It's extremely common for news stories, in print and broadcast media, to quote a "regular" person. The quotes are intended to offer insights that the public wouldn't get from policymakers.
The problem comes when these "regular" people aren't quite what they appear to be. We recently talked about Joe Olivo, who runs a printing business in New Jersey, and who somehow ends up getting quoted all the time in major media, making critical comments about President Obama. What the coverage has neglected to mention is that Olivo is pushing a political line from the National Federation of Independent Business, which favors a conservative political agenda.
Other than Fox, NPR has helped Olivo push his talking points more than any other outlet, and NPR's ombudsman Edward Schumacher-Matos conceded the network erred.
But it's not just NPR and it's not just Olivo. Ryan Chittum caught another one (via Atrios).
Take one of [the New York Times's] main anecdotes, Drew Greenblatt, who owns a small manufacturing firm in Baltimore called Marlin Steel Wire and who gets his picture in theTimes. This was his third NYT hit in three months. Here are Mr. Greenblatt’s other press hits in June: The NBC Nightly News, PBS Newshour (twice), NPR’s Morning Edition, The Hamilton Spectator. So far this year he’s also been on CNN Newsroom and Fox Business (four times), and in the Financial Times, Reuters, and the Associated Press, plus a number of smaller publications. Two years ago, Greenblatt and his company were the focus of a flattering 2,300 word Atlantic profile, and he scored a couple of WaPo profiles in 2001 and 2007.
How'd this one small business owner in Baltimore find his way into so many news stories as the designated "regular" person? It turns out, Greenblatt is an executive-committee member of the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, the powerful trade lobby that tends to favor anti-union and the conservative business measures.
None of the reports mentioned Greenblatt's association with NAM. What's more, it's all but certain that NAM connected the reporters with Greenblatt.
The next time you see small business owners criticizing progressive policies, it might be worth pausing to consider who else they represent, other than themselves.
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How is Obama's policies, let's not talk to Obama or his staff, let's ask a Republican. Moreover, lets ask a Republican with lobbyist associations, and not disclose such associations because We Didn't Know or We Didn't Follow Up...those excuses which got Dan Rather canned. Why does every aspect of our national dialogue need to be filtered through Republicans, especially since we know the stance they'll usually take is negative. What about the positive? Let's ask a Republican.
Wow, you really have a poor understanding of how the media is supposed to work, don't you? What you are suggesting is that stories on Obama's policies should only incorporate the views of the administration. Actually, they should incorporate a diverse range of opinions, especially those of Republicans *and* Democrats impacted by the policies. It doesn't matter that the views of one side are disparaging of the administration, despite your frustrations. They are still the viewpoints of a large portion of the US population, and you're going to have to see them in print occasionally.
Obama's socialist policies have turned small business owners into endangered species. There are so few left that the media pounces whenever one emerges.
obvi
Unfortunately, this is common with most of the talking-heads on the teevee.
Former Nixon speech writer Ben Stein? He's a "tv & movie personality".
Former Regan speech writer Peggy Noonan? She's a "syndicated columnist".
Even Karl Rove is intoduced as a "political consultant".
Much of the slant of journalism is from two failures: 1-Slant of omission. Not telling the audience that the person given the soap-box has an axe to grind. 2-Slant of laziness. A "journalist " will ask a question & let the answer stand. No follow-up when the "journalist" knows they're being lied to.
Interviewer: What color is the sky?
Democrat: The sky is usually blue, with other colors at times.
Republican: My opponent doesn't even know for sure what is the color of the sky. The fact is* the sjy is pink with purple polka-dots!
Interviewer: There you have it, folks. The two parties disagree.
*= Whenever someone opens up a sentence with "The fact is that..." you know they are lying. Always.
The above views are NOT in any way, directed at Ms.Maddow. She is the one in a thousand that will actually ask the follow-up after the initial response is a lie or a non-answer.
The fact is that Joe Olivo is as honest as the day is long and always tells the truth! ;-)
Well, to be fair, if you actually introduced Rove by calling him what he really is, you wouldn't be able to say it on the air.
