Post ombudsman adopts right-wing mantra that ACORN videos are a major story
Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander criticized the newspaper for "tardiness" in covering the ACORN videotape controversy, arguing that newspapers should pay more attention to right-wing media outlets and that the Post's purportedly slow reaction to the ACORN story is related to institutional liberal bias. In doing so, Alexander adopted the right-wing argument that the ACORN videos are a major story when, in fact, the government was not harmed as a result of ACORN's actions; the workers involved constituted a tiny fraction of ACORN's workforce; other organizations involved in scandal receive far more government funding than ACORN; and the videos are part of a longstanding effort by the right to use ACORN as a scapegoat and to distract from more important issues.
From Alexander's September 20 column:
It's tempting to dismiss such gimmicks. Fox News, joined by right-leaning talk radio and bloggers, often hypes stories to apocalyptic proportions while casting competitors as too liberal or too lazy to report the truth.
But they're also occasionally pumping legitimate stories. I thought that was the case with ACORN and, before it, the Fox-fueled controversy that led to the resignation of White House environmental adviser Van Jones.
[...]
With ACORN, The Post wrote about it two days after the first of several explosive hidden-camera videos were aired showing the group's employees giving tax advice to young conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp. Three days passed before The Post ran a short Associated Press story about the Senate halting Housing and Urban Development grants to ACORN, which operates in 110 cities. But by that time, the Census Bureau had severed ties with ACORN. State and city investigations had been launched. It wasn't until late in the week that The Post weighed in with two solid pieces.
Why the tardiness?
One explanation may be that traditional news outlets like The Post simply don't pay sufficient attention to conservative media or viewpoints.
It "can't be discounted," said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. "Complaints by conservatives are slower to be picked up by non-ideological media because there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms." [The Washington Post, 9/20/09]
Alexander ignored that ACORN's actions did not harm the government
ACORN provided only counseling to the activists, and no harm came to the government as a result of the sessions. Alexander did not mention that there were no actual consequences, financial or otherwise, to the government as a result of ACORN's actions, given that there is no evidence the ACORN employees provided anything beyond counseling sessions to conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe and Townhall.com columnist Hannah Giles, who secretly videotaped the sessions.
ACORN receives a small amount of government funding compared to other groups. In a post on Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald noted that conservative media "focus the vast bulk of their resentment and anxieties on largely powerless and downtrodden factions, while ignoring, and even revering, the outright pillaging by virtually omnipotent corporate interests that own and control their Government." As evidence, he noted that ACORN receives a fraction of what controversial corporate interests, such as Halliburton, have received from the government. From Greenwald's post:
ACORN has received a grand total of $53 million in federal funds over the last 15 years -- an average of $3.5 million per year. Meanwhile, not millions, not billions, but trillions of dollars of public funds have been, in the last year alone, transferred to or otherwise used for the benefit of Wall Street. Billions of dollars in American taxpayer money vanished into thin air, eaten by private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, led by Halliburton subsidiary KBR. All of those corporate interests employ armies of lobbyists and bottomless donor activities that ensure they dominate our legislative and regulatory processes, and to be extra certain, the revolving door between industry and government is more prolific than ever, with key corporate officials constantly ending up occupying the government positions with the most influence over those industries.
Videos came from only a small percentage of ACORN offices
Interactions occurred at a small percentage of total number of ACORN offices nationwide. O'Keefe and Giles have posted video of interactions with ACORN employees at five offices, which represent a fraction of ACORN locations nationwide. According to its website, ACORN has more than 100 offices, with locations in 41 states and the District of Columbia.
O'Keefe, Giles, Breitbart falsely claimed each ACORN office visited was complicit. O'Keefe and BigGovernment.com founder Andrew Breitbart both have claimed the filmmakers were never turned away from a single ACORN office they visited. Giles and Mike Flynn, the editor-in-chief of BigGovernment.com, both claimed that in not a single office visited were they not assisted.
