aim accuracy media guillette bak

REED IRVINE see also the big media watch group

wow, kind of hub-y diversity here? energy and climate denial, old school neo-cons (beards?) , anti-commie, xian too

bak 8 23

HIDDEN CAM DR VID DEATH THREAT

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/t**hey-blew-up-my-life**/

no lnx docs

mARTINSVILLE, Ind. — It started April 12, right afterFox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime, one of the most-watched news programs in the country.

A phone call: “You stupid b*tch.”

Then an email: “Everyone you ever encounter … should spit in your face, fling their feces at you (with impeccable aim), punch you, knock you down, kick you, piss on you and hold you there for similar treatment by everyone waiting in line for their turn — you despicable sad excuse for a sub-human being.”

And that was just the first 11 minutes for Jenny Oakley, a mid-level public school administrator in Martinsville, Ind., who found herself depicted in a nationally televised secret camera video and thrust suddenly — and, she said, unfairly and inaccurately — into culture war cruelty.

It would get worse.

During sleepless nights, Oakley’s husband Justin took out his guns for the first time in 10 years. Police began patrols outside the Oakleys’ home after they reported harassment. The couple bought a Doberman named Zeus for added protection. Late on a Saturday night in their quiet neighborhood, a burst of sound — Pow-Pow-Pow — startled them and then a louder Boom.

Having previously enjoyed a quiet life, Jenny Oakley found herself in a debilitating new reality, breaking down when people merely asked how she was doing. She enjoyed reading, but now she couldn’t concentrate. She liked watching videos, but a video got her in this situation. Videos triggered dread.

Oakley describes herself as someone who wants to be liked, someone who has “always cared what people think, to a fault.” She said she avoids controversy and isn’t very political. Justin is the opposite. He works for an Indiana teachers union and ran for state Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2012 before dropping out of the race.

But on social media, strangers took off on Jenny’s character, including one who wrote, “I do not believe in any way that she is a good person.”

An email from the night of the program carried the subject line “God Bless You,” but what it said stung Oakley the most. She could handle the heinous screed of some kook. But this cut deep as an educator and mother of a middle schooler.

“You should never be near any children again, including your own…,” the email said.

That middle schooler helped her mother during the difficult days ahead.

Jenny Oakley and Zeus, her family's Doberman. Doug McSchooler / Raw Story

“I don't think she had ever seen me cry except at funerals,” Oakley said. “And I was walking around here like a zombie, basically. And she made out little Bible verses and stuck them all over the house, you know, trying to hold me up.”

And to what end are the Oakleys suffering through this ordeal?

“I just think it's just part of a bigger attack on public education,” Oakley said. “And, you know, that's the ultimate goal. I wasn't the target necessarily, but I'm definitely the collateral damage.”

Hidden camera, open wounds

In an exclusive interview with Raw Story, Oakley recounted her experience as one of seven public educators from different school districts in Indiana who Accuracy in Media recorded on a hidden camera. Fox News used the video for its April 12 segment on Jesse Watters Primetime.

Accuracy in Media, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit, and Fox News alleged that the educators were “stealthily” teaching “principles associated with Critical Race Theory,” a highly controversial front in the culture wars that, at its core, alleges systemic racism in America.

Raw Story last week requested an interview with Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette. Accuracy in Media responded with an unsigned email requesting Raw Story submit written questions in advance. Raw Story declined to do so, and Accuracy in Media did not respond to subsequent interview requests. Accuracy in Media also did not respond to several emailed questions.

Fox News did not respond to requests for an interview.

The supposed deception of parents, Accuracy in Media argues, reinforces the need for public tax money to go to charter and private schools.

“Our goal is school choice where the money follows the child,” Guillette said on Fox News. “That is the only solution.”

Within the past few months, Accuracy in Media also published hidden-camera video of public educators in Ohio, North Carolina, Texas, and Nebraska. In those states — plus Indiana and several others — such recordings are legal because only one party to a conversation needs to consent.

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist warns: We're watching the largest and most dangerous 'cult' in American history

Educators were accused, as in Indiana, of sneaking CRT concepts into public school curriculum.

“After this happened, I was like, ‘How in the world did they align what I was talking about to CRT?’” Oakley said. “Because in fact, I couldn't even talk intelligently about CRT at that time.”

Through open records requests to the districts involved, Raw Story obtained Accuracy in Media’s lightly edited video from the Elkhart, Ind., public school district, plus hundreds of pages of emails from all of the districts.

Oakley said she spoke to Raw Story to explain her side, advocate for the teaching profession and to show the human cost of rabid culture war fighting.

She appears for 24 seconds in the Accuracy in Media video.

“We’ve talked about, to our textbook companies that are coming in to do presentations — and I actually prep them a little because I’m like, “We want this in our curriculum, so if you could just not say specifically this, then it won’t cause a red flag with the community,’” Oakley says. “And I hate that we have to do that. But that way, it’s still there. And the community would support it if just the content was there. They just … it’s the title.”

The Fox News story started with a graphic over Watters’ shoulder showing children’s blocks with the letters CRT.

“Children are fed CRT propaganda,” it said on the lower-third of the screen.

Watters started the segment by asserting, “Schools are brainwashing our kids and then lying about it.”

Jenny Oakley is the first educator shown. The Fox News segment cut something Oakley sees as critical from the Accuracy in Media video — the part where she says, “And the community would support it …”

In an interview, Oakley said the red flag she meant was Social-Emotional Learning (SEL), which is sometimes mistakenly conflated with CRT. Teaching SEL is part of Indiana’s state academic standards and is promoted on a flyer from three state agencies.

It equates to skills such as building resiliency, communicating effectively, and goal setting. Indiana schools are required by law to teach SEL concepts, the Plainfield, Ind., school district explained in a Q&A strongly supportive of its administrator who appeared in the Accuracy in Media video.

CRT, however, is another matter. In June, the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville sued Accuracy in Media, saying it defamed the district and presented it in a false light by saying it teaches CRT. In July, the district withdrew its complaint.

The complaint alleged, “MSD of Martinsville believes that AIM has manipulated a surreptitious recording of a School District employee in an effort to falsely claim that the School District is teaching CRT and is lying to School District parents about it."

Superintendent Eric Bowlen declined comment for this story, including why the district dismissed the lawsuit it brought.

Oakley has not seen the unedited version of the video. The school district’s lawsuit said Accuracy in Media initially agreed to provide it and then went silent.

A day after the Fox News segment, a truck with a large screen on the side played the Accuracy in Media video as it rolled around downtown Indianapolis, with the city about to host the National Rifle Association’s annual convention.

It’s unclear who hired the truck, but Accuracy in Media’s tactics were generating attention.

‘Sydney Greenberg’

On a Thursday morning in February, two women who Oakley thought were in their 20s showed up at Martinsville’s administration building unannounced, saying they were looking for a school district for their child in first grade.

Their story, according to an email Oakley wrote later that day to district colleagues: They came from Texas, but Texas was too conservative and they wanted a new community and school. They expressed concern about censored curriculum and book banning.

It was more than two months before the Fox News story.

Oakley wouldn’t normally be the one to talk with school shoppers. That would be her boss, Suzie Lipps, assistant to the superintendent for curriculum, instruction and human resources. But Lipps was working on an issue outside the building, so Oakley, the director of e-learning and literacy, spoke with them. These opportunities are not taken lightly. That’s especially the case with Indiana’s legislature using tax money for a robust voucher program supporting private, usually faith-based, schools.

When Oakley asked the women what part of town they moved to, they named a local church. The conversation lasted five or 10 minutes, Oakley said. She later contacted the principal of the elementary school the child would be attending and suggested inviting the women to a cultural festival at the school that night.

Oakley got a name from one of the women, “Sydney Greenberg,” and a phone number.

Nobody returned the call inviting them to the cultural event. When Raw Story called the number this month, there was a generic message to leave a voicemail.

Martinsville is a conservative town in a red state. It’s not the place one would think of for a couple seeking a community aligned with their progressive politics.

ALSO READ: Why violent extremists get security clearances — but people of color must sometimes wait and wait

Nothing came of the women’s visit until an email at 2:39 p.m. on April 12 from Max Kiviat, associate producer for Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime. He addressed it to Lipps and copied Oakley.

“Tonight we will be covering a story about an undercover investigation involving your school district,” the email said. “Video shows administrators admitting that the schools are using misleading language to confuse parents into stealthily teaching students principles associated with Critical Race Theory. We wanted to offer the school district a chance to comment on the story. We are going live at 7:30pm ET.”

The email didn’t say what specifically the district was being asked to comment on. Oakley said during ensuing conversations, she, Lipps and Bowlen all wondered if they were the one being targeted.

A little after 5 p.m., after internal discussions and consulting with lawyers, Lipps emailed back to say the district would wait to see the story. Two minutes later, Kiviat sent a link to the video Accuracy in Media had posted.

In their living room at home, Jenny and Justin Oakley watched the video on a laptop. Then Jenny started to hear from friends that her face was being used on Fox News promotions for that night’s Jesse Watters Primetime show.

The attacks on her would start in a few hours.

Oakley did have supporters in the community. Some came to her defense on social media. She sought therapy.

Before a school board meeting, local pastors led a prayer circle outside the building for people with all points of view on the situation. One of the pastors invoked the Gospel of John: “Love one another. Such as my love has been for you, so must your love be for each other. This is how all will know you for my disciples: your love for one another.”

A pastor led a prayer before a school board meeting at Martinsville High School the week after Fox News aired a story about Accuracy in Media video featuring a local school administrator. He invoked the gospel of John to love one another. Photo: Stacey Miers

About a week later, Justin learned his mother had brain cancer. This added to the pressure on their daughter who couldn’t have both of her parents in a prolonged dark place.

“So I had to snap out of it,” Jenny Oakley said. “I had to snap out of it for her, just being strong in the fact that I did not do anything wrong and that it'll be interpreted how it is no matter what.”

Unedited video

Accuracy in Media reported $908,000 in contributions and grants on its latest federal tax filing.

As a federally recognized nonprofit organization, it did not have to detail the source or sources of its money. Accuracy in Media says its mission is to “monitor the accuracy of news reporting activities by the media” and “promote accuracy, fairness and balance in news reporting.”

Guillette, the group’s president, makes $200,000, according to the document.

As part of a public records request, Raw Story obtained what Accuracy in Media described in an email to the Elkhart, Ind., school district as a lightly edited, 15-minute hidden-camera conversation with Brad Sheppard, assistant superintendent of instruction.

The edits, Guillette wrote, were to protect Accuracy in Media’s tactics during an “ongoing investigation.”

In the video, what sounds like a man and a woman gave Sheppard frequent affirmations of his answers — “right on,” “good,” “I love that.” The couple’s full pretense for showing up wasn’t part of the video, but what they said to Sheppard left little doubt about their supposed political views.

ALSO READ: A deafening silence from Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s Black football players

“In Texas, unfortunately, we banned anything that has to do with the 1619 Project,” the woman says, referring to the controversial New York Times project that put slavery at the center of America’s history.

“In Texas, they passed one of those stupid laws banning what they call Critical Race Theory,” the man says.

“We’re really hoping not to get a MAGA version of history, to put it bluntly,” the woman says.

Regarding what’s taught in the classroom, Sheppard emphasized the Indiana state academic standards.

“As long as (teachers) can tie it back to the standards, they’re covered,” he said. “That’s really the bottom line. Are you teaching the academic standards?”

Sheppard was shown in the Fox News video answering what educational material in the district needs to be “relabeled.”

“I think CRT, Social-Emotional Learning are the two biggies,” he says. “We just have to avoid the words. You know? The labels.”

An Accuracy in Media person says, “We can still do the content, just no labels.”

Sheppard says yes, to which the Accuracy in Media person says, “That’s cool.”

Sheppard was placed on paid administrative leave, returned to his same position and retired in June, according to a lawyer for the district.

ALSO READ: How the long 'arc of the moral universe' just landed in a New York City fire hall

Other records obtained by Raw Story show that Sheppard and another administrator in the Fox News story, Laura DelVecchio of the public school district in Plainfield, Ind., received the same email Oakley did suggesting a line of people punch her and urinate on her.

All of them arrived within 15 minutes after Jesse Watters Primetime ended. Attorney Jon Little, who represents the Oakleys, believes that indicates a connection to an organization with all-purpose, pre-written screeds for perceived political enemies.

Trustees from the Plainfield school district received a long, racist email suggesting, amid the talk of CRT, a “Thank You White People Day.” It said, “White people created the very high standard of living all races in the USA enjoy” and “many immigrants don’t want to assimilate.” It claimed discrimination against “heterosexual White males.”

In the weeks that followed,Indiana attorney general Todd Rokita got involved on social media, encouraging journalists to write about the Accuracy in Media video.

When DelVecchio received an interview request from Indiana Public Media, she echoed what Oakley said, although they have never met or communicated.

“The story really isn’t about me,” DelVecchio wrote, “it is about the fate of public education.”

A life, changed

Jenny Oakley recalled with a touch of disbelief how, years ago, her husband used to rave about being an eighth grade teacher.

“He would come home every day and say, ‘I just can't believe I get paid to do this as a job,’” she said. “He would come home. He was so excited about the impact that he was making on kids and his conversations every day and the light bulbs going on and all those things.”

For many, teaching is a calling. Pay is often low, but the rewards are supposed to be great. That perception seems to be changing. Indiana has a teacher shortage.

Young teachers, Oakley said, “turn on their TV or hop on Facebook, and all they're seeing are attacks on their profession. And it's hard to keep up the intrinsic motivation of teaching when you have so many of these negative external factors.”

Many of the attacks come from advocates for private and charter schools.

“I don't think that they're going to be happy until public education just completely crumbles,” Oakley said. “And then they're going to see what kind of pillars of the community we really are, and they'll have to build it back up.”

Among the administrators in the Accuracy in Media video, four are in the same job, one retired, and two districts (Monroe County and Fairfield) did not respond to Raw Story’s inquiry.

Oakley has continued to work. But she said she still can’t be certain about her future in the district.

Oakley still doesn’t know the identity of the women who came to Martinsville. They weren’t asked to sign in. Now the district office uses the same system as its schools, scanning the driver’s license of everyone who comes in.

“Thankfully, they didn't walk in here with a backpack that they left behind,” Oakley said, “but they blew up my life.”

off bs

adam Guillette has apparently rebooted the old org

President

Adam Guillette is the President of Accuracy in Media. As the leader of the organization, he is working to expose bias in mainstream and social media, as well as building an effective cadre of investigative journalists.

Previously Guillette launched the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity. Within a year the chapter gained over 150 media hits statewide while defeating over $370 million in tax increases. Later Guillette became a Vice President of Project Veritas. In this role he helped to grow their budget from $5 million to $12 million annually while also coordinating partnerships with other like-minded organizations.

Since 2004 Adam has served as Distinguished Faculty member for theLeadership Institute. In this capacity he has traveled around North America to help identify and train free-market activists.

Adam Guillette is featured regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and OAN. He has also contributed to USA Today, TownHall, and the Washington Examiner. Guillette lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida with his wife Nikki and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Liberty.

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Meet the Conservatives Trying to Embarrass Liberal Educators with Hidden Cameras

BY PAUL BOND ON 3/14/23

One educator talks of how a ban on teaching critical race theory could be skirted. Another boasts of how parents can be "tricked" over what goes in the school syllabus.

Both were recorded on hidden cameras by a conservative group that has been releasing videos periodically on the internet—and noting the fact that the videos have sometimes caused concerned parents to flood school board meetings.

As school battles take a central role at the grassroots of America's culture wars over race, gender, language, COVID-19 rules and more, the group is going all out to draw attention to what progressives are saying, sometimes prompting accusations of unethical behavior with its recordings made under false pretenses.

This time, the hidden camera "stings" aren't from the well-known right-wing group Project Veritas, but from a group that has been around a lot longer and is now putting schools in particular focus: Accuracy in Media—better known as AIM.

"We'll keep doing it until school officials stop lying. Public school administrators are not entitled to a monopoly on deception," AIM President Adam Guillette, who joined from Project Veritas three years ago, told Newsweek.

For liberal activists, AIM is dangerous.

"AIM is a conservative media criticism organization that has a history of pushing anti-LGBTQ views and conspiracy theories," says the progressive Media Matters for America organization.

