Raw Story vs Media Matters: The Grudge Match

Not really sure what else to think. Raw Story's writer John Byrne appears all breathless in this piece about Sen. Hillary Clinton helping out Media Matters for America. It's like he really believes he's got a major story on his hands.

But the story's just weird. First it's not entirely clear how Sen. Clinton helped MM. Did she make calls? Did she give them her donor lists? Did she treat David Brock to a double latte with cinnamon on top? I really couldn't tell from the story if she did or didn't or might have or what.

But does it even matter? That should be the first thing every reader asks about every news story. To be honest, Byrne fails to make it clear that it does matter. Reading the story, the first thing that came to my mind was that it would make sense for Hillary to support Brock's venture, especially given the biased media coverage she experienced as First Lady and continues to experience as a senator. Plus, it also makes sense that MM would spend a lot of time "defending" her, since she is certainly the Democratic politician who suffers the most attacks from wingers in the media. ("To be fair" the writer says, he includes that fact way, way, way down in the story. "To be fair" indeed! That little fact kind of calls into question whether the story is a story.)

I'm a big fan of both Raw Story and Media Matters. I link to Raw Story all the time, but I've got to say, this article just raises all sorts of strange little questions.