Media Matters for America

Campaigns

• Tell the White House Press Corps: Stand In Solidarity Against Trump's Blacklist

  During a press conference following the November 2018 midterm election, Donald Trump berated CNN reporter Jim Acosta for asking questions that he didn’t want to answer. Later in the evening, the Trump administration revoked Acosta’s press credentials and barred him from entering the White House grounds. The White House Press Correspondents Association exists to advance the interests of and protective the White House Press Corps. They need to act. They need to make it a matter of policy that if one of their members if blacklisted, that the rest of the White House Press Corps will line up in solidarity -- and either refuse to participate in White House press events or only ask questions on behalf of the banned reporter/outlet until the ban is lifted. In response to the ban, many outlets and reporters publicly expressed concern. But, in a couple days their concern will fade and they will go about their business. We know this to be true because it’s happened before. Trump has a history of doing just this thing. During the 2016 campaign, he has literally banned the Des Moines Register from covering his events. He banned Univsion from attending his events. He revoked The Washington Post’s credentials for a period in retaliation for a headline that he didn’t like. He revoked Politico’s credentials for a while to punish them for an article he didn’t like. BuzzFeed--which Trump called "a pathetic pile of garbage" during a press conference--was on a blacklist starting in June 2015 and extending well into early 2017. The Daily Beast had been blacklisted as well and was frequently denied credentials as a result. Despite this long record and Trump’s increasingly brazen attacks against the news media, journalists covering Trump still haven’t learned. Time and time again, as one outlet after another is frozen out, reporters continue to go about their interactions with Trump and his people as if nothing is wrong. Enough is enough. Some principles are more important than competition among news outlets. If a free press has any hope of surviving Trump’s sustained attacks, we need the journalists covering Trump to step up and send a clear message: If Trump blackballs one of you, the rest of you need to stand in solidarity.

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  Created by Angelo Carusone, Media Matters
• Tell Advertisers: Drop Fox

  Right now, companies that do business with Fox News are financially supporting bigotry, dangerous lies, and harmful conspiracy theories. Since the network is a propaganda operation, these companies are also financially supporting and enabling Trump's politics.

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  Created by Angelo Carusone
• Tell NBC: No Russia For 2013 Miss Universe Pageant

  NBC Universal co-owns the Miss Universe pageant. On June 18, it was announced that the 2013 competition would be held in November in Moscow, Russia.The announcement came just one week after Russia's legislature unanimously adopted an extreme new law banning “gay propaganda” in order to crack down on its LGBT community. Under the new rules, anyone who is caught showing support for the gay community or LGBT equality can face fines or jail time for promoting gay “propaganda” to minors. Similar laws have already been used to justify violent crackdowns against LGBT people throughout parts of the country, and human rights groups have stated that the measure is in clear violation of international law. Andy Cohen, the openly gay NBC employee/Bravo star, has hosted the Miss Universe pageant for the past two years, but recently backed out of the 2013 event, citing concerns for his own safety and that of participants and spectators. Even NBC’s own employees recognize the problem with hosting an event like this in Russia in light of this new law. Just last year, the Miss Universe pageant changed its rules to allow transgender contestants to compete. The decision to host the pageant in Moscow this year is a giant step backward.

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  Created by Carlos Maza, Equality Matters
• Tell Fox News To Hold Bill O'Reilly Accountable For Harassment