NEWSWEEK

AIM conservative group targets educators

Adam Guillette of the conservative group Accuracy in Media, which is using hidden cameras to try to embarrass liberal educators.

ACCURACY IN MEDIAYOUTUBE VIDEO

Unlike more recent conservative groups that have sprung up to highlight what they say is dangerous progressive radicalism on social media and elsewhere, AIM has been around for decades.

It was founded in 1969 by the late economist Reed Irvine for the purpose of keeping tabs on what he said was a biased media that too often promoted socialism over capitalism.

Rebuked

It is no stranger to criticism: Long ago, it was rebuked by progressives for suggesting that media bias was hurting America's chances of winning the Vietnam War. More recently, it has expressed skeptical views over climate change and called COVID-19 'overhyped'.In 2008, AIM accused President Barack Obama of being "a member of an international socialist movement."

AIM may not be as well known as Project Veritas, but it is looking to expand in the same space with the latter in limbo after the sudden departure of founder James O'Keefe amid allegations of mistreating employees and mismanagement—accusations he has denied while also hinting at an imminent return.

It's not an entirely new concept for AIM. It used hidden microphones in the 1970s in an attempt to show that mainstream journalists deceptively edited interviews in order to hype the dangers associated with nuclear power plants. But that technique used audio only, and AIM hasn't used it much since then.

"I thought it was essential to return the organization to its roots of using unconventionalactivism and investigative journalism. The world needs more of both," Guillette said.

"Investigative journalism is the most honest and most important form of journalism. Instead, we live in an era when most outlets write clickbait and fan fiction, telling people what they want to hear," he said.

That said, ethical questions have been raised over activists using fake identities and hidden cameras to get people to say things that can be used against them. Typically, targets of such sting operations accuse the activists of selective editing that removes relevant context, and some school districts have said as much about AIM.

Guillette denies such accusations and says he is already preparing lengthy passages of unedited video for officials to review, rather than the 2-7 minute versions that are released over the Internet.

"There are cases where incredible investigative journalism has been done by hidden camera," says Christina Bellantoni, the director of the USC Annenberg's Media Center, commenting on the type of work of done by AIM, noting Pulitzer and others have awarded top prizes for undercover work.

Still, Bellantoni teaches her journalism students that it is unethical for journalists to hide their true identities, except as a last resort. In some states, like California, it is illegal to record someone without their permission if there is an expectation of privacy, though the advent of smart phones with cameras blurs the lines between what's acceptable and what is not.

Bellantoni compared what AIM is doing to the widespread sharing of videos from bystanders.

"We all have recording devices in our pocket. At any moment someone who is not a journalist can capture something that can change the world. Just look at George Floyd," said Bellantoni, referencing the two years of Black Lives Matter protests that erupted after Floyd was murdered by a white police officer in 2020.

Guillette isn't conflicted. "It's great police officers wear body cam; politicians and public officials should wear it, too. The next best thing is an investigative journalist with a hidden camera," he said.

To be sure, there's a long history of journalists using the technique to expose, for example, white nationalism. In 1979, Dick Lehr at the Hartford Courant used a false identity to obtain an I.D. card for the Ku Klux Klan in order to infiltrate former Klansman David Duke's inner circle.

But Guillette says mainstream outlets typically have no interest in exposing liberal activism, thus it falls to AIM and others to do so.

Focus on schools

AIM has been focusing largely on schools.

In January, it released a tranche of hidden-camera interviews. In Ohio, for example, there has been a so-far unsuccessful effort to ban the teaching of critical race theory and transgender issues to schoolchildren.

Critical race theory (widely known as CRT) is an academic framework based on the idea that there is systemic racism in U.S. institutions. It has become a hot issue for conservatives, who say it is divisive, while progressives say the controversy was stirred up by the right.

Progressives similarly take issue with conservative efforts to stop the teaching of young children about transgender issues in the name of child protection, saying that by doing so the LGBTQ community is being targeted.

Guillette says that AIM's cameras recorded school employees suggesting that they'll teach whatever they like, regardless of what laws are passed.

In one video, Matthew Boaz, the executive director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Upper Arlington Schools says to undercover AIM activists: "You can pass a bill that you can't teach Critical Race Theory in a classroom, but if you didn't cover programming, or you didn't cover extracurricular activities, or anything like that, that message might still get out. Oops! There will be a way."

Upper Arlington Schools did not respond to Newsweek's emailed request for comment. An automated message from Boaz's email said "I have requested leave and will be away from my office and email".

Guillette wouldn't say who he and others at AIM pretend to be when speaking to their subjects. "It would be a lot more difficult if they knew our tactics. I can confirm that the camera was not behind the salt shaker," he said.

That said, a day after the AIM video hit the Internet, an email sent to parents from Upper Arlington Interim Superintendent Kathy Jenney said, in part, "We know the video was recorded with a hidden camera and under false pretenses by a man and woman who claimed to be interested in enrolling a student. The couple guided the conversation to focus on the topic of critical race theory."

The video dropped in mid January, and at the following school board meeting about 40 people spoke on the matter, about 15 of whom were upset about what they had seen while the rest were there to support Boaz.

"It was wild," said Cathy Pultz, a member of a conservative group and a regular attendee of school board meetings in the district who spoke to Newsweek. She said before the video, she had been confident in Boaz.

"I was not surprised that some individuals will teach CRT and hide it, but when I saw it was Boaz in the video, I was shocked."

At the meeting, she said those on her side argued for "trust and accountability" while the other side — all of whom wore red in solidarity with the schools — accused them of "being influenced by an outside group of extremists."

The drama continues two months later, she said.

In another hidden-camera interview, also in Ohio, Hilary Staten, an administrative assistant for Groverport Madison Schools, says that federal funds for the COVID pandemic were used to hire social workers and guidance counselors to push social-emotional learning, which AIM alleges is a way of bringing in some of the same tenets that CRT espouses.

"We had some parents that, you know, they don't fully understand. So, you know, it's when we trick them, you know?" says Staten while the hidden camera rolls.

Groveport Madison Schools declined to respond to Newsweek while Staten did not respond to Newsweek's email.

Guillette supplied videos of crowded school board meetings in Ohio that had followed AIM's videos. The videos appeared to show a roughly even split between conservative parents and those defending a more progressive approach.

In Texas, where Republican Governor Gregg Abbott sought to outlaw CRT in classrooms through a bill prohibiting teaching that some individuals are "inherently racist, sexist or oppressive", AIM says its hidden-camera interviews prove that schools are ignoring the directive.

In one video, Marissa Perez, a curriculum content coordinator for the Edgewood Independent School District, says : "We do not follow much of, like, what Abbott is trying to get us to do."

To get more attention, AIM has parked a mobile, digital billboard near the Capitol building in Austin that plays the undercover video.

Neither the Edgewood Independent School District nor Perez responded to Newsweek's request for comment. Abbott's office did not respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

In Utah, where the teaching of CRT is also restricted, AIM has conducted similar sting operations, prompting Republican Congressman Chris Stewart to tweet: "This is why so many people don't trust public education: arrogant teachers who think they know better than parents."

After the Utah videos aired on Fox News, the Murray City School District told the outlet: "We have noted some inaccuracies in the accounts shared by our staff member being interviewed. We are also concerned about soundbites that omit context, tenor and questions that elicited the responses. For this reason, and to make a fair assessment of the comments, we are requesting a full, uncut version of the interview from AIM as part of our review."

Guillette said he would comply with the district's request, adding that he'll remove from the raw video anything that could show AIM's methods. At its request, he says he is also providing the longer versions of the videos to the Utah Attorney General's Office.

Guillette won't say who his next targets are, but said he is not done with schools.

"Having been in over 200 school districts, I honestly believe that public education as we know it cannot be saved. These radicals are so devoted to pushing extremist ideas and indoctrinating children that no law will stand in their way," he said.

sieg heil

accuracy in Media recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Founded in 1969 by Reed Irvine to combat liberal media bias, the organization has a new leader. Adam Guillette spoke to The Daily Signal about his plans for Accuracy in Media, the threat of “fake news,” and the media’s relentless attacks on President Donald Trump. Listen to the podcast or read a lightly edited transcript below.

Bluey: Your organization has been around from the start of the conservative movement, and you are doing some really transformational things.

So I want to delve into a couple of those. But before we begin, share with us the mission of Accuracy in Media and what it is you do.

Adam Guillette: Reed Irvine founded our organization in 1969 because that was a time where you had Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, lying to Americans about what was happening in the Vietnam War. So he set out to use a combination of citizen activism and investigative journalism to create a healthy skepticism of the media. And when he passed away just over a decade ago, The New York Times credited, or blamed, depending on how you view it, blamed him with creating skepticism toward the media today.

Bluey: And of course, it was also just five years after Barry Goldwater had made his run for president, so pre-Ronald Reagan and a lot of the figures that modern conservatives really identify with. You were at the vanguard back then to do the type of work that you were doing.

Guillette: That’s exactly right. They were doing investigative journalism before it was cool. They were the hipsters of investigative journalism. They were taking on media bias using citizen activism before the internet. Before you could send out an action alert and get all of your followers to email this person or email this congressman, they would mail postcards to their supporters and say, “Fill this out, send it to the address on there, and tell them what you think about that article in the paper.”

They were doing brilliant stuff at a much more difficult time when there was no real precedent for how to do it or how do you go about exposing media bias. They were making it up as they went along and they did it very well.

Bluey: So you just celebrated this 50th anniversary in Washington. You’re new to the organization as its leader. Tell us about where you want to see and take the organization in the future.

Guillette: I want to bring back our great history of investigative journalism. I think moral outrage is the most powerful force in all of politics and nothing elicits moral outrage better than hidden camera, undercover investigative journalism.

And it is a target-rich environment. There are so many folks in the media and outside the media that should be exposed. There are some incredibly powerful targets in the media that nobody really talks about. People complain about Rachel Maddow or they complain about The New York Times. Most of the people watching MSNBC already are of that political persuasion.

I’m more worried about the influence from sites like Now This and BuzzFeed. People signed up for Now This on Facebook because of puppy videos. Who doesn’t like puppy videos? Fast forward a couple of years, they have 10 million followers and they start putting out news that’s so biased that CNN calls them out for it, and they’re reaching easily influenced young people who signed up for puppy videos and sharing propaganda with them on a daily basis. That’s dangerous.

Bluey: It’s really remarkable to see the growth of some of these sites. If you’re a parent or somebody who doesn’t necessarily keep tabs on what the millennial generation or Gen Z is following, that’s how they are consuming their news. They’re not getting it through the evening newscast or the newspaper. They are turning to sites and platforms like Snapchat and Twitter to consume that news and information.

I want to go back to the investigative reporting piece of it, because you previously were at Project Veritas, so you obviously have some knowledge and experience doing those undercover investigations. Talk to us about how that experience shaped your view and why you think that it’s so important to pursue at Accuracy in Media.

Guillette: I’ve really come to the conclusion that politics is so much more determined by emotion than by fact and logic, for better and for worse. We would argue for worse.

And we can either sit around and bemoan the fact that political voters don’t make their decisions logically and largely make them emotionally, or we can embrace the fact that human beings are creatures of emotion. They make decisions emotionally and then search for logic and facts to back them up.

The most effective method of persuasion is leading with emotion and backing it up with facts. The left, they’re masters at emotion. We resign ourselves to facts and statistics and put people to sleep.

Say we’re debating Obamacare. We’ll stack up all the facts and statistics and prove that it’s a bad idea. And someone might say, “OK, I kind of agree.” The left comes in and says, “Well, what about that single mother over there?” And just like that the battle has been lost.

So one thing I learned at Veritas and previously at the Moving Picture Institute is that when you use emotional arguments to draw people in, that gets them to understand how much you care and that gets them to care, and then you can use your facts and logic and statistics to back up your argument and say, “This isn’t anecdotal. In fact, X, Y, and Z.”

I think it’s a great one-two punch that our entire movement could be utilizing. It’s a much better way to get people to pay attention to policy papers and graphs and statistics and so forth when you lead with the emotional arguments that investigative journalism can bring forth.

Bluey: Adam, I wholeheartedly agree. I hear it often from our president at The Heritage Foundation, Kay Coles James. It’s one of the reasons we started The Daily Signal five years ago was to do a better job of exactly what you’re describing.

It is challenging for conservatives because we too often want to resort right to the facts and the data and the numbers, but those stories are so powerful and can be incredibly helpful in terms of convincing people and persuading them that our solutions really are going to lead to a better life for all Americans.

Guillette: That’s right, and that we’re not just calculated pencil pushers, obsessed with numbers, that we actually care about individuals, that we actually care about you and so forth, and the kind of stuff you’re talking about is what most effectively accomplishes that.

Bluey: Tell us how somebody could go about finding the work that you’re doing as you’re producing this investigative reporting. Where do they go to find it?

Guillette: The website is AIM.org. We’re also on all the social media channels and we literally just relaunched a couple of weeks ago, and we’re working right now to hire investigative journalists and to build a small cadre or small army of them out there working on a variety of fronts in a variety of states.

I can’t specifically name too many of our targets right now, but it is an incredibly target-rich environment that we face. Our movement could use umpteen organizations doing investigative journalism to bring our ideas to light, to expose morally outrageous behavior, and I’m excited for what we’re going to accomplish next year.

Bluey: Prior to The Daily Signal launching, we had an investigative reporting team here at The Heritage Foundation, so that was a precursor to what eventually became The Daily Signal. I admire you. It’s hard work. It’s not easy. It takes time and a lot of effort on the part of journalists who are pursuing investigative reporting. But I give you credit for doing it.

You mentioned social media just a moment ago. It is increasingly difficult for conservatives, it seems, to get their message out using the social media platforms. We have heard all sorts of debates recently about whether or not companies are going to ban political advertising and whether or not algorithms are biased against conservatives. I wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in on what you think the current state of affairs is with some of these social media platforms.

Guillette: Now, we’re certainly dealing with tremendous difficulties with sites like Twitter and Facebook. Twitter was caught shadow banning. They said they were trying to block Russian bots from taking over their site. When asked what terms they use to flag a Russian bot, they said, “Well, people are tweeting about God, guns, American flag emoji. Then you know it’s a bot.”

These are the people that we’re dealing with, people who think that if you’ve got an American flag emoji, you’re obviously a Russian bot because somebody living in Silicon Valley never confronted anyone in their life who would use an American flag emoji in a non-ironic sense. So that absolutely is a challenge.

I would say we’ve got a lot of self-inflicted wounds with social media as well. We’re very often happy to be in our own echo chamber and share stuff that’s really only of interest to people who share our beliefs. We’ll endlessly virtue signal about pro-life causes as if we’re going to save one baby with every like and five babies with every share, ignoring the fact that everyone in my social network [is] already pro-life. I think that’s a big problem with it.

Other times organizations within our movement create content that really are only appealing to our echo chamber, only appealing to our supporters and aren’t necessarily of interest to the easily persuadable 19-year-olds.

It’s a challenge, because if you’ve got to pitch something to a financial supporter of your organization, it’s got to appeal to them, but obviously what’s going to appeal to a 65-year-old may not be as appealing to a 19-year-old. And I think we can more better balance that and make sure that the content we create in social is going after that actual audience.

Bluey: You’ve had experience doing it even before coming to Accuracy in Media at Project Veritas and the Moving Picture Institute. What advice do you have for people who might be active on social media? How can they do a better job of breaking out of those echo chambers?

Guillette: It’s just like if you’re giving a speech to an audience. The thing is know your audience. Who are you going after? Speaking their language. If your audience only spoke French, you would at the very least have subtitles. But so frequently we’ll create content that really is only appealing to our group, and it’s understandable because it’s so rare to see content for us.

There’s you guys, there’s some others out there, but if I turn on TV, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing point of view offering comedy. If I turn on a network show, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing storyline subtly being put through.

So I can understand why people are so excited to make content that’s specifically for us. But if we seek to persuade, if we don’t just seek to motivate the base, the goal should be knowing your audience and trying to actually persuade them and speaking in a language that they speak in.

A lot of times, we’ll see videos created that are incredibly long on our side and incredibly fact-based. Well, if you have a 12-minute video and consistently people are clicking away on YouTube after two minutes, YouTube is going to down-rank your video like crazy and you’ll sit there and say, “Well, those jerks are biased against conservatives. Those jerks.”

