Politics

Fox News Gives GOP Free Advertising

It is a known fact that money taints every aspect of American politics, and most prominently, elections.  The Raw Story reports that sometimes you actually don't have to pay to play, or at least that if you pay enough, sometimes the favor is returned.

David Edwards reports that in the run-up to the 2008 presidential elections Fox News gave some $55 million in free campaign advertising to GOP candidates.

Edwards writes,

Being on the Fox News payroll has its advantages. Not only did five potential Republican candidates get regular paychecks from the network last year, but they also got something even more valuable: airtime. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee appeared for almost 48 hours. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin had nearly 14 hours of appearances. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was given close to 12 hours. Former senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum and former UN Ambassador under George W. Bush John Bolton both received about six hours.

When is Terrorism Not Terrorism?

Live bomb found at MLK Day parade gets little coverageThe answer is when it is home-grown.

The mainstream media largely ignored a story about an especially sophisticated and deadly backpack bomb found along a Martin Luther King Day parade route in Spokane, Washington last week, barely covering it beyond an initial mention. The device drew special attention from some news outlets because it contained shrapnel, was equipped with a remotely-controlled detonator, was "directional" (meaning aimed toward the parade route) and in the FBI's words, was "capable of inflicting multiple casualties." The major media barely mentioned the incident, and the lack of follow-up stories on it is even more deafening now that the FBI has concluded that the connection between this incident and racism is "inescapable."

RootsAction.org Taps Into the Discontented Left

Submitted by Anne Landman on

RootsActionlogoA new, independent, progressive public interest group called RootsAction has formed to fight "a far-right Republican Party that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of corporate America, and a Democratic Party whose leadership is enmeshed with corporate power." RootsAction is an online campaign to address issues like the squandering of billions of taxpayer dollars on foreign wars that are generating hatred of the U.S. overseas, Wall Street schemes that are costing Americans their homes and the continuation of Bush administration policies under President Obama. The group is endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Laura Flanders and Coleen Rowley. RootsAction's goal is to organize Americans who are already politically active to help defeat corporate-financed media that utilizes fear, myth and outright lies to influence public opinion. RootsAction says the 2010 election shows "you can't beat heartless Republicans with spineless Democrats." 

No
Main Source: 
CommonDreams.org, January 18, 2011
Topics: 
Activism
Lobbying
Politics

Dog-Whistling Past Disaster

Dog head cockedRecently the use of the political phrase "dog whistle" came to my attention while listening to the Sunday morning political talk shows. According to Wikipedia, "Dog-whistle politics" refers to political speechmaking or campaigning that uses coded language to signify one thing to the general public, while also signifying a different and more specific meaning to a targeted subgroup of the audience. The analogy is a reference to dog whistles, which emit an extremely high-frequency pitch that only dogs can hear, and humans can't. Political "dog-whistling" as a tactic of public persuasion can take a variety of forms.

Wendell Potter: The Deadly Spin on Health Care Repeal

Advocates of health care reform who are fearful -- or hopeful, as the case may be -- that Republicans will be able to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") need to understand that the GOP has no real intention of repealing it.

The rhetoric of repeal is just a smoke screen to obscure the real objective of the "repeal and replace" caucus: to preserve the sections of the law that big insurance and its business allies like and strip out the regulations and consumer protections they don't like.

The rhetoric is necessary, of course, to keep fooling the people they fooled in the first place (with a corporate-funded campaign of lies and deception) into thinking that repeal would be in their best interests. For the same reason, it will be necessary for the Republican-controlled House to pass the two-page bill their PR consultants drafted to repeal the law. (Calling it the "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" is a tactic that comes straight out of the playbook I describe in my book, Deadly Spin.)

Political Rhetoric, Before and After Arizona

Jesse Kelly with gunJesse Kelly, a former Marine, Iraq war veteran and Gabrielle Giffords' Republican opponent in last November's election, ran a campaign that used gun imagery as its main eye-catching visual. Several of Kelly's campaign ads show him brandishing an M-16 automatic rifle with the slogan, "Send a Warrior to Congress." A print ad for one of his fundraising events reads, "Sat., 6/12/10, 10:00 AM - Get on Target for Victory in November Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly." Kelly's spokesman, John Ellinwood, naivley claims he doesn't see any connection between promoting fundraisers featuring weapons and the public shootings in Tucson.

