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David Brock, the conservative turned liberal advocate, has recently garnered a considerable amount of press coverage for his attacks on Fox News for, among many other things, allegedly taking over leadership of the Republican Party. What the news coverage has ignored is his use of tax-free funds for his organization, Media Matters for America (MMA), for these attacks — a form of government support for activities that clearly do not merit tax-exempt status and that as a result infringe on Fox News’ First Amendment rights.

MMA was originally established as an Internal Revenue Service Section 501(c)(3) organization, that is, an organization that can receive tax-deductible contributions to engage in educational activities. The more precise purpose was to counter alleged media bias and so to “identify occurrences of excessive bias in the American media, educate the public as to their existence, and to work with members of the media to reduce them.”
What MMA actually is doing, however, moves far afield from identifying possible bias to mounting a campaign to undermine a major media outlet and to promote the Democratic Party and progressive causes associated with it. Mr. Brock himself has described this new strategy as “a war on Fox,” an effort “to disrupt [Rupert Murdoch‘s] commercial interests” and look for ways to turn regulators against News Corp.’s media outlets.

MMA’s activities should disallow its tax-exempt status in two fundamental ways. First, IRS rulings make clear that attacks on individuals, statement of positions that are unsupported by facts and use of inflammatory language and other distortions will cost an organization its tax-free status. Second, in declaring “guerrilla warfare” on Fox as the “leader” and “mouthpiece” of the Republican Party and in developing a sophisticated Democratic-leaning media training boot camp, MMA has transformed itself into an aggressive advocate for Democratic and progressive causes and thus produced a second deviation from exempt educational activities.

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Knowing only what you posted above about Media Matters, here is my reply.  Fox News and the Republican Party are so tight a surgeon couldn't separate them.  Fox News  is the mouth piece and propaganda arm of the Republican Party.  Thats fact.  That also allows Murdoch a dangerous amount of power over the Republican Party.  An example of this is that he's made practice of putting potential presidential candidates (who are not currently in a governmental office) on payroll (Palin, Huckabee, etc).  News Corp has also made a practice of trying to silence credible, non-corporate media outlets like NPR and BBC to reduce the information available to the public as either Liberal (MSNBC, etc) or Conservative (Fox, Sky, other News Corp outlets) propaganda sources.  If Media Matters is simply stating this and trying to reduce the control of one media outlet on half of American politics, it sounds like he's within the goals you said the IRS approved.  Pointing out the practices and power of News Corp doesn't necessarily make one a "Democrat" lackey either, as the relationship between the Republican Party and News Corp is dangerous for the conservative movement as well.

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The thing about Fox News is that people dont seem to quite understand that part of it is hard news and part of it (mostly the evening bit) is talk and opinion.  I'd have to be dumb as a stump to not realize that shows like Beck and Hannity and O'Reilly are very conservative in tone and opinion.  But otoh, other parts are a bit more less hard core conservative. Greta van Sustrain is less conservative.

Further, Fox News does a pretty good job about getting liberal-minded people on to represent their viewpoint.  
Bob Beckel,
Susan Estridge,
Douglas Schoen,
Juan Williams,
Alan Colmes,
Ellis Henecin,
Lis Wiehl,
Kristin Powers...just to name a few.

I've heard the accusation that Fox News is an arm of the GOP.  But I've seen no one offer any proof.  As a matter of fact, as a regular viewer, I have seen Fox news criticize conservative, Republicans like Newt Gingrich and George Bush.

So(imo)  if Fox news is owned by the GOP, them Moveon.org and the Huffington Post (and perhaps NBC and MSNBC) are owned and are mouthpieces of the Democratic Party.

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
Fox News  is the mouth piece and propaganda arm of the Republican Party.  Thats fact.  That also allows Murdoch a dangerous amount of power over the Republican Party.  An example of this is that he's made practice of putting potential presidential candidates (who are not currently in a governmental office) on payroll (Palin, Huckabee, etc).

To be fair, once those people announce their candidacy, they MUST (by law) stop being contributors on the payroll.  A good example is the story a few months ago when Newt Gingrich announced his candidacy.  Just prior to the announcement, the story was that he would no longer be a paid contributor.