  Fox News and Bill O'Reilly have paid $13 million to settle with five women who accused the host of repeated sexual harassment or verbal abuse -- including two lawsuits that came in after the network's former chairman, Roger Ailes, was dismissed during a harassment scandal last summer -- according to a bombshell New York Times report published this weekend. [1] Enough is enough. Fox's leadership has protected O'Reilly for years, letting him get away with racism, sexism, and outright lies. [2] In the wake of the accusations against Ailes, Fox News executives declared that the network wouldn't tolerate behavior that "disrespects women or contributes to an uncomfortable work environment" -- but they just signed Bill O'Reilly’s new contract. [3] His ratings shouldn't protect him from the consequences of his behavior. A culture of sexism, misogyny, and harassment has thrived at Fox News for more than a decade. [4] Last year, Fox executives' swift decision to launch an internal investigation into reports about Ailes, managed by the well-regarded law firm Paul, Weiss, suggested that Fox was determined to change. [5] But O'Reilly proves that sexual harassment is still a serious problem at the network. More than 50 advertisers -- including Allstate, BMW of North America, and Jenny Craig -- have already pulled their ads from O'Reilly's program, and other sponsors are publicly considering dropping it now. [6] If Fox doesn't take action soon, more advertisers that don't want to associate their brands with O'Reilly's behavior will soon follow, and the network will face growing financial fallout. It's time for Fox News to stop paying lip service to fixing its toxic atmosphere. Fox executives need to be transparent about the findings of their internal investigations and the steps they're taking to improve, especially now that the spotlight is on their star host. Fox's own CEO had to resign due to reports of sexual harassment; Fox executives need to hold Bill O’Reilly to the same standard. Let's pressure them to do what they said they’d do: create a work environment that doesn’t tolerate harassment, no matter who's doing it. Fox News must take the reports about Bill O'Reilly seriously and hold him accountable. Help us take a stand against the culture of sexual harassment at Fox News by adding your voice now. Footnotes: [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/01/business/media/bill-oreilly-sexual-harassment-fox-news.html [2] https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/03/29/what-would-it-take-bill-o-reilly-get-fired/215862 [3] http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/01/media/bill-oreilly-settlements/ [4] https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2016/08/01/roger-ailes-and-rampant-misogyny-fuels-fox-news/212059 [5] http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/fox-news-settles-with-gretchen-carlson-for-20-million [6] https://mediamatters.org/blog/2017/04/04/these-are-bill-o-reilly-s-advertisers-oreilly-factor/215912

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  Created by Cynthia Padera, Media Matters
• Fox News: Hold Bill O'Reilly Accountable

  For years, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has touted his experience as a correspondent in active war zones. But this week, a new report from Mother Jones found evidence that O'Reilly hasn't been telling the truth about these "combat zone" experiences -- including his supposed reporting from the Falkland Islands, which no American correspondent was able to reach during the war. [1] O'Reilly's exaggerations matter. Bill O'Reilly has held himself up as a paragon of virtue and truth while attacking anyone who dares to challenge his credibility. But his deceptions about reporting from war zones undermine and insult actual war reporters who risk their lives to report from actual combat zones. [2] And for too long, O'Reilly has relied on these deceptions about his experience to bolster his opinions about and advocacy for U.S. engagement in military conflicts. Bill O'Reilly shouldn't get away with years of misleading viewers just because he's an icon at Fox News. [3] If Fox wants to move past this scandal, it needs to follow NBC's example with Brian Williams and take action to hold O'Reilly accountable for this deception. --- [1] Corn, David, and Daniel Schulman. "Bill O'Reilly Has His Own Brian Williams Problem." 2/19/2015. Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/bill-oreilly-brian-williams-falklands-war [2] Strupp, Joe. "Veteran War Reporters: O'Reilly's Falklands Fibs Violate "Journalism 101." 2/20/2015. Media Matters for America. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/20/veteran-war-reporters-oreillys-falklands-fibs-v/202590 [3] Gertz, Matt. "How Fox News Responded To Bill O'Reilly's Falklands Fibs." 2/20/2015. Media Matters for America. http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/20/how-fox-news-responded-to-bill-oreillys-falklan/202591

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  Created by Cynthia Padera, Media Matters for America
• Tell Facebook: Fix Your Fake News Problem

