Redemption tale Former conservative-media poster boy David Brock is trying to do the right thing with liberal media watchdog Media Matters. Should we trust him? BY MARK JURKOWITZ

A decade ago, he was the brightest in an emerging constellation of conservative-media stars, the American Spectator writer who infamously described Anita Hill as "a bit nutty and a bit slutty."

Today, after a dramatic, controversial, and very public ideological metamorphosis, the right’s most potent attack journalist has become the left’s most energetic attacker of journalists.

David Brock, 43, is president and CEO of Media Matters for America (mediamatters.org), a year-old liberal media-watchdog group that proves he has not lost his taste for political combat or the jugular. "Dedicated to ... correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media," Brock’s site aggressively posts between six and a dozen pieces of criticism, research, and commentary online every day, in hopes of influencing the ongoing news cycle.

For example, last week, when much of the media concluded that President Bush made a shrewd Supreme Court choice by nominating Judge John G. Roberts — who would not trigger an all-out confirmation war — Media Matters for America reacted by slamming the media. In an alert posted on the site, Media Matters attacked NBC, CBS, ABC, and the Fox News Channel for reports suggesting that Roberts’s remarks at a 2003 appellate-court confirmation hearing signaled he would uphold Roe v. Wade as a Supreme Court justice. MEDIA CONTINUE TO MIS-CITE ROBERTS’S ‘SETTLED LAW’ COMMENT TO SUGGEST HIS VIEWS ON ROE V. WADE, blared the headline.

Another posting assailed CNN commentators who downplayed the idea that the White House pushed up Roberts’s nomination to distract from the simmering scandal over who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. "In fact, news reports suggest the White House did accelerate the nomination to distract the media, and both Republicans and Democrats have suggested that the nomination was moved up to shift focus away from [Karl] Rove," Media Matters countered.

Brock founded the organization in part because he believed that after several decades of fielding the right-wing charge of "liberal bias," journalists had become too easily intimidated. The mainstream media "has over time come under what I would consider undue conservative influence," says Brock. "Pulling punches, second-guessing yourself as a result of conservative pressure."

Given his own history, Brock knows plenty about conservative pressure. But he’s also aware that questions continue to dog him in his new incarnation. Who is the real David Brock, and why should we trust him?

PART OF SOMETHING BIGGER

Angered by the results of the 2000 election and galvanized by the rising power of conservative-dominated talk radio and the Fox News Channel, liberals fought back in 2004, launching their own multimedia assault on their political foes. There was the debut of the Air America radio network, headlined by Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo. MoveOn.org became a major player in the last election cycle when, among other things, it sponsored a "Bush in 30 Seconds" competition to solicit political-attack ads from the public. Michael Moore’s documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 leveled a politically and commercially potent attack on the administration’s Iraq policy. Other documentaries — including Robert Greenwald’s Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism — also got wide play and attention.

It was in this context that Media Matters was born. Launched in May 2004, the Washington, DC–based nonprofit — which now has a staff of about 30 and an annual budget of close to $4 million — is part of an alphabet soup of media watchdogs, the majority of them conservative, such as Accuracy in Media (AIM) and Media Research Center (MRC). Organized liberal media criticism had been largely the domain of only one group: the 20-year-old Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

"I looked around, and aside from FAIR and blogs, it was a pretty empty space," says Brock. FAIR senior analyst Steve Rendall says he welcomed the new entry, noting that FAIR concentrates largely on reporting issues in the mainstream media while Media Matters focuses "on right-wing commentators most of the time."

"Our attitude about media criticism in general is the more the merrier," adds Rendall. "They do a great job of putting out real-time criticism of the right-wing media chamber."

According to a Media Matters spokesperson, to date the site has attracted more than 150,000 comments in its discussion forums and generated more than 22,000 subscribers who have registered to receive research, publications, and e-mail alerts. And if Media Matters quickly became a good-size fish in a pretty small pond, Brock stresses that it is a piece of something bigger. "We consider ourselves to be part of a movement that is in formation," he says. "I view Media Matters as part of a large machine that’s being built."

In its brief history, Media Matters helped fuel the embarrassing "Gannon-gate" controversy, raising questions about Jeff Gannon (a/k/a James Guckert), the obscure conservative writer who tossed softball questions at White House press conferences. It worked to refute attacks on John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It has monitored the broadcasts of conservative talk-radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh and publicized his more outrageous pronouncements. And it embarked on a campaign to discredit the latest Clinton-bashing tome, The Truth About Hillary, by former New York Times Magazine editor Edward Klein.

"They are part of a fledgling movement to get the liberal viewpoint on the radar — to an extent that it’s starting to make a difference," says Craig Crawford, an MSNBC contributor and CQ columnist. "I really think that liberals are starting to make a comeback."