Confessions of "an editor who ran Bush propaganda"

I originally made these comments in this thread, "Where Are All the Resignations of Editors Who Ran Bush Propaganda," but some folks there suggested I should place them in their own thread.

Until last year, I was the news editor at a midsized daily newspaper, a paper owned by one of the larger newspaper chains. I was the news editor at this paper when Bush* took office, and I stayed there through 9/11, the runup to war, and the war. I, too, would like to see heads roll over what the media did in that time, but it's not that easy.

Day after day, I'd see the crap coming across the wires, and I'd have to decide whether to put it in the paper, and if so, where to play it and what headline to put on it. Every time, without fail, if there was anything on the wire that supported the Bush* administration and we did not run it prominently and "favorably," the very next day, we would get a stream of phone calls from angered conservatives who railed on and on about the "liberal media." These calls, not surprisingly, registered in the offices of our senior editors ("news editor" is not a "senior editor," by the way), and those editors -- who feared for their own jobs if they pissed off readers and lost circulaton -- insisted that we present the news in a way that was favorable to the administration's position.

Indeed, after the first few days of the Iraq invasion, our corporate offices put out an advisory that their "research" was showing that readers were "tired" of news from Iraq, and that we needed to switch back to local news, quickly, relegating nearly all Iraq news to tiny spaces inside the paper.

Nonetheless, I was able to get stories into the paper that were appropriately skeptical. Those stories appeared periodically, and the Washington Post has already atoned for their repeated sin of burying such stories on Page A17 and beyond when they came up. That caused no end of pain at my paper, when senior editors would see the next day that stories I had placed on the front page were buried inside the Post. We were showing inappropriate bias against the administration, they argued -- after all, if it's not important to the Post, why should it be important to us?

A year after the invasion (oh yes, we steadfastly refused to call it "war" for as long as we could; it was an "attack," not a "war"), the nonstop drumbeat of pressure from senior editors -- caused mostly by the nonstop drumbeat of pressure from readers -- I finally decided that my stress level was getting way too high, and I had to bail.

I'm still in newspapers, but I'm not on the hard-news side, at least for now. But I have three years of front pages on PDFs sitting here on CDs. When the day comes -- and I know it will -- I will be able to show that I did not fall for this administration's bullshit. And with that, I hope to someday work in real news again, when journalism in the United States is once again allowed to be journalism.

You'll get your chance.

If you were in another country where Fascists have complete control you may have ended up in jail &/or disappeared.

I just hope that the various reporting organizations which still have integrity but allowed themselves to be manipulated refuse to be victimized in a such a manner by the fascist squads.

All "Newsjocks" should take a stand for themselves, for the integrity of the service they are supposed to be providing, and for the American people by fully exposing and fighting the likes of Rove manipulation macines!!!!

too bad the bullying street thug style PR (propaganda) techniques work.

In actual PR, you'd send info to the media and follow up with calls to verify receipt, ask if there is anything else you can provide to make the reporter or editor's life easier.

The fascists demand that their lies be printed and then accuse, threaten and attack if they are not.

I'll bet these right-wingers are paid to do this.If it's the very next day, I'll bet it's coordinated at the top. I'll bet few if any of them actually buy or read the paper in question - they just do what they are told.

The papers are losing their real audience because those of us who actually read the papers are sick to death of the crap that passes for news these days.

Although this revelation makes it all even more depressing. I wish this editor good luck and thanks for this honest accounting of what goes on.

maybe longer (just an FYI).

I remember the thought that was part of another thread and am glad you broke it out here.

...and thanks for sharing that info with us. It's pretty hard for Americans to crack the propaganda juggernaut. Your story will help.

Has it occurred to you that, given the high level of sophistication that this administration has shown in manipulating news outlets, those "readers" weren't all actual readers but phone bankers?

And I suspect you're right, to at least some extent. We were one of the papers targeted by the infamous astroturf "soldiers' letters" from Iraq (how quickly we forget!), so I have no doubt we were on their radar screen.

And as I sit here thinking about these three years, I remember all the other things that seem so far away now -- Duct Tape Mania, in particular, and how I had to practically beg and plead to treat the story with skepticism. One of my senior editors was absolutely terrified that we were about to be smallpoxed into oblivion, and we had to run endless Q&As about how to save your butt. My task, and I think the most important contribution I could make at the time, was to package these stories (that I had to run) with appropriate headlines that reduced the level of panic and tried to convey information instead of fear.

After all, we weren't talking about abstract concepts here. We were mucking with peoples' mental health and well-being. I remember late one night after work when I went to a 24-hour store to do some shopping. It was 1:30 a.m., and the store was full of people with shopping carts full of bottled water, first-aid kits, flashlights, and batteries. This was absolute madness, mass hysteria, and the media shares in the blame for making it happen.

Those of us who had to be part of it -- and who tried valiantly to do what we could to minimize the damage -- have to tell our stories so that this never happens again.

and learn from Republican organization. That's why it's important to learn about these things.

We need to destroy these phonebank technics not imitate them. Imitation will just prolong the undemocratic way politics is done in this country.

it's these kind of nebulous do nothing attitudes that have lead us to the place we are today.

Newsjock laid out how it works. We can either fight fire with fire, or remain living in a fantasyworld where it's possible to "destroy" (murder?) the people whose tactics we disagree with. There's nothing "undemocratic" about a mass of people voicing their opinion. In fact, that's the very essence of democracy. We can either choose to engage in the same activities and start taking back America, or continue preaching to the choir and wondering why nothing goes our way.

it's not okay for us to organize calls to editorial boards to express our displeasure at their reporting, but it is okay to spend the day gossiping and persecuting a man for his sex life? We should only adopt the very worst of GOP practices, such as hypocritical prejudice, but not take lessons from their organizational abilities?

I'll tell you my anthrax story, as one of your potential consumers from that time. All of this is already public domain, so I'm not telling tales out of school, only in a different context.

My family was in Santa Monica. I was trying to wrest mental health care for my husband from L.A. County, which doesn't actually provide any. So, he was having episodes about every five to seven days that would last for days and, they were quite dangerous.

In the days after 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax scares, nothing changed except my stress level went up exponentially. It was the tipping point. Immune system started to cave and it was all I could do to just get through a morning or an afternoon or a quiet evening. Whole days were just 'way too long.

Like many people probably, I had the tv news blaring and started to read the papers on line. In between trying to keep him even and, lol, the world safe by overloading on news, I ran an internet support group of families like ours.

Thanks for not adding to all that chaos, or I might be "completely bald" by now, as Woody Allen says.

I worked on the World/Nation wire desk of a midsize daily and found a lot of the same things mentioned here. What was most painful was the fact that senior editors didn't seem to realize what was even happening in the world. I would run stories/pictures/headlines fully skeptical of Bush* motives one day, then a right-leaning desk guy would bury real news in briefs on D-5 a day later. Finally, the copy desk chief sent an e-mail around telling desk people that the daily Drudge was not the same as the AP and Knight-Ridder news budgets and should not be used as a guide to what's important.

What still drives me crazy is how so many newspapers are quick to run the most insane Letters to the Editor they get from the people who are no more than brain-dead fundie kooks. They, including the paper I now work at, run letters that serve no intellectual purpose. The anti-evolution letters are especially wacko, but they get in!

Could you contact someone at Air America Radio? They could verify your veracity as a source but keep your name confidential. If you were able to speak up, maybe some other journalists would feel they could, too. I can't believe that journalists approve of what's happening to their profession.

OTOH, could you interview a bunch of journalists and write a book?

What's next for some nice profit?... face masks is my guess.

I'm wondering if this is the newest marketing strategy that the corporations have, seeing as they own the gov. A few words from some neocon fearmongerers can reap Huge profits in a very short time.

I still cannot Believe the duct tape hysteria! That was so insane.

Like a pressure cooker


the lid has got to blow.

I believe many journalists are idealists. They want to make a difference.

Once the 'system' shows it's ugly head, resentment starts to build.

They'll come around.

And that all the studying going on about how newspapers are losing out to other sources hasn't clued them to people like me who stopped buying the lying rags when we got sick of being lied to?

Well, hell.

and who spreads the news that they want covered? Is it right wing radio? Christian radio?

People have lost their minds over this forth rate Gannon character. He's replaced PNAC as the source of all evil on earth. So much for sophisticated analysis.

