[Dialogue] Corporate Media Censors MoveOn

Thu Jul 27 09:56:59 EST 2006

AlterNet

Corporate Media Censors MoveOn

By Joel Bleifuss, In These Times
Posted on July 27, 2006, Printed on July 27, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/39473/

Perhaps you have thought, "If the voters knew how venal a GOP member of
Congress was, they could never get re-elected."

MoveOn is testing that proposition with a public service ad campaign that
targets four Republican candidates whose votes in Congress have put special
interest profits before the public good.

"Caught red-handed" is the moniker for a series of MoveOn TV ads that expose
the lawmakers' fealty to the corporations that fund their campaigns. MoveOn
PAC Director Eli Pariser puts it this way: "The most visible and insidious
form of corruption is the form that is also legal, and that is the money
politicians take from big companies and the votes that they give in return
to help those companies out."

Take, for example, Rep. Deborah Pryce, the fourth ranking GOP leader in the
House. She represents suburban Columbus, Ohio, and was on the receiving end
of this ad:

Announcer: Congresswoman Deborah Pryce--she accepted more than $100,000 from
energy companies and she voted against bills that would have penalized those
companies for price gouging. (On Screen: a series of black-and-white
photographs of Rep. Pryce.)

Announcer: Instead of protecting us, Congresswoman Pryce has been caught
red-handed, protecting oil company profits while we pay more at the pump.
(On Screen: a close-up of Rep. Pryce's hand in one of the photos as an
invisible brush paints her hand red.)

Announcer: Tom DeLay, Dick Cheney, Jack Abramoff. And now Deborah Pryce.
Another Republican caught red-handed. (On Screen: Pictures of DeLay, Cheney
and Abramoff flash across the screen, all with red-stained hands.)

To help the Democrats pick up 15 seats and gain control of the House, MoveOn
PAC decided to concentrate not on the hotly contested races but on
second-tier races where Republican incumbents had a good, but not
insurmountable, lead in the polls. Besides Rep. Pryce, MoveOn has set its
sights on Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-Conn.), Rep. Thelma Drake (R-Va.), and
Rep. Chris Chocola (R-Ind.).

Each has been confronted with three waves of ads. The first, which aired in
early April, focused on the votes that protected energy corporations from
price gouging, as mentioned above. The second ad concentrates on votes by
the four that prohibited the federal government from negotiating lower
prices with the drug companies.

The ad aimed at Rep. Johnson shows a grandmotherly figure empty a pill
bottle into her hand as the voiceover says, "Seniors relied on her. Yet
Congresswoman Johnson accepted $400,000 from big drug companies and got
caught red-handed voting for a law that actually prevents Medicare from
negotiating lower drug prices for our seniors."

The third takes the representatives to task for votes against a bill that
would have instituted criminal penalties against war profiteers like
Halliburton. As a fist-full of money changes hands, a voice over reads:
"Congresswoman Thelma Drake accepted $25,000 from defense contractor PACs.
Then she opposed penalties for defense contractors like Halliburton who
overcharged the military in Iraq at a time when soldiers didn't have enough
body armor."

Indeed, in March, Drake voted against a Democratic bill that would have
blocked firms that had been found to overcharge the government by $100
million or more from receiving any further contracts. The targeted Congress
members are crying foul. In Indiana, Rep. Chocola expressed his anger that
the ads have implicated him in voting in the interests of big oil, which
contributed $80,000 to his campaigns, and the pharmaceutical industry, which
has contributed $48,500. He denounced MoveOn as "a radical group that does
not share the views or values of the people of the 2nd district."

In Connecticut, Rep. Johnson hit back with an ad attacking MoveOn: "A
radical group whose ads have been called 'shameful' and misleading' is at it
again. ... this group compared America's leaders to Nazis." That Nazi
comment refers to one of 15,000 ads submitted in 2004 to the MoveOn.org Web
site as part of a contest. The ad was subsequently taken down by MoveOn.

Rushing to the defense of the GOP incumbents, the Republican National
Committee went on the offensive on June 9, apparently supplying the Pryce,
Drake and Chocola campaigns with text for a letter that the campaigns could
send to stations that ran MoveOn's ads. The letter Drake for Congress sent
stations read in part: 

The newest ad attacks Congresswoman Drake personally for allegedly
protecting war profiteers and goes on to implicitly accuse the congresswoman
of taking bribes. These ads are reckless, malicious and false, casting Ms.
Drake in a false light by accusing him [sic!] of unsubstantiated criminal
conduct. We also believe the republication of these allegations by your
organization ... subjects your organization to the same potential liability
for defamation as MoveOn.org.