Philadelphia ACORN Housing official: "[W]e called the police and filed this report." In a YouTube video, Katherine Conway Russell, ACORN Housing Corp.'s Philadelphia office director, stated that O'Keefe visited the office "[l]ast July" with "another woman." Russell stated that "[a]fter asking several general questions, [O'Keefe] began to veer off into suspicious territory." Russell said that O'Keefe eventually "asked about bringing girls from El Salvador and getting them papers, et cetera," but that "I told them that there was nothing we could do to help them, that I didn't know anything about what they were asking about." Russell also said that after she contacted another ACORN official and it became clear that O'Keefe "lied to get his appointment," they contacted the police.
At least one video reportedly edited out a part of the filmmakers' visit. According to a report by CNN correspondent Casey Wian on the September 17 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, the filmmakers edited San Bernardino ACORN employee Tresa Kaelke's statement from one of the videos that ACORN would not associate itself with prostitution. Wian said: "Left out of the originally released tape but included in a transcript the filmmakers later released is Kaelke's statement that ACORN would have nothing to do with their prostitution business."
Conservative media routinely scapegoat ACORN, vilify it
Conservative media routinely scapegoat ACORN for country's problems. Media Matters for America has documented that in coverage of major news stories, conservative media figures have repeatedly fallen back on two of their favorite bogeymen -- ACORN and undocumented immigrants -- frequently blaming national crises on one or both groups or accusing them of receiving undeserved benefits from the government. At best, these scapegoats are tenuously connected to the issues those figures are discussing; at worst, they are entirely unrelated. In some instances, the media linked their scapegoats to major news stories by using misleading claims or advancing outright falsehoods. Conservatives in the media consistently weave ACORN and undocumented immigrants into their coverage instead of addressing the substantive policy issues. Other media outlets follow the conservatives' lead, uncritically advancing or reporting as fact their smears of ACORN and undocumented immigrants.
Conservatives use ACORN to fearmonger about unrelated issues. Conservatives in the media have also fearmongered about ACORN while attacking President Obama and his policies. For example, illustrating the conservative penchant for using ACORN as a bogeyman, Glenn Beck has devoted segments to tenuous or tangential "connections" between ACORN and the following people and groups: AmeriCorps, AARP, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, PRLDEF, and SEIU. Numerous media figures -- including Lou Dobbs, Dick Morris, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity -- have falsely asserted ACORN would receive stimulus funds in order to attack the stimulus bill. Additionally, Limbaugh and Beck have both invoked ACORN while discussing Obama's reaction to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Beck uses incendiary rhetoric when discussing ACORN. Media Matters has documented Beck repeatedly claiming that members of ACORN may harm him over his coverage of the group. Beck has also claimed that ACORN founders were inspired by a "strategy" to "transform" the United States "into a socialist-Marxist state" and are "enslaving people through ACORN." Beck has also referred to ACORN as "brownshirts."
Fox News used ACORN videos to change focus from health care
Following Beck's instructions, Fox News attempted to change story from health care to ACORN. On September 9, Beck said that while the media "says they're going to be talking about health care" the next day, he didn't "think so," later suggesting that a video of Baltimore ACORN employees would instead be the top story. Apparently taking its cues from Beck, through 7 p.m. the following day, Fox News devoted at least 17 segments on six programs to airing and discussing portions of the video.
Fox News repeatedly promoted the fake claim that an ACORN employee killed her former husband. On September 15 and 16, Fox News devoted significant programming to O'Keefe and Giles' video of their interactions with Kaelke, who claimed she murdered her ex-husband and gave advice on how to run a brothel. Fox News did this without fact-checking the allegation or indicating that it had contacted ACORN for a response. After the video was released, Kaelke stated that she had merely been attempting to "shock them as much as they were shocking me," and the San Bernardino police confirmed that investigators found her former husbands "alive and well."
No harm came from the actions of ACORN? Really?? A group that gets millions in federal money advises a couple on how to get away with running a child prostitution ring and that causes no harm?? What fantasy world does MMFA life in?? I suppose Bohlert would support a child sex ring in his neighborhood!!
