Manufacturing the News

[legion]

Michelle Malkin does a good write up how the networks manufacture their stories:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20071107/cm_uc_crmmax/op_194321

On Monday, the local Fox affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., blew the whistle on an ABC News sting operation intended to elicit bigoted responses from local residents. The national ABC News program "Primetime Live" hired actors to pose as same-sex couples and engage in public displays of affection on a park bench. Birmingham police department sources told the Fox affiliate about the social experiment; a local merchant spotted an RV where the ABC crew was stationed. The merchant was told "ABC was working on a week-long project to see how people would react . . . A FOX6 news reporter approached the RV and talked with an 'actor' who said, 'Yes, we are working for ABC News.'"

But there's more, there always is:

Last spring, I exposed a similar news media production engineered by NBC's "Dateline," which recruited Muslim males to be sent to sports events and NASCAR races in the South and across the heartland to expose fans as anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bigots.

Of course, Michelle's readers had some ideas of their own:

"I wonder if they would consider sending a professor wearing an 'I Love W' button and an American flag pin into the faculty lounge at Harvard or some other liberal ivory tower with a hidden camera. I would love to see that experiment."

"Perhaps when I get back from deployment, you can follow me around Seattle and see how I get treated wearing my Navy uniform . . . "

[Overpaid Slacker]

And I'm sure ABC would show the 20 hours of footage with NOBODY objecting to same-sex couples, to "balance" the 10 minutes' worth involving the small handful of pinheads who do.

JP

[legion]

Originally Posted by Overpaid Slacker

And I'm sure ABC would show the 20 hours of footage with NOBODY objecting to same-sex couples, to "balance" the 10 minutes' worth involving the small handful of pinheads who do.

JP

Or they'd escalate the "affection" to all but having sex in a public park and not show that part on the news--only the couples holding hands and the outrage. (This is known as the Michael Moore technique.)

[Shaun @ Tru6]

isn't she the one that Swift Boated that little kid on the SCHIP thing and everything she reported on his family finances and background turned out to be false?

[Shaun @ Tru6]

http://mediamatters.org/columns/200710160004

Between Michelle Malkin Swift Boating a traumatically injured 12-year-old boy, Rush Limbaugh denigrating anti-war veterans, and Bill O'Reilly insulting black Americans (not to mention Ann Coulter dissing Jews), the mighty right-wing media machine -- firmly attached to the hip of the Republican Party -- is in the process of driving American conservatism right off a cliff. The loudmouths whom conservatives have supported for years, and whom Republican politicians have used for political gain, have become increasingly unhinged. And their recent public antics are drawing more and more disbelieving stares...

Then, as if on cue, Malkin unleashed her crusade to slime the family of a 12-year-old boy after he came forward to publicly support a government-funded health insurance program for children known as SCHIP. President Bush recently vetoed an attempt to expand the program. Democrats this week are trying to override that veto. The boy, Graeme Frost, survived a week-long coma after his family's SUV crashed into a tree three winters ago. Graeme's sister was even more severely injured in the crash. Today she is blind in one eye and has difficulty with memory, learning, and speech.

That's who right-wing bloggers picked as the target of their smear campaign, posting all kinds of venom and falsehoods about the family.

Honestly, the Malkin-led jihad unfolded like a parody of blood-thirsty Republican bloggers -- an Onion-worthy spoof -- the kind that even I would have been too sheepish to dream up because the premise made them seem even loonier than I thought they were. How far off the range did Malkin and company roam with their wayward attacks on the Frost family? So far that even the trigger-happy crew at Fox News refused to saddle up and join the midnight posse, out to unmask a sick kid and his needy parents. (Keep in mind that for years Malkin maintained a steady presence on Fox News, yet the channel still wouldn't touch her pet project of hate last week.) ...


And yes, the Republican Party was on-board with the smear campaign. Fanning the flames early was an aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who sent out an email to journalists urging them to follow up on the online swarm that was enveloping the Frost family. Days later the White House rewarded Redstate.com for its litany of Frost attacks by sending the site an exclusive statement regarding the upcoming SCHIP vote. (That kind of White House nod is considered to be a major coup among the right-wing blogs.)

