Considering MSNBC’s Chris Matthews tends to think out loud, it’s not surprising that he occasionally contradicts himself.

Such was the case Thursday during an interview with Carol Joynt at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington.

“I am not a media critic,” he declared early on during the interview, adding that the profession was “pretty far down” on the totem pole.

“I don’t think people in the media should talk about other people in the media. … But they do all the time. Not me.”

But Joynt was actually able to get the “Hardball” host to weigh in on several media topics, including:

Whether he thinks of himself as a journalist: “Absolutely. I have to deal with facts every night. I have to cover the news every night.”

On his show: “Obviously, I think I’m the best. But each one of the other people think they’re the best, too. … I think I’m the best, generally. … There’s no doubt about it, in fact, but other people have different views. … ‘Hardball’ is absolutely nonpartisan.”

On his picks for “smartest” journalists: David Ignatius, David Brooks, John Heilemann, Mark Halperin, Chuck Todd, Helene Cooper, Andrea Mitchell, Howard Fineman and Norah O’Donnell.

On his morning routine: “I don’t watch television that early. … I pick up my five newspapers. I always read the Washington Examiner first because it’s a great shopper and it has all the items in it and I like [Executive Editor] Steve Smith. … I try to read POLITICO next. …Then I look at the [Washington] Post, which is not what it used to be. Each year it’s less than what it used to be before. … It’s so neocon I can hardly read it. [The "neocon" comment seemed to be directed at the paper's editorial page, and Matthews singled out the paper's recent editorial on the "Fair Game" movie as a particularly egregious piece of work] … I read The New York Times. … You gotta read some other newspapers before you read the Times; you have to work your way up to it. … The [Wall Street] Journal, once in a while, not often.”

On The Washington Post’s Style section: “I used to love the Style section. … What a joke it is. … It’s about this ridiculous show business news that is totally boring.”

The Examiner executive editor is probably in shock as much for Matthews’ praise as the Post’s Don Graham is for seeing his paper being called neocon which is certainly not the label Post is most associated with in Washington.

It is telling though that with the exception of the Examiner Matthews’ reading list veers to the left and that he rarely bothers to read the Wall Street Journal covering business and finance and with one of the most conservative and influential editorial pages in the country.

I bet though that in comparison to Keith Olbermann’s reading list Matthews will actually look conservative.