Media Matters boot camp readies liberal policy wonks for the camera’s close-up

[alp227]

Since its inception in August 2009, the Progressive Talent Initiative, or PTI, has trained nearly 100 pundits who have appeared 800 times on television and radio. Media Matters uses that metric to pitch donors for more contributions, but its leadership believes that the surge of camera-ready liberals has recaptured lost ground in the media wars against conservatives.

“There was a chronic imbalance,” said David Brock, the founder of Media Matters, which picks up the entire cost of the course. “We didn’t just want to accept that this is the way it is.” Brock is a former conservative writer at the American Spectator who was instrumental in efforts to discredit Anita Hill and to oust Bill Clinton, and who made a sharp left turn a decade ago.

The primary mission of Media Matters, he said, is to obsessively monitor Fox News and call attention to its distortions. But now it’s moving into the operational phase, transforming from observers to shock troops. The organization, he said, had to “professionalize the training and booking” of a left-leaning counterpoise.

Full story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/media-matters-boot-camp-readies-liberal-policy-wonks-for-the-cameras-close-up/2011/03/15/AB4TI9EB_singlePage.html

[democracy1st]

1. K & R great post and info.

[liberalla]

2. Progressive Talent Initiative. (PTI) Very cool.

"The key, they explained, was to ooze likability and reasonableness, and make their opponents seem otherwise."

[Doctor_J]

3. I hope this works.

I will send mm some $$. But I fear that any liberal who holds his/her own on TV will soon find him/herself on the no-call list.

[musiclawyer]

4. This is so sad

I mean, why was this not being done in 1985?

But I digress. Ok, it's nice to have formal training in hand to hand tv combat. But it's almost pointless without consistent messaging.

1. "The GOP has only two constituents: millionaires and corporations."

2. "The GOP end game is a return to a 19th century oligarchy where women, minorities, children and the poor fend for themselves and the middle class does not exist because all its wealth has been transferred to the the millionares."

3. "The GOP lies about everything."

If all the lefty pundits preface every interview with one of the above statements all time ( because at least one of the three is always applicable to the setting) then I'll be convinced that such training will have the desired efficacy.