“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.”…
At the least, the organization has succeeded in proving nettlesome to Republicans, as well as the mainstream press at times. “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.”
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