Rosenstiel was correct when he said:
Alexander was correct when he notes that most liberal news outlets were tardy on the Van Jones story, and on this one. This delay in coverage is simply a result of a belief by the liberal media that no one cares about these scandals, and a belief that liberals just dont engage in such behavior. They do, and in these cases, FOX news has picked up the slack of the others in the media who have refused to do their jobs in a responsible fashion.
But there was no sex ring. That's what makes it a very small story. If there was a sex ring, yes, it would be a huge story. The police can't even prosecute in this case (at least for the prostitution), because what are they going to prosecute for?
It shows a stunning lack of judgment on some workers at ACORN, I will agree with that. But that is about it.
Absolutely, that would be a story.A child sex ring would have been quite a story.I wonder, if these had been actual criminals, and they went on to start a prostitution ring, and it was busted up because of information gathered by ACORN, would the right be praising them?
If ACORN employees had believed the story, and thrown the pimp & ho out of their office without getting that info, would they be accused of aiding them?
To anybody who thinks this is a major story: What would you have done if you were the ACORN employee, and these people came in on your shift?
Simple question, with a simple answer. They should have gotten their contact info and called the police.
They should now have done what they did, which was give them helpful hints.
More simple questions-
Do you think the ACORN employees took them seriously?
Do you think the filmmakers went as far as providing actual contact information?
If you answered "yes" to both of those, do you think the police departments in major cities would appreciate getting phone calls from every citizen who thinks they may have located a suspected prostitute?
2. I dont know if they gave them real info or not, but the police would never be upset with anyone who called and said they suspected teenage prostitution. Human trafficking is a huge and horrible crime around the world, and here is the US. That is what bothered me so much about it.
I could really care less that they told the woman when she said she was a prostitute and a stripper to bury the money in a coffee can. She is an adult. It was their willingness to help with the child prostitution that bothered me the most.
Having said all of that....is this an earth shattering end of the world story? No. Should it have at least been mentioned by the big three networks? I think so.
The big thee did cover it when congress voted to cut off funding. I guess they didn't beforehand?
For anybody who hasn't seen it,
Here is O'Keefe on Fox in his "pimp costume".
ACORN employees, who work mostly in the inner city, less affluent neighborhoods, many primarily black, who may have seen actual pimps and prostitutes, were buying that?
Anybody over the age of, say, 10, who has ever left their parents suburban white neighborhood,or rural redneck burg, is buying the skinny white nerd , wearing his Topsiders with no socks, fur coat, walking stick and fly-eye shades, as a city pimp?
Seriously?
I saw this video linked at Freerepublic.Most of the comments were basically they couldn't deny how lame it is, but they saw this as evidence of ACORN employees stupidity. One of the brighter freepers couldn't stretch that far, and suggested it was an attempt to make the right wing media look bad for falling for it.
Also at FR- suggesting O'Keefe as a Pulitzer Prize candidate. I'm not making that up.Also in that link, the adjective "unrepentant" dusted off for ACORN, and the mention of a separate Pulitzer Prize for conservatives ( I assume for reporting / creating imaginary stories)
Two former employees of DynCorp, the government contracting powerhouse, have won legal victories after charging that the $2 billion-a-year firm fired them when they complained that co-workers were involved in a Bosnia sex-slave trade...
According to whistleblower Ben Johnston, a former aircraft mechanic who worked for the company in Bosnia, Dyncorp employees and supervisors engaged in sex with 12 to 15 year old children, and sold them to each other as slaves.
DynCorp International Awarded New LOGCAP IV Task Order for Southern Afghanistan Support
FALLS CHURCH, Va – July 8, 2009 – The Department of the Army has awarded DynCorp International ... a task order for logistics support for the Afghanistan-South Area of Responsibility ... The task order value is $643.5 million for the one-year base period. The task order has a base year plus four one year options with a total evaluated value of $5.874 billion. The Army has directed DynCorp International to begin task order performance immediately.
