CBS News and media “watchdog” Media Matters for America both fired back against former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson’s charges of bias and improper targeting on Monday, with the news network denying any unfair treatment and Media Matters slamming Attkisson for “shoddy reporting.”
On Sunday, Attkisson appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” to repeat her charge that CBS News routinely killed stories critical of the Obama administration, including her reports on Benghazi. She also added that Media Matters deliberately targeted her in an attempt to discredit her reporting, wondering whether they were perhaps paid to do so.
On Monday, the two outlets struck back. CBS News released a statement to TVNewser denying a liberal bias and subtly attacking Attkisson’s journalistic product.
“CBS News maintains the highest journalistic standards in what it chooses to put on the air,” CBS News spokeswoman Sonya McNair said. ““Those standards are applied without fear or favor.”
Media Matters, the liberal media monitoring blog with a particular fixation on Fox News, was more direct: Attkisson, they charged, was waging a “campaign to paint herself as a victim of liberal media bias with conspiratorial and false attacks on Media Matters.”
Matt Gertz, Media Matters deputy research director, went on to accuse Attkisson of “often shoddy reporting” and claimed her “half-baked conspiracy” that they were paid to target her was false.
“We have published research on her reports on green energy and Obamacare, among other topics, when those reports have been inaccurate or misleading, the same standard to which we hold any other reporter,” he wrote.
Attkisson has been on something of a media tour since her retirement from her CBS earlier this year, accusing her former employer of kowtowing to relentless White House pressure to kill her stories when they reflected badly on the Obama administration (VIDEO: Attkisson: Obama pursuing ‘aggressive’ campaign ‘designed to have a chilling effect’ on journalists).
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