In Virginia, Cox Communications, citing "business risks," agreed to stop
running the ad attacking Rep. Drake. Thom Prevette, a Cox Communications
spokesman and vice president, told Norfolk's Virginian-Pilot, "In this case,
it's prudent for us to discontinue running those ads for business reasons."

Uh huh? Turns out that in 2004, Prevette contributed $500 to Drake's
campaign, as did another Cox Vice-President, Franklin R. Bowers. And in
Indiana, South Bend's WSBT-TV, a CBS affiliate, pulled the ad attacking Rep.
Chocola, while in Connecticut, Hartford's NBC affiliate WVIT refused to take
the ad. No conflicts of interest to report there--yet.

But the GOP had its greatest success cowing the media in Columbus, Ohio. Two
Sinclair-owned stations, the ABC-affiliate WSYX-TV and the Fox affiliate
WTTE-TV, pulled the ads. In response, MoveOn's Pariser issued this
statement: "Isn't it ironic the Swift Boat Veterans can lie on
Sinclair-owned affiliates, but the public is shut out from learning
information in the public record about Rep. Pryce?"

And the GE/NBC-affiliate in Columbus WCMH-TV declined MoveOn's ad dollars as
well. According to a spokesman, the station "in consultation with legal
counsel, made the decision not to accept the ad."

During the 2004 election, WCMH-TV did accept ads from the Swift Boat
Veterans. The Time-Warner cable station WSYX-TV in Columbus also refused to
run the anti-Pryce ads. Turns out, Time Warner Cable's Columbus Division
president Rhonda Fraas has contributed a total of $2,000 to GOP candidates
in Ohio since 2003. So much for the liberal media.

Yet the most glaring conflict of interest involves WBNS-TV in Columbus,
where General Manager Tom Griesdorn pulled the ad that attacked Rep. Pryce
for protecting the oil industry from price gouging legislation and that
linked her to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Rep. Pryce heralded the
move, saying that her constituents "no longer will ...be inundated by these
slanderous, negative attacks ads run on behalf of my opponent."

Greisdorn explained to the Columbus Dispatch, "In the end I deemed it was
defamatory because the allegations could no longer be defended to the
satisfaction of our attorneys." But was it the satisfaction of the attorneys
he was concerned about?

According to federal campaign finance records, John Wolfe, the CEO of the
Dispatch Media Group, the corporation that owns WBNS-TV, has donated $3,000
to the GOP since 1998. That is nothing compared to his wife Ann, who since
1998 has contributed $48,100 to the Republican cause, including $2,100 to
Rep. Pryce, who along with the Wolfes resides in the tony Columbus suburb of
Upper Arlington. Wolfe's Dispatch Media Group also owns the Columbus
Dispatch, the region's main newspaper, which has been less than zealous in
covering the controversy over the MoveOn ads.

For example, in addition to not reporting WBNS-TV's conflict of interest,
the Columbus Dispatch has let stand Pryce for Congress' claim that the
congresswoman "has no connection whatsoever" to Abramoff. But, as the paper
reported last year, Rep. Pryce has received $8,000 in donations from a
Michigan Indian tribe represented by Abramoff (she returned the money
following the lobbyist's legal troubles) and she has held fundraising
parties at Signatures, a Washington, D.C. restaurant that Abramoff owned and
where the fundraising operations Pryce controls spent more than $13,000
dollars.

Despite resistance from GOP affiliated media, the "caught red-handed"
campaign seems to be working. In Connecticut, a survey taken in Rep.
Johnson's district found that, following the ads, her share of the vote
dropped from 47 to 41 percent, while her Democratic opponent Chris Murphy's
share of the vote rose from 46 to 51 percent--an 11 percentage point shift.

Similiarly, in Virginia, Thelma Drakes' 51 to 42 percent lead in the polls
shrank to a 46-46 tie with challenger Phil Kellam--a 9 percentage point
shift. MoveOn set out on this campaign, in the words of Pariser, to find
out: "How do you take the issue of corruption and tie it to the politicians
that we need to beat in November?" The answer: Paint their hands red, for
all to see. 

Joel Bleifuss is the editor of In These Times, where he has worked as an
investigative reporter, columnist and editor since 1986. 

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