“I understand what the purpose of the list was,” Todd told me. “A minority of folks created a perception problem for the list. And there’s clearly a campaign by some conservatives to use this.”

The problem, Todd added, is that J-List created a “perception that the right’s claim of a so-called liberal media conspiracy is true, which is not the case.”

“There are clearly some on the right who are interested in delegitimizing a lot of the mainstream media for either their own gain or for something else,” Todd continued. “And they’re using this as their gotcha moment.” (Full disclosure: I was once a J-List member.)