The liberal group Media Matters has quietly transformed itself in preparation for what its founder, David Brock, described in an interview as an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel.
A lawyer friend says that this is "tortious interference," and that at minimum, it should be cause to revisit Media Matters' tax status.
But The Cable Gamer thinks that it's worse than that. When TCG reads words such as "sabotage" coming out of Brock's own mouth, she thinks in terms of genuine crimes, such as arson and hacking.
As Smith makes clear, Media Matters has pretty much given up on monitoring the media overall--now it's just Fox. Oh, and the News Corporation, parent of Fox. Here's more from the article:
Brock said Media Matters also plans to run a broad campaign against Fox’s parent company, News Corp., an effort which most likely will involve opening a United Kingdom arm in London to attack the company’s interests there. The group hired an executive from MoveOn.org to work on developing campaigns among News Corp. shareholders and also is looking for ways to turn regulators in the U.S., U.K., and elsewhere against the network.
The group will “focus on [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch and trying to disrupt his commercial interests — whether that be here or looking at what’s going on in London right now,” Brock said, referring to News Corp.’s — apparently successful — move to take a majority stake in the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
So this is it--this is a legal war.
