Talk:Media Matters for America

RfC: Drop Fox campaign

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

In this RfC, six editors supported "Drop Fox" (including XavierItzm, whose proposed text suggests using this as the primary term, compared to four editors support "War on Fox". However, consensus is not determined by voting but by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy.

In support of "Drop Fox" editors argued that "War on Fox" had negative connotations and as such was a violation of WP:NPOV. In response, editors supporting "War on Fox" argued that it was the most commonly used term for this; I interpreted this as an implicit argument towards WP:DUE and WP:BALASP.

Further complicating this is the fact that the original wording was added by a politics orientated sock-farm, and that there is an element of citogenesis here; sources are calling this a "War on Fox" because we are calling it a "War on Fox". However, these concerns are lessened because reliable sources don't merely use the phrase "War on Fox"; they reference it as a war on Fox.

This comes comes down to whether NPOV requires that we use the language that sources use, and it does not; it requires us to include the information that sources include, but we are free - and typically encouraged - to use our own language, particularly if the words used by the sources are charged.

As such, I find a rough consensus to call the campaign "Drop Fox", but to mention prominently in the section that it is commonly described as a "war on Fox". BilledMammal (talk) 22:22, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

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Should the lead section, and section title, be called the "Drop Fox campaign" (article version 1), or "War on Fox" (article version 2). (see the differences in the lead section wording, and in the name of the section "War on Fox") -- GreenC 20:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Background: In 2011-2013 Media Matters conducted a cancel culture campaign to encourage advertisers to leave ("drop") Fox News by issuing reports that discredited Fox's claims to be "fair and balanced". They called this campaign the "Drop Fox campaign". During a March 2011 interview, the CEO of MMFA said they were "at war with Fox News". In December 2013, MMfA Executive VP Angelo Carusone said "The war on Fox is over. And it's not just that it's over, but it was very successful. To a large extent, we won," claiming to have "effectively discredited the network's desire to be seen as 'fair and balanced.'" MMFA further said changing Fox, not shutting it down, was its goal.

Survey

• Article version 1 - Drop Fox - the phrase "War on Fox" is emotionally charged, sounds sinister and provides little information to the reader. What does that mean, war? Cancel culture campaigns like this are common, by both the left and right, emphasizing the phrase "war on fox" unfairly portrays the campaign, and MMFA, as being engaged in something larger and more sinister than it was. It's OK to discuss the phrase "War on Fox" in the body of the article, but it should not be used in the lead section or as a section title, it lacks the proper context. Tell the reader what the campaign was actually called, Drop Fox, what it's goals were, and what they achieved. Everything else is newsy PR and propaganda with little weight for a long-term encyclopedia article.

Wikipedia is not a newspaper that repeats every emotionally charged thing someone says and cuts out the context (not even good journalists do that). Newspapers say and repeat a lot of things but they are not encyclopedias we don't follow their lead. Wikipedia is neutral and needs to take care it doesn't unfairly portray the organization with quotes taken out of context. -- GreenC 20:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

• Article version 1 - Drop Fox (Summoned by bot) I have read the discussion above and am convinced that "War on Fox" is not overwhelmingly supported by RSs (recent sources may be affected by WP:REFLOOP) and is too journalistic and not encyclopaedic: it falls under MOS:EUPHEMISM. "Drop Fox campaing" is preferable per WP:LEAD as it is more neutral, objective and informative: when I read "war on Fox" I might ask "what is this about?" and then find out that it's about a campaign against Fox News, when I read "Drop Fox campaign" I immediately know what it's about. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:16, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
• Version 2 - War on Fox - Mostly because there are almost no sources to support the other version. Even the version linked has one source that mentions it, Politico, and that article uses war on Fox twice as much. What is also not mentioned in the RFC is the original research section description added, completely source free and reworded in a way to whitewash the section. There are far far more sources that reference war on Fox than a drop Fox campaign. We can certainly mention drop Fox since that is what they use in promotional material, but it is not what RS refer to it as, that would be war on Fox. PackMecEng (talk) 23:47, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

