By Robert Parry
June 10, 2005
As George W. Bush’s poll numbers sink to his personal lows and the mainstream news media finally reports on the Downing Street Memo, what political factors should get the credit for these changes? And what are the lessons for the future?
As readers of Consortiumnews.com know, I have long argued that the American liberals/progressives made a historic mistake three decades ago when large funders decided to shift money away from national media outlets. The idea was to concentrate on local grassroots organizing and on direct activism, such as feeding the poor or buying up endangered wetlands.
Simultaneously, the Right made a different strategic choice, investing heavily in national media – TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, books and later the Internet. The Right leveraged that infrastructure to intimidate political rivals and build broad-based popular support, especially in rural areas which lacked media diversity, i.e., the Red States.
Yet, despite the undisputed rise in conservative political power since the mid-1970s, it’s remained a hard argument to get liberal funders to reconsider their priorities.
(rest of the article, we have them running)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/060905.html