  In the wake of the 2016 election, one thing has become increasingly clear: there is a huge problem with the news that tens of millions of Americans get from Facebook. According to a recent Pew poll, 62% of Americans now get news on social media, with Facebook overwhelmingly being the most popular platform. And yet too often it was not news that Americans found on Facebook, but rather fake stories dressed up as the news. Evidence shows that Facebook is riddled with lies. One report even found that teenagers in Macedonia were able to game Facebook and get their Trump propaganda posts shared into the news feeds of millions. Earlier this year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sat down with conservatives who complained that right-wing news was suppressed on Facebook. It was after that meeting that Facebook fired their human editors and replaced them all with algorithms. This decision further unleashed fake news on Facebook. A new bombshell report revealed that Facebook knew about the fake news problem and had the ability to do something about it, but declined to fix the issue out of fear that the right-wing would complain. If we have learned anything from the past two decades, it is that it is crucial not to cave to right-wing bullying and manipulations. Despite overwhelming data and insider reporters, Mark Zuckerberg refuses to even acknowledge the problem publicly. (Which is odd given that he was willing to sit down with discredited right-wing misinformers over totally unsubstantiated cries of bias) Join us in asking Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook to take two concrete steps: 1) Acknowledge the problem of the proliferation of fake news on Facebook. 2) Commit to taking action to fix the problem. It’s high time that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook fix their fake news problem and address the fever swamp/cesspool of misinformation that Facebook has become. If that hurts liberals, so be it. If that hurts conservatives, so be it. If that hurts teenagers publishing fake news in Macedonia, so be it. Let the chips fall where they may. It’s time for the truth to have its day. That’s all we’re asking for.

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  Created by Angelo Carusone, Media Matters
• Tell NBC: Dump Trump

  Variety reported on December 8 that Donald Trump will remain as executive producer of The Celebrity Apprentice when the show returns in 2017. This will mean that NBC will have a fiduciary relationship with the president of the United States, creating an unprecedented conflict of interest for the network. Having Trump as an executive producer is intolerable. NBC is now financially invested in Trump's reputation. The network will have an incentive to weigh aggressively reporting about Trump against what they may lose in revenue if Trump's reputation is damaged. Further, imagine the choices they will face if NBC has a blockbuster story about Trump. This is not inconceivable. Remember, NBC is the network that had the hot mic tape of Trump bragging about sexual assault -- but it was The Washington Post, not NBC News, that broke the story. There is simply no way that citizens can trust the reporting of NBC News, CNBC, and MSNBC. Executives have put hard working reporters at these outlets in a completely untenable spot: No amount of disclosure is sufficient when the network is financially invested in the president. NBC has already demonstrated that we cannot rely on their assurances. Trump's involvement flies in the face of previous statements from the network. In a June 2015 statement, NBC said they were ending their business relationship with Trump because his attacks on immigrants violated the network's belief that "respect and dignity for all people are the cornerstones of our values." At the time, the network reported this, saying "Trump ceased his involvement with the reality show during his presidential bid." The solution is simple: NBC needs to dump Trump. As long as they have a fiduciary relationship with Trump, this is going to be an insurmountable problem.

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  Created by Angelo Carusone, Media Matters
• Tell The News Media: Stop Obsessing Over Donald Trump

  The news media is completely obsessed with Donald Trump. This obsession is hurting our democracy and is rewarding Trump for extremism and bigotry. ABC, NBC, CBS and all the cable news channels are guilty of this. Consider the following... 1) Network news has covered Donald Trump more than the entire Democratic field combined. Notably, ABC World News devoted 81 minutes of coverage to Donald Trump. By contrast, they have only given about 20 seconds of coverage to Bernie Sanders over the entire year. 2) So far this year, Donald Trump has accounted for 27% of all campaign coverage on the nightly news programs. 3) CNN has mentioned Donald Trump more than the rest of the Republican field combined and about 1.5x more than the Democratic field combined. 4) MSNBC has mentioned Donald Trump 56,748 times. By contrast, MSNBC has mentioned the entire Democratic field combined 34,807 times. 5) Fox News has had Donald Trump on air 1,366 minutes since the beginning of his announcement. That's nearly 2.5 times more airtime than the candidate with the next most airtime. 6) Even worse, the news media goes out of their way to give Trump special privileges. They let him call in to shows at significantly higher rates than other candidates. This matters a lot because it enables Trump's consumption of airtime by allowing him to appear on multiple shows by phone without concern for scheduling conflicts and logistics. Not to mention, the constant breaking in to cover the same old stump speech that Trump has been giving for months. And those are just a few examples that illustrate how out of control this has gotten. This hurts our democracy by crowding out coverage of other important issues and other candidates. And all it really does is reward Donald Trump's extremism and bigotry. Enough is enough. It's time for the news media to stop their obsession with Trump.

