Thought Leader

Two people in my del.icio.us network linked to "thought leader" articles within minutes of each other. Must be the systemic bias in my del.icio.us network.

From Ragnell.

Matt Stoller is a blogger for the leftist blog MyDD. Or so I had believed. It turns out he's much more -- he's a "thought leader in the internet wing of the progressive movement." Sounds like a nice gig.

What thoughts has the leader been having? For one thing, he thinks that pressuring the Democratic party to cancel the Nevada presidential debate was justified because "Fox News is not a news channel, but a propaganda outlet that regularly distorts, spins, and falsifies information."

What's Stoller's evidence? Well, for one thing the head of Fox News, Roger Ailes, was a political operative who worked for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and the first president Bush. On the other hand, George Stephanopoulos, who runs ABC's popular Sunday morning show was an operative for Bill Clinton. And the owner of Fox, Rupert Murdoch, has hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. Ailes' ancient connection with Republican politicians hardly means that Fox News a Republican instrument....

Meanwhile, kbade links to this.

Republican Propaganda Is Not News
By: Matt Stoller
March 13, 2007 04:27 PM EST

Over the past three weeks or so, the progressive movement – bloggers, Moveon.org, grassroots activists, filmmakers – pressured the Nevada Democratic Party to drop Fox News as the host of a presidential debate in August. In pursuing this short campaign, we made two basic arguments that were eventually accepted by party leaders.

First, we argued that Fox News is not a news channel, but a propaganda outlet that regularly distorts, spins, and falsifies information. Second, Fox News is heavily influenced or even controlled by the Republican Party itself....

The end result? No debate. Oh well, Nevada doesn't have that many electoral votes anyway - they can be stiffed. (And yes, I speak from bitterness here, inasmuch as I live in California, the place where both major parties touch down, grab money, and then head back east.)

mattstoller

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