I said et al. Jeff Gannon had a radio program also and was certainly part of the propaganda machine responsible for spreading the message for the Bush Machine. No need to take your frustrations out on me.

On edit: No need to stoop to your level.

but at this hysterical obsession with Gannon on this site. But if you really think Jeff Gannon is behind this and everything else that afflicts America, we are in serious trouble. Obsessing on Gannon individually neglects the serious problems facing our political system at the moment and only helps the Bush administration by giving them a scapegoat for their misdeeds.

from Monica Lewinsky.
You're missing the trees for the forest.

His sex life? Or is it larger issues about Bush use of the media? It's the personal fixation on Gannon that is distracting from the larger issues.

Many have rightly pointed out that the right are hypocrites when it comes to homosexuality. But as people obsess about Gannon's sexuality, it shows some on the left to be hypocrites as well. The question is do you want to engage in mindless gossip, or focus on the larger political issues the Gannon issue points to. The sex scandal is an entry point to talk about corruption of the media, lax security at the White House, national security more generally, and the Bush administration's propaganda machine. If we don't put it in that context, we are wasting the opportunity.

If you make this into a Monica Lewinski scandal, what differentiates you from the right wingers? I'm not going to behave like a bottom feeder just because others have done it. Politics of that nature aren't worth fighting for. What results from it is just as foul as the Republicans.

It's unfortunate people on this site care so much more about sex scandals than new revelations about CIA kidnappings and torture of terrors suspects. But of course why should that matter when we have sex to obsess about. No wonder the world thinks we're insane.

--there is much more digging going on, about where he came from, whom he knew, how he got such favored status, who else might be involved, what other fake "reporters" might be working for BushCo, how this impacts the credibility of all respectable journalists, the unbelievable chuztpah of BushCo in believing they could do something this unAmerican--all of this has a nasty way of going around, coming around to bite them in the butt, gradually and ultimately.

"New revelations about CIA kidnappings and torture of suspects" will go nowhere, have no impact, if the Gannons of the newsroom are allowed to keep functioning. As long as the people believe the garbage being spewed by the media, the real and serious issues will reamin largely hidden, underplayed. The corruption of the American media is one of the most crippling cancers of our democracy.

Fortunately or unfortunately the American sheeple have an inordinate interest in sex scandals, so the Gannon story has a built-in publicity angle that at once disgusts at the same time it informs, it plants a seed of distrust in the mind of the public, bursts their bubble about the "pureness" and "lack of corruption" in the Bush administration. It's one of "a thousand cuts" that will eventually topple the whole stinking rotten festering boil that currently occupies the WH.

To drop the Gannon thing now, before the questions about his real place in the scheme of things is solved, would be foolish. It's hardly about the sex now--but if it turns out that there is a larger "sex scandal" that adds to the already impressively long list of Bush misdeeds, so be it.

Exposing a "sex scandal" isn't bottom feeding. The entire population of the United States, of the entire globe for that matter, is supposed to trust its leaders and be inspired by them, move onward to its greater destiny under their visions and direction. If it turns out they are hypocrites and scoundrels, using the public trust for their own salacious ends, then they need to be exposed and driven out.

By the way, "the forest" is the sum total of all of BushCo's misdeeds. Gannon is one that can hold the public's interest.

but that is not always the case. To focus on Gannon to the exclusion of the larger issues gives Bush a pass. That is what I don't want.

Jeff Gannon is not the source of all evil (BushCo has a pretty big share of that pie), but that's the way it works. The author of this thread described how constant demands for certain kinds of stories from conservative readers (or GOP phone banks, as the case may be) got those kinds of stories on the front page. And the "liberal" perspective got buried in the back or ignored altogether. I think if liberals need to learn anything is that we need to focus our attacks the way the cons do. No it's not the only story, but it's a flashy story, with lots of ties that could potentially lead to much bigger fish. People who don't care about much besides Paris Hilton and American Idol are going to be a lot more interested in a story like this than most of the other crimes of BushCo, sad as that is. And those are the people who need to wake up and start caring. Liberals are already on board and conservatives are already too far gone over the edge. We've got to beat the story to within an inch of its in order for it to have the kind of impact we need it to have. Because maybe you're sick of seeing here, but believe me it's barely a blip on the radar of the MSM. And the only way it's going to get out of the entertainment section and onto the front page is if we demand it goes there.

But when I read your posts, I can't help but hear in the voice of Spongebob. I don't think that makes a difference because Spongebob has credibility with me. Just something I noticed.

--IMM

I used to have the Wonder Woman avatar. I put up the SpongeBob icon up a few weeks ago to express solidarity with the persecuted cartoon characters of America. Cartoons unite!


I don't actually sound like him, at least I don't think I do. I've never actually watched the show. I've tried, but the animation is so poor I don't like it. I remember how good the cartoons were when I was a kid, and I don't like the new TV ones. The Pixar stuff is great. At any rate, I think the Right's vigilance over children's programming is absurd, so I put SpongeBob as my avatar. I've been thinking it's probably time for a change.

You put it very succinctly. My carpal tunnel applauds you (very, very softly).

This is absolutely NOT an obsession with Gannon per se. It is our temporary entry door into the Republican sleaze machine. We cannot and must not shy away from it if we want to get to the deeper truth underneath.

It's not about Gannon...this is our way into the cave.

to do with * & Co and their LIES & DOUBLE LIVES. Gay sex is but a small part of it. We must focus on what we can and should do to nail * & Co a$$es to the wall! We have enough ammunition given the utter hypocrisy of allowing Gannon, a known paid prostitute, into the WH press room without a thorough security check. Did this happen because he's "someones" friend-like WHO?!

We need to phone and write to the MSM and Senators to keep this story alive. We need to be like the fugly freepers in this regard and not give up. And I mean NEVER GIVE UP! If people really want * out of office as badly as they say they do, then there is much work to be done exposing this shit! Otherwise, they'll get away with it and swear to gawd, if that happens, these f-in bastards, aka * & Co, will believe that they are untouchable and invincible. Then ALL HELL WILL BREAK LOOSE for sure! And if so, better pack your bags and get out of dodge...that's what I'll be doing no doubt!

from the irony gods. It should be used to its full advantage because, as you point out, it will hold the public's interest.

And there is NOTHING bottom feeding or wrong with exposing hypocrisy and it is NOT hypocritical to do so. It is a moral obligation.

Just my 2 cents.

I want to encourage all of us to keep after this and not wear out. This is it.

The public doesn't care about the national security implications of the treasonous outing of a CIA agent for political revenge. They do care about sex, the more fetish and deviant the better.

for a change in conventional wisdom.

We absolutely should not shy away from using every attention-grabbing angle. Admittedly, it's partly because I think it is time for paybacks, but mostly because Republicans have proven that this is an effective tactic for steering the public perception.

These are the handlebars by which the GUMs (great unwashed masses) are, and wish to be, steered.

I hope the pic of Bush hugging Gannon becomes as ubiquitous as the vid of Clinton hugging Lewinski.

Part of the way the RW controls the news is that they find a story that is unfavorable toward the left, then they talk about it constantly for weeks. Somehow that gets it onto cable TV. If they are successful enough, it then goes to broadcast TV. I never guessed that the left could do the same thing. I think it would be great to show RWs what its like, and have the power in hand when a more serious news story comes up.

Gannon/Guckert is a serious news story when in the context that the RW is working hard to replace independent news with propaganda.

Opinion piece in my paper today:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2002184419_pitts20.html

And some quotes:

"Weeks later, I'm still waiting for a good explanation of what Jeff Gannon was doing in the White House. And for you to be upset about it....

The thing is, a government that is not scrutinized by an energetic and adversarial press is a government that is not accountable for its actions. A government that is allowed to create its own reality is a government that can get away with anything.

So where is our outrage?"

but if you look around DU, you will see a large number of threads interested in nothing but his sexcapades, not issues about the White House. There is no question that some are using it as an opportunity to express their own prejudices about homosexuality.

homosexuality. I refer you to posts 146 and 156, above, because I can't say it any better. If we can use the sex part of this to get attention to matters that cast shame on this administration for reasons that have nothing to do with sex, then we should do that.

sexuality and everything to do with manipulation and control of the media by the white house. If you can learn anything from the opposition, you need to see how they bring targets down on the seemingly smaller issues.