  752 of 800 Signatures

  Created by Angelo Carusone, Media Matters for America
• Tell Facebook: Stop Enabling Cambridge Analytica, The Trump Campaign, and Other Cheaters Like Them

  Facebook has repeatedly failed to protect the people who use it, and despite the outrage that arises when news of another failure is exposed, remarkably little has been done to fix the problems. Consumers have been left to deal with disinformation, predatory political ads, hate and harassment, and violations of privacy largely on their own. Recently, a series of stories broke that illustrate just how colossal these corporate failures are. It's so disturbing that at some point you start to wonder if, instead of just failing, Facebook has been intentionally enabling bad actors with its business model. On Friday, Facebook abruptly announced that it had banned Cambridge Analytica, the firm that did data targeting for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, from using the platform for "violating its policies around data collection and retention," as The Verge described it. [1] Basically, Cambridge Analytica downloaded the detailed personal records of more than 50 million Facebook users that it never should have had in the first place -- and Facebook waited years before finally doing anything about it. [2] While Facebook says it has suspended the company from its platform, and Cambridge Analytica claims the massive trove of personal information it acquired has been destroyed, it's very, very probable that copies of the database are still being used. Facebook says it has hired a firm "to determine the accuracy of the claims that the Facebook data in question still exists." [3] One probable owner? The Trump campaign. Trump's 2020 campaign manager and 2016 digital director Brad Parscale has bragged about the size and impact of the campaign's database, which it named Project Alamo and which was an apparent combination of Cambridge Analytica's data, Republican National Committee data, and the Trump campaign’s data prior to hiring Cambridge. Simply put: There are likely replicas of Cambridge's ill-gotten data out there, and unless Facebook puts a stop to everyone else that's using it, the company really isn't doing anything to fix the problem, instead just continuing its trend of employing inadequate half-measures. Auditing the developers of Facebook apps isn't enough. Without quick action to stop organizations with copies of data like this from this cheating, they'll keep using Facebook to manipulate unsuspecting people based on pilfered knowledge about them -- and their messages and ads will continue to have the upper hand on the platform. This isn't a PR crisis -- this is a democracy crisis. We have 50 million reasons to be mad at Facebook. Let's turn that anger into action by pressuring Facebook to protect consumers immediately instead of enabling the businesses that game the system with its platform. It's time to ban these cheaters. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/16/17132172/facebook-cambridge-analytica-suspended-donald-trump-strategic-communication-laboratories [2] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html

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  Created by Angelo Carusone, Media Matters
• Tell 21st Century Fox : Release The Findings Of Your Investigation of Sexual Harassment at Fox News

  I’ve seen first-hand the impact of workplace sexism and sexual harassment. No one deserves to work in a place where he or she is objectified, belittled, and harassed with no recourse and no support. This case is so visible—and the alleged harassment is so extensive and alarming—it’s imperative that the investigation and its results don’t get swept under the rug. 21st Century Fox is already giving Ailes a massive payout just to walk away—reportedly in excess of $40 million! If 21st Century Fox is truly taking these allegations seriously, they’ll release the findings of their investigation to the public. Since former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against the network’s chief executive Roger Ailes, dozens of other women have come forward with stories of Ailes’ sexism, harassment, and worse. Disturbingly, many of the allegations include details of how other Fox executives knew about and enabled his harassment of women at the network over his decades-long career. Getting rid of Ailes was a long overdue start. But we've long passed the point where Fox News can be trusted to run their own internal review, considering the toxic message of misogyny and sexism the network has cultivated over the years.

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  Created by Rachel Tardiff, Media Matters for America