Does this help your perspective at all, or are you still going with the ACORN outrage angle?
A handful of employees at one agency doesn't immediately call the police about an unconvincing pair of actors pretending to be involved in prostitution, and alluding to housing some underage girls at some time in the future,is a major story because they receive 53 million over 15 years (3.5 m a year).You're outraged about this abuse of our tax dollars, and the clear indication of organization-wide corruption.
A government contractor who actually is involved in trafficking in real underage prostitutes,not by low level employees, but by people in positions of authority, and receives almost 6 billion over 5 years (1.2 billion a year, or more than 300 times the rate)is news to you,I assume never reported by Fox "news".
Ever get the feeling you're being played for a sucker?
I agree with your point, but I wouldn't pile it on POV too much. He seems to be taken a pretty reasonable tone as compared to some of the hyperbolic outrage of other posters. At least he conceded it is a pretty small story, and he conceded the 4th video was a fake. Some of the other posters so much want to demonize ACORN, as if all of our problems started with them, that they completely lack perspective.
(Have you heard Lous Black's stuff on Janet Jackson's nipple? It's very funny. Black starts off with the line "I've found the source to all our problems." A dramatic pause. Janet Jackson's nipple. He then goes on to berate the stupid hype about nothing. The ACORN is a bit like that.)
That's him, the first words of this thread. The fact that some of his wingnut comrades have been even more impervious to reality than he is doesn't make me want to cut him any slack.
If anything, it's a little tough love. There are some posters here so brainwashed I won't even bother.If I'm taking the time to respond to him, maybe it means he's not completely a lost cause.
Remember just recently when the other Jackson passed away, almost all real news was pre-empted for a couple of weeks.
It's just amazing to me that we can point out the differences between the ACORN story, and something like Blackwater or DynCorp, put it right under their noses, and they still think ACORN is a scandal because Fox is reporting it.
POV is very concerned with the global problem of human trafficking, and is furious about our taxes going to ACORN, but has never heard of the people who were selling real flesh and blood
underage prostitutes while being paid 300+ times the amount of tax money that ACORN receives.
Figure in weekends and days off, Dyncorp gets ACORN's yearly Fed. budget every day, and are involved in a real, top-down child prostitution ring.
And the gullible can be convinced that ACORN is the story.
And what is not amazing is that POV then drops out of the thread.
And what are the odds that POV will soon be on another thread, still outraged about ACORN, but completely uninterested in Blackwater or DynCorp ?
I'm not optimistic enough to think that Pointy got the point.
Which is what the Philadelphia office did.
So this office did what you wanted them to do. This non-existent child prostitution ring would have been busted. ACORN acted correctly.
Now, what was your point again?
Aren't there a total of five videos? The last one was filmed in San Diego. This one is the hardest to figure out. The target cooperated with the film makers, telling them the best place to smuggle in prostitutes. But then as soon as they left, he called the police. (The police confirm this.)
ACORN seemed happy with his explanation, but when the video aired, they fired him. The video, however, was edited. The ACORN worker, a man, cried and said that English wasn't his first language and he didn't understand.
It seems more than probable that the man was humoring the film makers until he had a chance to call the police. So I don't understand why ACORN fired him, especially since ACORN couldn't see the whole video. I guess ACORN is just trying to cover its tracks?
I stopped bothering to look at the new videos, after comparing the first ones with the transcript that were released, and noting how much the film makers didn't release. I won't bother again, until the unedited versions (the "long form", in Birther speak) are released. It's just too easy for an editor to manipulate the content and distort the reality.
Until I see real evidence to the contrary, my default assumption will be that the ACORN office workers were being "Diplomatic" (in the Will Rogers sense) in dealing with people were talking crazier, and crazier, as time progressed.
Though there was 4, maybe there was 5
How does this "not cut it" - it's EXACTLY what you asked they should have done!
Some of the staff at other field offices acted in a disgusting manner, and were fired.