  Responded below in discussion section, second bullet point, says "More sources use War on Fox than Drop Fox.." -- GreenC 01:01, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Article version 1 - Drop Fox - Since the name of the Cancel Culture campaign was literally the "Drop Fox campaign," that is what the title should reflect. When you review WP:POVNAMING it is clear that the name that should be used is the one well-recognized by readers. Using "War on Fox" as a quote from the CEO of MMFA in the body of the article would be a good way to further support the campaign's name. Pickalittletalkalittle (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

• Article version 1 - Drop Fox. "War on Fox" is a plainly non-neutral framing and would require overwhelming coverage to support in the article voice, not just a few usages. "Drop Fox" is comparatively neutral. Likewise, "criticism of conservative media" is odd passive-voice phrasing and carries an implication that they only publish opinion, which the section doesn't support - many of the things there are not treated by secondary sources as "criticism", they are treated by secondary sources as factual reporting or analysis. --Aquillion (talk) 00:48, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  That is largely inaccurate. It is overwhelming used by RS because its quoted by the founder. Whereas drop is only used by promotional material put out by the organization. Also they are generally not treaded as a strong source by the media but always prefaced by the clear bias. PackMecEng (talk) 03:04, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  Per the information provided by GreenC under Discussion, it is at least as likely that phrase was repeatedly used because it had been added to this Wikipedia page by individuals with a proven political agenda - to frame the campaign as simply a targeted attack on Fox rather than a standard campaign to get the advertisers to pull their commercials from that network - hence why so many outlets weren't just using the quote but the whole line directly from the Wikipedia article. Further, I would challenge the phrase "overwhelming[ly] used." The phrase was used often by outlets in support of Fox, but a basic search for "drop fox" "media matters" immediately returns articles from Forbes, USA Today, Newsweek, CBS News, HuffPo and the Washington Post that refer to the campaign by its actual name, not by that phrase. The claim that the phrase "Drop Fox" only appears in promotional materials put out by MM is wildly inaccurate.

  Regardless of how many articles called it "Obamacare," the Affordable Care Act Wikipedia page is titled that, because that is the name of the legislation which is the subject of that page. Any implication in this article, that this campaign was widely referred to as the "war on Fox" is factually wrong.

  Further, your are misrepresenting the Politico article you linked to above - it's an article about Fox clapping back after 7 years of Media Matters' "daily scrutiny," and specifically about David Brock's recent use of the phrase "war on Fox" being the reason Fox's push-back had increased. The word "war" appears in that article 2 more times, and each is a direct quote from a Fox News employee or contributor, referring to Brock's quote. The only time the article references the campaign specifically, is the article's one usage of "Drop Fox" - making your "twice as much" claim misleading, at best. That article does not support your claim, it reinforces that "war on Fox" was just a quote that came up in discussion of this topic, but the press did not largely refer to the campaign by that term.

  You should also realize that, while Media Matters is acknowledged to have a left-biased, they are are still considered a highly factual source. And as long as they are properly attributed, Wikipedia consensus has repeatedly treated Media Matters as a reliable source and Fox News as an unreliable source. CleverTitania (talk) 13:20, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

  The it's only repeated because of this page is unlikely and honestly irrelevant. We document what RS said and if you think they got the info from here so what, they have their own fact checking and oversight. Just because it agrees with what this article says is all the more reason to keep our current text.

  The Affordable Care Act example is about the article title not how it is described in the article, which I will note Obamacare is listed in the first sentence. So again irrelevant to here.

  Nope, didn't misrepresent anything, what I said was accurate. I don't think you fully understand what I was saying or the point I was making that even the source provided uses war on Fox more than what MMFA call it themselve per WP:PRSOURCE. Which BTW are pretty much the majority of the sources calling it Drop Fox, their own press releases and articles.

