Politico's Dylan Byers Uses Media Matters' Tactics to Protect Media Matters

For those of you unfamiliar with him, Politico’s Dylan Byers is a left-wing operative disguising himself as a “media analyst.” If you look at his incredibly biased work just since the start of the year, you’ll find someone who has enjoyed an open relationship with Media Matters, then a secret one, and is now an important component in the Media Matters blacklisting crusade to silence conservatives. For instance, just in the last few weeks, Byers has obsessed over our own Dana Loesch (more coming on that later), gone after Red State’s Erick Erickson, and took part in GLAAD’s latest fascistic rampage.

In short, Dylan Byers fits in perfectly at Politico.

Just today, Byers proved he’s learned much from our friends over at the George Soros-funded, tax exempt Media Matters for America (MMfA). In response to the Daily Caller’s damning behind-the-scenes look at MMfA, Byers has already composed two — two!– articles critical of the story. Here’s a snip from the first. Oh, and try not to laugh as someone who works at Politico takes issue with anonymous sourcing:

The sources above include — at most — one Media Matters staffer, one former Media Matters staffer, and a third “with firsthand knowledge,” none of whom agreed to go on the record. In publishing those quotes without providing evidence, the Daily Caller has put accusations on the public record regardless of whether or not they carry any weight.

Byers won’t tell you this, but three anonymous sources is at least one or two more than you’ll find in most MSM stories.

Byers then goes on to attempt to protect his former boss, Ben Smith, who these anonymous MMfA sources claim would write whatever Media Matters asked him to.  And here’s where things get fun:

1. Ben Smith is now running political coverage at Buzzfeed.

2. A couple of weeks ago, Buzzfeed published this Media Matters attack on Red State’s Erick Erickson

3. Rather than link Media Matters in his own attack on Erickson, Dylan Byers linked to this same Buzzfeed post without ever naming Media Matters as the ultimate source. (Byers did this after this piece published exposing his frequent parroting of Media Matters talking points).

Coincidence? I don’t know. But it sure worked out nice, didn’t it?

But Byers wasn’t done in his attempt to undermine the Daily Caller story. Later in the day, this headline popped up:

Daily Caller Publishes Old MMFA Memo

So a funny thing happened while I was writing that last item on the Daily Caller’s effort to suggest that various reporters are willing outlets for Media Matters, the liberal media watchdog group.

Vince Coglianese, Tucker Carlson’s co-author on the piece about Media Matters, has published “an internal Media Matters For America memo obtained by the Daily Caller [which] reveals that the left-wing media watchdog group employs an ‘opposition research team’ to target its political enemies.”

That internal memo was actually shared with POLITICO’s Ben Smith (now editor-in-chief at BuzzFeed) and written upalmost a year ago.

What Byers is doing here, and without irony, is engaging in classic Media Matters tactics to protect Media Matters.

Byers is supposed to be a media watchdog, correct? But instead, he’s running interference for his old boss and dismissing the Daily Caller piece as old news. In other words, Byers is taking one small bit of a huge story and attempting to use that small bit to discredit the entire thing.

Media Matters perfected the art of doing this. For example, even though James O’Keefe had all kinds of video of ACORN employees eagerly aiding and abetting two people who said they wanted to set up an underage prostitution ring, Media Matters decided to make an issue out of the fact that O’Keefe wasn’t dressed as a pimp.

It’s all about distraction, sleight of hand, and using any nonsense you can grab hold of to create the smoke necessary to cover up the big picture.

You would think a legitimate media watchdog would be troubled and angry after a legitimately-sourced story reported that the White House is using Media Matters to manipulate a large chunk of the media. But then you’d be under the mistaken impression that Dylan Byers and so many others in the MSM don’t want to be manipulated by the White House.