This week's issue of Rolling Stone has an illuminating article, "The Lie Machine," by Tim Dickinson on anti-heath reform spin. Dickinson's article quotes internal corporate memos showing how Big Tobacco spun media stories about health care reform in 1994 and how its progeny are striking again.
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
Total media citations of think tanks were down for the fourth year in a row, according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).
Submitted by Bob Burton on
The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), an Australian corporate-funded think tank, has decided to dump its Senior Fellow, Jennifer Marohasy.
One of the things I hope to do with my post is to call out misleading statements and statistics, outright lies and illogical assertions by opponents of meaningful health care reform—and to rat out the front groups that insurers and other special interests are funding to kill reform or, failing that, shape it to their benefit.
I'm starting with a biggie, conservative author and columnist George Will, who suggests in his June 28 column in The Washington Post that, because of the complexity and expense of reforming the American health care system, maybe we would be better off just leaving well enough alone.
Well enough? For him, maybe. He's got a great gig at the Post and as a TV network pundit, and he has sold lots of books, so he probably doesn't have to worry, as most other Americans do, about being just one layoff away from joining the 50 million other men, women and children in the ranks of the uninsured. And even if the Post gave him a pink slip this afternoon, chances are he has stashed enough away that he can afford to shell out the nearly $13,000 that the average annual premium for decent family coverage costs these days (and that was in 2007).
Submitted by Diane Farsetta on
"Well aware that their cause is in trouble and unpopular, purity proponents are revamping their image to appear more mainstream," reports Jessica Valenti.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
In a major article profiling Roger Bate, one of the leading think tank players, Adam Sarvana writes that Bate is "to the environmental movement what Bugs Bunny is to Elmer Fudd, a clever, slippery and often triumphant adversary. But unlike Bugs, who cuts a wide swath, Bate is unknown even to his favorite targets.
The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-headquartered think tank that has taken on the role of trying to coordinate the disparate global warming skeptics, has organized yet another conference to be held in Washington this week
Submitted by Bob Burton on
In September 2001, the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank, appointed Matthew B. Crawford as its Executive Director.
Submitted by Bob Burton on
When Barack Obama announced new fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles, the Cato Institute, a Washington D.C. think tank, reacted angrily.
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