Yesterday, the liberal watchdog Media Matters published an article calling on the public to protest the Los Angeles Times’ decision to fire left-liberal columnist Robert Scheer, writing, “Given both the history of conservative attacks on Scheer, and the Los Angeles Times’ failure to explain his firing, it seems plausible that the Times bowed to right-wing pressure in firing Scheer.” The group then called on readers to contact the Times “to register your protest of the newspaper’s decision to purge a Bush administration critic in the face of right-wing pressure.”

The key phrase here is “it seems plausible.” Media Matters has no idea why Scheer was fired. It could be because he’s a bad writer and a tiresome, predictable columnist. And it could be because he has a history of inaccuracy that we frequently wrote about on Spinsanity. No one knows. Yet in a leap of logic, Media Matters jumps from “it seems plausible” to describing the Times’ move as a “decision to purge a Bush administration critic in the face of right-wing pressure.”

The work of Media Matters is useful when they stick to the facts. But this kind of ideological ax-grinding makes the group seem more like the hacks at FAIR and MRC.

Update 11/15: The LAT’s editorial page editor, Andres Martinez, has published a column denying that Scheer was fired because of “ideological motives.”