Breaking news: Media Matters makes copyediting error in press release

At least NRO's Mark Hemingway thinks it's a big deal. And of course, Hemingway concludes the copyediting error confirms all his dark suspicions about Media Matters. When in fact, the oversight simply highlights the extent to which Media Matters goes to make factually and logically sound arguments.

The press release highlighted a research item Media Matters did which pointed out how five major newspapers reported on Sen. Jeff Sessions' opening statement at the confirmation hearing of Judge Sonia Sotomayor without noting in that day's paper that, in 1986, Sessions' nomination as a U.S. district court judge was rejected following allegations that Sessions had a history of making racially charged comments. Meaning, Sessions spent a lot of the day talking about race in the context of Sotomayor's nomination, but the press never connected the dots back to Sessions' own failed confirmation.

What Hemingway highlighted was the fact that the press release we sent out accidentally included an internal edit suggesting a possible change.

Here's the key section of Hemingway's item:

Media Matters, and So Does Proofreading [Mark Hemingway]

Media Matters for America just sent out the following press release:

Greetings,

I wanted to make sure you had seen Media Matters' latest research on the media ignoring allegations that surfaced during Sen. Jeff Sessions' 1986 nomination to the U.S. district court. As reported by the Associated Press, Sessions' "nomination originally drew fire from civil rights groups because of his [1985] prosecution ... of three west Alabama civil rights activists on vote fraud charges. The three were acquitted by a federal court jury, prompting civil rights leaders to charge that the prosecution was an attempt to intimidate black voters." Doesn't the fact that we quote the AP undermine the idea that the media is ignoring the story? Could we say, "research on much of the media ignoring..."

Please feel free to contact me with any questions or if you would like additional information.

Jessica Levin
Press Secretary
Media Matters for America

My emphasis added -- I guess somebody forgot to delete that parenthetical edit. I'd always thought that Media Matters tried in vain to prove conservative media bias, but I didn't expect that the organization itself would confirm my suspicion.

Obviously that internal edit suggestion should not have appeared in the final release. But how did it "confirm" Hemingway's suspicion that Media Matters tried in "vain" to prove conservative media bias? (And for the record, Media Matters is not in the "media bias" business.) All the internal edit did was show that before Media Matters signs off on its research items (and press releases), it does its best to  make sure its central point is air-tight. In this case, somebody inside Media Matters suggested that because the AP had reported on Sessions' controversial past, the wording of the release should be changed.

But in fact, the AP reference was from the 1980's and did not undercut the Media Matters point that in their July 14 editions, the five major national newspapers gave Sessions a pass on his controversial history when it came to the topic of race.

So despite Hemingway's claim, the copyediting error did nothing to undermine that important point.