PrintDecember 3, 2010
WaPo extols Media Matters' exposes of Fox News bias
The Washington Post features a lengthy article by Paul Farhi on the front page its Style Section about Media Matters, a liberal press watchdog, and its relentless campaign against Fox News and its conservative commentators ("Outfoxed by Fox News? No Way. -- Liberal group Media Matters relentlessly, obsessively fights conservative network" Dec. 3).
To give readers the other side of the coin, will Farhi's editors now ask him for a follow-up article about media monitors and critics who perform a similar function in exposing the persistent anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian reporting bias in the news pages of the Washington Post ? To name a few of these watchdogs, they include Newsbusters, The Media Research Center, CAMERA, Honest Reporting, Eye on the Post, and American Thinker.
Except that in exposing the bias of Post correspondents in Jerusalem, they may not quite comprise a mirror image of Media Matters. For one thing, they're probably not as well funded since they can't rely on George Soros as their sugar daddy. And more important, unlike Media Matters, they do not target opinion columns, but instead expose slanted dispatches masquerading as objective, news reporting. Arguably, this is a more pernicious violation of fair journalistic standards.
In any case, will the Post, having published its warm accolade of Media Matters, now give equal prominence to media monitors who document the Washington Post's all too frequent departures from objective journalism? After all, if the shoe fits Fox News, why not also the Washington Post? Or, as the old saying goes, "Physician heal thyself."
In the meantime, don't hold your breath.