So to sum it up - several field offices acted in the way you say they should have, and those that didn't got fired. How does this "not cut it"? If you blame all of ACORN for the actions of the now fired staff, why do you not commend all of ACORN when many of the staff at their field offices acted exactly the way you wanted?
"Does not cut it"? Pathetic.
No. Both claims are factual. ACORN has received 54 million over *15 years.* That's 3.5 million a year. That is laughably small. And, given that no harm was done to the government, this is an absurdly small story. Why exactly is this important?
>>Rosenstiel was correct when he said:
No he was not. It is actually the other way around, as the ombudsman proves. If the ombudsman really thinks ACORN is a major story, then, despite the rejection of voters of Republicans, the major media is still tilted way far to the right. Van Jones was not an important member in the Obama administration, and besides, the claims against him were absurd. He was a communist once? Really? Are we back in the 1950s? He called Republicans A$$holes? Really?
The Bush administration had a number of real, major scandals (the Plame story, the firing of attornies for political reasons, the lies about the war, etc). These don't even come close.
But keep in mind the WA Post was the same paper that hyped the Iraq war. They have shifted right a while back.
To put the amount of money in perspective, the US budget is over 1 trillion dollars. ACORN receives on average 3.5 million a year. That about 4 ten thousandath of a percent (.00035%).
In ONE YEAR, one person working for one of the banks that the government bailed out last year, received almost twice in compensation than ACORN has received as an organization over 15 years. Hall worked for an organization that received BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars.
Just to put $54M in more perspective.
You see to forget...as most liberals do...that is was 53 million dollars of TAX PAYER money. The way you can claim that that amount is trivial is amazing.
You didn't answer my argument. Of course, any money is a waste, but the waste here is so ludicrous in relation to the whole budget, that one would conclude this is a non-story.
For example, the cost of a small bridge can be 75 million dollars. Let's pretend that some people dressed up as con men and told the workers that they wanted to steal money from the bridge project by not using the right materials. Let's say this was caught on video. What you are saying is that bridge scandal should be a major story. Now keep in mind that the bridge is actually over 20 times the contribution of the federal government to ACORN.
Even if none of the workers caught on video were black?
j/k, couldn't resist that one. Calm down, Race-Card-Card enthusiasts.
And by the way, can you at least be honest about the 53 million? That is over *15 years.* Since when do we cite figures over that span of time? Do we say that the military costs 8 trillion dollars?
Okay, fair enough.
Agree. The film makers didn't try to root out a systematic waste, which is one reason I think the whole scandal is ludicrous. If the film makers had caught ACORN workers embezzling money, then I would share some of the outrage with the right wing.
On the other hand, you could argue that since the ACORN workers willingly told the film makers how to commit tax fraud, they had done so with real clients, as well.
True. Probably true of every accountant in the world as well.
Massive waste, that.
That's why people are saying it's trivial. You appear to suffer from gross innumeracy.
Do you know why? Because of right-wing loudmouths. There were a miniscule number of cases of voter fraud associated with ACORN, and that was it.
ACORN are nobodies. They mean something to two groups of people: a small number of poor, mostly minorities, whose lives have been helped by them, and a large number of right-wingers who don't give a crap about ACORN as anything other than a bogeyman for their own fear. The rest of the nation doesn't care. That's why this is not a story - the prostitution was not real, and few people care about ACORN.
I missed that claim by POV. Polifact runs down the Obama-ACORN connection. Obama paid 800,000 dollars to a group to get out the vote in the primary. That group sub-contracted ACORN. Obama spent 390 million on such efforts overall. In other words, Obama didn't directly hire the group, and it was indirectly one of hundreds of such efforts. Obama has had no contact with ACORN since before the general election.
ACORN has never been convicted of voter fraud, even though the right wing loves to throw around that accusation. One low-level worker was convicted of registration fraud, a completely different thing. The worker shirked her work; she didn't try to influence the vote (as the Repub prosecutor said) and not one illegal ballot was cast.