Screaming from the treetops about torture and kidnapping is going to do nothing with the current media, however if you can show sexual impropriety, they just might bite and that is how this scandal will make the headlines.

because I'm actually getting to the saturation point. I know that I'm getting a huge dose because I look at the liberal websites for my news but still, could we get this story its feet and get it walking on out into the mainstream because I am really, really sick of it already. It's got plenty of meat but its hit its saturation point around here, IMO.

I thought Jeff Gannon was behind this and everything else? You're obviously tired of hearing Jeff Gannon's name, but that doesn't give you the right to take it out on me.

I am not trying to make Gannon the scapegoat, but you asked who was responsible for organizing callers not who is responsible for destroying our country.

said "Jeff Gannon et al" and nothing else. So if you didn't mean Gannon, why did you use his name?

You're mistaken to take this as personally directed at you. As I said, it was directed at the general hysteria about Gannon on this site. About 70% of the threads are dedicated to him. People have lost all perspective. I responded to your post because I thought it reflected that. I made no personal comments about you at all, and I certainly didn't intend to offend you.

I was actually hoping the reporter might respond to say who he thought was behind this. Or if not him, someone who had some actually knowledge of how the right organize their activities. We need to take a page from their book. They organize themselves to influence the press. Perhaps we should take a little time from gossiping about sex to make some phone calls ourselves.

Correctly spelled et al., it stands for et alia--Latin for "and others." Translation: Gannon & those other right wing commentators. Gannon's more colorful attributes were not mentioned.

Letting us know the results of those phone calls you've been making will encourage the gossipers to stop.

Also, and this is addressing something else you said, I never mentioned anything about Jeff Gannon's sex life in my post. I was honestly trying to answer your question and instead of understanding my point you have made this entire thread about the very thing you wanted to avoid.

so I apologize. I did not mean to offend you.
I've already stated my reasons several times, so I won't repeat them again.

I wasn't so much offended as I was confused. Perhaps I should have put more words in my post to make my point. I was trying to be as brief as possible and probably touched a nerve by just mentioning Jeff Gannon. Sorry for the confusion.

I tend to be quite forceful and passionate in expressing my ideas, so I don't always think about how my posts might affect others.
I truly do apologize. I don't like to cause discomfort or hurt to anyone. I'll try to be more careful in the future. I should post such responses as a general reply rather than under any particular member's response.

It's pretty clear my concerns about the Gannon issue aren't welcome on the site. I do feel a bit like what some of the more measured conservatives might have when the Monica nonsense dominated. I honestly quit watching the news altogether during that mess, because I couldn't believe what our nation had become. As a result, when they finally impeached Clinton, I was shocked. That wasn't a good response on my part, since putting my head in the sand didn't change things. I'm consistently engaged now, but I still despise
the petty nature of some of this stuff. I understand Gannon reflects many important issues, such as Bushco control of the media. I just want to remind people to keep that larger context upfront at all times.

And please don't get too frustrated with us. Jeff Gannon is like water in the desert for us Liberals. I think after four years of scandals sliding right off of Bush's back, we're all hoping something will stick. Jeff Gannon won't hold our attention forever. :)

On Edit: spelling

been sharing info, articles, e mail addresses to get the story out. and you come here to shake your head, tsk tsk. why bother?
it's not about sex, it's about media coverage, and a lot of people here are shaking that tree right now. it's just starting to get out there.
if your bored at hearing about jeff, stay out of here and go read your local paper. maybe you would have some perspective then. cause there's precious little out there. but we aim to change that.

the et al. I doubt Armstrong Williams knows Gannon personally, but I have no doubt that they are both spokes on the same wagon. The same as the astroturfers. The cause is the same, it would be nice to determine that they are being manipulated by the same cog, but I suspect what we'll find is similar to the al qaeda cell network. They can work independently, but sometimes inter-marry.

than SECURITY?

Read Rove. Attack the opposition's strong points.

Security? We have three million illegals pouring across our borders yearly. While the majority might be seeking jobs, how many criminals and terrorists are sneaking across also? We were promised 10,000 more border guards. We got 210 more guards and some cameras.

The WH cannot even secure the briefing room with the FBI and Secret Service monitoring it.

Secure? How secure are we? Will national ID Cards for citizens make us more secure?

The country is not secure. The WH is not secure.

pound an investigation highlighting the SECURITY issue. Then we will get support from all sides of the political spectrum.. (and those that DON'T chime in will be conspicuous in their silence)

than talk about that. Unfortunately lots of people on this website don't. Look around at the posts. There are a significant number than deal with nothing other than the sex gossip.

On the other hand, we've been fucked over a few too many times by this fascist regime, so I can understand the tendency to go over the top with one of the few cracks we've been able to exploit. Plus, it's fun to make fun of their stupidity.

I posted this in another post but it's relevant here as well.

Then I got a personal contact from Jeff Gannon himself. He offered a brief, unsolicited email critique of my work on a story about rumors of voter-registration skullduggery in Pennington County. Conservative Web runners were pushing that as a Democratic deal. I was interested in that notion, but found no evidence to make a clear connection in print.

Gannon apparently grew impatient with my work, at least that’s how I took this portion of his email: “Get off your butt and do your job.”

Now, that’s always good advice. But I couldn’t help but wonder what he thought my job was. That became pretty clear recently when I watched Jeff Gannon lob an outrageously ingratiating softball to President Bush during a news conference on C-SPAN.

Jeff Gannon was clearly doing his job, as he sees it. That’s fine, as long as people don’t confuse his job with mine.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/politicalblog/

of the "tools" they (PNAC) use? (pun intended)
(I read he has an 8 inch swinger. Didn't see it. Don't plan to.)

Is "sophisticated analysis" what we really need here?

if we are going to make ourselves remotely useful and something more than the wall of noise that afflicts American society.

who else is going to?

That is my purpose in life at the moment. MAKE NOISE.

More people need to wake up and listen to the noise.

And if "we" have our way, it won't be the noise of bombs and artillery and lies and deceit. T

That's what J.G. is .. Deception. Another one.

frankly the more I read online, I realize hatred and prejudice is nearly as prevalent on the left as the right. I wish I had confidence that bombs would not be the result. Unfortunately, I am not so sure. The targets of those bombs would surely be different, but I've very unfortunately seen here that respect for freedom of speech and differing life choices is absent throughout our political culture.

in the literary sense of the word. Gannon wrote that Kerry would be our 1st gay President. Is that news or journalism? Or is that cynically playing to a political base under the guise of being a WH reporter?

Gannon has been magnified out of proportion, but only because he is an exposed reflection of what the media has become. If that's what it takes to slow or stop the war on truth, lets keep invoking his name at every opportunity. I know every other post here seems to be related to Gannon....but how many people who read only newspapers or get their news from Fox/CNN understand the Gannonization of our media?

like yours?

Right.

yours is profound too

is that it opens the door for putting an end to this administration's manipulation of the media. Anyone who has been keeping up with the "Gannon" story can see that there's more to his connections to the WH than being able to get a press pass on a daily basis without being screened by the FBI, unlike legitimate journalists.

I'm surprised that anyone would minimize the importance of this story.

Right wingnut radio and news outlets spread the info., and the right wingnut soldiers create the noise.

1) Local Freepers who know what they're supposed to do (working as minions of Sauron, I mean the Bush Cartel...) It is a simple matter to see some posts in Freeperville complaining about the "librul media" and urging folks to write their local papers & complain about any hint of anti-Bush bias and then follow through on it. If I'm not mistaken FR is a bit larger than DU, so if 1% of their members call in to local news media, it can have an effect.

2) Local followers of RW Hate Radio who know their place (working as the minions of the Bush Cartel)

3) Low level town Republicans - see above for how they work.

4) Local RW Christians - see above.

,...are found to be the core source of the media manipulation?

What if the neoCONspirators have used taxpayer funds to finance a media manipulation scam via public relations firms?

Would that be repulsive enough to demand an immediate 'cease and desist' and to charge the members of this administration with an intentional conspiracy to defraud the American people?

:mad:

The RNC could be using soft money to set up phone banks and no one would ever know unless they checked the phone records where their calls were going to. And they'd still need the phone logs from the newspaper to coordinate.

What we need is any record of the actual calls to a newspaper and the willingness of the reporters to trace the calls back. Reporters are in the best position to get this information - the reporters need to share the information with each other.