As for Palin and Huckabee...neither are candidates.  There is no candidate for the Presidency that is on Fox News' payroll.  

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Originally Posted by Bryant Platt:
Knowing only what you posted above about Media Matters, here is my reply.  Fox News and the Republican Party are so tight a surgeon couldn't separate them.  Fox News  is the mouth piece and propaganda arm of the Republican Party.  Thats fact.  That also allows Murdoch a dangerous amount of power over the Republican Party.  An example of this is that he's made practice of putting potential presidential candidates (who are not currently in a governmental office) on payroll (Palin, Huckabee, etc).  News Corp has also made a practice of trying to silence credible, non-corporate media outlets like NPR and BBC to reduce the information available to the public as either Liberal (MSNBC, etc) or Conservative (Fox, Sky, other News Corp outlets) propaganda sources.  If Media Matters is simply stating this and trying to reduce the control of one media outlet on half of American politics, it sounds like he's within the goals you said the IRS approved.  Pointing out the practices and power of News Corp doesn't necessarily make one a "Democrat" lackey either, as the relationship between the Republican Party and News Corp is dangerous for the conservative movement as well.

no offense, but this is bullocks. the FACT is that fox news is THE ONLY conservative leaning media outlet in broadcast, which is precisely why there have to be liberal organizations devoted to tearing it down. it's pretty damn pathetic when the liberal media can't handle there being one - ONE - alternative view. another thing that pisses me off is when you hear these liberal zombies talking about "fox lies" yet they've never even watched it, and can't articulate HOW fox lies. fact is, it doesn't. it simply covers the news from a conservative perspective. so **** what?! is that a crime? should we bring back the old liberal monopoly on the media? it's okay to put a liberal slant on everything, but not a conservative one?

and dude, you are just so far off, it's nearly infuriating. fox news does not control or lead the republican party. that very assertion is ignorant and shows a certain lack of understanding. i thought rush limbaugh was the leader of the republican party. i guess it depends on whoever the left is upset with at the time. here's the difference between you and me. while i recognize the double standard and liberal bias of the rest of the media, i have no false illusions that those media outlet CONTROL anything other than their content.

i just seriously don't even get this. from what you've said, it appears that you're looking at this from strictly a partisan point of view. fox is evil. why? because it doesn't go along with the rest of the narrative of the media. you know, how all the other networks are all saying the same thing. and again, you wonder why people are leaving the other networks, while fox's viewership increases. it's because murdock found a niche in the media, that happened to make up half of the country.

and if there's an organization that wants to go after fox (which is also funded by soros) that's fine, but they don't deserve tax exempt status for it. i mean, go to their website. every single story is devoted to fox news. that's objective? that's unbiased? no, but it's pretty sad, and pretty sad you can't seem to look beyond your personal views on this subject.

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Originally Posted by Dennis Young:
The thing about Fox News is that people dont seem to quite understand that part of it is hard news and part of it (mostly the evening bit) is talk and opinion.  I'd have to be dumb as a stump to not realize that shows like Beck and Hannity and O'Reilly are very conservative in tone and opinion.  But otoh, other parts are a bit more less hard core conservative. Greta van Sustrain is less conservative.

Further, Fox News does a pretty good job about getting liberal-minded people on to represent their viewpoint.  
Bob Beckel,
Susan Estridge,
Douglas Schoen,
Juan Williams,
Alan Colmes,
Ellis Henecin,
Lis Wiehl,
Kristin Powers...just to name a few.

I've heard the accusation that Fox News is an arm of the GOP.  But I've seen no one offer any proof.  As a matter of fact, as a regular viewer, I have seen Fox news criticize conservative, Republicans like Newt Gingrich and George Bush.

So(imo)  if Fox news is owned by the GOP, them Moveon.org and the Huffington Post (and perhaps NBC and MSNBC) are owned and are mouthpieces of the Democratic Party.

i wouldn't even class o'reilly as being very partisan. he tries to be very fair, particularly to the president, though he clearly is opinionated. and dennis,  the rest of the mainstream media is a moutpiece for liberalism and the democrap party. the only difference between cbs and msnbc is that cbs at least tries to pull off the illusion of being impartial.