Evidently, the newspeak definition of ‘misinformation’ is actually ‘opinions with which I don’t agree’. According to Media Matters for America that is, as The Right Sphere points out. They use an example given in Howard Kurtz’s article “Partisan Organizations Use Sound Bite Warfare” wherein Kurtz describes the “bat signal” given out by MMFA. This coordinated attack sprung from Governor Mike Huckabee making a remark on a radio show about Natalie Portman’s pregnancy and how he thought she was “boasting” about unwed motherhood:
Media Matters mission, and what presumably allows them the tax exempt 501(c)(3) status, is as follows:
Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
Do you see the problem yet? No? They’re allowed tax exempt status because they claim to be an educational organization dedicated to correcting conservative misinformation. Now go back and read what Huckabee said. Where’s the misinformation? Since when is a person’s personal opinion “misinformation”? Huckabee didn’t make any declaration of fact. He wasn’t promoting a falsehood. He was simply expressing his opinion on Natalie Portman’s pregnancy. You can disagree or agree with Huckabee, but he wasn’t lying about anything. It was just a controversial statement which, as Kurtz pointed out, no one noticed for three days.
Huh. I’m no tax policy expert nor do I even have vast experience as a community organizer from which to draw, but it seems to me as if their whole tax exempt deal is baloney. They aren’t ‘correcting misinformation.’ They are trying to smear people for having opinions that they think are icky.
Eric Boehlert should rename himself Senior Fellow of Malicious “Othering.”
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Cross-posted from That’s What She Said
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