Well, no, it’s because YouTube wants you to watch videos for the rest of your life. They’d like you to watch one video until it ends, then another, then another, and if people are clicking away two minutes into your video, they don’t want people to see your video. It’s your own darn fault. Our side needs to embrace more effective tactics on YouTube and on Facebook and Twitter.

Bluey: That’s so true. I had an opportunity earlier this year to attend the Social Media Summit that President [Donald] Trump hosted at the White House, and I believe he either was asked or he referenced the fact that some people say, “You wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for social media.” He says he would be president regardless.

I have my own doubts. Social media definitely gave him a direct line of communication to the American people. He’s still using it, obviously, with Instagram and Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. I think it’s so important that conservatives leverage that opportunity.

For years we complained about the media serving as a filter and not letting through the information that we were trying to get out there to more and more Americans. I think that’s one of the reasons you do hear concerns about some of the social media companies today is that they don’t want to see information restricted or limited, but you have to create effective content that people want to consume as well.

Guillette: That’s exactly right. Certainly there’s bias against conservatives. Certainly the power they have is incredibly dangerous.

We often talk about Eisenhower’s farewell address and how he warned about the military-industrial complex. In that same speech, he warned about the dangers of a technological elite that could take over our nationwithout us even realizing it. That danger exists with Google and with Facebook and with Twitter. Google can redefine words like they did with fascism without you even realizing it.

Three years ago, Google, to fight fascism, left-wing ideology, which it is, as soon as Trump started getting called a fascist, they redefined the term as a right-wing ideology. What a dangerous power.

Similarly, Facebook, they know your political inclinations. They can make it so on Election Day if you’re of a political inclination they like, they’ve got banners on the top saying, “Vote today, vote today, vote today,” and if they disagree with your beliefs, those banners ain’t there. That’s a tremendous power they’ve got.

But the first thing we need to focus on, no self-inflicted wounds. Let’s at least use them as effectively as we can.

Bluey: [Facebook founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg gave a big speech here in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University where he talked about the benefits of free speech and why he wanted to keep Facebook as open to different points of view as possible.

He came under some fire for that from those on the left, which, it seems that they don’t necessarily agree with that instinct that we should have a freedom to speak our minds.

Do you think that he’s sincere in those remarks? Do you think Facebook is trying to position itself differently from some of those other social media platforms? Or is this just lip service?

Guillette: Even if he’s fully sincere—let’s assume that—he doesn’t have control over every bit of his organization every day, as Project Veritas exposed. There were folks inside the organization who were demonetizing and down-ranking people endlessly, just as we saw on Twitter. So it’s more to the company than Mark Zuckerberg. He’s not the only one there.

And what we need to do is first use these platforms properly, and second, if we find legitimate instances that we can prove of them being biased, let’s expose that again and again and again and create that outrage amongst the American people as a whole that will cause them to reform their ways.

They’re always going to have a cranky, loud leftist majority that they probably go to cocktail hours with every Thursday afternoon that is going to have their ear telling them that they should be blocking hate speech and we’ve got to be aware of that and we have to counterbalance it with a majority in America of people who think that it should be a platform for all viewpoints and those folks putting pressure on Facebook from the other side.

Bluey: And I might be remiss if I didn’t ask you about President Trump, who we’ve talked about, and somebody who has used the term “fake news.” He’s constantly criticizing the media as being biased against him despite the tremendous economic success he’s had in this country leading it as the president. What are your thoughts on the traditional media, the national news media’s coverage of him, particularly as we head into an election year?

Guillette: As we’ve even seen that The New York Times, Project Veritas exposed, they’re all chasing the Trump bump. It’s an era of declining clicks, declining subscribership, and so forth. So they’ve given up objective journalism and instead are writing any kind of anti-Trump content they can because they know there’s a rabid base of people who want to read that content and it’ll sell.

It’s almost as if they’re writing fan fiction in their newspapers and on their websites because that’s of interest to that base of subscribers. That’s morally outrageous. Don’t pretend to be a journalist. The greatest threat to real news is fake news. These folks say that attacking the news is a threat to our democracy. Their fake news is a threat to our republic. It’s morally outrageous.

Bluey: Adam, the other thing that I associate with that are polls indicating the trust in media and journalists appears to be at record lows. Increasingly, it seems that the American people are looking for alternative sources, probably places like Accuracy in Media and The Daily Signal, because they have lost trust in other media platforms.

What is it that you’re going to do at Accuracy in Media to make sure that you are on the same level and breaking through and having success as a New York Times or Washington Post or a big TV network?

Guillette: We’re going to confirm suspicions. We are going to expose bias. We’re going to catch people engaged in morally outrageous behavior and maintain a healthy skepticism. And I think when these folks get exposed again and again and again, it’ll cause some people to reform their ways.

We’ve got a profession now where it’s much like contractors or trial lawyers or politicians. The few remaining good journalists are going to want to be in a position where they say, “These folks have given me a bad name,” and they’ll start to speak out against the fake news going on out there.

Bluey: Adam, as we wrap up here, anything else you’d like our audience to know about the work you’re doing at Accuracy in Media and your new leadership of the organization?

Guillette: Sure. Follow us on all of our social media platforms at @AccuracyInMedia. One thing we’re launching in the beginning of next year is we’re going to be working with conservative social media influencers to expose influencers and celebrities and reporters sharing fake news online.

I think there are so many celebrities out there who are far more influential with news than any journalist that we would talk about because if you’re a young person, you’re not following Rachel Maddow and Twitter unless you’re a leftist, but you might be following Jaden Smith or Justin Bieber and they’ll be incredibly influential when they share fake news.

We’re building an army of folks who will activate as soon as we see that sort of thing being shared and respond to it, not in a tribal, divisive manner saying, “You blankety blank, sharing fake news.” But rather when George Takei shared the photos of kids in cages on the border, [of] immigrant children, and said, “Darn you Trump for doing this,” people responded and said, “Appreciate your concern about kids on the border. That photo’s from the Obama administration.” And to his credit, Takei corrected the record and apologized.

I think if we can replicate that again and again and again and say to these celebrities and to these influencers, “Listen, I appreciate your concern in X issue, but what you shared was wrong,” people will either be more hesitant to share fake news because they don’t want to get called out and look like a fool or they’ll start actually checking the facts before they get out there and they’ll apologize when they screw it up.

Bluey: And we can certainly hope that this is successful because I can tell you that I still hear repeated to this day the claim about President Trump and cages.

You can even have an apology, but because of the cultural influence and the way that news spreads, sometimes that message doesn’t ever filter back to the people who saw the original post. So it’s really important that you’re doing this project.

I’d also say culture, as Andrew Breitbart always said, is upstream from politics. These cultural figures and celebrities are oftentimes the ones at the forefront and the politicians are the ones lagging behind.

Guillette: Politicians are followers, not leaders. They follow the polls, they follow the celebrities, they follow the money. These folks in the culture have a much greater influence over our nation than a Rachel Maddow or even a Sean Hannity does. Although those people have tremendous value for what they do, they’re not as much reaching undecided folks and easily persuaded young people as these celebrities are.

Bluey: Adam Guillette, thanks so much for joining The Daily Signal. Congratulations on your new role at Accuracy in Media. We wish you the best.

Guillette: Thank you so very much for having me.

For years, one of the most widely read sections of any newspaper was the obituaries. But judging by a recent Pew Research Center study, we might soon be reading the obituary for print journalism as a whole.

According to the study, newsroom workforces at print newspapers have been cut in half over the past decade. The primary reasons for the decline are obvious: media bias and the rise of online news sources.

The evidence for the latter effect is overwhelming — employment doubled at digital news outlets over the same period. But as for media bias, although conservatives may take delight in seeing left-wing print news outlets fall apart, the result is a short-term negative for our nation.

When readers replaced newspapers with the websites of their choosing, they didn’t end up reading new, unbiased media outlets that were publishing solid journalism. Instead, left-wing readers began reading sites that fed them the news they wanted to hear. Right-wing readers did the same. Rather than replacing “fake news” with real journalism, the decline of print media increased political tribalism by placing an increasing amount of Americans in their echo chambers.

In addition, when the print media began laying off employees, they also began degrading the quality of the product they were selling. Expensive, long-form investigative journalism was replaced by clickbait stories attempting to chase the “Trump bump.” Biased journalism became full-fledged fake news. As aNew York Times editor was captured admitting on hidden camera, “The main objective is to grab subscribers. You do that any way that you can.” For many outlets, this meant publishing anti-Trump fan-fiction rather than actual news.

This business model is shameful for any newspaper that takes itself seriously, but it’s undeniably profitable in the short-term. In fact, the New York Times just passed 3.8 million online subscribers.

But what is the long-term plan? Once President Trump is out of office, how will the Times hold the attention of this rabid anti-Trump audience?

The Times and others would do well to learn a lesson from sports journalism. In an era full of clickbait stories about the NFL, NBA, and NHL, sports site The Athletic has shown that there is a real demand for serious journalism with insightful, long-form stories. The site was founded just three years ago, but it already boasts a value of $300 million, with more than 500,000 paying subscribers. Little by little, The Athletic has expanded coverage on an increasing number of sports by hiring talented, well-known writers with their own followings.

Imagine if political journalism were done the same way — rather than pretending to be unbiased while offering left-wing propaganda, news sites could hire talented reporters from a multitude of geographic locations and political persuasions. These journalists could cover a variety of stories from a variety of viewpoints. And as long as their biases were known and their stories were accurate, no one would begrudge them for having a point of view.

Unfortunately, the ultimate echo chambers are the editorial boards of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the rest of their allies. They’ve spent the past three years making the case that anyone who disagrees with their liberal agenda is “racist, sexist, and anti-gay.” As a result, they couldn’t possibly offer column space to someone spewing “hate speech.”

Their inability to look outside their echo chamber will likely be listed in that future obituary as their cause of death. Such a shame, particularly when their disease could have been cured.

Adam Guillette is president of Accuracy in Media.

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evil but

accuracy in Media is a conservative media watchdog founded in 1969 largely in response to news coverage of the Vietnam War. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-19-me-irvine19-story.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-0" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">1 The organization buys stock in media companies and regularly engages in shareholder activism to call out alleged liberal-left bias and inaccurate reporting. https://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-1" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">2

AIM has been widely credited with first sparking mainstream discussion of left-of-center bias in the ostensibly “objective” metropolitan news media. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">3 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-3" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">4

Background

Accuracy in Media is a conservative-leaning media watchdog organization that critiques what it considers liberal bias. https://www.linkedin.com/company/accuracy-in-media/about/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-4" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">5 The organization publishes reports, produces documentaries, and has also held rallies and protests to draw attention to its issues with media outlets. https://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-5" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">6

Adam Guillette became president of the organization in 2019 when AIM marked its 50th anniversary. Guillette expanded the organization’s mission beyond calling out traditional news media outlets to include critiquing big tech firms such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter. https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/12/16/exposing-media-bias-in-an-era-of-fake-news/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">7

AIM helped “create the image of the mainstream media as very liberal,” according to Alex S. Jones, the director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-7" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">8 The *New York Times* described AIM as “dedicated to exposing, challenging, and at times bullying” news organizations. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-8" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">9

History

FOUNDING

AIM’s founder Reed Irvine was previously an economist with the Federal Reserve. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-9" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">10 While at the Fed, Irvine led luncheon discussions for the International Economists Club and the Arthur G. McDowell Luncheon Group. The discussion topic for one of the 1969 luncheons was perceived bias against the Vietnam War by the television nightly newscasts. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-19-me-irvine19-story.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-10" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">11 At this 1969 discussion, Irvine, then 50, hatched the idea for Accuracy in Media. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-19-me-irvine19-story.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-11" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">12 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-12" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">13

Irvine launched AIM that year as an all-volunteer group with a $200 donation. https://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-13" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">14 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-19-me-irvine19-story.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-14" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">15 The organization began by sending letters to the editors for major newspapers asking for corrections to articles. If the editors did not publish the letters, the organization bought ads in the newspaper with the message. https://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-15" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">16

The organization launched the AIM Report newsletter in 1972. https://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-16" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">17 Also in 1972, AIM pushed ABC News to make five corrections to a documentary on the arms race. By 1973, the organization was the subject of a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-nov-19-me-irvine19-story.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-17" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">18

SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM

In 1975, AIM began purchasing stock in major media companies and sent representatives to attend annual shareholder meetings to call for executives to address issues of bias in news reporting. https://www.aim.org/about/history-of-aim/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-18" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">19 Irvine would sometimes receive the right of rebuttal on television programs regulated by the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine” and be invited by news media companies to present complaints to senior executives outside of shareholder meetings. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-19" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">20

In 1989, Irvine debated Ted Turner during a TBS shareholder meeting in Atlanta over the TBS cable channel’s political agenda regarding programs promoting abortion and the merits of the Soviet Union. Turner defended the programming and said it should not be held to the same standards as journalism on CNN. But, during the near 90-minute give and take, Turner admitted his personal feelings played a role in his decisions regarding what programs to broadcast. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/22/arts/media-critic-accuses-turner-s-tbs-of-bias.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-20" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">21

1980s

In 1985, many PBS stations ran the hour-long documentary, Television’s Vietnam: The Real Story, as a rebuttal to the 1983 PBS series “Vietnam: A Television History.” https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-21" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">22 The New York Times gave a mostly positive review to the AIM production, calling the documentary flawed, but saying it legitimately pointed out problems with the TV news coverage of the Vietnam War. https://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/01/movies/television-s-vietnam-a-documentary-on-31.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-22" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">23

In 1985, Irvine launched Accuracy in Academia, a sister organization focused on higher education institutions. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-23" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">24

AIM started a campaign in 1988 called “Can Dan” against then-CBS News anchor Dan Rather. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58852-2004Nov17.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-24" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">25

1990S AND 2000S

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, AIM accused CNN of being too sympathetic in coverage of Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58852-2004Nov17.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-25" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">26

Accuracy in Media questioned the cause of death of Clinton administration deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1993. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-26" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">27 The organization lost in both the D.C. District Court and D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to compel the release of Foster’s death scene photographs. https://books.google.com/books?id=6V_lVpZGyIIC&pg=PA246#v=onepage&q&f=false" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-27" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">28 Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, a Republican, determined in 1997 the death was a suicide. https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/02/23/starr.report/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-28" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">29

Irvine retired as AIM chairman in 2003 and became the chairman emeritus. His son Don Irvine became the chairman. Reed Irvine died at age 82 in 2004. https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/us/reed-irvine-82-the-founder-of-a-media-criticism-group-dies.html" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-29" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">30

Leadership

Adam Guillette is the president of Accuracy in Media. Guillette previously founded the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity. He was also a former vice president of right-of-center investigative journalism group Project Veritas. https://www.aim.org/about/who-we-are/" title="" aria-describedby="qtip-30" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">31

Don Irvine is the publisher of Accuracy in Media. He is the son of AIM founder Reed Irvine and chairman of AIM’s sister organization Accuracy in Academia. He runs the “Bias Watch” blog for the AIM website. https://www.aim.org/expert-bio/don-irvine/ " title="" aria-describedby="qtip-31" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.15s ease 0s;">32

References...

ggl 8 23 no lnx

About Accuracy in Media

Accuracy in Media

https://aim.org › about

Adam Guillette is the President of Accuracy in Media. As the leader of the organization, he is working toexpose bias in mainstream and social media, ...

Accuracy In Media

https://aim.org

Accuracy in Media uses citizen activism and investigative journalism to expose media bias, corruption, and public policy failings.

Accuracy in Media

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Accuracy_in_Media

Accuracy in Media (AIM) is an American non-profit conservative news media watchdog founded ... Accuracy in Media ... Adam Guillette. Publisher. Don Irvine.

President: Adam Guillette

Founder: Reed Irvine

History · ‎Funding · ‎Controversies · ‎Climate change

Adam Guillette - President - Accuracy in Media

https://www.linkedin.com › adam-guillette-64232848

Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, United States · President · Accuracy in Media

President of Accuracy in Media · Activity · Experience · Education · More activity by Adam · Websites · People also viewed · Explore collaborative articles.

Accuracy in Media

InfluenceWatch

https://www.influencewatch.org › non-profit › accurac...