I worked small and medium market stations and consulted them...I rarely met an owner or station group that wasn't Conservative.

The lies and hubris of this regime is starting to get sloppy...and cracks are appearing in the once solid walls. It's gonna take time, but I sense we're onto a story that will get a lot bigger and have a major affect on this regime...maybe even paralyizing it as the media goes wild in their own self-induced frenzy as well as all the politicians and operatives who will be brought into this thing.

Having people like you and others here who won't lay down and now are ready to fight back...like many others of us...it's just a matter of time until our focus and determination lead to very positive changes to this country and the world.

On a sidenote: I couldn't help thinking about the reporter for the Chatanooga newspaper who was all but castrated by the corporate media for a serious question that embarassed von Rumsfeldt. Actually, it wasn't the question, it was the answer. This guy got tatooed and I'll bet his career is in jeopardy right now. Meanwhile there a lot of "Gannons" operating in our media...in bylines and in plain sight.

Cheers!

I have various news articles in PDF format, saved web pages, and audio/video clips archived for later use. I always look for stuff to store...

Re the phone callers, it's probably not even that many of them, either. Recall the Janet Jackson boob complaints to the FCC. It turns out it was a COUPLE OF PHONE CALLERS! Yet from the way the FCC reacted, you'd have thought it was hundreds, possibly thousands of calls. Oh and let's not forget the hissyfit the Congressional Republicans threw.

Now we have fines being levied in the range of half a million dollars! Talk about intimidating the media!

So my theory is that the RNC organized some phone bankers to call the media on a routine basis over news coverage. First they would monitor the coverage, then arrange a hit list of priorities (news media) to call.

Very simple, easy. Tonight I read on a thread about the Morton Blackwell "journalism" school that is funded to the tune of $8 million. We know all $8 million couldn't possibly just cover the Gannon thing. Wouldn't be a stretch at all to figure that some of that money went for phone banking.

We here at DU have been seeing the scam of all scams being played on the American people. We've been seeing it for years but, as the poster above points out, the cracks in the facade are showing.


Cher

The Parents Television Council were responsible for 99.8% of the 240,000 complaints to the FCC in 2003. The PTC and the Media Research Council were founded by L. Brent Bozell a well known right winger with ties to Rev. Moon.

I'll bet the calls the original poster mentioned were organized by somebody. I'm also reminded of the thread I read here yesterday where people who posted comments on the americablog site were getting phone calls from someone pretending to be John Aravosis.

Vast right-wing conspiracy? You bet. :tinfoilhat:

Republican Noise Machine.

Talks about the money, the connections, the think tanks, the publishing, the pressure groups.

I would like to be home nights - I can work from a computer - as long as I can be Mom and Journalist.
I promise to have my stories in on time and accurate (you might have to spell check).
I promise no propaganda.
I promise just the facts.
I'm glad I bailed to raise a baby just before the propaganda hit.
:(

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Underground is a completely independent website. We depend almost entirely
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...need to stop living up to the stereotypes right-wingers have of libruls by being such pussies. They need to turn around and say "fuck you very much for your opinion, but this is MY NEWSPAPER."

I'm sure they're worried about sales, but nutjobs like that are bound to be a vocal minority.

circulation numbers, so it does come back to sales.

The American public has a great deal of blame in this matter.

Most other countries have a healthier skepticism of the press than we do. Many of the stories printed/planted that benefited the Bush administration went against common sense, and belief had to be stretched pretty thin to accept their convoluted logic.

We allowed fear, just as Bush directed us to, to override our minds.

It's part of the package. I'm an idealist and a nurse. You wouldn't believe the amount of guilt I feel over the the things I did to my patients unknowingly. That I was lied to by the pharmaceutical companies in no way alleviates that feeling of personal responsibility.

we patients LOVE you... really, a lot!

this to Media Matters for America? Perhaps one of the LW magazines?

Thanks for telling the truth of the matter--I've always thought that the senior editors are more fearful of backlash than they need to be. It's a vocal minority pulling the strings.

I believe that the reason we are getting killed in the MSM is not because the MSM is necessarily conservative. We are getting killed in the MSM because the MSM is terrified of being seen as liberal. They are a business and they do not want to offend their customers, many of whom are conservative (and outspokenly so). The "stream of phone calls" you received are a powerful way to manipulate the news. This nonstop drumbeat of pressure from readers is the direct result of a multi-year campaign by conservatives to prime their audience for it.

Liberals need to learn to do the same thing. We can't sit back and expect the MSM to be fair to us out of charity. We have to demand that our side is taken seriously. It's sad that we have to do this, but it is reality.

Thank you for posting this. It is very interesting.

If we treated situations with he same passion as we treated Sinclaire wanted to air that John Kerry propaganda smear we could achieve great things.

I think the propaganda should be our next focus. We need to write, call, ect.... all the news makers and ask how they can call themselves journalists without writing about the propaganda.

It's not about the sex, but since Armstrong Williams and others got by without much notice, Jeff Gannon is the one who has enough attention (sex will always sell)that we can highlight all the propagandists out there.

I also think the media shows its bias NOT in how they report stories, but in which stories they choose to report and which ones they choose to ignore.

Another point - Watch the LTTE page in any paper. Liberals still control that part of most papers. My local paper has started to post the number of letters they receive on each side of an issue. The liberals' letters always outnumber the conservatives. Always. So we are either more literate or there are far more of us than them. (I could fall on either side of that point :)

It's gratifying -- and more than a little surprising -- to come back from a few hours' sleep and find all this reaction.

I think you've hit the key lesson that comes out of this: actively work to keep your local media honest. (And, admittedly, this isn't the main reason I said all this, either.)

Your basic local daily newspaper is probably chain-owned. (If not, huzzah for you.) This means that there's a local group of senior editors in place who answer to a corporate headquarters or regional group. And these editors' jobs are secure only as long as circulation stays consistent ("increasing" is usually too much to hope for anymore) and the paper continues to pull in its healthy profit margin (at least 15% at most papers, but a staggering 35% or more at some particularly egregious offenders).

The trick to keeping circulation isn't a trick at all -- it's printing what local readers want to see. Not what they "need" to see, no matter how much we'd like this think that's the case. And if conservatives don't like what they see in the paper (or notice what they're not seeing), they are consistently and vocally visible in registering their disapproval. They threaten to cancel subscriptions, and many actually do.

That's where progressives fall down on the job. Sure, we write letters to the editor -- as another reply indicates, the LTTE page at many papers usually leans left. But we keep buying and reading the paper, because we cling to the traditional notion of what newspapers should be and their important role in local civic culture.

And we really can't abandon local newspapers, because they are indeed a vital leg of the nation's political structure. But we can be more active in keeping a dialogue active with those senior editors whose jobs depend on their ability to please their local audiences.

Some practical advice: Note that nearly all of the low- and mid-level editors who actually work in the newsroom don't have the power to change the content of the newspaper. Those decisions are made in the executive offices, and those senior editors look outside, not inside, to guide their decisions. At most papers, these people are called "managing editor" or "executive editor." If you're lucky, your chain paper still has a local "publisher." These are the people who set the tone of presentation for your local paper. These are the people who are getting the parade of calls (possibly coordinated calls) from conservatives, and who generally are not getting similar calls from progressives. These editors are busy, overworked, and in near-constant fear of their own jobs. (It's amazing how many newspaper management structures are based on fear -- the very same fear that we sell to our readers on a daily basis.) They usually will respond to polite yet firm comments.

It's counterproductive to approach these editors in a hostile or belittling manner. I'd even go so far as to venture that most of these senior editors actually know that they're pandering, but their pressure to satisfy readers and keep their jobs has overwhelmed their sense of journalistic integrity.

And don't just pay attention to what stories appear in the paper. Pay attention to headlines, story play, location in the paper, use of photos -- these are the areas in which the newsroom usually can make the most impact, especially when given second-rate material to work with off the wires. Headlines have incredible power, and the copy editors who write your local headlines often aren't aware of how just one word in a headline can carry so much power.