And how many of those 100's of organizations can you, or anyone else name? ACORN may have been an unknown before the campaign, and had OBAMA not been a community organizer they have remained an unknown. It is however, undeniable that they gained prominence and played an important role in the campaign.
And that's just an excuse to smear, and not entirely true. ACORN gained a name because the right has vilified it for years. For years the right has claimed all sorts of nefarious things, and presented scant evidence. That is why ACORN is in the news. The right-wing really wants to connect ACORN to Obama.
It won't matter if a police report is produced from every office the scammers visited showing that they were made to leave, if there were memos showing that every employee saw right through the corny pimp & ho act, that ACORN had recorded the information for future reference whether they were for real, or just a nuisance.
In ten years, if you're talking to a devout right winger, they'll mention the "fact" that ACORN tried to help people set up child prostitution rings, just as easily as they'll tell you about the murder of Vince Foster, Al Gore's claims of inventing the internet, Reagan winning the Cold War, Michelle Obama saying "whitey", Bill Clinton's serial abuse and raping of women, The Paris Business review, WMD's found in Iraq..... I don't really need to go on.
It's a done deal.The right wing media has added another entry to their Big Book of BS.
It's undeniable that they gained prominence. I think it's certainly deniable that they played an important role in the campaign. The only people who think the ACORN issue matters at all are conservatives who hate liberals, hate the idea of helping the poor, and would never have voted for Obama anyway.
Remember - after the right-wing press nattered on about ACORN for months, Obama still won easily. I doubt any significant number of voters gave a damn about ACORN.
The only documented voter fraud I know of was committed by Ann Coulter, who voted twice in the 2008 election.
If you want to talk about bigger issues of fraud. What I find really important and disturbing is we elected our President on the preomise to end war and yet he is enlarging Afghanistan, soldiers are dying and he is allowing Iraq to languish on and on.
Our President promised to create or save jobs and we have been losing them instead for his entire term so far.
Our President we voted into office signed a stimulus package and omnibus spending bill and then gave billions to the very same corporate bigwigs he so rightly demonized during his campaign.
Everywhere I look people are still out of work and have received nothing from our President or the idiots in Congress (both Parties).
The same supposedly demonized corporations making money off these wars are still doing so.
You want to talk about persepctive. Our President has much much bigger problems than ACORN. But, he didnt need ACORN on top of it all. Unfortunately, he got it. And those cowards in COngress ran as far away from it as possible as soon as they could.
That's POV for you.
No harm came from the actions of ACORN. A few individuals working for a non-profit organization that gets millions in federal money advises a couple on how to get away with running a child prostitution ring appropriately get fired. What fantasy world does FOX news live in?? I suppose Ailes and most Republicans would support a homosexual sex ring in their neighborhood, but not a non-profit organization dedicated to the rights of the disadvantaged!!
Rosenstiel was in-correct when he said: "there are not enough conservatives and too many liberals in most newsrooms." More journalists tend to call themselves liberal than conservative, but they have a higher level of education than most extremist-conservatives, have read more, have traveled more, and generally have a more-open world view.
Alexander was in-correct when he notes that most liberal news outlets were tardy on the Van Jones story, and on this one. This delay in coverage is simply a result of a belief by the complict media that anyone cares about these alleged scandals, and the ignorant outrage from the extreme right is a belief that only liberals engage in such behavior. FOX news has picked up the slack from the others in the media who have struggled to do their jobs in a responsible fashion, with FOX cheerleading the crazy extremist right beyond all reason.
But what I find the most insulting is this perceived association with President Obama. What is the relationship between Acorn and Obama that he somehow needs to speak on any issue involving them? The right managed to create this vague association between Obama and Acorn during the campaign and that has stuck. That does not, however, make it a big story, despite the claims of Andrew Alexander. This is the same reason Obama was asked about the Henry Louis Gates story: a vague association, in that case the association being race.
The government should investigate Acorn the same way it would investigate any similarly situated entity who partook in the same alleged acts.