(Updated) Question – ACORN and the Media
Given the recent revelations involving ACORN, the U.S. Census Bureau has cut them out of the 2010 census that they were supposed to take part in, and the Senate voted yesterday 83-7 to cut all federal funding to ACORN, and the House is next. The Senate doesn’t vote 83-7 on ANYTHING! This is BIG!!! Yet, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc have totally ignored the story, leaving to Fox News and Glenn Beck to cover the story.
Here are some videos on the story if you don’t watch Fox News and, as expected, have no clue what are are talking about.
NYC Office
Baltimore Office
DC Office
San Bernadino Office (Added 9/16)
What will it take for MSM to wake up? What does this tell you about the mainstream media? Also, do you believe the Mainstream Media is right to ignore this story? Tell us your thoughts now.
12 Comments
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I think it’s ironic/tragic that an organization that is supposed to help African Americans has been busted with promoting slavery. I know “human trafficking” is the preferred term now, but let’s call a spade a spade here. Good for the Senate. I would love to see a full audit of this organization.
I can’t believe 7 Senators voted against stripping ACORN of it’s funds. The Washington Examiner lists these 7 pro-slavery Senators. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Senate-de-funds-ACORN-but-seven-stand-by-them-59277612.html
Where is the media on this? I honestly don’t even turn on the MSM (main stream media) these days. There’s no honest reporting anymore. The new media is breaking the relevant stories today.
I think that the media’s non-reporting of such a earth-shattering story just goes to show how complicit they are with this administration.
Each one of these ACORN stories gets more infuriating…now apparently there is one on how to take money from the 12 – 15 year old enslaved girls and use it to finance political aspirations! Can’t wait for the next one! Gotta love James and Hannah!
I’ve always thought the “Mainstream Media” thing was pretty funny. Hardcore conservatives (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, et. al.) always say that the media has an extreme liberal bias, but all hardcore liberals (Michael Moore, Thom Yorke, et. al.) think that the media has a blatant conservative slant. Which leaves me thinking that it must actually be somewhere in the middle, since it can’t possibly be both ways, and one should never take statements from these blatantly biased individuals at face-value.
Now Kevin, as you stated, you don’t turn on the MSM anymore. This means you can’t really say whether or not they reported this story. I almost never watch the news, since it’s mostly nonsense, but I read it online all day long. This story was most definitely reported, as I saw it on several sites. Off the top of my head, here are links to the story on MSN, CNN, The New York Times, and the Washington Post. I’d say all of those qualify as the “Mainstream Media.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32848593/ns/politics-capitol_hill/
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/10/acorn.prostitution/index.html?iref=newssearch
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/senate-says-no-funding-for-acorn/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402849.html?sub=AR (you have to sign in to view articles on this site)
Now it’s worth noting that these are only a few examples, but there were actually several different articles about the issue on each of these sites. It’s not the lead headline because, let’s face it, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s a non-profit organization getting stripped of federal funding. It probably happens every week, but it’s not really worthy of “lead news” status, considering all of the other things going on in the world.
So those were just links “off the top of your head”? You mean you had them memorized? Wow, that’s impressive.
And, Tim, are you saying it’s not a big deal that ACORN, which is a Federally funded organization, is helping people to conspire to traffic underaged girls into child prostitution and commit tax fraud? That’s the story here. The story is the corruption being funded by our tax dollars. Jared is pointing out that no one is really looking into this story.
Yeah, I would say this story is definitely a big deal, especially considering the President’s past connections to the organization, and the issues with voter registration fraud this organization has already seen. If Bush had been connected to an organization that was exposed in such fraudulent, criminal, and inhumane acts, you better believe it would be the main headline for every major news outlet (including FoxNews)!
The links weren’t off the top of my head; the websites where I remembered seeing the articles were. As I mentioned, the links that I gave were only to a few of the articles, but each of those sites had several more. Some of them were about the Senate vote, which is what Jared mainly focused on in his post, so those are the ones that I thought were most relevant. There were plenty more about the undercover videos and what they revealed; feel free to go to any of those sites and search if you’d like to see them.
I think that what ACORN was caught doing is definitely a news-worthy issue. But when compared to wars, a global recession, national healthcare reform and more, I definitely don’t have a hard time seeing why it’s not every news outlet’s lead story. Jared’s question was mainly about the media ignoring this issue, and I was just pointing out that I’d seen it reported all over the place. Just now, driving home from Starbucks, it was literally being reported on NPR as I was parking my car. It’s not being ignored as a part of some conspiracy to protect Obama, it’s just being given the amount of coverage that any issue of this magnitude gets.