But what if your newspaper is a lost cause? Yes, sadly, they're out there -- papers where the editors know full well that they're essentially propagandizing, and senior editors who are "loud and proud" in their allegiance to the conservative cause. Then we need to be equally loud and proud in our response. Don't bother doing things like marching on the newspaper's offices -- that happened to us, and our editors essentially laughed them off (particularly when the marchers asked by name to see one of the copy editors who they knew would take them seriously!). Get on the phone regularly. Don't let a transgression go unresponded. In a most extreme case, consider something like starting your own local "media review" sheet -- photocopied at Kinko's if you must (and written politely and professionally, and in full compliance with fair-use copyright law, etc.). It's amazing how strongly some editors react to seeing criticism of them in print in the free-handout racks at the local bookstore.

To wrap this up, consider this: Newspaper circulation in nearly all markets is declining, or at best stable, despite population growth of the past 30 years. Local newspapers have been, and will continue to be (in print, online, or otherwise), the primary civic conduit for discussion of issues and how they affect the local community. But vast segments of the population have abandoned newspapers, turning many into a wasteland as toxic as AM talk radio. We can't cede these vital organs to exclusively conservative views, nor would we want them to become the supposed liberal rags that they're so often portrayed as. We need a balanced, aggressive, and skeptical local media, and it's at the local level where progressives can make the most impact.

Your local newspaper is an essential part of the civic landscape, and your local senior editors are the gatekeepers. They have a business responsibility to their company and their shareholders. Make sure they uphold their civic responsibility, too. If done properly, the two goals don't have to be in conflict.

I will do this all day!

I think everyone should read this.

...to take this and the rest of your posts to my Democratic meet-up next week?

This is amazing stuff. It isn't something folks like us think about because, in general, we aren't particularly good at bullying. However, the RW has mastered the art and has taken over the media as a result.

It's time to give as good as we get.

Anxiously awaiting your response...

:yourock:

Because this goes way beyond mere matters of "conservative" vs. "liberal"; this cuts to the very underpinnings of the very carefully crafted system of checks and balances that allowed this nation to grow.

That system is under attack, and we have lost the first seven innings.

Please share, and please feel free to come up with more concrete, practical strategies. This battle can't be won only from "inside"; the impetus has to come from the people.

This isn't about partisan nonsense. It's about saving our democracy and every ideal this country was founded upon.

Thanks so much.

"A newspaper editor's guide to changing the MSM". DU needs simple and clear directions on what actions they should and shouldn't take-and to whom they should direct those actions-if we really want to change the MSM in this country.

This is Westmoreland County, PA, just east of Pittsburgh. You can just imagine the partisan, hateful diatribes that are sent forth from THESE papers. I called editors, I e-mailed columnists, all to no avail. Scaife doesn't care--he is an evil, evil, very rich man, with an agenda all his own.

I eventually cancelled my subscription and now get the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a really good newspaper, but we get no local news.

Many people, however, are buying what Scaife is selling, literally and figuratively. Westmoreland County has a Democratic registration edge of approximately 1.5 to 1. The county went to Bush by a margin of about 55% to 45%. Scaife is definitely having an impact, and he is now buying newspapers in other rural counties in the area.

Do you have any suggestions to counteract this? There aren't a lot of bookstores in the area, and even if there were the people who read the papers aren't the ones who would frequent the bookstores.
Scaife's tactics are insidious, and obviously well-funded.

or recruit some associates/friends.

Local news can be provided via the internet for free or on print for a modest start and a LOT of sweat equity.

I recommend internet frankly.

I have no idea what the start-up costs would be, but here in Phoenix, I think it might work (who'da thunk we'd have AAR in solid red Phoenix and of course, it's a locally owned station?).

How about local blogs? I realize this is a lot of work for what would essentially be volunteers, but could it work?

every time, EVERY TIME, I post a thread about taking action as a group against on an issue and demanding that the MSM cover it, the threads fall like a stone. Yes, they get two or three "hear hear! I'm in!" posts, but just as many "It won't help. Calling and writing letters does no good. I'm pursuing other means of activism" (sitting on one's ass and kvetching on DU about what's wrong with the world seems to be the extent of that bold new form of "activism").

Did we all read the same original post here? Who is REALLY controlling the MSM? REPUG READERS WHO TAKE ACTION, that's who! We ARE NOT doing the same. We don't have anyone on our side who asks us to do the same. Does Al Franken get anyone riled up enough to call a newspaper or station? Does Bernie Ward ask his listeners to make specific calls about a story to their newspapers? Does Will Pitt? No; our side is GREAT at pointing out what's wrong and making us feel very unhappy about it. But our side also absolutely SUCKS at organizing any kind of action, or even framing the debate in any mildly consistent way. The best we ever did was addressing the Sinclair problem-and that DID have an effect! But now it's back to business as usual. Will Newsjock's testimony help anyone here to understand what is REQUIRED of us to take back our country? Will those of you who have the power to attract the attention of most of our members use that power to inspire action? If not, then let's stop complaining about the state of our nation, because WE are the enablers!

That nut Dobson can get his followers to spit out 2000+ emails at the drop of a hat while here on DU we have debates about whether it's worthwhile to e-mail! Like you, I've also posted action-oriented posts on DU and gotten little response. And you are exactly right about Al Franken, Media Matters, etc: My blood pressure skyrockets listening to what they say/write, but they provide no useful instructions!! The opposition to Bush is totally disorganized!

My latest brainstorm is posting 5 easy things to do on DU, complete with e-mail links. This got a pretty good response here on DU yesterday and today:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3145658

Check out post #50, from "Flyarm": She developed a huge e-mail list to contact others about specific topics. You know how Rove and right-wing guys brag about grassroots organization, linking people through their churches and neighborhoods? We could do something similar, but using the internet. I'm thinking of doing a "5 things you can do club" here on DU and seeing if people are willing to partcipate by doing the five things themselves and sedning it along to their e-mail buddies. Coordinated, targeted action may have an impact -- hundreds of people sending e-mails to a particular media outlet (or their local paper/TV station) seems more effective than a scattershot approach. Comments?? Ideas?? Suggestions about how to do something like this????

We got Boxer to act, so we know that people will listen if we are LOUD enough! Let's DO SOMETHING!!!

A year ago, on February 18, 2004, I wrote about Jeff Gannon's curious credentials and the "front" operation of Talon News on my blog. I posted information about it here and on another political message board, and on atrios. I wrote to David Brock at mediamatters. I wrote to several WH correspondents about my concerns. I wrote to Dan Froomkin at The Washington Post.

Dan Froomkin wrote a bit about Gannon the next day and linked to my blog. Otherwise, there was silence, despite the fact that I've continued to press my concerns on various message boards and my argument that the authority for credentialing reporters needs to be removed from the WH press office and returned to the White House Correspondents Association.

As it was when a group of us on salon.com were desperately trying to break the Bush AWOL story prior to the 2000 election, it is still difficult to break through the media filter AND to energize enough grassroots to get the assist.

http://webdems.blogspot.com

activism into our lives as a daily practice like brushing our teeth and doing laundry.

these guys have the whole church organization behind them. we have ourselves. it's not impossible, or even difficult. it's as easy as having friends over for dinner and spreading the word. start email lists. when people get a personal invitation to act, it means a whole lot more than just forwarding a DNC or DEAN newsletter -- but do that too.

I hope to someday work in real news again, when journalism in the United States is once again allowed to be journalism .

(BTW- Hi Folks, sort of new in these parts.)

I hope that happens. The irony of course is that this should be the best time for real journalism: the trying times. This is the time to shine and make history. When it's all good, well the news dry up frankly.

The single most dissapointing thing about the US (+ election 04) has been the mainstream media. For my money they are responsible for Bush being in power. Kerry made mistakes yes, but stark unfavourable realities that should have tossed Shrubya out of office before you could say, "Texas" were deliberately ignored or misrepresented MSM.

I tell my friends that Apartheid South African mainstream media was better than this. They don't believe me, but it was. With censorship and all, it was still better than the nonsense that passes for journalism in this country. Some of my anti-apartheid activist, heroes are scribes. They risked teling the truth, even when it was detrimental to their personal safety. Not all of them of course, some were paid govt spies. But, journalists were big government critics, frequently jailed for violating some Security Statute or other (Section ?? of The Internal Security Act). When print news was censored, they would deliberately blotch out the censored sections with black ink - so you knew you were being had by the government. (Anyone who had lived under an undemocratic govt can probably relay a similar story)

Where is the moral courage to defend what is right, and condemn what is wrong in US MSM? It's so disappointing, it's depressing.