  I could not care less what Wikipedia thinks of them as a source. Though I will note that we are cautious about it because it is marginally reliable and a a partisan advocacy group per WP:MEDIAMATTERS and while Fox is obviously worse that has nothing to do with here and makes me just discount your points as trying to right great wrongs. PackMecEng (talk) 17:33, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) Perhaps I may not be missing an American-specific nuance here, but "War on Fox" does not seem to be inherently POV or "sinister". "War" is used very often in a positive contest as well (combating diseases, for example) and as such I think as the WP:COMMONNAME it ought to be used as the sub-header. As such, support Article version 2 - War on Fox. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 05:03, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  COMMONAME is for article titles, not article content. This is an article about politics, literal war is often called politics by another name. It's not a mutual effort to achieve something like in the war against cancer. If all you knew was "at war with fox", what information would you take from that? What does that mean in the context of a politics-related article? It's not informative, and actually dis-informative without proper context. -- GreenC 05:30, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  The guideline is intended for article titles, but it is also a reasonable way to title sections, as many of the considerations are similar. If you want to ask for my opinion on what "War with Fox" means, I would assume that the corporation is trying to undermine Fox. That does seem to be the general attempt here, and I dont agree with your assessment of this as disinformation. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 10:19, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

  You are missing much of the context of US politics and US partisan-media coverage that are relevant to these events. It's not remotely a common name in use for this campaign - by the public or the media - and claims to that effect are demonstrably wrong. The "War on Fox" phrase was one person's quote, repeatedly used by the 'opposition' to discredit the "Drop Fox" campaign and Media Matters' ongoing scrutiny of Fox. That is the only real significance the phrase has, in this context. Arguably, there are good encyclopedic reasons to mention in this article, that MM's founder said that their efforts "amounted to a 'war on Fox'." particularly when documenting the right-wing media's outrage over the quote. But any attempt to paint it as an interchangeable term for the "Drop Fox" campaign, by either the press or the public, is entirely NPOV. CleverTitania (talk) 13:41, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

  It might not be the name that the people running or participating in the campaing favoured, but a rough google search [1] vs [2] indicates that the most common way the campaign was talked about was as a "war" on the fox news network. Again, its not inherently a POV name, so the fact that it generated negative press under that name shouldnt discount it IMO. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 19:50, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

• Drop fox as that was the name of the campaign, but including that some also called it 'War on fox' shoild be mentioned. (Here via WP:VPR). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:49, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
• Version 2 - War on Fox - per WP:WEIGHT and WP:DUE, this terminology is not a minority viewpoint, and we follow what reliable sources (newspapers, magazines, books) are reporting, not our emotions or what sounds sinister (whatever the hell that means). Business Insider, New York Magazine, The Baltimore Sun, Slate, The Atlantic, US News & World Report, ProQuest 859246606, Gale A255089223, and "War on Fox" has also received sustained coverage as well - December 7, 2018 book, in March 2019 from The Wrap - January 21, 2020 book, in a 2022 book chapter doi:10.4324/9781003205739-13, and just last month from The Washington Post - November 21, 2023. And David Brock explicitly stated The new strategy, he said, is a “war on Fox.”, and he reiterated that position in 2015. This is not a NPOV issue like the article is currently tagged with. We can always note in the article it was aka "Drop Fox". Isaidnoway (talk) 17:08, 10 December 2023 (UTC)
• Either is fine, just mention the other parenthetically. E.g. ...a 2011-2013 campaign called "Drop Fox" (commonly referred to as the "War of Fox" campaign) which... or vice versa. Yilloslime (talk) 01:53, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
• Version 2 War on Fox with Fox drop in parentheticals - I do have to say it seems that even though the self titled campaign "Drop Fox" has coverage due to it being pushed by it's creators we should go with what non primary quotes and coverage refer to it as, "War on Fox" which is not the minority viewpoint. MaximusEditor (talk) 17:29, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
• 'Both should be mentioned’, per ...a 2011-2013 campaign called "Drop Fox" (commonly referred to as the "War of Fox" campaign) which….XavierItzm (talk) 16:47, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• As further background, the sentence containing "War on Fox" was originally added to the lead here and here by User:Safehaven86 in September 10, 2015. Safehaven86, blocked since December 2016, was a member of this politics-oriented sock farm. The entire sentence was then copied, word for word, by multiple media agencies over the years. (Evidence posted in the section right above the RfC.) The phrase in the article's lead section has had, and continues to have, outsized influence shaping public perception about the organization. As recently as a few weeks ago, the article looked like this, with a "War on Fox" still ongoing, despite the Drop Fox campaign ending in 2013! I recently came to this article to try and address some of these problems, but change has been resisted by a long-time watcher/editor of this page, thus the RfC. -- GreenC 21:31, 8 December 2023 (UTC)
• More sources use War on Fox than Drop Fox. Which is why we cover the phrase in the article, an entire paragraph. Coverage is not missing. However we are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. Usage of the phrase in the lead section (and section title) is very problematic for reasons already stated. A sinister sounding quote devoid of information and taken out of context, placed in the lead section, is very misleading, it is not neutral. -- GreenC 00:59, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
• It's been 30 days, a close request was made: Wikipedia:Closure_requests#Requests_for_comment. -- GreenC 21:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Tax-exempt status challenge

