While Matthews thought it was “fair” to identify Media Matters as progressive, he posed the question of whether that was enough for the government to remove their tax-exempt status. Panelist Ron Reagan agreed with the progressive label– “they are unabashedly progressive,” he admitted– but the reason they were still deserving of their legal status was that they were not out politicking. “You can be ideological and be tax-exempt,” he explained, “but you certainly can’t be political.”

The conversation then veered to the identity of Fox News, which Talking Points Memo‘s Josh Marshall argued “operates as a wing of the Republican Party, there’s no getting around that,” despite some at the network “trying to be good journalists.” On that note, Matthews played a clip from the now-infamous debate between Chris Wallace and Jon Stewart in which, Matthews argues, Wallace “is not saying they’re fair and balanced, he’s saying they’re a balancing act.” This set off Reagan, who argued, facetiously of course, that “everyone else in the media is part of a liberal conspiracy and poor lonely little Fox is out there doing the counterbalancing,” concluding, flatly, that “Fox makes things up.”

“Does Fox make things up?” thus became the new center of discussion, as did the people who follow Fox and other conservative commentators. Matthews suggested that “if you only watch Fox… I think you’d be in trouble,” and then went on to attack people who “walk around and say ‘I’m a dittohead’ after listening to Limbaugh.” “Why would anyone want to be a ‘ditto-anything?’” he asked, suggesting that people “put your own stew together” and “not be derivative.” Marshall stepped in to add that some of that is pervasive both on the left and right, but that there was an “authoritarian mentality” around some on the right.

The segment via MSNBC below:

In an interview today with Nieman Journalism Lab‘s Laura McGann, he discusses TPM’s future, including plans for a paid subscription service (but not paywall) to launch in 2011:

LKM: A while back, you teased the idea of a membership model, where paid TPM members might get extra content or access. Do you imagine that model coming to fruition in the next year or two?

JMM: We’re hoping to do that in the first half of 2011. But to be clear, we’re never moving to a paywall model.

He also told Yahoo’s Michael Calderone about the changes TPM has experienced over the last ten years, and how it has shifted from “blog” to website:

TC: Nick Denton recently said that he’s bored with blogs and that Gawker Media sites will shift to a new format next year. Clearly, TPM has grown a lot from a one-man operation and strictly reverse-chronological posts to a more comprehensive site with staffers in New York City and Washington. And yet, it’s still described in the “about” section as a blog. Do you consider TPM a blog or an online news outlet or are these just arbitrary distinctions?

JM: I don’t think of it as a blog. And we’ve stopped referring to it as one in most of our materials. To me, a blog is something done by one person or maybe a small group of people. And the key is that it’s something that person does: They’re following their own instincts and interests; they’re not taking assignments from an editor. But if you look at how TPM operates, it’s not remotely like that. We have a squad of reporters who report to editors. And those editors report to a managing editor. … I think of it as a news organization, a news website. That’s what it is.

Fortunately, some have. Last week, we ran a poll of some of the contenders for Top Site of 2009: Politico topped our editorial list. Find out why, and see the runner-up and the winner of the poll, after the jump:

Winner: Politico

Sure, Politico has a print edition — with a mighty circulation of 32,000 — but its heart beats online. Given its prominence in the online discourse, it’s hard to believe that it launched in January of 2007, but its strategy of frenetic, up-to-the-minute coverage allowed it to quickly dwarf much older, much larger publications in its online footprint.

2009 was a transformative year for Politico: it weathered the inevitable post-election traffic downturn admirably; its executive editor, Jim VandeHei, was named to the Pulitzer Prize Board; and it became profitable (ironically, thanks in large measure to its print edition, according to Michael Wolff). According to paidContent, Politico had revenues of more than $20 million and profits of more than $1 million in 2009 — especially impressive given the relative lack of campaign advertising compared to last year. Politico’s parent company, Allbritton Communications, has certainly taken note: it announced that it would be launching a new DC news site in spring of 2010.

Politico is not without its detractors — Glenn Greenwald has accused it of deliberately puffing up conservative controversies in the name of traffic. But for finding a viable way to cover a topic as potentially poisonous as politics in a more or less nonpartisan way while garnering mainstream acceptance and acclaim, Politico has changed the game in 2009.