I hope you tell you story, and get to work in "real journalism" someday. For my money, find some place to do it NOW (freelance, start a blog, something). We need real journalists NOW. Josh Marshall is a fine example.

Thanks for sharing your story, it's big step.

g

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

:hi: yellowzebra

Thanks for a great post!

and a big, juicy Welcome To DU!
:toast:

:toast:

and WE are doing it. the blogs. we have the power now.

i was contacted by a features reporter who wanted to do a piece on my blog and we talked for a couple of hours about where journalism is going. from his query i didn't "get" that this is what his "theory" was -- and it's fascinating. from the standpoint of a practicing journalist, the real action is blogging. i happen to think it goes beyond that to a revolution of reading of writing -- but that's a story for another day.

my heros were the journalists of watergate. i hated them at the time b/c my father commandeered the TV which meant i missed Lost In Space. watergate changed my parents and it changed me. we wrested power back from the sickness of the 60s when we lost our heros to assassination (south floridians we were and as such, JFK was basically jesus).

for watergate our power was returned by PROXY -- by the work of Bernstein and whatshisname -- now it will us. screen names. housewives and frycooks. retail clerks and students.

i find this a greater lesson. we have to take the bull by the horns.

When did this happen?

And NewsJock, you're the bomb. Hope your integrity sends ripples across the journalistic cesspool we now have to deal with.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58127-2004Aug11.html
The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story
Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn't Make Front Page

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 12, 2004; Page A01

Days before the Iraq war began, veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus put together a story questioning whether the Bush administration had proof that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

But he ran into resistance from the paper's editors, and his piece ran only after assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, who was researching a book about the drive toward war, "helped sell the story," Pincus recalled. "Without him, it would have had a tough time getting into the paper." Even so, the article was relegated to Page A17.

more

atonement includes an attempt to do better in the future. So far, that hasn't happened so the apology rings pretty hollow to me.

Yeah, they said they were sorry but they haven't done much since to show that they are doing anything different now.

Check the poll numbers back in August when Kurtz wrote that piece. Kerry was up by 6...7...8 points. Hell, Kerry was even up by 3 in the FAUX poll.

As I recall, there were several media mea culpas making the rounds at the time, all because they saw Kerry pulling ahead and they wanted to get in the public's good graces.

Judith Miller at the NYT was excoriated in print for her part in the propaganda machine...that's all forgotten now. Now when we see her name we're thinking government victim instead of government tool.

The honeymoon was shortlived. They're all back on the hook again.
:shrug:

thank you.

Interesting, to say the very least. It really does make you wonder if it was phone banks making all the calls. This corrupt administration is capable of ANYTHING.

Thank you.

paid?

Is there any money trail?

They were hired. A telemarketing firm perhaps has been created to do just this sort of thing. :shrug:

The RNC hired people to register Republicans for the 2004 election.
They (of course) did it fraudulently, by scamming college students.

Is there a money trail? That's a VERY good question. This administration will do ANYTHING to manipulate things around to their liking. It's pathological, actually.

being paid to register.........can we catch them on this?

and i value your experience, bigtime.


here's a question - the "readers" that called to exert pressure and claim liberal bias - were they real actual readers? dittoheads? false mobs made up of republican operatives?


i just find it real hard to believe that your average reader is paying that much attention.

EDIT - hee. should have read through the thread before posting. I see i'm not the only one thinking the complainers were phone bankers.

I definitely think we need to start doing the same. We had such a wonderfully organized attack on sinclai, now we need to flex those elsewhere.


personally i have been wanting to write Les Moonves a letter Now is the best time to start exerting influence on the future format of CBS News. Unfortunately - i can't find any contact info for him.

would get a lot of nasty letters. So, instead of risking that horrible fate, you "messed with people's heads". I'm having a hard time working up any sympathy for you. Are journalists and editors always this fearful? Is this a new phenomenon? Was it just about losing your job?

The day is HERE for you to show that you haven't fallen for this administration's BS.

You ask, "are journalists and editors always this fearful?" Well, yes, ever since the RW got organizaed and turned themselves into a well-oiled propaganda machine, they obviously have gotten very frightened.

This guy risked his job to fight the propaganada effort and finally quit when the struggle threatened his health.

The day is HERE for you to stop criticizing the GOOD people and help them instead: By doing what the original poster outlined in post #42.


Edited to add:

Sorry for sounding so pissy, but really.....

it's up to us to counter the GOP noise machine. Thus far, our silence has implied consent.

Then if you feel the same, feel free to spout.

Please note, too, that the OP was just a reporter; I can't tell my supervisors what to do, and they can't tell theirs.

You can pretend losing a job is insignificant, but it isn't insignificant and the implicit threat of losing one's job is in fact a major part of corporate control over the media. It is why many journalists and editors practice self-censorship. One has got to wonder what they would write about if they would not censor themselves.

I have worked at medium-sized dailies in the South for the past 25 years -- chain- and family-owned papers.

I would add one thing regarding the senior editors. At a chain-owned paper it is common for the chain to send someone in to manage that paper. So you might have a guy from New York sent to Iowa to run the chain's paper there. The guy from New York has no desire to stay in Iowa. He wants to go back to New York and move on up the corporate ladder. he knows the only way he is going to do that is to move the numbers. Corporate headquarters wants to see profit.

So, the imported editor has to slash costs, increase ad revenues and boost (or at least hold steady on) circulation. Taking strong stands, pissing off readers, winning awards, sparking advertiser boycotts, etc. does not accomplish this.

Additionally, the guy from New York knows little, if anything, about Iowa. So he is often inclined to sway with whatever breeze blows through his office, simply out of ignorance of the local scene. And by the time he has learned where all the local minefields are, he's moved on to another paper.

It used to be that the editor of the local paper was the guy who knew everything in town. Today, he's likely to be the guy who knows the least.

its in the soul of the person..thank you for having such a good soul!!
i feel respect is the most important gift we can give..and yet it must be earned...

you sir have earned my deepest respect!!


glad you are here with us!!

:toast: :hi: :loveya: :hug:

fly

Monitoring some 90 major newspapers in the country is a big task. You can be sure that it's not the grassroots doing it for the republicans. Newsjock's post 58 outlines what needs to be done but I think we need an actual investigation to see if in fact these phone calls were coordinated. Like a poster upthread says, I, too, find it hard to believe that Joe Schmoe gets that excited about coverage in the area's daily.

Assuming it is true, just for the sake of discussion, I think we'd need a national organization like a liberal think tank or some other defender of democracy group to work with the coordination. The republicans get paid to do this and thus the job gets done. Somehow we have to find a way to make this an organizational effort where people get paid. It can be nonprofit but it needs to be steady, organized, executed in a timely fashion.

You see, this is always the problem. The corporations take the profits from our purchases and put them to work against us. They always have money to execute their schemes and we hardly ever do.


Cher

A counter news organization or one that really tells the truth, or the real "no spin zone."

I can send the DU link to all my friends, but it needs a bigger audience.

of sharing his (most excellent) post by posting it to The Bulletpoint Blog, with links back to the original DU post.

Newsjock, if you disagree, please let me know, and I'll definitely remove it, but I agree with the rest of the board - this is excellent, and should be shared.

:hi: lumberjack

TV "news"? Same issues/pressures?

Terrific posts. THanks!

... many of the issues are the same, although there are some key differences.

First, the similarities. Your local news station is almost definitely owned by a big out-of-town company. (And newspaper companies are often TV companies, too, although usually not in the same market, even though Bush* tried to allow that to become even more widespread.) Local news started down its path toward becoming a wasteland when owners mandated that news was no longer a necessary public service, but instead a profit center. And, as with newspapers, most of the people working in your local TV news operation don't have a whole lot of power to do much about the content or the presentation, short of crafting a careful phrase or two to help mitigate damage. So it doesn't help at all to get on the phone in the middle of the 11 p.m. newscast and yell at a technical director in the control room.

The biggest difference is that almost all local news markets still have competition. And in the world of big profit margins, that has been bad news. Look at the "sweeps" stories that inevitably show up four times a year during your local news: Bacteria inside hotel rooms! Gays having sex in the park! Will people steal this dropped wallet? There are prostitutes downtown! Most newspapers haven't sunk to this level, but these stories show up like clockwork on local TV -- and, indeed, there are newsletters that alert TV news directors to these "great" story ideas so that they can be replicated coast to coast.

