12/02/2014

Media Matters' systematic removal of my responses from their website, also most of my responses to their attacks in one place

I was going to post this in June this year when I thought that the Washington Post's Eric Wemple was going to run a story on what Media Matters' behavior, but I put it off as I waited for him to run something.  In any case, here is the information that I was going to post:

ORIGINAL POST:

Media Matters' practices what I call hit-and-run journalism, where they make an attack and ignore any response that is provided.  I have tried over about seven years to put up comments on their website responding to these claims (often quotes out of context or deliberately misread data).  It appears to me that Media Matters wants to leave their readers with the impression that the other side never provides a response to their claims.  

Media Matters has removed all sorts of comments that I have placed on their website (indeed, I never kept count, but it is a lot), even ones that involve me explaining to people why my eyebrows are deformed because of surgery that I had as a kid.  Here is one case recently where they made the mistake of removing my comments, but not the comments that responded to my original post.




After Erik Wemple from the Washington Post contacted them about their removal of my comments, some recent ones reappeared.  In this screen shot you can see Media Matters putting back the links to my response to one of their attacks (in this case see the second comment from the bottom).




Media Matters apparently told Wemple that my comments were removed because their readers had tagged them as offensive.  But Media Matters only very recently changed their system for putting up comments.  Prior to that they would have to approve someone twelve times before their comments would automatically be posted on their website.  The problem is that their screeners would virtually never let any of my comments through (surely not enough that I ever got close to the magic number of twelve).  This problem over many years had absolutely nothing to do with their readers supposed complaints.  In addition, Media Matters confirmed to Wemple that I had previously complained to them multiple times over the last seven years about them refusing to publish my comments.


More information will be provided soon.  But you can see that I have long complained about Media Matters sanitizing its comment section.  Indeed, I have complained in person several times to people from David Brock on down from at least 2008.  I have also made notes about this attempt to shield their readers from my responses on my website (see links below) as well as on Twitter.  A couple of my many responses to Media Matters posts on Twitter can be seen here.  One from May 2012 (note that I only joined Twitter in March 2012):





Here is one from mid-2013.


Here are numerous other Tweets from 2013 and the beginning of 2014.



I also have copies of emails that I sent them.  Other exchanges about there unwillingness to post my comments were made in person and on the telephone.

When Media Matters has attacked me, I would write up a response and post a link to the comment on their website.  Here are 23 times that I wrote up and posted, though I haven't gone through everything that I have written and I am sure that there were more responses.  Below I first show Media Matters' title and then a link to their claims and then my response.






-- The NRA Encourages Its Members To Lie To Their Families At Thanksgiving







My response and a Washington Post Fact Checker article available here.



-- "Mother Jones and Media Matters bungle study on Mass Public Shootings" 







Other responses to Media Matters by me:
Media Matters, 'Stand Your Ground' and me 
David Brock, Media Matters and gun control hypocrisy
MEDIA MATTERS' POTENTIALLY LETHAL DISTORTIONS ON GUNS

"Media Matter's dishonest attacks on Fox News" -- discussion here.



Media Matters has also done everything from doctoring pictures of me (see here) to .

Here is a response that I didn't post on Media Matters website.


-- Fox's Bolling Inadvertently Advocates For Gun-Free Zones

Here is a response that I tried posting about seven weeks after I sent Erik Wemple the original story.




Finally, let me point to a column that Ann Coulter has on this general topic, where she takes on the claims that keep on calling me "Discredited." See Ann's column available here.

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8 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I was banned from their site too. They are liberal shills who try to censor anyone who disagrees with them. They don't want to dialog they only want to demagogue. They should be left to their own little private circle jerk parties and not paid any attention to.

6/04/2014 11:30 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Thanks for the post professor, you have shown me strong evidence why media matters in untrustworthy. It simply suppresses speech it disagrees with.

6/19/2014 5:43 AM  
Blogger Eric Vinton said...

Mr. Lott, I love your research. Please keep on fighting!

6/19/2014 8:31 AM  
Blogger Eric Vinton said...

Keep on fighting!

6/19/2014 8:32 AM  
Blogger Glenn Jericho said...

My comments have been removed as well. Although I admittedly do not possess your (what I like to call) "infuriatingly sober" way of explaining the facts, I kept the banter to a minimum and still got removed.

6/19/2014 10:05 PM  
Blogger jm said...

Don't waste your time on Media Matters. Keep writing the books and appearing on TV.

7/11/2014 4:15 PM  
Blogger Clawmute said...

Keep up the good fight, John. You're one tough guy.

FWIW . . . I've had comments appear, last for a day, and then be deleted from NPR's site. My inquiries to them about why my comments were "disappeared" resulted in them saying their policy was to not provide reasons.

11/01/2014 12:29 PM  
Blogger August said...

I see they have changed their commenting system to Disqus. Disqus appears to delete certain comments, especially ones relating to foreign policy. I have had comments about Russia and Israel be blocked- and the blog owners don't appear to be doing the blocking.
It would be a pain for Media Matters to be blocking my comments, especially if they were attacking me, but Disqus is prominent on many sites, and may be actively distorting conversations to effect U.S. policy.

12/03/2014 9:51 AM  

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