Media Matters for America Weekly Update

This week is about confronting lies. When faced with lies, be it a campaign or a film, how will media respond? And what's behind lies that a group tells in the media? All that and more.John Whitehouse
Twitter: @existentialfish
How The Media Covered Two Romney Falsehoods
Mitt Romney has campaigned heavily on two claims that fact-checkers have widely ruled false. First, that the President Obama gutted welfare requirements (in reality Obama granted states the flexibility Republican governors asked for). Second, that Obama took $716 billion out of Medicare (in reality, Obama cut spending that was targeted at hospitals and doctors, not beneficiaries). How did leading print and cable news cover the lies? Fox News and the Wall Street Journal were by far the worst, but the rest of the results might surprise you. http://mm4a.org/Pv3SSn
MEDIA MATTERS AT THE MOVIES
Discredited author and highbrow birther Dinesh D'Soouza has a new film that is all the rage on Fox News and Rupert Murdoch's Twitter feed.Simon Maloy saw the movie and afterward chatted with some members of the audience. He explains how the appeal of the film is not in its litany of factual inaccuracies, but in D'Souza taking advantage of a certain caricature of President Obama: http://mm4a.org/QnsvVq
UNDERCOVER AT THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR MARRIAGE'S STUDENT CONFERENCE
Over the past few years, the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") has been at the forefront pushing to restrict the rights of LGBT couples, both in the media and in the courts. Our Carlos Maza went undercover at their Ruth Institute student session to document four days of extreme anti-gay indoctrination and flat out lies about gay couples. Find out what they are saying when they are not doing the media rounds: http://mm4a.org/SMz1G9
REALITY UNDERMINES FOX-FUELED RNC CONVENTION THEME
Fox generated the theme of the Republican Convention based on deceptive editing of President Obama. The President was merely pointing out that government is necessary for a free market to function, citing roads as an example of things that businesses need but didn't build themselves. Since then, numerous examples from the convention undermine Fox's theme. The latest is a speaker who received millions in taxpayer-funded contracts. http://mm4a.org/UbMNjM