MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA
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Mission Statement
Media Matters for America is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) research and communications operation located in Washington, DC. Since launching more than ten years ago, Media Matters has become the nation’s premier media watchdog and an integral part of the progressive communication infrastructure. Media Matters influences the media debate by implementing the following strategies: • Identify, document, and correct misinformation (i.e., news or commentary that is inaccurate and forwards the agenda of the extreme right-wing) wherever it exists in the media. • Organize and execute coordinated campaigns to catapult our research and original reporting to national attention and benefit the progressive communication infrastructure. By reaching out to the press, new media, Capitol Hill, progressive partner organizations, and more, we are able to create diverse coalitions at both the grassroots and “grasstops” levels. • Turn research into results by engaging our growing online community
About This Cause
Need for Action In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, almost anyone can drive a storyline. While there are benefits to a diverse public forum, a never-ending barrage of information from an unlimited number of sources makes separating fact from fiction more difficult – for journalists and the American public. Under pressure to cover the latest “buzz” and meet the demands of the 24-hour news cycle, reporters do not scrutinize the credibility of sources or the veracity of claims, and media outlets publish “news” items that have not been thoroughly fact checked. In this unfiltered environment, lies spread and gain traction. Threats punctuate every point in the news cycle. Fabricated stories take off in social media and leapfrog traditional media entirely. Fake news outlets manufacture controversies that get hyped and take on a life of their own. To bolster their ratings, mainstream news outlets feature “infotainment” segments that sensationalize unsubstantiated rumors and often blur the line between hard news and myth. Dramatic changes in the media enable threats, but also provide a means by which to guard against them. As the conservative echo-chamber -- from the depths of the right-wing fringe to the elite pages of the Wall Street Journal -- aggressively seeks to exploit this new landscape, we will leverage the power of new media to extinguish misinformation and disseminate the truth more quickly and effectively than ever. Media Matters’ Plan From rapid-response fact checks, to special deep-dive reports, to coalition building and outreach, Media Matters is the media combat nerve center that can push back from all angles, go on offense the moment damaging smears hit the conservative echo chamber, and anticipate and rebut local attacks before they are fully formed. Here’s a little of what we built in the last year, by the numbers: Over 600 mentions of our research in top 25 print, online, and television news outlets (since January 2014); Hundreds of national and state-based allied groups who turned our daily research into more than 300 public statements, campaigns, and reports; An ever-increasing volume of media-related data roughly equivalent to 32 times the amount of digital storage required to archive all the printed material within the Library of Congress; and An online outreach team ranked by social media experts in the top 10 non-profits that have excelled in social media. More than anything, our work confirms the continued demand for our core activities. But it also demonstrates the need to address new threats. Specifically, your funding will sustain and support: National Media Monitoring: For over 100 hours a week and in real time, Media Matters researchers monitor and analyze print, broadcast, cable, radio, and web-based media outlets. While broadening our monitoring universe we must sustain our work of scrutinizing traditional national media outlets – they aren’t going anywhere overnight. We will debunk lies, fact-check claims, deflate conservative frames, hold the media accountable for pandering to the right-wing, call out extremism and hate speech, and more. We will also continue production of our popular counting studies that quantify media failures on a particular topic over a period of time. Issue Expert Teams: To proactively combat misinformation on topics that matter most, Media Matters supplements our core monitoring work with research teams focused on specific topics (including the economy, climate change, immigration, LGBT equality, the courts, and gun violence prevention). Each team faces critical policy fights in the coming months and will apply pressure on the media to cover these fights fairly and accurately. State-Based Work: The problems of the national media, such as shrinking budgets and news rooms, are more pronounced at the state and local level. With few resources to ensure accurate reporting, these news sources are especially susceptible to misinformation and manipulation. That is why our state-based team, working hand-in-hand with our issue teams, zeroes in on the misinformation threatening to distort the debate in key localities. Deep-dive Research: Similar to the type of work that used to be the domain of traditional newsrooms, our enterprising research shines a light on sources of misinformation and extremism. Special investigative reports, exclusive interviews, and whistle-blowing pieces expose unethical media figures and influential monopolies that threaten to poison regional coverage. Multimedia: Our multimedia team creates original content in-house including a popular weekly Sirius XM radio show, mini-documentaries, podcasts, and short narrative-building videos. This capacity – unique to Media Matters – enables us to attract greater audiences while advancing key narratives. Communications: Building on our credibility as the progressive movement’s go-to media research and fact-checking nerve center, our communications team drives our research into the media’s coverage in print, on the web, and onto the airwaves. Outreach: Using our proven model of creating mini-campaigns around our research, our outreach team leverages partnerships, coordinates efforts, and strategically engages allies to maximize the impact of their work and ours. Your funding will also support these new strategic initiatives: Expanded Monitoring Targets: As digital media and niche outlets become more influential, we will deploy newly developed software to track the source and path, and ultimately predict the life cycle of, conservative smears. We will also begin to monitor Spanish-language media -- widely considered the fastest emerging media space. Diversified Online Engagement: We will continue to expand our social media presence and, utilizing the new action site we launched in 2012, provide this growing online audience with diverse calls to action. Expanding and diversifying our audience will help us drive traffic, increase the relevance and power of our voice, and prepare to cut across an increasingly fractured landscape. New Tools To Combat Misinformation: In an increasingly complicated media landscape, our new tools make pushing back on misinformation more straightforward than ever. We have begun to produce e-books, which allow our audience to dig deeper into our work in a digestible format. And Mythopedia, a comprehensive searchable online database of conservative lies and smears, will launch this year.