Media Matters for America defines itself as a “progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.” It's an attempt to do for the left what the Media Research Center has done for the right.

 

Media Matters is a not-for-profit organization launched by David Brock, with the help of former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta, in May 2004. Brock is a conservative-turned-liberal journalist who wrote a damaging book about Anita Hill in the early '90s but has since publicly apologized and repudiated his earlier work. Media Matters’ money comes from a combination of grants and individual donors, some of whom are well-known liberal supporters.

 

The group’s Web site maintains an archive of rapid-response items on examples of conservative bias in news coverage. They can be searched or browsed by issue, outlet, show or individual. Media Matters’ favorite targets include conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly. The items vary in length but tend to be around a page or two and include many links to outside sources.

  

Longer research reports documenting conservative misinformation are sporadically posted on the home page. The organization is also active in organizing its readers and advocating progressive causes by “notify[ing] activists, journalists, pundits, and the general public about instances of misinformation.”