New report shows media botched ACORN story

Homepage of rottenacorn.com

A damning new report shows that the media seriously botched their coverage of the ACORN story, and that “opinion entrepreneurs” (business and conservative groups and individuals) were behind the witch hunt. Various anti-ACORN campaigns were actually astroturf, fake grassroots organizations, created by business groups that loathe ACORN’s mission to obtain living wages for workers and end the practice of predatory lending. Believe it or not, Republicans aren’t huge fans of poor people of color, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

One of the earliest internet efforts against ACORN, a website called rottenacorn.com, is a good example of astro-turfing behind the smear campaign. Rottenacorn is sponsored by the Employment Policies Institute (EPI,) a front group created by Washington, D.C.‐based Berman & Co., which specializes in “Astroturf lobbying.” According to SourceWatch.org, “EPI’s mission is to keep the minimum wage low so Berman’s clients can continue to pay their workers as little as possible.” Dreler and Martin state that “part of EPI’s job is to churn an ever‐present information campaign against ACORN for its clients in the restaurant and bar industry, like Outback Steakhouse.” This is not unlike the astro-turfing efforts by Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks to derail healthcare reform.

Reseachers Peter Dreler and Christopher Martin argue that before October 2008, most people didn’t know about ACORN, and its news coverage was generally limited to the metropolitan areas where the community organization conducted its activities. However, the activities of ACORN became a high profile news story in 2008, especially at the end of the presidential election campaign when the Republican candidates and other conservatives attacked the group. Dreler and Martin show that more than 60 percent of all stories about ACORN during 2007 and 2008 appeared in the single month of October 2008, creating a “well‐orchestrated October Surprise.” This is when ACORN vaulted onto the entire nation’s public agenda.

The media’s handling of the ACORN story is, according to Dreler and Martin, a perfect example of the “agenda-setting” effect. Opinion entrepreneurs set the story in motion as early as 2006, the conservative echo chamber (ranging from rodeo clowns like Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin to “serious” sources like the Wall Street Journal) orchestrated its anti‐ACORN campaign in 2008, the McCain campaign picked it up, and the mainstream media reported its allegations without investigating their truth or falsity.

Lost in the media hoopla were the facts:

• the story actually regarded voter registration fraud, not voting fraud
• ACORN was reporting registration irregularities to authorities as required to do by law
• ACORN was acting to stop incidents of registration problems by its (mostly temporary) employees when it became aware of these problems
• that actual voter fraud is very rare
• that Republicans were trying to discredit Obama with an ACORN “scandal,” and that allegations of “voter fraud” in 2007 and 2008 related to the earlier case of the firing of U.S. Attorneys, including David C. Iglesias, who refused to cooperate with Republican efforts to politicize voter fraud accusations – firings that ultimately led to the resignation of  U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales

And possibly most detrimental, the media and Big Business successfully brainwashed the public into forgetting ACORN’s main purpose: helping poor people and people of color, the truly disenfranchised. Poor citizens are powerless because they don’t have special interest groups, or think tanks, or political allies to fight for their interests. As a result, they take to the streets in protest, and rely on groups like ACORN to fight on their behalf. Unsurprisingly, ACORN made the wrong kinds of enemies. Pissing off Big Business and Republicans are surefire ways to land an organization on the “Destroy On Sight” list.

Because the media failed on such a massive scale in its reporting of ACORN, this (non-)story will likely reemerge during the 2010 and 2012 elections. Yes, ACORN lost its federal funding, but there could still be yet more dangerous ties to Obama! And let’s remember: this is all about detroying the Obama administration. It was just a nice perk to Republicans that they got to smother an uprising of poor black people in the process, too.

I highly recommend readers check out the full report (PDF). It’s very good.