Media Miscalculation
By Robert Parry
April 29, 2005
he Left's Media Miscalculation
By TheRobert Parry
Apr
consortiumnews.com
MoveOn & Media Double Standards
By Robert Parry
September 24, 2007
MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” ad may have gotten more attention than it deserved, but it also has underscored several important points: the foolishness of MoveOn’s ad-buying strategy, the cringing hypocrisy of the mainstream U.S. news media when attacked by the Right, and the pressing need to build independent news outlets.
To understand how the United States got into today’s political predicament – where even fundamental principles like the separation of church and state are under attack – one has to look back at strategic choices made by the Right and the Left three decades ago.
Smart InvestmentOver those three decades, by investing smartly in media infrastructure, the Right had succeeded in reversing the media dynamic of the Watergate-Vietnam era. Instead of a tough skeptical press corps challenging war claims on Iraq and exposing political dirty tricks in Florida, most national journalists knew better than to risk losing their careers.
Many on the Left began acknowledging the danger caused by this media imbalance. But even as the Iraq War disaster worsened, the “progressive establishment” continued spurning proposals for building a media counter-infrastructure that could challenge the “group think” of Washington journalism.
One of the new excuses became that the task was too daunting. When proposals were on the table in 2003 for a progressive AM talk radio network, for example, many wealthy liberals shunned the plan as certain to fail, an attitude that nearly became a self-fulfilling prophecy as an under-funded Air America Radio almost crashed and burned on take-off in March 2004.
Later, the argument was that a media infrastructure would take too long to build and that all available resources should go to oust Bush in Election 2004. To that end, hundreds of millions of dollars were poured into voter registration drives and into campaign commercials. But the consequences of the Left’s longtime media disarmament continued to plague its preferred policies and candidates.
When the pro-Bush Swift Boat Veterans for Truth sandbagged Kerry over his Vietnam War record, the conservative media infrastructure made the anti-Kerry attacks big news, joined by mainstream outlets such as CNN. But liberals lacked the media capacity to counter the charges.
By the time the major newspapers got around to examining the Swift Boat allegations and judged many to be spurious, Kerry’s campaign was in freefall.
Similarly, there was no significant independent media capability to quickly investigate and publicize voting irregularities on Election Day 2004. Ad hoc citizens groups and Internet bloggers tried to fill the void but lacked the necessary resources.
more at..........
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/042805.htmlLook what happened when Move.On was approached to get involved with funding progressive mediaPost-Mortem
Once Election 2004 was over, many progressive funders found a new reason to put off action on a media infrastructure. They said they were financially strapped from the campaign.
Though media issues were part of the post-election post-mortem, actual media plans made little progress. The main activities on the Left centered around arranging more conferences on media and holding more discussions, not implementing concrete proposals to actually do journalism and build new outlets.
There also was a new variation on the Left’s three-decade-old emphasis on “grassroots organizing.” MoveOn.org postponed action on media infrastructure in favor of rallying political activists in support of Democratic legislative goals.
When media activist Carolyn Kay presented a comprehensive media reform strategy, MoveOn.org’s founder Wes Boyd responded with an e-mail on April 24 saying, “Just to be direct and frank, we have no immediate plans to pursue funding for media …“Our efforts are focused on a few big fights right now, because this is the key legislative season. Later in the year and next year I expect there will more time to look further afield.”
Kay e-mailed Boyd back, saying, “For five years people have been telling me that in just a couple of months, we’ll start addressing the long-term problems. But the day never comes. … Today it’s Social Security and the filibuster. Tomorrow it will be something else. And in a couple of months it will be something else again. There’s never a right time to address the media issue. That’s why the right time is now.”
Boyd’s April 24 e-mail – calling the idea of addressing the nation’s media crisis as wandering “afield” – is typical of the views held by many leaders in the “progressive establishment.” There is no sense of urgency about media.Still, MoveOn’s blasé attitude may be even more surprising since the organization emerged as a political force during the media-driven impeachment of President Clinton.
It also watched as Gore’s MoveOn-sponsored, pre-Iraq-War speeches were trashed by the national news media, reinforcing his decision to forego a second run.more at..........
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092207.html
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