TV is also limited in how much time it can devote to any story, particularly a nation or world story that gets a few seconds at most. In that few seconds, a responsible news director will endeavor to capture the essence of all sides of a story, but we all know that often doesn't happen. And if your station is a Fox affiliate, chances are that they'll run the taped package sent to them from Fox News -- a "source" that those of us in print media don't have to worry about having fed to us.

The news staffs at TV stations are often much smaller than at newspapers. While there are many good people working in local TV news ("some of my best friends," etc.), they simply don't have the muscle of big newspaper operations, and they're driven much more by the need to create emotional responses among their audience.

How to deal with local TV news? Many of the strategies that work for newspapers also apply to TV. The general manager is probably from out of town and has eyes on a bigger market. They're the likely contact point. But with TV, you have to play their game. Give them the easy angle, the quick soundbite. If you ever actually get on TV, you have only a few seconds to make your point -- have it memorized in advance, and use language that viewers will relate to. (Think of how Jeremy Glick so effectively and disarmingly got his message across to Bill O'Reilly.)

Yes, local TV is part of the problem as well, and we're way behind in effectively mastering the ability to get our point across in that medium.

I'm sending this on too!

LTTE's and calls to SENIOR editors (immediate and in chorus) can have an effect in the coverage.

WE must not let up. WE represent at least 49% of the country, and, like 98% of the rest of the world.

I also think we need to target a story a week. If next week we target Gannongate propaganda with all DUers writing and calling(and emailing any other Dem group they belong to). Then next week we can target some other topic. By the volumes of people targeting a specific topic, I think we could get a voice out there.

A scattershot approach isn't as effective. The key is to organize a highly targeted campaign and try to get a couple hundred people to participate: That will get attention. I've been thinking of trying to organize a "5 things you can do club" here on DU -- the idea would be to post 5 easy-to-do-things with links and ask people not just to do it themselves, but to forward it on to their e-mail buddies for them to do, too. Before I post about this, do you have any ideas, suggestions??

with a modifier that let's you join?

that way no one could get in who could spy.

I think the key is a mass target effort.

I commend you for your commitment to relaying all the news. Or at least attempting to. Good luck with your new position and I hope you consider getting back into an editors position again. Your the type of person we need there. Salute...:toast:

1. When we were trying to get coverage about "glitches" in the 2004 federal election, we generated enough heat to finally get the Public Editor at the NYTimes to generate a mass mailing. Not victory exactly, but a measure of what the heat threshold is.

2. Newsjock, my local paper goes lefter on the editorial side but not on local issues. I don't understand that. They'll publish my letters about the Bush administration, say, but go very quiet if I write about city, county but especially state issues. What's up with that? It's Hearst.

Anyway, thanks again.

The local newspaper is often beholden to local business -- because, without the advertising support of local business, no number of happy readers on the left or the right will generate enough profit.

This recently was big news in Indianapolis, where the top business editor of the Indianapolis Star resigned quite publicly because she had been ordered to make her section more appealing to the big-money interests and less so to mere mortals:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?schema=&vnu_content_id=1000753146

Apparently fed up with what she termed Gannett Co.'s tightened "grip on the paper," Vickie Elmer of The Indianapolis Star left her job Thursday afternoon as top editor of the business section.

In a frank memo, first posted on the Poynter Institute's Romenesko site, Elmer, 43, stated why she was leaving the paper's assistant managing editor/business post, which she has held since late 2003. Her reason: " fundamental and philosophical disagreement with senior management over the direction, readership and staffing needs of the Business section. ... I leave hoping for the best for The Star, as Gannett tightens its grip on the paper and its people."

... She added that the paper's top managers wanted to "reinvent the Business section so it focuses on the business elite, managers, executives and opinion leaders. My vision has always been broader and more inclusive -- we provide stories that appeal to clerks and CEOs, college students, cafe owners and cleaning ladies."

When the story hits even closer to home, the profit motive -- and the fear for one's job -- easily pushes senior editors to back the status quo quite forcefully.

Somebody around here published a remarkable listing of businesses which consistently back progressive or regressive policies. I wonder if editors and such have access to lists like that. If they do, they could make savvy decisions about where they can find support, advertising dollars, etc. This is a game progressive editors and media managers can learn how to play, if they don't already.

as a sales tool, literally.

They encourage their advertisers to actually use the words "progressive" and "local" in their advertising. They talk about how progressives tend to favor local businesses. It seems to be working. They are gaining advertisers fairly quickly.

I know it makes me more apt to check a new advertiser out.

there out there?

I'm aware that ad space is priced by numbers of subscribers, not by individual purchases.

Would a concerted effort to cancel subscriptions to the particularly egrgious offenders (The Arizona Republic, my local, would certainly qualify) work?

If all we are reading about is what the advertisers push for, then isn't it a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway?

I'm just curious as to your thoughts. I'm trying to think of ways that time-starved people can make a change.

from Upton Sinclair:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

And thanks for your candor. As you can see, they are being digested by us and also, they're appreciated.

". . . the nonstop drumbeat of pressure from senior editors -- caused mostly by the nonstop drumbeat of pressure from readers. . . ."

We have to write and call and write and call, and whenever possible do so in droves, in a concerted fashion, the way they do.

Too often our side sits back and pisses and moans, assuming that we can't make headway anyway---but the right wing goons get on the ball. Everything gets freeped. So we need to make our voices even louder than theirs, and bottom-line senior editors--even at the big papers and big broadcast news outlets--will be forced to pay attention.

BTW, have you written or called your local news outlet about Gannon yet? Have you pointed out that it's not just about the naked gay male prostitute in the family values White House living room (I stole that from a DU front page article, BTW), though that aspect matters, but about the use of American news media as a Stalinist propaganda machine (like the old Soviet Union's Pravda)

...the sponsers of rightwing biases media

Hell yea, I would rather have 10,000 Davids rather than one Goliath. My name may be David but I am not no funndie, payback time is here.

It's time for us Lilliputians to storm the walls :evilgrin:

I've been screaming about this for years, but the naysayers always win by saying "it won't do any good.." and DUers LISTEN to them! Those people-trolls perhaps-are always successful in giving our side permission to feel good about doing NOTHING. We MUST organize and take action if we intend to take back our country; simply kvetching among ourselves on DU changes nothing.

they MUST orchestrate -- with the power of truth on our side, we can beat the drum for their treachery. letters to the editor exposing the dynamic can be worth 10 of their calls b/c it is TRUE.

the meme is normal people don't spend all their time calling newspapers. you haven't heard from US until now b/c we didn't know wer were being hoodwinked. now we know.

take the wind from their sails.

getting our message out to the media, to Congress and other political figures, and to the public, including those who do not use the internet as their primary news source.

The poster hated what he had to do, but it was due to READER PRESSURE that he did it. We need to balance the neocon pressure with our own message, which is the TRUTH as well as a WAY OUT of the horrible state this country is in.

As I see it, at least TWO NEW DU GROUPS are needed. One would be on "Preserving Internet Freedom," because that is the last bastion of free speech -- if that goes, then that's pretty much the last gasp of democracy in this country. We know it will be attacked, and indeed its smearing by the corporate media and the administration has already begun. Putting a high tax on internet use would be easy, but I also expect Patriot Act-style suppression. We are becoming dangerous to them, and they will not tolerate it. A thread on this subject and the idea to form that internet freedom Group is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x18717

But there also needs to be far more effective and efficient effort put into campaigns of getting the message out by means of ALL available media. There is knowledge -- how to conduct an effective LTTE campaign, for example -- and many resources --contact lists, expert advice. We need to brainstorm how to improve our ability to reach out with our message and we need to organize all these resources. A DU Group dedicated to this very practical goal would be a big help. This former editor's experience would have been far different if there were at least equal numbers of messages coming in OPPOSED to the Iraq War, both directly from activists and from the general public who had had their eyes opened by activists. The corporate media and the politicians will always try to answer the expressed desires of those who reach them. WE LOSE IF WE ARE SILENT.

perhaps a flashing "daily action alert" is needed at the top of the discussion board page. Sure, the opposition would see it and take counter actions-but that's going to happen no matter what we do. More democrats come to this site than repugs, so in all likelihood, more dems would take action if the site administrators asked them to do so on a daily basis.