Adam Guillette is the president of Accuracy in Media. Guillette previously founded the Florida chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

Background · ‎History · ‎Founding · ‎1980s

Commentary: Accuracy in Media pulls a stunt in Ohio on ...

WOSU News

https://news.wosu.org › commentary-accuracy-in-med...

Feb 1, 2023 — In March 2020, Accuracy in Media president Adam Guillette said the media was exaggerating the impact of COVID, denying there was a pandemic.

Adam Guillette on the Accuracy in Media Organization - C-SPAN

C-SPAN

https://www.c-span.org › video › adam-guillette-accurac...

26:03

Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette talked about his organization's mission and its focus on investigative journalism.

C-SPAN · Nov 12, 2019

Adam Guillette on the State of U.S. Media | C-SPAN.org

C-SPAN

https://www.c-span.org › video › adam-guillette-state-us-...

37:27

Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette talked about the state of U.S. media.

C-SPAN · May 5, 2022

Accuracy in Media (AIM)

DeSmog

https://www.desmog.com › Database Entries

Accuracy in Media (AIM) is a conservative “media watchdog” with the stated aim of promoting “accuracy, fairness and balance in news reporting.” Accuracy in ...

Adam Guillette (@adamguillette) / Twitter

Twitter

https://twitter.com › adamguillette

Adam Guillette. @adamguillette. President of. @AccuracyInMedia. Young enough to understand the value of social media, old enough to want you off of my lawn.

lorida Man Buys State: Koch Impacts in the Sunshine State

bridgeproject.com

http://bridgeproject.com › research › koch-impacts-flo...

When Rubio served as Florida's House Speaker, AFP Florida Director Adam Guillette said, “Speaker Rubio is a strong ally.” The relationship even goes both

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Accuracy_in_Media

8 22

accuracy in Media (AIM) has grown from a one-person crusade to a million-dollar-a-year operation by attacking the mainstream media for abandoning the principles of "fairness, balance and accuracy" in its reporting. New Right philanthropies, think tanks and media support its work, and many members of its advisory board are former diplomats, intelligence agents and corporate directors.

Documents Contained at the Anti-Environmental Archives
Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here.

Documents Contained at the Anti-Environmental Archives

Documents written by or referencing this person or organization are contained in the Anti-Environmental Archive, launched by Greenpeace on Earth Day, 2015. The archive contains 3,500 documents, some 27,000 pages, covering 350 organizations and individuals. The current archive includes mainly documents collected in the late 1980s through the early 2000s by The Clearinghouse on Environmental Advocacy and Research (CLEAR), an organization that tracked the rise of the so called "Wise Use" movement in the 1990s during the Clinton presidency. Access the index to the Anti-Environmental Archives here.

Overview

AIM was founded by Reed Irvine in 1969, when Irvine called for sedition charges to be brought against Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers and the Progressive Labor Party, arguing, "If you're going to halt treason, you've got to do it while it's small." *[Village Voice*, January 21, 1986]

In the 1970s, Irvine endeared himself to the New Right by alleging that the corporate media were a propaganda tool for the Soviet KGB and Fidel Castro. In 1982, AIM attacked New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner for his reports (later proven accurate--see Extra!, January/February 1993) about the El Mozote massacre. Along with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, AIM succeeded in pressing the Times to pull Bonner from his Salvadoran beat.

Irvine later called for napalm to be used against FMLN guerrillas in El Salvador. (AIM Report, March 1990). During the Gulf War, he encouraged a nuclear strike against Iraq. [Seattle Times, January 16, 1991]

With the end of the Cold War, AIM now assails environmentalists as the "infiltrators" of the media establishment. Critical reports about industries that fund AIM--such as chemical and oil interests--ara a frequent target of AIM critiques.

During the Clinton era, alleged conspiracies related to the Democratic president were a frequent topic in AIM's work--particularly the notion that Vince Foster was not a suicide but a victim of foul play. AIM charged that Republicans, including independent counsel Kenneth Starr, were somehow complicit in covering up Clinton's plots; discussing Hillary Rodham Clinton's notion of a "vast right-wing conspiracy," Irvine retorted that "the only conspiracy I knew of was the conspiracy of the Republican leadership to protect Bill Clinton." [AIM Report, February 1998]

AIM has been criticized as a censorious group eager to silence voices it disagrees with and disdainful of the First Amendment. The group for a time offered as a donation premium Target America, written by AIM board member James L. Tyson, a book advocating that government "ombudsmen" police major-network newscasts for "accuracy" and "fairness". [1]

Reed Irvine suffered a stroke in 2003 and died in November 2004. His son, Don Irvine, succeeded him as AIM chairman.

In October 2008, AIM launched a website promoting a boycott of the New York Times, edited by Don Feder.^[1]

AIM operates Accuracy in Academia, founded in 1985 as an outgrowth of AIM. AIM also operates the American Journalism Center, which it describes as "an intense internship training program for aspiring journalists and students seeking careers in the public relations and/or marketing fields. Most of our interns will work in the offices of Accuracy In Media and Accuracy In Academia for the duration of their internship."^[2]

Personnel

Board of Directors (2009)^[3]

Don Irvine, Chairman (also heads Parents and Grandparents Alliance)
Gene C. Schaerr, President
Samuel Shepard Jones, Jr., Treasurer and General Counsel
Joan Hueter, Vice President,(previously Director AIM, Former President of National Association of Pro-America)
Roger Aronoff, Executive Secretary, (former Media Analyst)
James Davis, Director (former Financial Consultant)
John Esposito, Director
Fred C. Gielow, Jr., Director

Office holders

Don Irvine, Chairman (also heads Parents and Grandparents Alliance)
Samuel Shepard Jones, Jr., Treasurer and General Counsel
Joan Hueter, Director, (Former President, National Association of Pro-America)
Malcolm E. Smith, Retired Advertising Executive
Nancy Morgan, Conservative activist
Trevor Armbrister, Author

National Advisory Board

Arnold Beichman, Writer and Analyst
Midge Decter, Writer
Charlton Heston, Actor
Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret), Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
R. Adm. William C. Mott, USN (Ret), Vice-President, National Strategy Information Center
Dr. Frederick Seitz, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University
James L. Tyson, President, Council for the Defense of Freedom

Staff

Deborah Lambert, Director of Special Projects
John Wessale, Executive Assistant
Charles Rozier, Director of the Speakers Bureau
Roger Aronoff, Media Analyst and Documentary Producer
Claudia L. Mason, Administrative Assistant
Mercedes M. Amaya, Mailroom Manager
Cliff Kincaid, AIM Report Editor
James Davis, Financial Consultant
Jerris Leonard, Attorney

Funders

Bethlehem Steel
Carthage Foundation; see Scaife Foundations
**Chevron**
Ciba-Geigy
Coors Foundation
Dressor Industries
Exxon
Lawrence Fertig Foundation
Getty **Oil**
Horizon Oil and Gas
IBM
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical
F.M. Kirby Foundation
**Mobil Foundation**
Pepsico
Phillips Petroleum Company
Smith Richardson Charitable Trust; also see Smith Richardson Foundation
Texaco Philanthropic Foundation
Union Carbide

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

References

↑ "AIM Launches First Ever “Boycott The New York Times” Campaign & Website," Accuracy in Media, October 8, 2008.
↑ "About Us," American Journalism Center, accessed January 21, 2009.
↑ AIM.org 2009 Annual Report website accessed March 2010

Contact Information

4455 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.

Suite #330

Washington, D.C. 20008

Phone: (202) 364-4401

Fax: (202) 364-4098

E-mail ar1 AT aim.org

Web: http://www.aim.org/

External links

AIM's American Journalism Center
AIM's New York Times boycott website
Some of the information for this article is taken from The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations, pp. 24-25.
Peter Hart and Steve Rendall, "Meet the Myth Makers", Extra!, July/August 1998.
GuideStar report
"Let's learn about Accuracy in Media!", Kuro5hin, June 25, 2002.
Schema-root.org: Accuracy in Media - current and archive news feeds
"Accuracy in Spin", ConWebWatch, August 9, 2005.
"AIM: What Is It Good For?" ConWebWatch, December 17, 2008.

Categories:

Cliff Kincaid is a "right-wing writer and activist who has been a longtime critic of the United Nations and other multinational organizations. He is also a writer and editor^[1] at Accuracy in Media (AIM), a right-wing media 'watchdog' organization," Media Matters for America reported December 8, 2005.^[2] Kincaid "served as aide to former White House National Security Council staffer Oliver North."^[3]

Kincaid is also the founder and Director of Citizens United's American Sovereignty Action Project^[4][5]; a member of the Advisory Council of Sovereignty International^[6]; and President of the National Committee Against the U.N. Takeover.^[7]

Kincaid "has received significant support for his work from foundations controlled by right-wing financier Richard Mellon Scaife, who has funded AIM as as well as Kincaid's own organization, America's Survival, Inc.^[8] [which] is dedicated to 'educat[ing] the American people and to expos[ing] the influence of global institutions, including an International Criminal Court, on their lives'," Media Matters wrote.^[9]

Although Media Matters wrote^[10] in December 2005 that Kincaid's "organization appears to be run from Kincaid's personal residence," Watch Unto Prayer wrote in 1997 that Kincaid's organization was "housed" at Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation.^[11]

In 1998, Kincaid authored the 'Washington Watch' column for The American Legion Magazine.^[12]

Books

Profiles of Deception (with Reed Irvine) 1990.
The News Manipulators (with Reed Irvine and Joseph C. Goulden) 1993.
Global Bondage: The U.N. Plan to Rule the World (1995).
Global Taxes for World Government (1997).
Michael New: Mercenary or American Soldier (with Daniel New) 1998.
The New United Nations' Welfare Giveaway (2000).
The Hijacking of American Foreign Policy (2003).
Why You Can't Trust the News (with Reed Irvine and Notra Trulock) 2003.

Profiles

According to a brief biographical profile supplied to the National Journalism Center, Kincaid attended a course in summer 1978 and has subsequently been "guest co-host, Crossfire (CNN), columnist, American Legion, talk show host, WNTR-AM (DC), reporter, New York Tribune, correspondent, Cybercast News Service, commentator, Media Monitor (People's Radio Network), columnist, Washington Weekly, media columnist, Human Events, contributing editor, AIM Report, author, Global Taxes for World Government, author, Global Bondage: The U.N. Plan to Rule the World, author, The Playboy Foundation: A Mirror of the Culture?, author, The News Manipulators, co-author, Michael New: Mercenary or American Soldier?, co-author, Profile of Deception, published in Washington Post, Foundation Watch, New Guard, NewsMax.Com".^[13]

Resources and articles

References

↑ Speakers: Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Cliff Kincaid, Media Matters for America, December 9, 2005.
↑ Speakers: Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Speaker Bio: Cliff Kincaid, "Lift Up Your Eyes", Heaven's Key Ministries International, Inc., Ramada Inn Conference Center, Jacksonville, FL, August 1998.
↑ Citizens United - Floyd G. Brown, The Public Eye, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ Who We Are: Advisory Council, Sovereignty International, accessed July 3, 2007.
↑ "Smoking Gun. Shocking Truth Uncovered about U.N. Taxation Plan," America's Survival, undated.
↑ Bio: Cliff Kincaid, America's Survivalwebsite.
↑ Cliff Kincaid, Media Matters for America, December 9, 2005.
↑ Cliff Kincaid, Media Matters for America, December 9, 2005.
↑ "Charter Schools, Character Education & the Eugenics Internationale. Behind the Conservative Curtain: Pseudo Grassroots Organizations Front for Corporate/Government Takeover," Watch Unto Prayer, 1997.
↑ Speaker Bio: Cliff Kincaid, "Lift Up Your Eyes", August 1998.
↑ National Journalism Center, "Cliff Kincaid," The Reporter, accessed November 27, 2003.

Articles by Cliff Kincaid

Archived articles, Conservative Truth.
"Smoking Gun. Shocking Truth Uncovered about U.N. Taxation Plan," America's Survival, undated.

External articles

Leaflet: "_{In}_Accuracy in Media. Cliff Kincaid’s and AIM’s problems with the truth," ConWebWatch, 2006.
Terry Krepel, "Anti-Obama Frenzy: The Case of Cliff Kincaid", ConWebWatch, May 15, 2008.

Category:

Politics (U.S.)

8 22 tag

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/accuracy-in-media/

ALL POSTS ABOUT ACCURACY IN MEDIA

SEPTEMBER 14, 2018 5:30 PM

Right Wing Bonus Tracks: Kat Kerr Deserves Our Thanks

NOVEMBER 14, 2016 5:54 PM

Right Wing Bonus Tracks – 11/14/16

AUGUST 29, 2016 5:02 PM

Cliff Kincaid Defends White Nationalists: ‘Is It Objectionable For Whites To Advocate Policies Advantageous To Their Race?’

MAY 27, 2016 2:55 PM

Right Wing Bonus Tracks – 5/27/16

APRIL 7, 2016 5:30 PM

Conservative Pundit: Gay People And Allies Are ‘The Real One Percent’

JANUARY 13, 2016 6:45 PM

Right Wing Bonus Tracks – 1/13/16

DECEMBER 8, 2015 11:32 AM

Cliff Kincaid: Obama Is ‘Mentally Ill’ Due To Past Pot Use And Must Be Impeached

JULY 9, 2015 11:00 AM

Cliff Kincaid: Gays In Military Show Influence Of Obama’s ‘Pedophile’ Mentor

JULY 2, 2015 4:03 PM

Cliff Kincaid: Impeach Ginsburg & ‘Known Lesbian’ Kagan Because Of Marriage Ruling

JUNE 17, 2015 3:26 PM

Cliff Kincaid Pledges To Fight To The Death Against Gay Marriage Before It Destroys America

JUNE 11, 2015 11:50 AM

Right-Wing Pundits Rail Against Gay Military Leaders

JUNE 05, 2015 5:05 PM

Paranoia-Rama: Gays In Space, Equal Marriage Refugees, And Terrorists In The State Department

JUNE 03, 2015 11:05 AM

Conservative Pundit: ‘The Nation May Not Survive’ Caitlyn Jenner’s Gender Transition

MAY 13, 2015 11:00 AM

Cliff Kincaid: Pope Francis Will Usher In ‘Anti-Christian Tyranny’

MAY 04, 2015 12:39 PM

Cliff Kincaid: Marriage Equality ‘Lunacy’ Putting Us On ‘A Road To Ruin’

APRIL 13, 2015 10:40 AM

Cliff Kincaid: Gays And Obama Are ‘Making A Raw Power Grab For Our Kids’

APRIL 03, 2015 3:47 PM

Kincaid: SCOTUS Justices Are Insane For Striking Down DOMA And ‘Should Be Straitjacketed’

MARCH 25, 2015 1:25 PM

Right-Wing Pundit: Obama Brainwashed Into Communism While He Was High

MARCH 25, 2015 1:05 PM

Cliff Kincaid: ‘Perfect Storm’ Of Gay Marriage, Iran And Obama Will Destroy America

MARCH 25, 2015 10:45 AM

Cliff Kincaid: The Huffington Post Is A ‘Gay Porn Outlet’

8 22

https://www.desmog.com/accuracy-media/

Accuracy in Media (AIM)

Background

Accuracy in Media (AIM) is a conservative “media watchdog” with the stated aim of promoting “accuracy, fairness and balance in news reporting.”

Accuracy in Media wasfounded in 1969 by “a group of concerned citizens”1 including economist Reed Irvine. In 1972, AIM began publishing the AIM report, a newsletter “dedicated to correcting serious media errors.”2

Reed Irvine, who passed away in November of 2004 at 82 “annoyed and infuriated major media for years with his syndicated critiques, prolific letters to the editor, and confrontational questions at corporate meetings that routinely accused the press and broadcasters of a liberal bias,” The Washington Post noted.

