WP,pg1:Advocacy Groups Blur Media Lines(media created w/ hidden agenda)

[DeepModem Mom]

Advocacy Groups Blur Media Lines
Some Push Agendas By Producing Movies, Owning Newspapers

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 6, 2004; Page A01


The Madison County Record, an Illinois weekly newspaper launched in September that bills itself as the county's legal journal, reports on one subject: the state courts in southern Illinois. A recent front page carried an assortment of stories about lawsuits against businesses. In one, a woman sought $15,000 in damages for breaking her nose at a haunted house. In another, a woman sued a restaurant for $50,000 after she hurt her teeth on a chicken breast.

Nowhere was it reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce created the Record as a weapon in its multimillion-dollar campaign against lawyers who file those kinds of suits....

***

The chamber is one of a growing number of advocacy groups that blur the distinction between legitimate media and propaganda to promote their causes. One group has produced a made-for-TV thriller, intended for a cable network, to dramatize the danger of unprotected nuclear materials. Two lobbying consultancies have set up Web sites on politics and government that direct readers to position papers from pressure groups. The National Rifle Association, which already has a national radio show, is thinking about buying its own radio stations.

Communications scholars cringe at the notion that lobbying groups are obscuring or playing down their participation in publications and programs that push a narrow point of view. "People judge communication by its source so when you deny people full knowledge of that source of information they are losing something important about evaluating the message," said Kathleen Hall Jamison, dean of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication.

Geneva Overholser of the University of Missouri's journalism school's Washington bureau said anything less than thorough disclosure "is deceitful and imbalanced." Otherwise, she said, citizens "don't have enough information to judge" publications or broadcasts....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38184-2004Dec5.html?sub=AR

[The Zanti Regent]

1. NO differemce between this and what the Whoreshington Post does

The Whoreshington Post is every bit the propaganda rag that the Madison County Record is...

[LizW]

2. And CNN

No one could watch the interview with Jesse Jackson yesterday on CNN and not understand very clearly what CNN's agenda is with regard to the election.

Likewise other issues. I heard a man (didn't catch the name) being interviewed the other day about global warming and twice the CNN person said, very derisively, "Oh, come on!" and she laughed at his statements. There was no question they had him on to ridicule his ideas.

Every time I turn CNN on, even if just for a second or two, I see something that reminds me how biased they've gotten.

[msgadget]

3. Congress.org one of the 'public service' sites

>On the Internet, Congress.org has been attracting a growing number of people who care about government and politics. This year it drew 169,000 page views a day on average, up from just 62,000 last year, according to Mark West, a senior vice president of Fairfax-based Capitol Advantage LLC, which runs the Web site. The site offers information about legislation, lawmakers and the White House. Readers can also use Congress.org to e-mail federal, state and local elected officials.

At the same time, the Web site subtly provides a forum for Capitol Advantage's hundreds of lobbying clients, which range from AARP, the senior citizens' lobby, to the American Bankers Association. Under the heading "Issues and Action," readers can click on topics ranging from agriculture to women's issues. They then see a long list of action alerts written by lobbying groups and designed to persuade voters to contact government officials.<