hadn’t picked up on the story. So i listed a bunch of RW soruces…”
Stranahan – No, Boehlert’s point was that specific shows on Fox had not covered it, the ones he listed. He wants you to think there has been no coverage on Fox by listing those specific shows, which is one of his tricks. There has been coverage on Fox and you can google it.
daleyrocks (9b57b3) — 4/5/2011 @ 7:39 pmUninformed or lying … hmm, that’s a dilemma …. not.
They are lying.
SPQR (26be8b) — 4/5/2011 @ 8:51 pmZombie over at Pajamas Media also had a very nice lengthy initial piece if I recall correctly.
daleyrocks (9b57b3) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:07 pmWhy can’t it be both?
Have Blue (854a6e) — 4/5/2011 @ 9:46 pmLee, Thank you for what you are doing. You make a very important and observant point. The right/ the conservatives are NOT organized like the left. YOU ARE ELECTED! I believe one of the problems, as you hinted is that the left appears “neutral” and “objective.” The brilliant orators and commentators on the right may be even more objective but certainly don’t appear that way. They are too impassioned with trying to preserve this country! Maybe some on the right/ conservatives/independents think that the commentators can carry the load and do the work and organize too.
Obviously they can’t. There are scattered groups and tea parties and efforts to organize, send e-mails, etc but nothing as organized as Moveon etc. Even the “Truth the Vote” is such an effort and very effective. But nothing like Moveon. This is an area waiting to be organized and started.
Thanks
Agent Rose (c27a78) — 4/6/2011 @ 4:57 pm