Irvine’s son, Don Irvine, now serves as the chairman of Accuracy in Media and its sister organization Accuracy in Academia.3 He described his father as “a die-hard anti-communist.”4

AIM describes itself as “a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage.”5

AIM shares an address and fax number with the closely associated Accuracy in Academia,6 an organization that promotes right-wing activities and has fought “political correctness” on university campuses. 7

AIM on the Issues

Socialist World Government

According to Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid, as of 2009 the United Nations was “moving ahead with a global conference tolay the groundwork for world government financed by global taxes.” Kincaid adds that “The communist head of the U.N. General Assembly is leading the effort, but he is getting crucial support from “progressive” economists who advise the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party.”8

In 2007, AIM also claimed to have exposed the“Conspiracy” of the North American Union in a report “examining charges that a former Carter Administration official is behind a sinister campaign to create a North American Union that will submerge American sovereignty in a trilateral entity consisting of the U.S., Canada and Mexico.”9

AIDS a “Manufactured Crisis”

In a 2006 article titled “The Post and the Phony :{AIDS:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: Crisis,” Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid claims that “the number of HIV/AIDS cases in Africa has been grossly exaggerated by the United Nations in order to generate money through the world body to spend on the disease.” Quoting a Washington Post article that said that HIV/AIDS cases in Africa had been overstated, Kincaid says that the credibility of the United Nations should suffer. Kincaid promotes a book by Tom Bethell of Human Events, titled Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, which “deals with this manufactured ‘crisis’ over AIDS.”10

Intelligent Design

In an Accuracy in Media article titled “Silencing Science,” Julia A. Seymour claims that those associated with intelligent design are wrongfully facing “mockery, intimidation or academic death through firing or suspension.”11

“Critics of intelligent design claim that the theory is not scientific, it is creationism in disguise, that there is no debate or controversy over the ‘facts of evolution’,” Seymour writes.

Seymour also quotes the Discovery Institute‘s Jay Richards:

“We’re just pleading for free discourse,” said Richards, “science progresses through the free exchange of ideas.”

Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, an astronomy professor at Iowa State University, said he just wanted to provide interested students with “both sides” of the issue “so they can make up their own minds.”

On DDT

Citing a paper by J. Gordan Edwards, Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid write that “the claim that DDT caused the thinning of bird egg shells and a decline in the bird population is false.”12

Homosexuality

In 2000, Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid point to an article in the Massachusetts News, suggesting “homosexuals are recruiting children in the public schools of Massachusetts.”13 In 2015, Cliff Kincaid criticized Obama for supporting gay members of the military:14

“In Obama’s Orwellian Armed Forces, two men make a marriage, even if one takes the title of ‘wife’ and the other ‘husband.’ Or, perhaps, both are husbands. Who knows? I may have to consult the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association for the latest instructions on the correct terminology,” Kincaid wrote. “Left behind in the wake of this exercise in building a new nation are the remnants of the old America—traditional values, a strong military, and a constitutional system based on free enterprise and limited government.”

Comments Surrounding 2021 Capitol Insurrection

Accuracy in Media was among dozens of the individuals and organizations profiled in DeSmog’s Disinformation Database who posted online or gave interviews about the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection. Some posted claims of election fraud, similar to those that drove the Stop the Steal rally on Jan. 6. Some circulated dubious information about the insurrection itself. DeSmog has preserved a selection of notable posts related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021, including some that were later deleted or removed. [vid]

on Jan. 12, 2021 Accuracy in Media’s President Adam Guilette participated in an online broadcast, advertised on social media by the organization, where he discussed the Capitol insurrection and the Black Lives Matter uprisings.15

:, Guillette discussed the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, by comparing the reaction to civil unrest over the lack of police accountability for the deaths of George Floyd and many other Black people in the US.}:16

[00:05:36] “Well, to your point, they didn’t just normalize the violence. They celebrated the violence. They named streets after these people engaging in violence. They painted, you know, a lot of the roads to celebrate the folks who were engaging in violence. Hollywood celebrities even donated twenty five million dollars to pay the bail money for the rioters so that they could go out and riot again. So the notion that these people are suddenly outraged by the violence in the Capitol is ridiculous.” [00:06:02]

Stance on Climate Change

December 2016

Cliff Kincaid writes at Accuracy in Media:17

“If the Democrats really wanted to take down Putin’s regime, they would abandon their anti-fossil fuel policies, give up on a “climate change” agreement that benefits our adversaries, and support the President-elect’s policies of growth and resource exploration and exploitation.”

November 2014

Highlighting an isolated weather event, :{AIM:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: Newswire comments that “Even the liberal newspaper The Washington Post cannot deny how cold it has been recently.” They then suggest this is reason to discount global warming as increasing temperature-related fatalities:18

“So much for climate change or global warming endangering human lives…but what about the snow and cold weather? Global freezing, anyone?”

December 9, 2009

Writing for Accuracy in Media, Cliff Kincaid declared:19

“With the ClimateGate revelations of flimsy ‘science’ behind the man-made global warming theory, the role of the religious left in promoting this fraudulent scheme now deserves serious media scrutiny. “

Kincaid goes on to quote climate change denier James Wanliss, author of The Green Dragon, a book that argues environmentalism is “the reconstruction of a pagan world order” and a “rejection of Christian spirituality.”20

August 10, 2007

AIM Editor Roger Aranoff claims, writing at the :{AIM:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: website, that the science is not settled on climate change:21

“In fact, while most observers and experts agree that the climate is changing and may even be warming over the long term, the real debate is over whether human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, are responsible, and whether we can do anything about it. The critics of the theory cast doubt on that connection, noting the lack of definitive evidence of a cause and effect. There are other explanations for possible warming, such as solar activity.”

February 2007

Cliff Kincaid, Director of Accuracy in Media’s Center for Investigative Journalism, said in a 2007 column on :{AIM:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:‘s website:22 23

“Incredibly, the much-publicized United Nations climate change report, which blames global warming on people, has no published science to back it up.”

November 2005

AIM columnist Cliff Kincaid criticized*Fox News* for broadcasting a program *The Heat is On*, which reported that global warming represents a serious problem. Kincaid argued “[t]he program was one-sided to the point of being comical,” and said the airing was a “scandal” in an article titled “Hostile Takeover of Fox News.”24

Funding...

scaife, carthage, kirby

The following is a combination of data archived at the Conservative Transparency (CT) project combined with original research of 990 tax forms by DeSmog. Note that not all CT funding values have been verified by DeSmog.25

Key People

Name 201026 201127 201228 201329 201730 Description

Chandler Hudson Y Operations Manager

Charles Rozier Y Y Y Director of the Accuracy In Media/Allied Educational Foundation Speaker Bureau

Cliff Kincaid Y Y Y Y Y Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism

Deborah Lambert Y Y Y Y Y Director of Special Projects

Don Irvine Y Y Y Y Y Chairman

Heidi Barnes Y Operations Manager

Logan Churchwell Y Y Director of Public Relations & Online Development

Megan Beth Lott Y Vice President of Development & Contributing Editor

Mercedes Amaya Y Y Y Y Y Mailroom Manager

Roger Aronoff Y Y Y Y Y Editor

Sarah Schaerr Norton Y Director of Public Relations

Elizabeth Jenkins Y Operations Manager

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June 6, 2016

In an Accuracy in Media (AIM) article titled “The Red Guards Are Green,” Cliff Kincaid writes that Democratic Attorneys general who are delving into climate change denial in the U.S. are trying to “stifle debate ver the job-destroying policies of the Obama regime” and to “criminalize and prosecute those challenging the global warming theory.”31

Kincaid describes proposed policies of Senator Bernie Sanders, President Obama, and Hillary Clinton, as all of a “totalitarian nature” given “they all propose to use government power to control the economy by either confiscating the assets of private firms or running them out of business.”

Kincaid writes that this is a sign “America is becoming a socialist state,” also criticizing the Obama administration which “has been seeking to destroy the entire coal industry.”

With regards to the Paris Climate Agreement, Kincaid promotes a paper by The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) “which says the agreement is essentially a fraud.”

October 2015

:{Media Matters:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: reports that Accuracy in Media (AIM) had removed all references to Wayne Simmons from its Benghazi commission website after Simmons was arrested on “charges of major fraud against the United States, wire fraud, and making false statements to the government,” including allegedly falsely claiming he worked for the CIA.32

AIM released the following statement on Simmons:

“We were stunned and saddened to hear the news about Wayne Simmons. He has been a colleague of ours on the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi since we were established in 2013. We have removed Wayne’s name from the list of members on the website of the CCB, pending the outcome of the legal proceedings. As with everyone charged with a crime or crimes in this country, he is innocent until proven guilty. We wish him the best.”33

May 2015

Cliff Kincaid, Director of Accuracy in Media’s AIM Center for Investigative Journalism,criticized Pope Francis for coming “down on the side of the ‘progressive,’ and even Marxist, forces in the world today.”34

In a blog post titled “The Catholic Church Has Gone Socialist,” Kincaid claims that Pope Francis “has made common cause with the forces of international Marxism, which are associated with atheism, the suppression of traditional Christianity and the persecution and murder of Christians,” so “[c]onservative Catholics and many other are terrified of what is to come.”35

*The Huffington Post* notes that Kincaid goes as far to cite climate change denier Timothy Ball, who had argued in an interview that “the Catholic Church is regretting making him the Pope” after “the powerful Cardinals pushed” Pope Benedict “aside.”36

February 1, 2012

On this date, AIM presented theReed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award to radio host Dana Loesch and :{CBS:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: correspondent Sharyl Attkisson.37

According to The Huffington Post, Atkisson has “issued a factually deficient report on purported ‘New Solyndras’ which included green-energy companies that hadn’t received federal money or hadn’t actually gone bankrupt.”38

January 31, 2011

Accuracy in Media (AIM)p resented the Reed Irvine**Accuracy in Media Award to Tucker Carlson** and Ken Timmerman for “outstanding contributions to journalism.”39

Carlson is the co-founder and former editor-in-chief ofThe Daily Caller. According toThe Huffington Post, “Carlson’s Daily Caller has a record of pushing questionable or false claims,40 as well as numerous conspiracy theories.”41

Timmerman has also been linked to endorsing and promoting false claims,42such as thebirther conspiracy theory.43

February 18, 2010

AIM presented the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award to Andrew Breitbart and Marc Morano for their “outstanding contributions to journalism” during a ceremony as part of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Accuracy in Media chairman Don Irvine applauded “Marc Morano’s excellent reporting on the ClimateGate scandal that exposed the politicized science behind claims that the science is settled on global warming.”44

Marc Morano is the Executive Editor and Chief Correspondent for ClimateDepot.com, a prominent blog focusing on climate change denial. He has also been a communications director for Senator James Inhofe and has worked as a producer for the Rush Limbaugh Television Show.45

December 9, 2009

Cliff Kincaid, Director of AIM‘s Center for Investigative Journalism, promotes the often-debunked “Climategate” as evidence of the “flimsy ‘science’ behind the man-made global warming theory.” In the article, Kincaid promises to examine “role of the religious left in promoting this fraudulent scheme now deserves serious media scrutiny.” He goes on to introduce James Wanliss, senior fellow at the Cornwall Alliance and author ofThe Green Dragon: Is Global Warming a Religion which portrays environmentalists as a “pagan world order.”46

“Both professing Protestants and Roman Catholics bear a burden of guilt for the current political mess we are in with the global warming and other hysterias,” Kincaid quotes Wanliss. “If the church had not turned from the gospel of Jesus Christ it is unlikely the Green Dragon would have been able to so deeply sink its fangs into our lives.”47

March 16, 2006

AIM Editor Roger Aronoff writes at Accuracy in Media, criticising a CBS 60 Minutes segment which had acknowledged the dangers of climate change. “There is much evidence that contradicts the assertions made in the 60 Minutes story,” going on tocite the often-debunked Oregon Petition as support for the supposition that “there are many scientists who are skeptics.”48

November 2005

AIM columnist Cliff Kincaid criticized Fox News for broadcasting “The Heat is On,” which reported that global warming represents a serious problem. Kincaid argued the piece was one-sided and stated that this “scandal” amounted to a “hostile takeover of Fox News.”49 50

Accuracy in Media Contact & Location

As of May 21, 2016 the main contact address was:51

:{4350 East West Highway

Suite 555

Bethesda, MD 20814}:

Phone: (202) 364-4401

Fax: (202) 364-4098

E-mail: info@aim.org

Related Organizations

:{Accuracy in Academia:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:600"):}: — Founded in 1985 as an outgrowth of :{AIM:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:.52

Social Media

@AccuracyInMedia on Twitter.
“Accuracy in Media” on Facebook.
“Accuracy in Media” on LinkedIn.

Other Resources

Paul McLeary. “Accuracy in Media: Not So Accurate,” Columbia Journalism Review. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/axcyQ
“Accuracy in Media,” RationalWiki. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/:{H3G:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:vu
“Accuracy in Media,” Right Wing Watch.
Michael Green. “Accuracy in Media,” December 26, 2012. Retrieved from Scribd. Archived.pdf on file at DeSmog.

Resources...

rational

accuracy in Media (AIM) is a conservative "media watchdog" organization founded in 1969 by Federal Reserve economist, staunch anti-communist, and unhinged Bircher nutcase Reed Irvine (1922–2004),^[1] currently run by his son, Don. It was one of the first watchdog groups set up to fight "liberal media bias," making it something like the older but still ragingly crazy brother of Brent Bozell's Media Research Center. While its content tends to be less fluffy than your average Bozell material, AIM is notorious for pushing quite a lot of its own insanity.

Crankery

AIM has been one of the biggest pushers of Vince Foster conspiracy theories.^[2] They launched an FOIA suit against the National Park Service in 1999, in an attempt to get hold of some pictures of Foster, and lost.^[3] In a 1999 interview with Richard Mellon Scaife (who conveniently happens to be a funder of AIM^[4]), Scaife pushed the Foster conspiracy theory along with the "Clinton body count list," a staple on the chain e-mail forward circuit.^[5]
They also push conspiracy theories revolving around a socialist world government, enacted through the United Nations^[6] and a North American Union.^[7] AIDS in Africa is apparently a "manufactured crisis" perpetuated by the UN.^[8] These conspiracies also often involve George Soros, somehow.
They promote Intelligent Design, even citing that bastion of scientific integrity the Discovery Institute.^[9]
Anti-environmentalist conspiracy theories and denialism are popular topics, including myths about DDT and Rachel Carson,^[10] as well as global warming denial.^[11]
Anti-gay bigotry, including homosexual recruitment conspiracies.^[12]
Birtherism, of course, and they're still going at it.^[13]
Cliff Kincaid, director of their Center for Investigative Journalism, is also the president of America's Survival, another UN-conspiracy mongering organization.^[14]
Their article on CASA De Maryland^[15] is illustrated with what looks like a parody of a 1960s-1970s conspiracy theorist flow chart.^[16]

Accuracy in Academia

In 1985, Reed Irvine founded Accuracy in Academia (AIA) to counter the bias of "liberal academia" and fight oppressive political correctness. Yes, AIA is just as batshit insane as its parent organization. It exists to "inform" students about such dangers as creeping Sharia in the classroom^[17] and the PC War on Christmas,^[18] and to hector professors they don't like.