I can't find any resolution to this challenge, which means it probably was unsuccessful and arguably not notable (or at least not deserving of its own subsection on this page). Any thoughts?

Tax-exempt status challenge

In 2011, C. Boyden Gray, former White House counsel for George H. W. Bush and Fox consultant, sent a letter to the IRS alleging that MMfA's activities were unlawful for a non-profit organization and asking the IRS to revoke MMfA's tax-exempt status. Prior to Gray's IRS petition, Politico reported that Fox News had run "more than 30 segments calling for the nonprofit group to be stripped of its tax-exempt status." In another report, Politico said Fox News and Fox Business campaigns held, "The non-profit status as an educator is violated by partisan attacks. That sentiment was first laid out by a piece written by Gray for The Washington Times in June." In an interview with Fox News, Gray said "It's not unlawful. It's just not charitable."

MMfA vice-president Ari Rabin-Havt responded to the challenge saying "C. Boyden Gray is [a] Koch-affiliated, former Fox News contributor whose flights of fancy have already been discredited by actual experts in tax law." Gray denied having been on Fox's payroll while he was a Fox consultant in 2005, but at that time, Fox had said Gray was a contributor, adding: "We pay contributors for strong opinions." Marcus Owens, former director of the IRS's Exempt Organizations Division, told Politico in 2011 that he believed the law was on Media Matters's side. Owens told Fox Business that only an IRS probe could reveal if partisan activity takes up a substantial enough part of MMfA's operations to disallow its tax-free status; the IRS allows limited political activity at nonprofits if it does not take up a substantial amount of their operations. Superb Owl (talk) 04:10, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

Looks WP:UNDUE to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:44, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

References

February 2024 clean-up summary

Efforts to get article to B-class have included addressing: NPOV, OR, SYNTH, Undue Weight, excessive quotations, Non-notable sources, Non-notable content, BLP, copyediting to get more precise and concise text and section titles, removing redundancies, organizing more clearly, generally copyediting for consistency + clarity, fixing incomplete or inaccurate citations, and citation formatting with most of the issues addressed and the rest flagged. Superb Owl (talk) 01:37, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

This kind of work is difficult, it's a long article with many sources, plus it is not easy to neutrally describe an organization that has a bias! -- GreenC 02:18, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Left leaning

Suggest we make citation #1 into a single cite - perhaps the NYT or something already used elsewhere. Then move the other cites into a talk page section. And leave an inline edit comment referencing where to find additional sources. The article has a lot of sources, and reduction will help. There's no reason to have all these sources for this claim, it gives the appearance of battleground. Lead sections should have minimal citations. -- GreenC 02:02, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Sources moved (Special:Diff/1206036745/1206038687) from the lead section to the talk page:

• Russonello, Giovanni (February 12, 2021). "How Conservative Outlets Are Covering Impeachment, or Not". The New York Times.
• Dwoskin, Elizabeth. "A quarter of Trump's 6,081 Facebook posts last year featured misinformation or extreme rhetoric". The Washington Post.
• Choi, Joseph (February 18, 2021). "Nearly a quarter of Trump's Facebook posts in 2020 included misinformation: analysis". The Hill.
• Schwartz, Brian (August 17, 2020). "Pro-Biden super PAC hosting virtual convention pre-show for donors with guests including Mary Trump". CNBC.
• "The facts on advertiser boycotts against cable news networks". PolitiFact.
• Flynn, Kerry (November 20, 2023). "Elon Musk's X sues Media Matters for America". Axios.
• Lahut, Jake (2021-06-15). "Fox News has mentioned 'critical race theory' nearly 1300 times since March, according to watchdog study". Business Insider. Retrieved 2021-09-10.

-- GreenC 02:08, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

It might be nice to keep/improve the most notable sources for those of us who don't know a lot about Media Matters and are coming into the conversation without as much background information or ideas? Open to this streamlining but it probably heads-off more discussions in the future

On a related note, I removed 'liberal' as an adjective from the short-desc btw to be more concise and avoid confusion as to whether the group was a watchdog of liberal media or a liberal group that was a media watchdog...felt that keeping it short was more important than including that adjective there when it's also in the first sentence. Superb Owl (talk) 04:41, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Browsing the talk archives, this issue of "far-left/liberal/left-leaning/progressive" in the first sentence has been debated extensively including many RfCs. Most of it is very old now. The sources above are all more recent. I have no problem with "left-leaning" personally. It does seem like how to characterize the org on the political spectrum is a perennial topic that has used up extensive amounts of editor time. Strange.

If we keep all these sources in mainspace it should be in the article body IMO, not as a big list of sources in the lead sentence. It signifies battleground, which does appear to be the case. -- GreenC 05:17, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

I have a hunch all the above were cherry-picked for the rather watered-down phrase "left-leaning." A Google News search for "Media Matters for America" in the past year of course finds the phrase is sometimes used, but the same outlets (and other exceptionally reliable sources) also describe MMfA as a "liberal advocacy group",, "left-wing advocacy group", "liberal (media) watchdog group" "progressive analysis group", and especially, "progressive watchdog". This is not a scientific analysis, but suggests that "left-leaning" may not be the single best descriptor to use to introduce the organization.

Going beyond those pesky dumb journalists, recent scholarly sources, when they make any mention of partisanship, also use terms such as "progressive watchdog",, "progressive nonprofit organization", and "liberal and progressive" as well as "left-leaning". --Animalparty! (talk) 05:09, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

It is technically speaking a media watchdog organization. To say it's an advocate takes it further and suggests bias even intentional inaccuracy, the very thing they are trying to expose from the right. It's like boomerang at ANI, it's hard to point fingers at someone without fingers pointing back. Go into a mud pit, and you will come out muddy. I prefer we try to remain as objective as possible and not throw more mud, muddle. The best way to do this is avoid labels as much as possible. If someone is saying they are advocacy group, ok what academic journal or book lays out the case for this? Not only using the word, but justifies and explains why in more than 1 or 2 sentences, really makes the case for it. That is a POV we can report on and explain in our article. -- GreenC 15:54, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not lobbying to introduce it as an advocacy group in the first sentence (although I don't see how calling something an advocate/advocacy group suggests intentional bias: are human rights advocates intentionally inaccurate?), rather I think the degree of partisanship should be clarified. If an organization was frequently called "conservative" or "right-wing" or "far right", as well as sometimes "right-leaning", would we think "right-leaning" is the best descriptor? --Animalparty! (talk) 18:15, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

References