FAIR Blog » ACORN

Action Alert: NYT Falls for the ACORN Hoax

Jim Naureckas — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:35:17 +0000

FAIR has a new Action Alert out pointing out that the New York Times has repeatedly published accounts of the right-wing anti-ACORN videos that credulously accepted assertions that have turned out to be false--for example, that one of the video-makers, James O'Keefe, went into ACORN offices dressed as a cartoon pimp. See the alert here for the real story--and feel free to post copies of your messages to the Times or to respond to the alert in the comments thread here.

Breaking ACORN News!!!

Peter Hart — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:35:50 +0000

Living up to the ridiculous notion that every right-wing slam on ACORN demands coverage in the "liberal media," the Washington Post ("Duo Release Another Video of Their Meeting With ACORN Worker," 10/22/09) runs a story on the latest from the right-wing activists whose undercover videos shot at local ACORN offices got all the attention in the first place.

So what's the news? Well, apparently the duo appeared at the National Press Club to unveil a video of themselves at a Philadelphia ACORN office, where nothing much happened. The video they presented did not include any of the audio from ACORN workers--they removed those responses, allegedly for fear of being sued. And the pair refused to take questions from the press after their (sort of) press conference. Apparently the point of the whole exercise was to show that they spent 32 minutes at the office--and were thus not told to leave immediately. How, exactly, does this qualify as news?

Know Your Enemy

Jim Naureckas — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:41:32 +0000

Politico (10/14/09) published a list of top topics on Glenn Beck's Fox News show, based on a search of Nexis transcripts since the show's January 2009 debut. It's instructive to look at the placement of some individuals, groups and places in the news as an indication of Beck's sense of whom and what his audience should be informed about:

ACORN: 1,224

Van Jones: 267

SEIU: 259

Afghanistan: 97

Iraq: 95

Valerie Jarrett: 52

Mark Lloyd: 50

Al-Qaeda: 50

Bill Ayers: 46

John Holdren: 43

Jeremiah Wright: 42

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: 41

Osama Bin Laden: 40

Taliban: 38

Working the Refs: The Right, the Media and ACORN

Peter Hart — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:31:37 +0000

If you want a lesson in how right-wing pressure on corporate media works, look no further than the ACORN story. Right-wing talkshow hosts have targeted the community organizing group for years, primarily on charges of vote fraud. Then two conservative activists produced some embarrassing videos of ACORN workers at some local offices giving tax advice advice to a couple passing themselves off as a pimp and a prostitute. From there, the story turned to right-wing gloating—and complaints about the media being too slow (and of course too liberal) to pick up on the right's anti-ACORN crusade.

And some in the media agreed. Washington Post ombud Andrew Alexander (9/20/09) criticized his paper for running just two early stories about the recent scandals involving the group. The problem was that the paper apparently doesn't pay enough attention to the concerns of the right--a feeling shared by the paper's executive editor, who called for more coverage of the group.

Over at the New York Times, public editor Clark Hoyt reached a similar conclusion (9/27/09), writing that when the paper misses such stories, it can "wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself." The Times was clueless, apparently, because they ran just one story about the anti-ACORN campaign, a piece that upset conservatives because it looked at the issue as a political matter--explaining that the videos and talk radio brouhaha was a way for the right to try and do harm to a group it opposes, and to try and connect ACORN to the Obama White House. This is undoubtedly true. But editors at the Times, like the folks at the Post, offered the same self-criticism: We don't pay enough attention to the complaining of conservatives.

Sure enough, only a few days later, readers would see how this was changing. On October 6, the Post ran a piece on Republicans going after the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, for their ties to ACORN. The union has paid ACORN for various services over the years. A nearly identical story appeared in the next day's New York Times (10/7/09). So the completely-blown-out-of-proportion case against ACORN has now become a drive against SEIU, with no apparent news hook other than the fact that right-wing Republicans are trying to make this non-story into a story--and succeeding.

I guess editors at the Times and Post can rest easy knowing that they're not ignoring the whining of the right-wing.