External links

Accuracy in Media
Accuracy in Academia
Conservative "University" – a PragerU clone
AIM at Right Wing Watch
AIM entry at SourceWatch

References

↑ Reed Irvine's obituary in the Washington Post
↑ Here they are still going at it in 2004.
↑ AIM v. National Park Serv.
↑ Conspiracy Theories in American History, ed. Peter Knight, p. 645 [1]
↑ Scaife interview and Snopes on the Clinton body count.
↑ The Plan for a Socialist World Government
↑ Accuracy in Media Exposes North American Union "Conspiracy"
↑ The Post and the Phony AIDS Crisis
↑ Silencing Science
↑ Al Gore and Rachel Carson
↑ Climategate, the Green Dragon, and the End of Christianity
↑ Homosexual recruitment in schools
↑ Let Them Eat Birth Certificates
↑ Kincaid's bio at America's Survival. See also the SPLC report on Kincaid.
↑ CASA de Maryland: The Illegals’ ACORN
↑ CASA de Maryland: A Case Study in Subversion and Public Corruption at the Highest Levels
↑ Shariah Schools
↑ Politically Correct Christmases Past & Present

Categories:

evil but

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/accuracy-in-media/

accuracy in Media is a conservative media watchdog founded in 1969 largely in response to news coverage of the Vietnam War. [1] The organization buys stock in media companies and regularly engages in shareholder activism to call out alleged liberal-left bias and inaccurate reporting. [2]

AIM has been widely credited with first sparking mainstream discussion of left-of-center bias in the ostensibly “objective” metropolitan news media. [3] [4]

Background

Accuracy in Media is a conservative-leaning media watchdog organization that critiques what it considers liberal bias. [5] The organization publishes reports, produces documentaries, and has also held rallies and protests to draw attention to its issues with media outlets. [6]

AIM helped “create the image of the mainstream media as very liberal,” according to Alex S. Jones, the director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. [8] The *New York Times* described AIM as “dedicated to exposing, challenging, and at times bullying” news organizations. [9]

History

FOUNDING

AIM’s founder Reed Irvine was previously an economist with the Federal Reserve. [10] While at the Fed, Irvine led luncheon discussions for the International Economists Club and the Arthur G. McDowell Luncheon Group. The discussion topic for one of the 1969 luncheons was perceived bias against the Vietnam War by the television nightly newscasts. [11] At this 1969 discussion, Irvine, then 50, hatched the idea for Accuracy in Media. [12] [13]

Irvine launched AIM that year as an all-volunteer group with a $200 donation. [14] [15] The organization began by sending letters to the editors for major newspapers asking for corrections to articles. If the editors did not publish the letters, the organization bought ads in the newspaper with the message. [16]

The organization launched the AIM Report newsletter in 1972. [17] Also in 1972, AIM pushed ABC News to make five corrections to a documentary on the arms race. By 1973, the organization was the subject of a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal. [18]

SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM

In 1975, AIM began purchasing stock in major media companies and sent representatives to attend annual shareholder meetings to call for executives to address issues of bias in news reporting. [19] Irvine would sometimes receive the right of rebuttal on television programs regulated by the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine” and be invited by news media companies to present complaints to senior executives outside of shareholder meetings. [20]

1980s

In 1985, many PBS stations ran the hour-long documentary, Television’s Vietnam: The Real Story, as a rebuttal to the 1983 PBS series “Vietnam: A Television History.” [22] The New York Times gave a mostly positive review to the AIM production, calling the documentary flawed, but saying it legitimately pointed out problems with the TV news coverage of the Vietnam War. [23]

In 1985, Irvine launched Accuracy in Academia, a sister organization focused on higher education institutions. [24]

AIM started a campaign in 1988 called “Can Dan” against then-CBS News anchor Dan Rather. [25]

1990S AND 2000S

During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, AIM accused CNN of being too sympathetic in coverage of Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s regime. [26]

Accuracy in Media questioned the cause of death of Clinton administration deputy White House counsel Vince Foster in 1993. [27] The organization lost in both the D.C. District Court and D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to compel the release of Foster’s death scene photographs. [28] Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr, a Republican, determined in 1997 the death was a suicide. [29]

Irvine retired as AIM chairman in 2003 and became the chairman emeritus. His son Don Irvine became the chairman. Reed Irvine died at age 82 in 2004. [30]

Leadership

References...

8 22 i sorta forgot about, but award REMINDED

adam Guillette has apparently rebooted the old org

President

Since 2004 Adam has served as Distinguished Faculty member for theLeadership Institute. In this capacity he has traveled around North America to help identify and train free-market activists.

Adam Guillette is featured regularly on Fox News, Fox Business, Newsmax, and OAN. He has also contributed to USA Today, TownHall, and the Washington Examiner. Guillette lives in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida with his wife Nikki and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Liberty.

John Ransom

Writer

John Ransom is a political writer and editor. Currently he is founder and president of SanctionChina, organized to impose sanctions on members of the Chinese Communist Party for human rights, environmental and security violations worldwide.

Previously, Ransom was finance editor for Townhall.com. Additionally he hosted Ransom Notes Radio, syndicated by Salem Media that ran daily in about 30 markets.

Ransom has appeared in various publications including Newsmax, The Daily Caller, Townhall, TheStreet.com, Observer Media Group, Registered Rep Magazine, the Los Angeles Business Journal, The Naval Intelligence Professionals.

Matthew Convard tiktok corresp?!

Board of Directors

Frank Howard, Chairman

Dan Backer

David Himes

David Keene

Gregg Cook

Niger Innis

Tracy Dietz

https://www.aim.org/aim-in-the-news/

8 22

RedState is the latest to cover AIM’s inflationary video

by Accuracy In Media on August 24, 2022

Originally published at RedState WATCH: Hilarious Reactions When Members of Congress Are Asked, ‘What Is Inflation?’ August 19, 2022 Democrats are always screaming about Republicans and “norms.” Yet, at every turn, they seem to be the party that not only wants to throw the “norms” of our government under the bus but also change the […]

Continue Reading:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box;-webkit-font-smoothing:antialiased;display:inline-block;width:auto;height:auto;vertical-align:baseline;background-image:none;background-position:0% 0%;background-repeat:repeat;margin-top:0px;zoom:1;margin-left:3px"):}:

OAN covers AIM’s inflationary video

by Accuracy In Media on August 22, 2022

Watch here:

AIM’s Adam Guillette discusses the Mar-a-Lago raid on Newsmax

by Accuracy In Media on August 16, 2022

Watch here:

Did Fox ban Trump? AIM’s Adam Guillette discusses in the Epoch Times

by Accuracy In Media on August 11, 2022

Originally published at The Epoch Times Did Fox News Ban Trump? Experts Weigh In By John Ransom – August 8, 2022 With the calendar now up to over 100 days since Trump has appeared on the Fox News network, media reports, citing people close to Trump, say that the former president is complaining that the […]

Is Fauci scared of a GOP takeover? AIM’s Adam Guillette discusses on Newsmax

by Accuracy In Media on July 26, 2022

Watch here:

Covid relief funding used for CRT? AIM’s Adam Guillette discusses on KXEL

by Accuracy In Media on June 26, 2022

Listen here:

AIM’s Adam Guillette goes on Iowa talk radio to discuss the newest videos in AIM’s Critical Race Theory investigation

by Accuracy In Media on May 13, 2022

Listen here:

AIM’s Adam Guillette discusses the Critical Race Theory investigation on the Daily Signal

by Accuracy In Media on May 12, 2022

Originally published at The Daily Signal May 10, 2022 Listen here:

AIM’s Adam Guillette discusses Roe leak, Critical Race Theory, and more on C-SPAN

by Accuracy In Media on May 6, 2022

Watch here:

CBN covers AIM’s Critical Race Theory investigation

by Accuracy In Media on April 26, 2022

Originally published at The Christian Broadcasting Network The Global Lane April 14, 2022 Watch here:

acc in media

https://www.aim.org/aim-column/aims-10th-annual-reed-irvine-awards-to-judge-jeanine-pirro-chris-plante-and-rep-lamar-smith/

On the front lines of the culture war.

HOME AIM COLUMN AIM’S 10TH ANNUAL REED IRVINE AWARDS TO JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO, CHRIS PLANTE, AND REP. LAMAR SMITH

AIM’s 10th Annual Reed Irvine Awards to Judge Jeanine Pirro, Chris Plante, and Rep. Lamar Smith

by Accuracy In Media on May 8, 2015

A biased and corrupt news media have enabled the Obama administration to present itself as modestly successful, relatively scandal free, and advancing American interests and values at home and abroad. Nothing could be further from the truth, as Accuracy in Media (AIM) has been documenting for the past 46 years. Most of what is generally considered to be the mainstream media have been spinning agenda-driven falsehoods and obscuring the facts. However, some in the media continue their efforts to combat this liberal bias and inform the public about issues the mainstream media deliberately omit, spin, or suppress. As part of its 2015 Reed Irvine Award ceremony, held on April 21st, AIM championed the efforts of a few of these voices for truth and accountability, and awarded them for their ongoing efforts.

“It’s about truth and justice, right and wrong. It’s about evidence,” said Fox News’ Judge Jeanine Pirro describing how she runs her show, “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”

“And the most disappointing part of all this, folks, is the fact that nobody really cares about the truth anymore,” she observed. She later continued, “And when the mainstream media is more concerned about an ideology, about politics, than truth and right and wrong, I’m telling you folks we are in real trouble.”

Judge Pirrocame from an average family in Elmira, NY. She has served as both a judge and District Attorney, and hosted her own Emmy winning court show before finding a home at Fox News. She received AIM’s prestigious Reed Irvine Award for Investigative Journalism.

“This award means a great deal to me,” she said. “What was amazing was when he [Reed Irvine] started coming on the scene, people were saying well, ‘We really do have enough conservative people on television,’ as if enough of you over there, we don’t need any more of you.”

Chris Plante, host of WMAL’s “The Chris Plante Show,” spent 17 years at CNN and said that while he did good honest work there, in the end it was embarrassing.

“It’s so unbalanced, it’s so unfair, and it’s never been worse than it is now with Barack Obama and now Hillary Clinton jumping into the fray,” he said. “We’re going to see a new a layer, a new level. But the coverage of President Obama over the last six years has been deplorable. It’s been Third World, it’s been Soviet-style reporting.”

Irvine founded AIM in 1969 to combat biased media coverage, particularly coverage of the Vietnam War. Irvine felt that Walter Cronkite, in particular, “contributed a great deal to our defeat in Vietnam.”

“Walter Cronkite actually came over to the house a couple of times when I was a kid, and I thought, ‘Gee, it’s Uncle Walter. What a great guy,’” observed Plante. “Now, in retrospect, I’m not very impressed with the news media.”

Plante said that his Reed Irvine Award for Excellence in Journalism would be “displayed prominently and proudly because of Reed Irvine’s legacy and the importance of what he started.” He talked about the award a couple of days later on his show: [click on play button below]

A biased media actually stand in the way of stewarding our effective democracy, argued Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), founder and Chairman of the Media Fairness Caucus.

rap-lamar-smith-don-irvine“We rely upon the media to tell us what the facts are and if they don’t give us the facts, the American people can’t make good decisions,” he said. “And if the American people can’t make good decisions that’s when we lose our form of democracy.”

The caucus says to the media “give the American people the facts” and “don’t tell them what to think,” Rep. Smith said, calling AIM a “stalwart ally.” He received AIM’s Reed Irvine Award for Accountability in Journalism.

Here is an edited version of the comments that night from the three Reed Irvine Award winners:

Accuracy In Media

Your support will hold the media accountable.

Accuracy in Media was founded in 1969 by a group of concerned citizens -- just like you -- who were troubled by the inaccuracies and bias they saw in the American media. For more than 50 years, our organization has used investigative journalism and citizen activism to expose media bias, corruption, and public policy failings. Progressives and their allies in the newsroom have a stronghold over the mainstream media in this country, but they aren’t stopping there.

They are targeting our education system, Big Tech, the entertainment industry-- every facet of America's culture.

In order to fight back against the overbearing control radical progressives have in our society, you and I must take action now.

Join us in this fight by taking the pledge below and signing your name.

I pledge to do my part in holding journalists accountable for spreading political propaganda rather than the truth.

To the best of my ability, I pledge to support freedom of speech whenever views are silenced, even if I disagree with them.

I pledge to uphold the values of a well-informed and free society by speaking out against media bias and political corruption.

Keep me updated on media corruption

Ready to fight back against media bias?

Join us by donating to AIM today.

What does Congress know about economics? Not much!

by Accuracy In Media on August 19, 2022

Gender activists are politicizing the dictionary: TAKE ACTION NOW

by Accuracy In Media on July 22, 2022

Critical Race Theory in schools, take action now!

by Accuracy In Media on April 23, 2022

STAY UP TO DATE ON MEDIA CORRUPTION

BIAS WATCH

MSNBC’s Ruhle blasts Dollar Tree for raising prices, dismisses inflation threat

on November 29, 2021

CNN reporter tries to cover for McAuliffe’s education remarks: It has ‘spun out of control’

on October 28, 2021

QUICK LINKS

Home Donate Articles AIM in the News Activism Who We Are History of AIM Contact

ACCURACY IN MEDIA

1717 K Street NW

Suite 900 VIRTUAL OFFICE?

Washington, DC 20006

Phone: (202) 670-7729

E-mail: info@aim.org

BS on food lion

He is also the author of a spate of books attacking Democrats including "Prince Albert: The Life and Lies of Al Gore (2000), "Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11" (2004), and "The Many Faces of John Kerry: Why This Massachusetts Liberal Is Wrong For America" (2004).

Ramping up the rage and ranting up the rhetoric about Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers

According to Newsweek, David Bossie has placed Obama in his sights. The magazine reported that Bossie maintained that he was "assembling material for TV spots about Obama's ties with [Bill] Ayers, a Chicago professor and unrepentant former member of the Weather Underground, a group that bombed several government buildings to protest the Vietnam War."

Shortly after Obama's victory in the Wisconsin primary, longtime conservative columnist Cliff Kincaid, accused the Illinois Senator of having "controversial socialist connections." Kincaid, the editor of Accuracy in Media, a right wing media watchdog group, and a contributing editor to FamilySecurityMatters.org, charged Obama with being "an associate of a Chicago-based Marxist group with access to millions of labor union dollars and connections to expert political consultants, including a convicted swindler."

Questions about Obama's relationship with Ayerswere subsequently raised by conservative radio and Fox News Channel talk show host Sean Hannity. ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about Ayers during the Obama-Clinton debate prior to the Pennsylvania primary.

Recent columns by Charles Krauthammer and Ann Coulter also raised the specter of Ayers.

According to Krauthammer, Ayers, along with Tony Rezko, "the indicted fixer," and Jeremiah Wright, "the racist reverend," make up Obama's "Three Amigos":

Obama makes it sound as if the relationship consists of having run into each other at the DMV. In fact, Obama's political career was launched in a 1995 meeting at Ayers' home. Obama's own campaign says that they maintain 'friendly' relations.

Obama's defense is that he was 8 when Ayers and his Weather Underground comrades were planting bombs at the Pentagon, the U.S. Capitol and other buildings. True. But Obama was 40 when Ayers said publicly that he doesn't regret setting bombs. Indeed, he said, 'I feel we didn't do enough.'

Would you maintain friendly relations with an unrepentant terrorist? Would you even shake his hand? To ask why Obama does is perfectly legitimate and perfectly relevant to understanding what manner of man he is.

Newsweek reported that "Obama, who lives near Ayers in Chicago's Hyde Park, attended an event at Ayers's house when Obama ran for the state Senate in 1995 -- and served on the board of a nonprofit with him for several years. Obama is aware of the acts Ayers committed when he was 8 years old and has called them 'detestable,'" says spokesman Ben LaBolt, adding that Obama occasionally bumps into Ayers in his neighborhood 'but has not seen him for months.' At a recent dinner party, according to one guest who asked not to be identified discussing a private gathering, Ayers 'ridiculed' the notion that Obama shared his left-wing views: 'He thought the idea that there was a political connection between them was absurd.'"

In early March, John Ponder of the Pensito Review wrote that Obama biographer, John K. Wilson, author of "Barack Obama: This Improbable Quest," who said that Ayers was "not affiliated with the Obama campaign," described the Ayers relationship: "In 1995, State Sen. Alice Palmer held an event for supporters at the home of Ayers, where she announced her plans to run for Congress and introduced Obama as her chosen successor. Obama also served on the board of directors for a progressive foundation, the Woods Fund, from 1999-2001, when Ayers was also on the board. In 2001, Ayers gave $200 to Obama's state senate campaign fund. And Obama and Ayers appeared together on a 1997 panel at the University of Chicago dealing with juvenile justice (Obama also praised Ayers' approach on the subject in an op-ed he wrote that year), and on a 2002 panel on public intellectuals at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Just as Obama's explanations about his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright -- and Wright's increased public presence -- has not put that saga to rest, there is no doubt that right wing columnists, talk show hosts, partisan advertising and public relations specialists, pundits and two longtime practitioners of negative campaigning, Floyd Brown and David Bossie, will squeeze every last drop out of the Ayers controversy.

http://www.mediatransparency.org/story.php?storyID=236

brock ktm

Chapter 1 Building the Machine p. 1

Acc in media set up to defend RMn VN and watergate p5

MRC 6 m$ budget (scaife) FAIR cash on hand 25K$

July 2004 kennedy school symposium; Brokaw says Bozell has it wired w/ news ltr, aud --> immed response p 5

David Brooks Wkly Std rw has dazzlingly efficient ideological delivery system that swamps liberal efforts to get their ideas out" p6 around 2003?

