MSM Didn't Miss ACORN Scandal

By Michael P. Tremoglie
Tea Time Blog


No one should believe that the liberal mainstream media "missed" the most recent ACORN scandal. They did not "miss it."


When I broke the news on March 30 about the New York Times spiking the information they had about ACORN working with the Obama campaign (http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/03/30/top_stories/doc49d0a73c7f98e547489394.txt), it went national, like the current scandal, only because of the Fox News Channel and talk radio.


I was working as a journalist for the Philadelphia Bulletin* at the time. An ACORN whistleblower said that the NY Times reporter to whom she had been feeding information to about ACORN told her the editors did not want to use information about collusion between ACORN and the Obama campaign. The editors said it could be a "game changer" - meaning adversely affecting Obama's campaign.


When my piece was published in the morning March 30, 2009 edition of the Bulletin it mushroomed into a national story by dinnertime. However, it was only Fox News, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other "alternative, conservative" media that ran with it.

Fox News Channel ran it on its tickertape during its broadcast well into the next morning. I received calls from people telling me Beck and Hannity mentioned my piece on their shows.


Yet no one called me to say, nor did I notice, that ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN mentioned it!!


Worse than the media blackout was that, Rep. Sensenbrenner, the ranking Republican on the committee which took the testimony, was not aware of this until I interviewed him. Even after my interview, he never called a press conference about it or issued a statement. Neither did the RNC.


I was told, by a Republican congressional staffer, that Republicans shied away from criticizing organizations like ACORN because they were afraid of being called racists. Now you know why the Democrats and their media myrmidons are using racist all the time.


So do not for a second believe that the mainstream media "missed" this recent news. They are well aware of the corruption that is pervasive in the ACORN organization. They knew about this video.


The mainstream media willfully chose not to report it - just as they chose not to report what I wrote on March 30! Just as the mainstream media chose to ignore what I and others have been reporting about ACORN for at least a year!


They chose to ignore because they know how the Republicans react. They know that Republicans are reluctant to add their voices to the chorus of criticism if they perceive the issue to be petty. Republicans will not take the lead.

Notice how it is only now that the Republican Party is jumping onto the bandwagon and demanding the defunding of the group, investigations of this organization and ultimately the severing of the federal government's relations with it. However, it took a long time for the Republicans to arrive here. Just as it took Republicans a long time to push for an investigation of the New Black Panther Party.


Why? Because they are afraid of being labeled as racist.


Republicans do not lead these issues because the mainstream media does not report them or when they do report them they will characterize the Republicans as being racist. Unfortunately, Republicans are still tone deaf to the influence of the alternative media. Democrats know this.


The Manhattan Mainstream Media Elite know this as well. This is why the spurious criticisms of Obama's initiatives are being couched as racism. It is a means of closing debate. They know Republicans are fearful.


This is why when a reporter for a newspaper in Philadelphia reveals a scandal involving the New York Times and ACORN or when a pair activist-journalists working for a website reveal a scandal involving ACORN employees the mainstream media are silent. They do not want to promote anything that would be detrimental to the Democrats if there is any possible way to prevent doing so. The mainstream media does not want to legitimize criticism by Republicans.


It is not becaused they "missed it."






*(The paper closed June 1. It resumed publishing on a limited-basis August 1)