Runner-Up: Talking Points Memo

On the flip side of the coin is Talking Points Memo, which makes no bones about its “politically left perspective,” but which has blossomed into a vibrant, ever-expanding empire with hard journalistic bonafides. Last year, TPM was the first blog to ever win a Polk Award, for editor Josh Marshall‘s series on the politically motivated midterm dismissal of Department of Justice attorneys under the Bush Administration.

This year, TPM has continued to blaze a trail: it has reversed the old journalism paradigm by rolling out ambitious plans for expansion, putting out a call to hire a publisher, and — maybe the best mark of crossover success — earned Josh Marshall an invite to an off-the-record luncheon with President Obama, alongside heavyweights from The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN.

Readers’ Choice: Ars Technica

Thanks in large measure to strong Twitter support, Ars Technica dominated our reader poll with 30% of the votes, giving it a solid plurality (compare that to Politico’s 17% and TPM’s 8%). All of which underscores two of Ars’ greatest assets: love and loyalty.

The site has hit its speed bumps in ’09: in April, it reportedly laid off seven of its seventeen editorial staffers, a move which some criticized on management issues following Condé Nast’s acquisition of the site in late 2008. But when it comes to depth, and expertise, Ars still occupies a dominant space in the tech pantheon, and as 2010 beckons, it brings a heft and authority to bear that leaves most blogs in the dust.

There were many significant and ongoing narratives in the mediascape this year. The continued explosion of online media dovetailed with the continued collapse of print — Condé Nast ushered in the McKinsey executors while Gawker Media posted huge profits. Meanwhile, Newsweek tried to reinvent itself, the New York Times suffered another round of layoffs and a host of shuttered papers and magazines stopped cold. Online we saw huge acquisitions and gains, but not without growing pains: the net had its fair share of job cuts, too, as advertising slumped across the board. But as media critic David Carr put it, there’s an underlying wave of youth and optimism.

This year we also saw opinion media dominate traditional journalism in ways that no one would ever have expected. Fox News pulled further ahead of the competition with the continued success of Bill O’Reilly and a breakout year from Glenn Beck, not to mention the network’s similar domination of straight news blocks. The Huffington Post kept momentum from the kickstart of the 2008 election, while the right feasted on a first year president.

Pop culture had its moments, too — not all of them pretty, in fact, most pretty ugly — from Balloon Boy and Kanye “Jackass” West to Rihanna and the death of Michael Jackson. As a result, gossip blogs had another stellar year and TMZ led the pack. Then came MTV’s latest gem.

It often seemed like a rough year — maybe a fitting end to a tough decade — but that doesn’t mean there weren’t bright spots. We saw innovation, redemption and reconciliation, and the tactful and savvy rose to the top of the media heap. Those are the names that make up The Mediaite 50.

RELATED: Poll: Who Is The Top Online Editor Of 2009?

(Note – the rankings of these individuals are purely opposed to the rankings in the Mediaite Power Grid)

>>>NEXT: The first 5 in the Mediaite 50 include a crew from Seaside Heights and a young man you might just Digg…

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-mediaite-50-innovators-and-influencers-who-shook-up-2009/feed/ 11 http://www.mediaite.com/online/guess-who-came-to-lunch-with-the-president/ http://www.mediaite.com/online/guess-who-came-to-lunch-with-the-president/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:41:09 +0000 Glynnis MacNicol http://www.mediaite.com/?p=43454 President Obama continues to make the off-the-record rounds with prominent member of the press. A little over two weeks ago he met with MSNBC anchors Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann among others. Today he met with a cross-section of journos including someone from Fox News, sort of.]]> President Obama continues to make the off-the-record rounds with prominent member of the press. A little over two weeks ago he met with MSNBC anchors Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann among others.

Friday’s list, courtesy of Politico’s Michael Calderone, included: CNN’s David Gergen, Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, Newsweek’s Jon Meacham and Howard Fineman, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia Tucker, POLITICO’s Mike Allen, NPR/ Fox’s Mara Liasson, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall and a trio from the New York Times: David Brooks, Andy Rosenthal, and Gail Collins.