22% get news from talk radio

Rob Stein Democ Alliance 2004

Peter Lewis progressive insurance funded brock

Imus and Dobbs end up on Fox biz

Fox rept 2012

Beck target Kevin Jennings; rove lied nambla 19

Beck ad boycott

wapo's dana milbank

Palin defended beck on his show

rw talk #2 to country music, but can't bill as high for ads (1/2) 25

el mozote wiki

The conservative press-watch organization }:Accuracy in Media accused the Times and Post of timing their stories to release them just before the congressional debate; five months later, Accuracy in Media devoted an entire edition of its AIM Report to Bonner, in which its editor Reed Irvine declared that "Mr. Bonner had been worth a division to the communists in Central America".^[15] Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Thomas Enders attacked Bonner and Guillermoprieto before a Senate committee, stating that though there had been a battle between guerrillas and the army, "no evidence could be found to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians." Enders also repeated the claim that only 300 people had lived in Mozote, making it impossible for the death toll to have reached that reported in the Times and Poststories.^[16] On February 8, Elliott Abrams, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, told the committee that "it appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the guerrillas".^[17]Salvadoran army and government leaders denied the reports and officials of the Reagan administration called them "gross exaggerations."^[15] The Associated Press reported that "the U.S. Embassy disputed the reports, saying its own investigation had found ... that no more than 300 people had lived in El Mozote."^[14]

http://www.booktv.org/Program/15358/After+Words+Gabriel+Sherman+The+Loudest+Voice+in+the+Room+How+the+Brilliant+Bombastic+Roger+Ailes+Built+Fox+News+and+Divided+a+Country+hosted+by+Jane+Hall+American+University.aspx i have written notes

includes a few left as red meat and for cover; TVN ur-fox vetted stories w Acc in Media

===

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Accuracy_in_Media

Accuracy in Media (AIM) has grown from a one-person crusade to a million-dollar-a-year operation by attacking the mainstream media for abandoning the principles of "fairness, balance and accuracy" in its reporting. New Right philanthropies, think tanks and media support its work, and many members of its advisory board are former diplomats, intelligence agents and corporate directors.

Contents [hide]

1 Overview
2 Personnel
- [2.1 Board of Directors (2009)^[3]](http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Accuracy_in_Media#Board_of_Directors_.282009.29.5B3.5D)
- 2.2 Office holders
- 2.3 National Advisory Board
- 2.4 Staff
3 Funders
4 Resources and articles
- 4.1 Related Sourcewatch
- 4.2 References
5 Contact Information
6 External links

Overview

In the 1970s, Irvine endeared himself to the New Right by alleging that the corporate media were a propaganda tool for the Soviet**KGB**and**Fidel Castro**. In 1982, AIM attacked**New York Times**reporter**Raymond Bonner**for his reports (later proven accurate--seeExtra!, January/February 1993) about the**El Mozote**massacre. Along with the**Wall Street Journal**editorial page, AIM succeeded in pressing theTimesto pull Bonner from his**Salvadoran**beat.

With the end of the :{Cold War:(style="background-color:#fff200;"):}:, AIM now assails :{environmentalists:(style="background-color:#fff200;"):}: as the "infiltrators" of the media establishment. Critical reports about industries that fund AIM--such as chemical and oil interests--ara a frequent target of AIM critiques.

Reed Irvine suffered a stroke in 2003 and died in November 2004. His son, Don Irvine, succeeded him as AIM chairman.

In October 2008, AIM launched a website promoting a boycott of the New York Times, edited by Don Feder.^[1]

Personnel

Board of Directors (2009)^[3]

Don Irvine, Chairman (also heads Parents and Grandparents Alliance)
Gene C. Schaerr,President
Samuel Shepard Jones, Jr., Treasurer and General Counsel
Joan Hueter, Vice President,(previously Director AIM, Former President of National Association of Pro-America)
Roger Aronoff, Executive Secretary, (former Media Analyst)
James Davis, Director (former Financial Consultant)
John Esposito, Director
Fred C. Gielow, Jr., Director

Office holders

Don Irvine, Chairman (also heads Parents and Grandparents Alliance)
Samuel Shepard Jones, Jr., Treasurer and General Counsel
Joan Hueter, Director, (Former President, National Association of Pro-America)
Malcolm E. Smith, Retired Advertising Executive
Nancy Morgan, Conservative activist
Trevor Armbrister, Author

National Advisory Board

Arnold Beichman, Writer and Analyst
Midge Decter, Writer
Charlton Heston, Actor
Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, USN (Ret), Former Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
R. Adm. William C. Mott, USN (Ret), Vice-President, National Strategy Information Center
Dr. Frederick Seitz, President Emeritus, Rockefeller University
James L. Tyson, President, Council for the Defense of Freedom

Staff

Deborah Lambert, Director of Special Projects
John Wessale, Executive Assistant
Charles Rozier, Director of the Speakers Bureau
Roger Aronoff, Media Analyst and Documentary Producer
Claudia L. Mason, Administrative Assistant
Mercedes M. Amaya, Mailroom Manager
Cliff Kincaid, AIM Report Editor
James Davis, Financial Consultant
Jerris Leonard, Attorney

Funders

Bethlehem Steel
Carthage Foundation; see Scaife Foundations
Chevron
Ciba-Geigy
Coors Foundation
Dressor Industries
Exxon
Lawrence Fertig Foundation
Getty Oil
Horizon Oil and Gas
IBM
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical
F.M. Kirby Foundation
Mobil Foundation
Pepsico
Phillips Petroleum Company
Smith Richardson Charitable Trust; also see Smith Richardson Foundation
Texaco Philanthropic Foundation
Union Carbide

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

References

↑ "AIM Launches First Ever “Boycott The New York Times” Campaign & Website," Accuracy in Media, October 8, 2008.
↑ "About Us," American Journalism Center, accessed January 21, 2009.
↑ AIM.org 2009 Annual Report website accessed March 2010

Contact Information

4455 Connecticut Avenue, N.W.

Suite #330

Washington, D.C. 20008

Phone: (202) 364-4401

Fax: (202) 364-4098

E-mail ar1 AT aim.org

Web: http://www.aim.org/

External links

AIM's American Journalism Center
AIM's New York Times boycott website
Some of the information for this article is taken from The Greenpeace Guide to Anti-Environmental Organizations, pp. 24-25.
Peter Hart and Steve Rendall, "Meet the Myth Makers", Extra!, July/August 1998.
GuideStar report
"Let's learn about Accuracy in Media!", Kuro5hin, June 25, 2002.
Schema-root.org: Accuracy in Media - current and archive news feeds
"Accuracy in Spin", ConWebWatch, August 9, 2005.
"AIM: What Is It Good For?" ConWebWatch, December 17, 2008.

...

AIM was founded in 1969 by Reed Irvine, who was an economist with the US Federal Reserve Board at the time. An essential glimpse into AIM's history is provided by a well-researched Group Watch report published in 1989, brought to us courtesy of The Public Eye.

The report states that in its early history in the mid-1970s, AIM amounted to little more than Reed Irvine and then-Executive Secretary Abraham Kalish attempting to call attention to themselves. They sent letters to numerous newspaper editors that espoused their "cause" of fairness, accuracy, and balance in media reports. If the newspaper failed to publish their letters, Irvine and Kalish would purchase space in the offending paper and print their letters in that slot. By 1975, AIM was able to purchase stock in major media outlets, which allowed them to attend shareholder meetings and promote their "cause" there also.

In this article, then-Communications director Bernard Yoh is quoted as saying of AIM, "people erroneously call us conservative and right-wing. It really makes me sad because we try very hard to do everything evenhandedly." Unfortunately, AIM is worse than that. It is not only a right-wing and "conservative" organ, but it also claims to be your one-stop source for "accuracy" and bias-corrected information. This is different from say, claiming to espouse "traditional", "patriotic", or "American" viewpoints. This is a serious case of grand deception.

On AIM's numerous right-wing ties, a direct quote from the article is most appropriate:

AIM has intimate ties with many conservative causes. As an example, AIM heads the list of groups attending the 1986 Conservative Political Action Conference. The group also has a predisposition to attack journalists that write about and seem sympathetic to leftist and even centrist movements. AIM has a record of supporting Nicaraguan contra leaders such as Jose Francisco Cardenal. AIM also supports the Committee for a Free Afghanistan, a U. S. group that has backed the Afghan rebels beginning in 1981.

AIM, and Reed Irvine in particular, has all the essential attributes of the militant right wing. AIM delivers its gospel of "accuracy" to the heathen through a daily radio commentary, a newspaper column, and a bi-monthly newsletter, as well as various other conduits. A few selected gems from AIM's colourful history reveal them to be an entourage of lunatics whose sanity some might be inclined to bring into question:

Attacking the "blatantly pro-Communist propaganda" of PBS (public television network). (Link)
In AIM's first year, Irvine stated that Students For a Democratic Society, the Progressive Labor Party, and a number of other organisations should be charged with sedition in light of the Vietnam War. "If you're going to halt treason, you've got to do it while it's small," Irvine explained to the Village Voice in 1968. (Link)
In 1982, AIM successfully instigated the firing of Raymond Bonner from the New York Times for reporting the massacre of civilians by American-trained soldiers at the village of El Mozote in El Salvador.
Irvine encouraged the use of napalm against Salvadoran gorillas in AIM Reports such as**this one**.
Irvine also encouraged the use of nuclear weapons against Iraq during the Persian Gulf crisis.
In an odd departure from the mainstream conservative line about the Kosovo intervention of 1999, Irvine slandered a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter for allegedly inventing the story about a 1999 Serb-led massacre in Kosovo. This is very strange, since the establishment is generally quite interested in implicating the Serbs and exaggerating the dimensions and unilateralism of their atrocities against the Kosovar Albanians. In addition, the massacre in question occured before the NATO bombing campaign began, thus making it even a more precious ideological gem for the militant right since claims that NATO bombing precipitated the process can be deflected. But not Irvine. His reasoning was simple - Clinton used this made-up massacre as a part of his justification for the NATO bombing campaign. Apparently Clinton-hating was more important than being consistent or even rational in respect to the party line. Fortunately, Irvine was forced to write a retraction, eventually. Though, it's very funny retraction, considering the retraction itself is buried beneath a wealth of irrelevant nonsense.
At CBS shareholder meetings, Irvine frequently denounced Walter Cronkite as a Soviet pawn. At a 1986 meeting, Irvine requested that Cronkite be removed from the CBS board of directors for his [alleged] support of unilateral disarmament.

Or, in short, AIM does not seem to be concerned with attacking sources of "media bias" nearly as much as drowning any voices it finds ideologically objectionable in a sea of abuse and calls for censorship.

There is substantial evidence that AIM, like any self-respecting conservative organisation, derives a significant portion of its livelyhood from wealthy corporate backers, including Mobil Oil, the Adolph Coors Foundation, and a host of others. AIM does not seem particularly inclined to disclose the sources of their contributions.

Of course, AIM's essential elite aren't too shabby themselves, since most of them have backgrounds in intelligence. Reed Irvine served in Marine Intelligence during the Second World War, Abraham Kalish taught at the Defense Intelligence School, and Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under infamous President Nixon, was also involved with AIM. And the now-deceased Bernard Yoh has perhaps the most spectacular background of all, being a professor of psychological warfare at Air Force University in Montgomery, Alabama. He was also an advisor to South Vietnamese president Ngo Dien Diem during the 1950s, and advised right-wing generals in the 1964 military coup that toppled President Goulart of Brazil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed_Irvine

bkgd and errors:

http://media.eriposte.com/3-1.htm

http://web.archive.org/web/20030608143208/http://www.publiceye.org/research/Group_Watch/Entries-06.htm

Reed Irvine claims that 75 percent of AIM's funding comes from contributers donating $100 or less. He is reluctant to comment on where the rest of the money comes from. Says Irvine, "We do not comment on AIM contributors, except for those who have given us permission to publicize their gifts. " Irvine names only three, the Allied Educational Foundation, Shelby Cullom Davis, andRichard Mellon Scaife. Other groups that have supported AIM include Mobil Oil, Union Carbide, and various power companies. (2) In 1985 AIM recieved a $20,000 grant from the Adolph Coors Foundation and $7000 from the Texaco Philanthropic Foundation Inc. In 1986 they recieved $5000 from Texaco. (16) As of 1986 AIM'sbudget was $1. 5 million a year. (2) AIM is nonprofit and contributions to it are tax-deductible. (7)

...

Activities:

AIM publishes a bimonthly newsletter called the AIM Report. Reed Irvine is the editor of this newsletter. AIM Report provides Irvine a forum from which he can disseminate his political ideas. In these newsletters Irvine often encourages subscribers to write to people or organizations which he believes AIM can force to change policies. (8)

Reed Irvine has a weekly column that is published in newspapers across the nation. AIM has a radio commentary show called Media Monitor which airs five days a week. It also sponsors speakers as well as holding conferences. (7)

Irvine often attends annual shareholder meetings and makes his presence known. He has been described as very combative and even rude during those encounters. He now has an annual private meeting with the publisher of the New York Times. According to critics, Irvine's meetings with publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger seem to be more of a way to spare other shareholders from Irvine's outbursts than a sign that he is an important individual whose views are to be heeded. Irvines charges are not dismissed out of hand; they are researched. However, relates New York Times vice-chair Sydney Gruson, "I never find any merit in their [AIM's] allegations. "(2)

AIM's attacks on the media seem to have little to do with atual misrepresentation or inaccuracies in media accounts. Instead, Irvine and AIM are quick to attack groups that don't fit in the group's ideological niche. Any group or individual, from left to centrist, are suspect in AIM's eyes. Publisher of the Washington Post, Donald Graham, notes that Irvine tends to "throw around accusations about people being communists. "(2)

AIM's attacks on the person, instead of the person's work, is obvious in several examples.

At CBS's meetings Irvine often attacks Walter Cronkite as a Soviet dupe. At a 1986 meeting,Irvine requested that Cronkite be removed from the CBS board of directors for allegedly supporting unilateral disarmament. (2) Another example of an attack on issue orientation rather than journalistic merit is AIM's assualt against Helen Marmor. In 1983, Marmor produced a documentary for NBC concerning the Russian Orthodox Church. AIM contended that "it ignored the repressive religious policies of the Soviet state. " Marmor related that Irvine called her for an interview and ". . . kept going back again and again to questions implying I was hoodwinked or pro-Soviet in my attitudes. . . "(2)

Government Connections:

Several of AIM's board members have intelligence backgrounds. During WWII Reed Irvine worked in Marine Intelligence; John McLean was employed by the CIA; and Abraham Kalish taught communications at the Defense Intelligence School. Bernard Yoh also has a history of intelligence and military work. He is/was a professor of psychological warfare at the Air Force University in Montgomery, Alabama. He was a hitman for the Shanghai police during the Sino-Japanese war and organized the South Vietnamese counterinsurgency forces during the Vietnam War. In the 1964 Brazilian coup, Yoh advised the Brazilian generals. (2,6)

Elbridge Dubrow was a former ambassador to Vietnam. David Lichtenstein was a senior attorney with the Federal Communications Commission. (2,7)

Adm. Thomas H. Moorer was the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under president Richard Nixon. In that position he had Naval Intelligence agents tap Henry Kissinger's phone and remove documents from Nixon's desk. (20) He was also on the national advisory board of the now-defunct Western Goals Foundation, a private domestic intelligence agency founded by former Congressman Larry MacDonald in 1979. (20) Moorer is the vice president of the American Security Council. (22)

Clare Booth Luce was a former ambassador to Switzerland and former member of Congress. (2,7) She was also a member of Ronald Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. (23)

Private Connections:

The Council for the Defense of Freedom (CDF) has intimate ties with AIM.They share several board members. Reed Irvine, Murray Baron, Wilson C. Lucom, and Bernard Yoh, for instance, are all on the Board of Directors of CDF. Donald Irvine (Reed Irvine's son) is the treasurer for CDF. Marx Lewis, chair of CDF, is on the National Advisory Board of AIM. CDF operates out of AIM's offices as well. (1,2,7) The CDF publishes a right-wing weekly called The Washington Inquirer. Irvine's column appears in it weekly.

