The ACORN Flap along with Joe Wilson’s rant has flushed Jimmy Carter out into the media to assert that many Conservatives everywhere, but especially in Georgia, were racists. I take umbrage at this implication. The Carolinas are WAY AHEAD of Georgia in that we have at least 4 or 5 serviceable tracks compared to Georgia’s measly one or two. In addition, WE have a slew of both racists teams and racists drivers – probably more than any other place in the world. I would be remiss if I did not also point out that WE pioneered the sport when our Great-Grandfathers, both during the depression and after, made moonshine and were forced to drive like “bats-out-of-hell” in suped up cars in order to evade those pesky tax revenuers from the government (remember the Dukes of Hazard?). The result of all this was the advent of stock car racing and NASCAR. So, take That! Mr. Peanut Man…

And on a slightly more serious note--We have the following New York Times story that was so ripe when they finally reported it that you actually got a whiff of embalming fluid while reading it. Their 3-4 day response time in actually reporting the scandal made me wonder if Obama may be making plans to nationalize the Times and turn it into Nationalized Healthcares Poster Boy for “First-Alert Medical Emergency Responders.”

But in this story and from time to time, we have the distinct pleasure to run across reporting from the overall Liberal Mainstream Media which, on the surface, appears to be a well-written and factual story concerning an event that is print-worthy, but is in fact, written up in an oh-so-slanted way.

In this particular instance, We noticed a newsfeed story in our large regional newspaper dated September 16, 2009 which hailed from The New York Times and the Associated Press.

In this story, the Reporter with unbridled and zealous Zeitgeist, starts out the slant within the title itself. The headline reads:

"Video Success for Acorn Opponents"

Now, if one observes very closely, the Reporter has already set the story up so that the reader is focused, not necessarily on ACORN, but rather, OPPONENTS of ACORN, which, in retrospect would probably be anyone with even a semblance of character.

Why did the Reporter not simply state, Acorn caught red-handed--Journalists score a Massive Coup in investigative Journalism? Is this not also the truth?

Yes, indeed it is!  But this would skew the reader’s range of thinking to the Investigative Journalist’s side rather than ACORN—and this simply would not do for our strident Liberal Reporter.

The story goes on to outline how "conservative opponents sought to tar the President’s campaign with allegations of voter fraud etc." and explains that ACORN had worked on the President's campaign.

Once again, the Reporter tries to set up the premise that conservatives--all along--have been, in essence, trying to nail ACORN for something, as if their many and varied (documented) transgressions were simply dreamed up, and--almost as if--ACORN never did anything to deserve such treatment (Poor Guys).

What should have been written here is the following: Acorn has been indicted and implicated in many issues--both political and domestic--but has for the most part remained outside of any major news scandals.

The Reporter then sets out to discredit the Investigative Journalists themselves by saying:  "But it took amateur actors, posing as a prostitute and pimp and recorded on hidden cameras in visits to ACORN offices, to send government officials scrambling in recent days to sever ties with the organization.”

Rather than referring to "the Investigative Journalist’s disguising themselves as a prostitute and pimp," the Reporter refers to them as "amateur actors," which is a bit demeaning and dismissive in that the Reporter omits the fact that they were journalists “disguised as a prostitute and a pimp."

Well, Einstein Reporter, that is often part of investigative journalism--pretending you are someone that you are not in order to "get the story."  I suppose our intrepid Reporter missed this part of the class in Journalism 101 (probably took the day off to hug a tree or some such).

The Reporter then goes on to point out "how gleeful conservative activists [new one on me] and broadcasters were about the success of the tactics used to expose ACORN workers."  Gleeful is a snide comment in this usage in that it conjures "Schadenfreudian" type emotions at the expense of someone else's demise.

The Reporter could have simply pointed out that Conservatives were pleased that the imputed transgressions of ACORN had finally been brought to light. Unless the Reporter had crawled around inside of most Conservatives' heads, he would not have been able to accurately gauge anyone’s level of satisfaction at a culminating event such as this--but--our Reporter must keep up the slant throughout the story in order to, once again, point out how "mean We are" rather than simply report the facts.

Next the Reporter links the ACORN flap with "Van Jones, a White House official attacked by conservatives led by Glenn Beck of Fox News channel for having signed a petition that intimated that President Bush had permitted the 9/11 Terrorist attack" by stating that this news event had occurred a week before and was, therefore, “conservatively connected.”

Here, I will give the Reporter credit for actually using the word "Terrorists," although the White House may give him a lower grade on his report card for using this "now re-languaged terminology"--Foreign Counter Insurgents or something like that (I don’t accept the re-languaging effort in that it is revisionistic).

The Reporter then points out that "conservatives believe they have hit upon a winning formula for such attacks," as if better than half of the United States’ population being conservative- is in total and complete collusion with one another. We wish...but unfortunately we have our own specific interests and take talking points from no one.  It's just who we are:  Individuals with rights and all.

The story continues for several paragraphs as if the Reporter were essentially worn out from all of the monumental spin effort--or maybe it's just me--but then finally in the last paragraph he gets in one more stab.  The Reporter indicates that "Bertha Lewis, the chief organizer for ACORN, asserted that the bogus prostitute and pimp had spent months visiting numerous ACORN offices, including those in San Diego, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia, before getting the responses they were looking for.”

A more proper, un-slanted wording would be something like:  While not denying the transgressions, ACORN spokesperson Bertha Lewis indicated that these were rare isolated instances rather than the scandal being extremely widespread.

But, once again, the Reporter skews the language to imply that--hey! this could have happened anywhere if you hit enough places.  This brings to mind the theory of random variety of serendipity--could have happened anywhere given enough time.

Once again, you can please be the judge of this, but We at Conservative Refocus believe that We have credibly pointed out how "The Statists’ Media" can subtly shade a story’s texture and tint in order to divert the true conclusion that a reader comes to when digesting a story. Many Conservatives have learned the hard way how to be on guard for this sort of mind-influencing retelling of events.

Barry L. Secrest