Calling Out Ideologically Driven Media, Sharyl Attkisson Lands At Heritage

Sharyl Attkisson, The Daily Signal

After reportedly leaving CBS News because of the network's supposed political bias, Sharyl Attkisson is now working for the conservative Heritage Foundation as a “senior independent contributor” to their online news outlet The Daily Signal. 

Politico's Dylan Byers reported in March that sources said Attkisson left CBS because she “had grown frustrated with what she saw as the network's liberal bias,” while some staffers characterized her work as “agenda-driven,” leading “network executives to doubt the impartiality of her reporting.” Attkisson had supported CBS' disastrous Benghazi reporting, which the network ultimately had to apologize for and retract, and CBS executives reportedly saw her as “wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue.” She also released an error-ridden report on clean energy, and relied on partial information from House Republicans in a botched story on the Affordable Care Act.

Following her departure from the network, Attkisson attempted to paint herself has a victim of media bias, floating baseless conspiracy theories suggesting Media Matters had been paid to attack her work. She was unwilling to provide specifics, but claimed there was a “political aspect” to her troubles at CBS and that her supervisors gave in to “well organized” outside campaigns that complained about coverage. Conservative media outlets, particularly Fox News, rallied to Attkisson's defense, with personalities showering praise on her shoddy work and indicating they wanted her to join the conservative network.

The Daily Signal debuted June 3 with a report from Attkisson and the first of three planned interviews with her, in which she said she hoped she could “bring under-served stories to a broad audience through an editorial process that doesn't censor, that doesn't try to direct a story to go in a certain unnatural direction.”

The conservative outlet has said it plans to do “true, straight-down-the-middle journalism,” while simultaneously attracting a younger audience that “will find themselves persuaded by the conservative commentary and analysis that will draw on the think tank's scholars and researchers.” The Heritage Foundation, which the New York Times described as providing “the blueprint for the Republican Party's ideas in Washington,” recently lost some if its “most prominent scholars.” The Times added, “research that seemed to undermine Heritage's political goals has been squelched.” The think tank also started the political group Heritage Action, which has proven to lean so far to the right that some congressional Republicans have reportedly distanced themselves from the group. 

Bloomberg Businessweek reported that The Daily Signal will use Heritage's blog The Foundry as inspiration, which has in the past attempted to inject “its worldview into the mainstream press.”

UPDATE: Media Matters founder David Brock released the following statement:

Sharyl Attkisson began auditioning for this role long before she left CBS. Her shoddy reporting on Benghazi, health care reform, and the Obama administration was relentlessly hyped by conservatives who then celebrated her hollow claims that her departure from the network was the result of liberal bias. 

Media Matters has rebutted error-ridden reporting from Attkisson when she was part of the mainstream media and we look forward to continuing to do so now that she has found a happy home in the right wing.