Missing in this list, as in lists past, is any prominent member of Fox News. Though it should be noted that Mara Liasson, the national political correspondent for NPR is also a regular contributor to Fox News (Juan Williams also enjoys a similar arrangement with the two news organizations). So is this a halfway step towards some sort of armistice between the White House and Fox? If we suddenly see Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck pulling up to the Rose Garden in their best attire, we’ll know a true detente has been reached.

TPM joins the ranks of Ebony and Salon, the web magazine, as the latest news outlets to enter the pool. The Huffington Post is still vying for a spot in the group, which affords its members privileged access to sources and the responsibility of filing pool reports that are disseminated to other journalists and account for much of the actual information gathering behind all the coverage of the president.

TPM became the first blog to win a major journalism award, The Polk Award, for uncovering the US Attorney firing scandal during the Bush years. This year TPM enjoyed an influx of capital to the tune of $500,000-plus and opened a Washington bureau.

But some conservatives are upset that a progressive blog like TPM would get increased access, especially after the recent battle between Fox News and the White House. From Politico:

“If liberals are upset that Fox News is being treated as a legitimate news organization instead of a GOP talking-points channel, then it’s mystifying that the [White House Correspondents' Association] is broadening ‘news’ media to encompass blogs and websites that raged against the Bush White House,” said Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group.

“Would anyone seriously suggest that TPM, the Huffington Post and Salon are more objective than Fox News?” Graham asked.

It’s a fair point. But objectivity aside, TPM promises to bring cutting-edge web savvy and investigative muscle to the pool. That’s something.

Related: Mediaite Presents: 25 Need-To-Know Bloggers You May Not Know Already [Mediaite]

As far as TPM posts go, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the story, which began “Multiple sources tell TPMDC that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is very close to rounding up 60 members in support of a public option with an opt out clause …”

But Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab noticed that TPM was taking an unusual amount of criticism for the story’s use of anonymous sources. Aside from the headline and the lede, the post later attributes a quotation to “one source close to negotiations.”

Most of the commenters who took exception with this particular story complained that anonymously sourced stories rarely prove to be accurate. Others waxed cynical about the state of journalism and reporting. A few examples:

Experience has taught me to doubt anything that comes out of the mouths of these anonymous staffers because the overwhelming percentage of the time, what they say turns out to be complete bullshit.

That said, it looks to me that we have conflicting reports (again), hanging on anonymous sources (again), without much insight into the wider context of the negotiations and fundamentally at odds with other things that are in the president’s self interest. The pattern is familiar, as is the swift “clarifications” that come from the WH repudiating the reporting. Fortunately today, there are so many items in motion that the next rumor being floated will occupy our attention.

Okay… How many of these anonymously sourced stories are we going have to endure? First, the PO is off the table. Then it’s on. Then there are the votes for it. Then there aren’t.

It’s madness! We keep getting anonymous stories like this, only to have them knocked down by principals who are actually directly involved in pulling these bills together.

I not yet seen one of these “sources say” stories that is actually correct.

There seems to be too many moving parts right now — so many that the people who are directly involved are still trying to gauge exactly where the votes are.

And the end of the day, we have no idea what’s really going on, and the tales spread by anonymous sources are not going to give us any further clue. (Hey – “journalists”! Anonymous sources lie all the time!)

Media critic Jay Rosen, however, hit the nail on the head, writing “Why do we need you to be Politico?” And Politico, which has brought the rigor and integrity of hard-nosed political reporting from print to the web, might be the perfect counter-example. TPM, for its part, has brought the utility of Web reporting to politics. And to great success.

As frustrating as it may be to read this brand of speculative reporting on such a nuanced and sensitive issue as Executive and Legislative back-and-forth over health care reform, there’s something to be said for being quick to publish and seeing what sticks. This is actually an example of the TPM reporting model working at its best: wonky readers calling foul on anonymously reported stories that don’t seem to hold water.

Related: 25 Need-To-Know Bloggers You May Not Know Already — Josh Marshall