The Nation's Hayes on Matthews: "[H]e's ascended to the level of kind of icon of the frustration that people have with the media"

On the January 8 edition of National Public Radio's On the Media, discussing the media's coverage of the New Hampshire primary, co-host Brooke Gladstone stated: "[T]here was an interesting piece of analysis on Campaign Desk, which offers continual coverage of the coverage on the CJR [Columbia Journalism Review] website, and it suggests that the vote for [Hillary] Clinton in New Hampshire was in some way a vote against MSNBC's Chris Matthews, as the sort of breathing, saliva-spewing symbol of a general media dump on Hillary. When we talk about groupthink, is he the leader of the pack?" Guest Christopher Hayes, Washington editor for The Nation, replied: "I think he's one of them. I mean, he's certainly the most voluble of the bunch." Hayes later said of Matthews: "I think that he's ascended to the level of kind of icon of the frustration that people have with the media, particularly the media's relationship with the Clintons."

The post on CJR's Campaign Desk to which Gladstone was apparently referring was authored by CJR writer Liz Cox Barrett and titled, "The Anti-Chris Matthews Vote: And how it sparked some media soul-searching (though not from Matthews)." In the post, Barrett documented several quotes from Matthews and asked: "So was there, in fact, what amounts to an anti-Chris Matthews vote that emerged in New Hampshire? And if so, why might Hillary Clinton have been the beneficiary?" Barrett added, "Here are a couple of thoughts on those questions," and linked to a Salon.com article by staff writer Rebecca Traister headlined "The Witch ain't dead and Chris Matthew is a ding-dong" and a blog post by Atlantic associate editor Matthew Yglesias that discussed Matthews.......

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