I'll look over the activism forum and see what sorts of things they have there, but what I have in mind is really very practical: developing a "how-to" guide on HOW to be effective in getting the message out. That's not the same thing as activism, it's more an important that an activist needs.

In thinking about it, I think it's a different concept and needs a different name, one that will make it clear that this is where to go to figure out "what can I do" and learn how to make the most effective use of one's efforts, whether in writing LTTEs, contacting politicians, giving speeches or setting up highway signs, or whatever. Our numbers are limited but our creativity and motiviation are high -- and the truth is on our side. We just have to get it out there.

It wouldn't be about specific issues, it would be a "utility" that could be optimized and used for ANY issue as needed.

and conservatives do? Maybe we should adopt their tactics.

I don't want to say exactly what industry or arm of it my husband and my family work in, but they made a killing off the duct tape/plastic sheeting mania. Profits were up so much it was crazy. Insane. My husband's bonus checks for those two quarters were higher than they'd ever been, due directly to that.

My husband had a hard time with it, because as someone trained in biological and chemical attack stuff from the Army, he knew darn well all the duct tape and plastic sheeting in the world wasn't going to save our asses in that case. He knew it was just fearmongering.

It was a rough time. His conscience.....his work. His work.....his conscience. I will say he had a couple of mini-breakdowns, started counseling, went on antidepressants and even quit his job twice (he was taken back when he would call the next day and ask--he's good at what he does). We keep separate finances and I never asked him what he did with those two inordinately large bonus checks. He's never said. I think he socked the money away. It still bothers him. He didn't want any part of profiting off of fearmongering but found himself doing so anyway.

churches and conservative religious groups. they are not the voice of the masses.

from 1991 to 1993 i published a weekly alternative newspaper in upper east tennessee. we were a SMALL group of dedicated journalists to say the least. i had to take food stamps most of the time i published just to make ends meet. even then, most of what i bought on food stamps went right back to the office to help out my writers who were every bit as poor as we were.

by the third year we got the christian coalition on our case and they began a relentless campaign of calling our advertisers and harassing them to stop running ads in our pub. we lost most of our local accounts -- these tactics didn't work so well on our national advertisers.

so, this is real -- these people are organized and have been for many years.

we have no such organized movement of our own, and that's the problem.

It's tough right now. Im glad you told us your story..

It's helpful and important to share with each other situations like this one. I would think the ACLU would be interested too.

Keep us posted.

or voices questioning the march to war weren't to be found. I hadn't realized the pro-admin forces were that organized and putting pressure on our gatekeepers.

I hope the day comes soon when sanity and fairness return to the MSM.

nobody would listen to us now the U.S. is in a mess. continue to speak out maybe a book one of these days.

We're preparing to join forces with Progressive Democrats to create a campaign for pressuring media to provide unbiased coverage.

It would be very helpful to find an editor with access to news releases sent to major newspapers that are not being covered, so that we could do what the conservatives have done: create a campaign for progressives to contact these editors and publishers to demand that our views be heard.

I am very interested in creating a "Hot issues" alert each week, or perhaps twice weekly, with the 3 or 4 most pressing issues on which DU/DFA/PD recommends that members contact the media. But this is only worth doing if we can find a way to keep such alerts from scrolling off into cyberspace.

I've posted action alerts for contacting Congress here a few times, and only a hanful of people participate, mainly because the majority probably don't see them.

How can we create a permanent, prominent spot for a DU Media Group to post recommended actions for the full membership here? Could we get a link on the homepage?

but a banner at the top of the discussion boards page might be the ticket. You're right; action alerts need to be VERY prominently placed, otherwise the thread will fall like a stone.

Getting the DFA, PD and DU coordinated would be quite an effort, but well worth it. Moveon and TrueMajority might also provide assistance.

:thumbsup:

A coordinated media effort is clearly needed. Why limit this to DU?

with this idea? Including Newsjock's info from this thread would be helpful.

I have seen many good ideas here evaporate without leadership.

Maybe there's a retired DUer out there who can offer their time as a project manager?

for the life of me, I cannot understand why the media was/is so afraid of right wing nuts. When you're steeped in such tradition, that I know you all were taught in college, why you can't reach deep in your soul and do the right thing. Have we, as a society, absolved ourselves of morals completely? When I say "you" I'm speaking generically here, not you personally.

Can we not really see what our eyes see? Can we not hear what our ears hear? Can we not feel what we feel? If there is a God in heaven, I hope he saves us all from what we have become.

settle for the truth. Thanks, Newsjock, for the post. I hope you can find a way to disseminate this story to a wider audience.

We have *got* to convince the newspaper media that these writers complaining about the liberal media are not readers - they are tools of the neocons - they do what they are told - they couldn't formulate an original concept on their own if their life depended on it - they don't know how to do original thought.

"the nonstop drumbeat of pressure from senior editors -- caused mostly by the nonstop drumbeat of
pressure from readers --"

These aren't readers - they are not readers - people like this don't read papers - they are not readers - *we* are the readers and *we* are being turned off by this right-wing favoritism.

Dig up some of those emails and phone calls if they are logged. Compare names and addresses with some other reporters on some other papers.

I'll bet a bunch of those phone numbers, if tracked, down, lead to the RNC.

Reporters are the very best people to get to the bottom of this.

And even if all the papers are owned by conservatives, they are businesspeople first - if it can be shown that these "readers" are not, in fact, readers and their real readers are dropping their subscriptions because of the papers' right-wing slant, the owners will cater to their real readers.

********************************************************
And I do think we need to fight fire with fire. Not necessarily start our own little manipulation machine - we don't have to do that - instead, we just need to register our outrage with the stories by calling the papers and complaining, but on our side, we pick out specific reasons we are complaining and demand that journalists reports facts, not conjecture.

If the news simply stopped reporting unsubstantiated rumors, we would be a long way back toward fairness.

Let's demand they have evidence before printing accusations.

Mostly phone calls? How many people were confirmed subscribers?

would be to accuse any biased reporting as coming from a source that is "on the Federal payroll".Yes, the right has turned the term "liberal" into a dirty word, and we need to reclaim it. BUT, there's nothing more un-American than behaving like a dictator's paid propaganda machine! We need to point this out to the MSM daily.

until DU can form a plan to fight fire with fire on this issue.

When asked, I never tell anyone that my degree is in journalism; "I work in marketing now" is my standard reply. Yes, I know that marketing people rank right near the bottom of credibility lists (with lawyers and used car salesmen), but with the current slanted tone of mainstream journalism, it isn't about telling the story -- it's about the "spin" and if the story has "legs." At least telling folks I'm a marketer means I'm not hiding behind the faked, forced editorial spin; I'm out in the open about what I'm promoting. Being upfront means I can sleep at nights and still look at myself in the mirror. Someday I hope to return to working for the media, but never again on the editorial side. And when I get a chance to return to college for career day, I do what I can to push these students into other career paths warning them that "you better be really good at cover letters and resumes" if you're planning to stay in journalism...

the dismantling of freedoms enjoyed by most in this country. According to the book of Genesis in the Bible, Sex was the entry that brought the flood on the entire earth. IT talks about the badness of men but says GOD DID NOT BRING THE FLOOD Of DESTRUCTION UNTIL ANGELS LEFT THE HEAVENS AND STARTED HAVING SEX WITH DAUGHTERS OF MEN---

WHEN WAS THE DESTRUCTION IN THE BIBLE(Genesis again) OF THE 2 CITIES SODOM AND GOMORRAH?- The entry ticket again was on sex, Angels went to see if sex perversion was bad as heard. Sex again the entry ticket.

Sex is a powerful entry ticket and should not be underestimated as even God(if you read/ believe the Bible)entered situations through sexual avenue.

And the Repubs gained entry with sex, remember Monica?

a form of blackmail? :shrug:

Becoming more organized and effective in communicating to the media (and to the politicians and to the other influential groups) is surely one valid response. What is the most effective way to run a LTTE campaign? Do emails have as much impact as a paper letter? Do phone calls? There is bound to be a great deal known about this -- call it communication skills and resources (how-to's, contact lists, relevant web sites) for DUmmies, if you will forgive my tongue-in-cheek reference to the freeper term for us. I think that a DU Group, really a sort of resource site, should be formed around this topic.