The websites themselves were off the top of your head, fair enough. It seems to me that though you’ve seen it reported all over the place, they must not be focusing on the corruption. In your first comment, you were focused on Senate decision, not on the horrific acts this organization is engaging in. From the videos Jared posted, I’d hope you would see that he was focus on what is going on with ACORN. But hey, it’s just prostitution of minors, it happens all over the world, right? No big story there.
We haven’t claimed this to be a conspiracy to protect Obama. It’s odd that you say that though, seeing how he used to work for ACORN, but we’ll just sweep that under the rug with Ayers, Rev. Wright, Van Jones and all the other Marxist/extremists he’s tied to.
I hope my comments didn’t imply that I think prostitution of minors is no big deal. I think it’s obviously a huge deal, and a horrible thing. I was only trying to respond to Jared’s questions. He said,
“The Senate doesn’t vote 83-7 on ANYTHING! This is BIG!!! Yet, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc have totally ignored the story, leaving to Fox News and Glenn Beck to cover the story. What will it take for MSM to wake up? What does this tell you about the mainstream media? Also, do you believe the Mainstream Media is right to ignore this story?”
Since his questions all pertained to how the media was ignoring the story, I was giving some examples of the media not ignoring the story. That’s all I was trying to do. Sorry if it sounded like I don’t care about child prostitution. That was never my intent.
I had a conversation with a buddy today. He gave me some in-site that I’ve not thought about before. Maybe mainstream media is the wrong term because it’s subjective to different people’s point of view. I mean if you’re looking at ratings, Fox News is pretty mainstream since they have the highest ratings of all news channels. For me, when I think of mainstream media, I think of the NBC/ABC/CBS news shows, the old Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather stuff, local broadcast news and major print news papers. I think a better term is old school media. Honestly, as Tim said that stuff is mostly nonsense these days. The new media is online. That’s where I get my news and I think where most young people like us go to get our news. So maybe it’s just semantics but it’s important to understand what’s being discussed.
For some reason videos 6 and 7 aren’t showing up for me. Here they are.
first off, the allegations leveled here are very serious and should be taken as such. local authorities should be investigating this, and it appears that they are. if these allegations hold true, then a serious inquiry should take place. it should take place from that office up to as high as the corruption goes.
i think it’s important to take time to point out the value of our judicial system. i might have missed it, but i didn’t see anyone here talking about the police report filed about this. a youtube video only is not going to hold up in a court of law. as far as prosecution of this goes, more work needs to be done. ACORN came out with the story that these people were playing along. to me, that sounds both plausible and flimsy at the same time, but it deserves investigation. if they were playing along, that alone is grounds for dismissal as far as i’m concerned. if they were actually trying to aid human trafficking then the whole office needs to be shut down for complete incompetence.
the idea of the senate voting to cut off funding for ACORN is a complete joke. it’s a total knee-jerk reaction by our nation’s leaders. the Senate holds hearings for everything. to suddenly take up this vote is political cover over a story that still has details yet to come out.
as far as MSM, it’s pretty much all a joke. i have very limited access to cable news, but what i see is pretty much all bad. Fox News is just as bad as CNN. don’t even get me started on MSNBC. as a proud liberal, they embarrass me.
I’ve told Jared and Kevin this before (many times), but watch Rachel Maddow, Bill Moyers and (gasp) Bill Maher. dig into their archives. you will find liberals with honest opposition and educated critiques. You may disagree with their personal ideals, but the range of guests that they have had on their shows is very broad and their critiques of current events is pretty good too. i haven’t found any conservative voices that can compare with their level of factual honesty (although i will take suggestions).
that’s all for now. much love.
just one more thought…
this idea that the new media/journalism is happening online sounds a bit dangerous to me. when i was in college, the internet was very young. i say this at risk of dating myself, but i was not allowed to cite an internet source in any paper that i wrote. in the decade plus that has passed since then the internet has become a bit more reputable, but not by much. i did a little research about the man who wrote “The 5000 Year Leap” and came across several different stories. i also tried to find out how many people showed up in D.C. on saturday. the numbers varied greatly depending on the political bent of the site i visited.
web reporting is not that great. hot air and daily cos have political bias. just like Fox and CNN, except the former have much less accountability.
journalism today is very much “Buyer Beware”. Left and Right.