Does this remind you of anyone?How about Joe the not plumber that the Mccain campaign dug up.Same old $hit different campaign.
What Obama said this weekend (and it does strike of what Elizebeth Warren said nine months ago)
"There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn't -- look, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet. The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together."
What Karl Marx wrote in Das Kapital Chapter 32 Section 1
The creation of a normal working-day is, therefore, the product of a protracted civil war, more or less dissembled, between the capitalist class and the working-class... It must be acknowledged that our labourer comes out of the process of production other than he entered. In the market he stood as owner of the commodity "labour-power" face to face with other owners of commodities, dealer against dealer. The contract by which he sold to the capitalist his labour-power proved, so to say, in black and white that he disposed of himself freely. The bargain concluded, it is discovered that he was no "free agent," that the time for which he is free to sell his labour-power is the time for which he is forced to sell it, that in fact the vampire will not lose its hold on him "so long as there is a muscle, a nerve, a drop of blood to be exploited." For "protection" against "the serpent of their agonies," the labourers must put their heads together, and, as a class, compel the passing of a law, an all-powerful social barrier that shall prevent the very workers from selling, by voluntary contract with capital, themselves and their families into slavery and death. In place of the pompous catalogue of the "inalienable rights of man" comes the modest Magna Charta of a legally limited working-day, which shall make clear "when the time which the worker sells is ended, and when his own begins. Quantum mutatus ab illo![How changed from what he/it was!]"[33]
But the communist revolution does not end with the negation of individual liberty and equality ("collectivism"[34]), but with the "negation of the negation": "individual property" in the capitalist regime is in fact the "expropriation of the immediate producers." "Self-earned private property, that is based, so to say, on the fusing together of the isolated, independent laboring-individual with the conditions of his labor, is supplanted by capitalistic private property, which rests on exploitation of the nominally free labor of others, i.e., on wage-labor... The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labor of the proprietor. But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on co-operation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production.[35]
They both saythe very same thing! Subtracting from the individualism which is unique to some, The Factory Owner, whose contributions excell because he/she/they exercise a freedom to cooperate in a free society is oweing to the rest of us who made contributions which aided if not superseded their own contributions.
Striking, ONLY 52% of American's pay taxes today. So in Obama's eyes, ONLY 52% are the "WE" who the factory/business owner OWES!
It's purist Marxism. Period!
Apparently quite a few people were paying attention, when Dr. Goebbels ( Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.) was toiling for the Reich.
Wow. Talk about a spin cycle. Are these posts a sign of the future? Is MSNBC to become a FOX scratching post? Will sanity give way to paranoia? My take is that Maddow will continue to be a thorn in their side as she shines her light into dark corners to reveal truth. Ed will be Ed and so forth . The lemmings from fox will eventually either run off the cliff or awaken to just how misguided they are.
Microsoft finally shed the disease that is MSNBC...what comes out in the wash hopefully will be some accoutable an accurate reporting....yeah, pffft....lol
and so much for the "regular people" working for Obama as he promised.....
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/240/tougher-rules-against-revolving-door-for-lobbyists/
I find it odd that they pick a small business owner who is a printer. Printing? Really? How about finding a small business owner in the new media; web development, smartphone app design, SEO. The print industry has been in decline for years, of course Joe Olivo is going to be in fear mode in most of his thinking, therefore conservative. He points out he has 48 employees and going one past the 50 person threshold will be a big problem. The possibility of growing to 75-80 person firm is beyond his imagination.
Interesting that this post concludes that any small business owner who espouses conservative views might well be bought and paid for. Just a thought experiment, but isn't it possible that most of them actually hold conservative convictions, or even that they legitimately believe--gasp--that progressive policies are harmful to their businesses?
I'll be SO glad when we FINALLY get our "librul" media back; It seems like this crap would be caught a lot sooner if we had more that, like, 10 high-profile Libs out there. Thanks TRMS! PS, "LIBERAL" stands for "Lies In Broadcasting Extremely Rare Around LIBERALS."