Shot AZ Congresswoman Was in Sarah Palin's "Crosshairs"

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Sarah Palin's target listU.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), 40, was shot in the head at close range at a public event in front of a Safeway store in northwest Tucson. Giffords was one of 20 House Democrats Sarah Palin targeted last March on her Facebook page in response to their votes for health care reform. At that time, Palin posted a map of the United States with gunsight-style crosshairs superimposed over the districts of Democratic House members who had voted in favor of the health reform bill. Around that same time, a wave of threats and intimidation was ongoing against members of Congress which led Capitol Police to meet with lawmakers and advise them about taking precautions to protect their personal security. In one of the more alarming incidents, Giffords' office window was smashed on the night of the health care vote. In June, Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle advocated use of "second amendment remedies" if voters fail to get their way at the ballot box.

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Main Source: 
Inside Tucson Business, January 8, 2011
Topics: 
Right Wing
Politics
Rhetoric

Poll Finds Fox News Viewers Significantly Misinformed

Submitted by Anne Landman on

PinnochioA poll conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org has found that the higher amounts of money flowing to the 2010 elections led to a more poorly informed public. The poll, titled "Misinformation and the 2010 Election: A Study of the U.S. Electorate," was the first conducted after a national election since the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Elections Commission, which freed corporations and unions to spend unlimited money to influence U.S. elections. The poll found strong evidence that voters were significantly misinformed on many issues that figured prominently in the 2010 election campaign, including the stimulus legislation, the healthcare reform law, TARP, the state of the economy, climate change, campaign contributions by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Obama’s birthplace. In most cases, increased exposure to news sources decreased misinformation, but exposure to certain news sources were found to create higher levels of misinformation. For example, people who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely to hold beliefs that are not true, including that their own income taxes have gone up, that most scientists do not believe climate change is occurring, that most economists estimated the new health care reform law will worsen the deficit, that most Republicans opposed the TARP bailout, and that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and cannot legitimately serve as president.

No
Main Source: 
WorldPublicOpinion.org, December 10, 2010
Topics: 
Right Wing
Media
Propaganda

Judge Who Ruled Health Reform Law Unconstitutional May Have Conflict of Interest

Submitted by Anne Landman on

District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, who issued the ruling that the new health reform law's individual mandate is unconstitutional, has at least a $15,000 ownership interest in the Republican consulting firm ''Campaign Solutions, Inc." Since 2003, Judge Hudson has pocketed dividends between $32,000 and $108,000 from that interest. Campaign Solutions played a big part in the 2009 elections in helping Republican legislators like John Boehner, John McCain and Michele Bachmann devise public messages to help turn public opinion against health care reform. All three legislators made dismantling health reform a part of their campaign platforms. In another potential conflict of interest, Virginia Attorney General Tom Cuccinelli, who challenged the new health reform law and on whose case Hudson ruled, paid Campaign Solutions $9,000 in the last election, so Judge Hudson decided a case in which one of the litigants was a client of a company he owns.

No
Main Source: 
Gawker.com, December 13, 2010
Topics: 
Right Wing
Ethics
Politics

A Win in Spin for the Corporate-Backed Tea Party

Fox News Channel Tea PartiesIn the weeks before the 2010 mid-term elections, the Tea Party and its activities dominated the media, but there was a decided lack of discussion about exactly what the Tea Party is. Major media seemed sold on the idea that the Tea Party is one big homogenous, spontaneous grassroots uprising, but this was not the case. Apart from a single, exhaustive article in the August 30, 2010 edition of The New Yorker (aptly titled "Covert Operations,") that linked the wealthy billionaire Koch Brothers' and their corporate interests to the Tea Party, few media outlets discussed which factions of the movement were truly grassroots, which were corporate-backed, and to what extent corporations supported the "movement."

Here at PRWatch, we strove to tease out the difference between various Tea Party factions, like the GOP-backed Tea Party Express, the grassroots Tea Party Patriots and the for-profit corporation called Tea Party Nation. We found out which factions were getting the big money, who their PR operatives were, what types of PR tricks they were engaging in, and more.

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