Where is Media Matters?

MJ Rosenberg quotes George Orwell on the mentality of nationalism:

“All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. 
A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side … The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them” — George Orwell

Rosenberg, who is a must-read on this issue, asserts that this quote “tells us everything we need to know about liberals and Gaza,” and though he should have qualified the term liberals (not all liberals turn a blind eye to this insanity) he is right. Just look at Media Matters, a website that until recently critically analyzed the media’s coverage of daily events. Not anymore. A check of their website reveals nothing about media coverage of the current invasion of Gaza.  Below are screenshots of searches for the terms Gaza, Israel, Hamas, and IDF. I really hope that I am just missing something, because I used to enjoy their work a great deal. Media Matters should be the first of all groups to know that its credibility rests on pursuing the facts, regardless of what conclusions they might lead to, and it is simply not credible to imply that this violence has been reported on fairly by the American media. I’d like to believe that perhaps, considering the level of bias on this issue, they were simply overwhelmed. Otherwise they should be more clear about when the media matters to them, and when it does not.

Taken on 1.6.2009

More deafening silence after the jump…