Today, David Brock announced what is essentially the death of Progressive Media USA:

"Progressive Media will not be running an independent ad campaign this year," David Brock, the head of the organization, confirmed in a statement obtained by The Fix this morning.

"Progressive Media was established to be an independent on-going progressive issue advocacy organization," Brock added. "We were not established for one issue, one candidate or one election cycle. But donors and potential donors are getting clear signals from the Obama camp through the news media and we recognize that reality."

This is creepy because of the apparent cause.  During a meeting in early May, Obama's finance chair told big donors flat out not to support independent groups.  

more...

There's more...

A brand new book takes a scathing look at the cozy relationship between John McCain and the reporters who cover him: "Free Ride: John McCain and the Media" is coming out this week.

This comes from a Newsweek interview with co-author Paul Waldman

McCain's `Free Ride'

Why is that? Is it just that he's a likable 'straight talker'? Or are we all suckers?

It's both. You have to understand that the way McCain deals with the national media is a strategy. He realized that reporters want to be treated differently than the way most politicians treat them, which is very carefully and being measured with what they say, going off the record a lot. And that's frustrating for reporters. What McCain figured out was not to be careful, not to go off the record, to return their calls and talk about anything for as long as they wanted. And the results have paid off very handsomely for him, because he gets the benefit of the doubt all the time.

There's more...

Sen. Hillary Clinton: "I don't know what to do with men who are obsessed with me. I honestly have never understood it."

[...]

Chris Matthews: "It's not obsession."

If you have ever watched an episode of Hardball on MSNBC, you may find Chris Matthews' above statement a bit suspect...

There's more...

Media coverage of religion has increased significantly since the 2004 elections. Unfortunately, the coverage has presented a skewed picture of religion in America -- one in which religious conservatives are the experts on mainstream issues. I'm sure you agree this is a far cry from reality. The fact is we live in a country in which 90 percent of our people identify themselves as religious, with conservatives representing only a small portion of that large religious community.

In a new Media Matters for America report -- "Left Behind: The Skewed Representation of Religion in Major News Media" -- we document the media's coverage of religion since the 2004 elections. What we found was a dramatic oversimplification of the public debate and a consistent skewing of coverage in favor of conservatives....

There's more...

Cross posted at DailKos

I wanted to update everyone on our new report -- "If It's Sunday, It's Still Conservative." If you haven't had a chance to view it, now is the time. The report documents how the right continues to dominate the Sunday talk shows.

Since the report's release we've seen a great response.  We've had many reputable blogs such as DailyKos, Huffington Post, and MyDD highlight our findings.  We've had Paul Waldman, our report's principal author, on radio shows like The Peter B. Collins Show, The Young Turks, and The Rachel Maddow Show to name a few.

There's more...