Keep in mind that the entire premise of the vicious anti-Frost campaign was faulty: SCHIP is intended for families who aren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but are not wealthy enough to afford private insurance -- it's intended for families just like the Frosts, with four kids (two of them in serious need of medical attention) and a household income of about $45,000. The bloggers kept pulling their hair out, shrieking about how the Frost family owns a (modest) house. The Frost family owns cars. The Frost parents have jobs, as if those were all shocking revelations. As if those disqualified the Frost family from receiving SCHIP support. As if those made the Frost family a fraud. They did not.

Prior to the accident, the Frosts did not have insurance because: a) they could not get any through their employers; and b) a policy purchased privately would have eaten up nearly one-third of their annual income. When a cataclysmic health-care emergency struck, the Frost family turned to the government for help for their children's medical costs. They qualified for SCHIP help because the Frost family confirmed, through tax returns or Social Security documents, their modest income status.

So where was Malkin's gotcha in all of this? There was none. None of the online vigilantes claimed the Frosts had duped the government by hiding their possessions, or that Democrats gave the family special treatment. The pointless, hateful exercise in intimidation was simply to humiliate a family whose children were nearly killed in a car accident.

Aside from feeling badly for the abuse the Frost family had to endure, in a way I was happy that everyone got to watch the hateful antics unfold in public. Like when Malkin called young Graeme Frost a "human shield" for Democrats, a term usually used in reference to Middle Eastern terrorists. (Malkin was appalled that when debating children's health care, Democrats brought forward a child like Graeme and let him tell his story.) Or when bloggers posted the Frosts' home address at a time when threats against the family were already being made. Or when Malkin did a creepy reconnaissance mission and drove by the Frosts' Baltimore home and reported which bumper sticker was affixed to their front door. Or when Malkin published a nameless email from somebody claiming to be the Frosts' neighbor with the breathless news about the numbers of vehicles the family supposedly owns.

Neighbors digging up dirt on neighbors anonymously, that's a nice touch.

The examples of depravity were everywhere last week, with virtually every robotic right-wing blogger dutifully dumping on the Frost family, and often doing it with a demented sense of glee. Go here to read Weekly Standard blogger Samantha Sault's take on the Frost story and count the number of falsehoods she passed along, while making fun ("just for laughs") of the working family with two seriously injured children. Also note that when the right-wing lies about the Frosts were quickly disproved (i.e. they do not pay $20,000 a year to send their kids to private schools), Sault failed to acknowledge the litany of smears she helped spread about a 12-year-old boy who survived a coma. (No wonder so few people take the Weekly Standard seriously when it lectures The New Republic about journalism ethics; the Standard appears to have none of its own.)

But the whole messy slime offensive against the Frost family came as no surprise to anyone who follows Malkin and her army of true believers. As I detailed last winter and spring, they're most dangerous when they accidentally bump into some facts and suddenly think they're Woodward and Bernstein.

The irony, of course, is that radical-right bloggers despise journalists and claim they're dishonest, biased, and even treasonous. But when the bloggers try to become journalists themselves, when they try (sort of) to report out a story like the supposed Frost blockbuster, the bloggers prove themselves to be comically incompetent as they publish falsehoods, connect nonexistent dots, cherry-pick information, and generally make fools of themselves. And boy, were Malkin and company busy last week doing all of the above.

[cairns]

I know when I'm in doubt I can always go to Media Matters for an honest, unbiased take on the situation.

Signed,
Hillary "I forgot to tip" Clinton

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by cairns

I know when I'm in doubt I can always go to Media Matters for an honest, unbiased take on the situation.

Signed,
Hillary "I forgot to tip" Clinton

a faithful NPR listener, you've been outed! loved the story this morning. that waitress is a walking commercial for the Republicans.

[kach22i]

Michelle Malkin is Ann Coulter after the final sex change operation.

Crazy *****es both of them.