Jack & Jill Politics

President obama needs to send Rep Alan Grayson and Rep Weiner of NY into the red states strapped w/ the truth. That posse can just straight out ride down the lies like Bass Reeves rode down cattle rustlers and theives.

PS DJchefron you do know who Bass Reeves is?

Now a new study documents serious problems with the way major media
outlets have handled the ACORN story.

Titled “Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why ACORN Was in the News, and What the News Got Wrong,” the independent study of coverage by 15 major news organizations was authored by Peter Dreier, a professor of politics at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Christopher Martin, a journalism professor at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls.

They trace the latest uproar over ACORN to the White House firing of David Iglesias, the U.S. Attorney in New Mexico, for failing to help GOP election prospects by prosecuting alleged instances of voter fraud by the group. At the time ACORN was involved in a major voter-registration drive in the state.

Dreier and Martin note that after the House Judiciary Committee released over 5,000 pages of documents last month detailing the central role former Bush senior advisor Karl Rove played in Iglesia's termination, nearly every major news organization reported on the documents' release:

…ut none of them — including the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal — mention that Rove was specifically focused on attacking ACORN for its voter registration efforts in New Mexico and other states, even though ACORN is mentioned frequently as a Republican target in the investigative documents.

The study points out that while ACORN has long been involved in efforts to improve housing, wages, access to credit and public education, the focus of most news stories about ACORN — what the authors call the “story frame” — was voter fraud:

The “voter fraud” frame appeared in 55% of the 647 news stories about the community organization in 15 mainstream news organizations during 2007 and 2008.

But at the same time, many media outlets failed to distinguish allegations of voter registration problems from actual voting irregularities, and between allegations of wrongdoing and actual wrongdoing.

For instance, 80.3% of the stories about ACORN's alleged involvement in voter fraud failed to mention that ACORN was reporting registration irregularities to authorities, as required under law, while 85.1% of the stories about ACORN's alleged involvement in voter fraud failed to note that ACORN took action when it became aware of the problems. And 95.8% of the stories failed to provide deeper context — “especially efforts by Republican Party officials to use allegations of 'voter fraud' to dampen voting by low-income and minority Americans.”

Interestingly, the study found that local newspapers were more likely to verify facts with county election boards and thus were less susceptible to the politicized “voter fraud” frame than national news outlets.

The authors conclude:

Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that — despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas — the news media agenda is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story.

Study details mainstream media's biased reporting on ACORN

I am so loving Rachel right now

These folks are just wayyyyyyyyyyy out there and some of these spineless Dems are enabling them

I am so loving Rachel right now

These folks are just wayyyyyyyyyyy out there and some of these spineless Dems are enabling them