Accuracy In Academia (AIA) was created by AIM. Irvine is the head of AIA, but it is run by Les Csorba. AIA is also a right-wing group that "monitors" what teachers teach on college campuses. It is relatively weak and primarily attacks teachers that do not teach AIA's view of reality. Midge Decter has called AIA "wrong headed and harmful. " In 1984, on a trip to El Salvador, Csorba praised Roberto D'Aubuisson--said to have death squad links--and posed with government soldiers. (5,9)

AIM has also supported the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). In 1984, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson wrote articles that exposed the death squad affiliations of the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL), a member of WACL. In response, the chairman of WACL, retired U. S. Major General John K.Singlaub, enlisted the help of Reed Irvine. In a letter dated January 30, 1984, to Irvine, Singlaub said that: "Any help that you can give us in obtaining a retraction from Jack Anderson for that part of his articles which link WACL with the death squad activity (in El Salvador) will be greatly appreciated. If a retraction is not possible, I would appreciate your assistance in neutralizing the negative impact of these articles. " No retraction was made according to the author of this source. (11)

AIM has been a prominent supporter of the Chilean Lobby in the past. The Chilean Lobby supported the military government under Augusto Pinochet that came into power through a coup in 1973. (6)

Bernard Yoh contributes regularly to theUnification Church publication Rising Tide and is a strong supporter of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the South Korean government. (11)

Murray Baron is a member of the American Chilean Council and was a member of the Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Red China to the U. N. He was also the past president of Peace With Freedom Foundation, a former CIA front involved in African labor affairs. (6)

Elbridge Dubrow is/was co-chair of the American Security Council's National Strategy Committee. (6)

Eugene Lyons is the retired editor of Reader's Digest. He is or was also a member of American Friends of Katangan Freedom Fighters, American Chilean Council, Committee of One Million, Young Americans for Freedom, and the American Jewish League Against Communism.

Ellen Garwood, heir to the Clayton Anderson fortune, donated much of the amount needed to buy a helicopter for the Nicaraguan contras. (12) She has also donated a large amount of money to their cause.

Midge Decter is exec dir of Committee for the Free World.

This group holds conferences and exchanges for "anticommunist intellectuals around the world. " Former Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams is her son-in-law and Norman Podhoretz, editor of the right-wing journal Commentary is her husband. (12,13) Decter was also on the Board of Directors of the now defunct Nicaraguan Freedom Fund. (14) Decter is a Heritage Foundation trustee, an Ethics and Public Policy Center trustee, a Hudson Institute fellow, and an advisory board member of The National Interest. (19)

Clare Booth Luce is a Dame of the Knights of Malta. (15) She was a director of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund, a fundraising group set up in 1985 by the Washington Times, a paper owned by Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, to provide funds to the contras. (12,15,17,18) Luce was on the Board of the Washington Times. (17) She also served with the Coalition for Peace Through Strength (CPTS) and the Committee on the Present Danger. (21,23)

William Simon is on the advisory committee of AmeriCares and was on the national council of the Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America (PRODEMCA). Simon was also the chair of the Nicaraguan Freedom Fund and is a member of the Knights of Malta. (12,15,18)

Dr. Edward Teller was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger as of 1983. The Committee is an anticommunist organization which has advocated strict containment policies towards the Soviet Union. (21) Teller also created the HBomb. (20) Teller was also on the advisory board of the Western Goals Foundation and served with the CPTS. (20).

Elton Manzione, "The Private Spy Agency," The National Reporter, Summer 1985.

Eugene Wigner and General Lewis Walt were both formerly on the advisory board of the Western Goals Foundation. (20) Wigner, a physicist, recieved a $200,000 "Founders Award" from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Wigner also served with the American Security Council's Coalition for Peace Through Strength and on the board of trustees of Freedom House. (21)

Shelby Cullom Davis is a trustee of the Heritage Foundation. (19)

Misc:

AIM claims to be "Your Watchdog of News Media. "(7) Among the shows they monitor, however, are entertainment programs which have a political twist. For instance, they often attack television shows such as Miami Vice and television movies such as The Day After (a show on the possible outcomes of nuclear war in the U. S. ). (2,10)

Media fairness

From SourceWatch

zzz "Media fairness" is a**public relations**catch-phrase for the common desire that polluting and harmful industries have for a compliant media which publishes only non-critical material on big corporations.

In 1996-97**Burson-Marsteller**promoted the idea to**Philip Morris**that it lead an industry attack on the credibility of the media using such things as the recent outrage over paparazzi after the death of Princess Diana. It sought to use the credibility of some media watchdog organizations for lobbying purposes, suggesting:

...[T]hose we feel should be targeted for a potential partnership are starred on the chart on the following page. The characteristics these organizations share is a credible mainstream ideology, high-profile presence, and history of working on corporate-funded projects.^[1]

The days when the popular media were seen as allies of tobacco in support of the Freedom to Advertise campaign, were long gone, and, as B-M explained, "the vexing question is not IF there is a need for greater media fairness, but rather HOW we will achieve this goal."^[2]

Contents[hide]

Media surveys

In the late 1990s, Phillip Morris (PM) had funded a Louis Harris poll of 3004 adults, which found that only 51% of adults think the media "usually get the facts right." PM saw this as an opportunity to get into bed with Press Clubs and journalistic schools, which were also becoming highly critical of the media moguls and the tabloidization of the American press. They identified a number of possible targets:

Denver Press Club, for instance, was seen as being "receptive to partnerships, sponsorships and exhibits for all of its activities," while the
Milwaukee Press Club - "has periodic civic/social dinners, holds an annual meeting and awards scholarships to journalism students. Sponsorship opportunities may exist for one of these events."
New York Press Club - "holds numerous business and social events including monthly meeting, debates, seminars, an awards dinner, a holiday party and a summer boat trip. These events offer a plethora of opportunities to propose speakers and sponsorships. [S]ponsorship is solicited for the annual Christmas party and for the annual Installation Awards Dinner held in May."^[3]

Favored Media Watchdogs

National News Council: In 1973, the National News Council was formed with a $100,000 grant from the Twentieth Century Fund to counter the "unfair reporting" of theNixonAdministration.^[citation ^needed] The council, however, never enjoyed the support of the journalism establishment. It lasted only a decade because of opposition from prominent journalists like Walter Cronkite, and the two key publishing groups, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.^[citation ^needed]

Philip Morris's strategy document for December 1997 list seven media watchdog groups which it viewed as potential partners in "media fairness initiatives during 1998" (e.g. establishing a study of the "liberal media") to cost $20-30,000. The study was to be conducted in "the top 10 media markets (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Washington DC, Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Atlanta)."

Their list including:

The Annenberg Public Policy Center (at the University of Pennsylvania);
The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press,
Politics and Public Policy (Harvard University);
The Roper Center for Public Opinion Research (University of Connecticut);
Center for Media and Public Affairs - (supposedly non-partisan, but took money from PM to run Louis Harris survey) ^[4]

CMPA has shown an interest in investigating issues of media fairness, and has done so at the request of Philip Morris in the past.

The Media lnstitute - This was the outfit of Republican right-winger Leo Brent Bozell III (See below)
The Twentieth Century Fund - supposedly a nonpartisan foundation involved in "progressive public policy". But also the fund which, In 1973, gave the the National News Council $100,000 to counter the "unfair reporting" of the Nixon Administration.^[citation ^needed]
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward press, politics and public policy issues. The Center conducts regular national surveys which measure public attentiveness to news stories, as well as general trends in values and political and social attitudes. The Pew Center is sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Since the Pew Research Center is fully funded by a Pew Charitable Trusts grant, the possibility of a direct corporate donation is unlikely, although the company could publicly support Pew initiatives.^[citation ^needed]

Credibility is the key

This shows the way in which the lobbying industry chooses to use a highly credible organization as its front. Those watchdogs with the most credibility, (according to B-M) were The Pew Center, followed by the Center for Media and Public Affairs and the Roper Center, and:

In addition, the modus operandi of these three organizations most closely parallels the objectives of this strategy, in that they are all oriented towards research in the public interest.^[citation ^needed]

In this case, Philip Morris was not intending to use corrupt intermediary institutions at all, but to turn to their own advantage those with high credibility. The manipulation would come after the survey, when they planned to control the promotion of the findings:

Once the study is completed, we recommend holding a C-SPAN televised press conference at the National Press Club to announce the results and the call to action.

PM's sponsorship of the study and press conference should be fully disclosed, with the disclaimer that the company is taking a totally hands-off approach to the study and initiatives stemming from it.

Their assumption that, following the "independent survey" there would necessarily be a "call to action", suggests that they had no intention of "taking a totally hands-off approach". They then planned to spend another $75-100,000 to:

... launch a roadshow of the study in these markets. The goal of the roadshows would be to create the want for news councils in targeted communities and gain buy-in from local business leaders and media organizations [using] several press/business clubs that would be ideal partner for PM in this initiative, they include: The Atlanta Press Club; City Club of Cleveland; Denver Press Club; Economic Club of Detroit; Milwaukee Press Club; New York Press Club; and the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania;

They clearly expected to see business-oriented conservative forces controlling these new local News Councils, and, in Stage 3, they would move into journalism training:

Journalism schools are not only the training ground for future reporters, they also have the potential to serve as hotbeds of controversy regarding stories that appear in campus newspapers. In order to lay the groundwork for the understanding of the importance of a fair and accountable media among the journalists of the future, we recommend working with a professional news organization to establish a scholarship contest for student-designed media fairness programs.^[citation ^needed]

Other Watchdog Organizations

These were media watchdog groups that seemed to be rejected as a suitable partner for the survey project, probably because they were too obviously partisan.

The Media Institute (TMI) is a nonprofit research foundation specializing in communications policy and the First Amendment.<http://www.mediainstitute.org/>. Burston-Marsteller points to the value of the tobacco industry maintaining its contact because:

TMI hosts a Communications Forum luncheon series with luncheons held eight times per year. Attendance at the luncheons is by invitation only, but Philip Morris is a sponsor of the Forum and could potentially place a speaker in the future. Also, the luncheons are not planned far in advance so next steps could be rapid. The next series will be held November 20, 1997 and will feature panelists discussing copyright protection policies. No series are planned beyond that date.^[^citation needed]

Communications Research Corporation (CRC) - a daughter organization to TMI, which is actually a:

...private consulting practice which provides advice, strategic planning, and implementation services for a wide range of communications issues from the standpoint of policy and public affairs. TMI also links to the Freedom of Expression Foundation and the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, of which Robert O'Neil is the director. Both groups seem to have purposes similar to that of The Media Institute.

Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Enterprise. (See above.)
Freedom of Expression Foundation (See above.)
The Media Research Center was established by Leo Brent Bozell III with Scaife, Carthage, Olin and other right-wing foundation money. B-M says that this is a:

... conservative watchdog group which attempts to promote political balance by exposing liberal biases that exist in the media. While MRC does accept corporate donations and thus, could be eligible for a grant from the company, their credibility is suspect due to their obvious bias.

**Accuracy in Media**(AIM) This is another Scaife funded anti-journalism organisation run by**Reed J. Irvine**. B-M points out that it:

... is a conservative media watchdog organization which seeks to make the public aware of the liberal bias which exists in all types of media. AIM hosts a speaker's bureau program in which various members can be scheduled for appearances to address the issues of media unfairness. In addition, AIM offers internship opportunities and schedules panel discussions.

AIM hosted a panel discussion on October 18, 1997 which was carried by C-SPAN. Discussions covered topics such as the death of Vince Foster, the crash of TWA Flight 800 and campaign finance reform.

While AIM's speaker's bureau program and panel discussions offer avenues for corporate donations to fund media fairness initiatives, the group's obvious bias may affect their credibility as a research organization.^[citation ^needed]

Media Training Organizations

The tobacco industry was deeply involved journalism training:

National Journalism Center (NJC) - Philip Morris regularly funded this Center.^[citation ^needed] It held 12-week, "scholarship-type" training courses for selected students (often promoted by politicians -- usually Republican) -- and it ran what amounted to a job-placement agency with the media establishments for its graduates. It started journalists like Michael Fumento on their careers as corporate media lobbyists. PM consultant Richard T. Hines suggested that PM should fund a journalism internship program here to produce a stable of journalists sympathetic to tobacco issues.^[5]

International Journalism Center - Philip Morris was planning to establish, along with the London-based Adam Smith Institute and the Krieble Institutes (plural), an international version of the National Journalism Center. ^[6] Richard Hines (who supported all right-wing causes: Oliver North; the Confederacy; segregation, and white supremacy, [1] while working as a consultant to Philip Morris) was behind the idea, and he had many possible contacts with think-tanks in Europe who could be used to hide the tobacco connection.^[7]

Foundation for American Communications (FAC) was a journalism training group which kept itself pure by not accepting corporate funding, except from the major media organisations. B-M dismisses it because:

...FACS seems more concerned with improving the technical content of media reports than with improving ethical issues of fairness or accuracy. As such, a general operational grant is unlikely to foster such ideals, except in an abstract way.

Western Journalism Center - This organization was owned and operated by Joseph Farrah (Executive Director) and financed by John Smith. ^[8] It was supposedly:

...dedicated to the ideals of "free enterprise, limited government and American values [as a] nonprofit, conservative organization which aims to be "a vehicle for changing the culture of America's newsrooms and for returning the press to its traditional role as watchdog of government."

Farrah and his associate Christopher Ruddy were the fanatics behind the claims that the Clintons had murdered Vince Foster.^[9] As the B-M document says:

Recently the WJC has been involved in investigative projects surrounding the deal of Vince Foster and the Lippo Group financial controversy.

WJC does accept corporate donations, and the company (ie Philip Morris) could benefit by being involved with a forum, seminar or internship sponsorship. The company has already donated over $100,000 in unrestricted grants over the past three years. However, the fact that the WJC does exhibit a conservative bias could affect the credibility of its research^[citation ^needed]

This [2] only tells a fraction of the story. As part of the Arkansas Project Philip Morris passed extra money via its think-tank paymaster Roy Marden, to the Pacific Legal Center, then to the Western Journalism Center, and on to the journalist Ruddy.

Freedom Forum - a nonpartisan, international foundation dedicated to free press, which:

...does not accept unsolicited grant applications, and does not solicit or accept financial donations. It is funded entirely through an endowment established by Frank E. Gannett in 1935 and has assets totaling nearly $900 million. {[fact}}

Washington Institute for Policy Studies, which B-M describes as:

... a conservative, nonprofit organization which seeks to further the principles of "individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise" by combating the liberal media bias.

Recently, the WIPS broke into two separate groups. WIPS continues to study policy oriented issues such as electric utility deregulation, the "Three Strikes, You're Out" law, workers' compensation and public subsidies to private corporations.

The other half of the WIPS is the CounterPoint Center for ReMediation which publishes CounterPoint. The CounterPoint Center is a new nonprofit corporation which focuses on the role and performance of the mass media in American democracy. John Hamer is its President. In a letter to Burson-Marsteller on November 4 1997, John Hamer stated, "if Burson-Marsteller would be interested in having us speak to your colleagues or perhaps prepare a report on media performance, we'd be happy to discuss it with you. In addition, one of the services we now offer is detailed media content analysis, which specific clients might find very helpful in deciding how to respond to unfair or inaccurate coverage."^[citation ^needed]

References

â Burson-MarstellerPhilip Morris Media Fairness Initiative Analysis and Recommendations Speech/presentation. December 2, 1997. 56 pp. Philip Morris Bates No. 2071004777/4832
â Burson-MarstellerPhilip Morris Media Fairness Initiative Analysis and Recommendations Speech/presentation. December 2, 1997. 56 pp. Philip Morris Bates No. 2071004777/4832
â Philip Morris Media Fairness Initiative Analysis and Recommendations Speech/presentation. December 2, 1997. 12 pp. Bates NO. 2071004821/4832
â Burson-MarstellerPhilip Morris Media Fairness Initiative Analysis and Recommendations Speech/presentation. December 2, 1997. 56 pp. Philip Morris Bates No. 2071004777/4832
â Hines RT; Richard T. Hines Consulting Letter to M. Winokur May 26, 1994. Philip Morris Bates No. 2025496776/6778
â Hines RT; Richard T. Hines Consulting Letter to M. Winokur May 26, 1994. Philip Morris Bates No. 2025496776/6778
â Author unknonwn Europe List. August, 1994. Philip Morris Bates No. 2025496760/6773
â See David Brock, 'Blinded by the Right
â Scarborough R. All News Plus/Washington Times IRS audits target conservative groups: Liberal nonprofits escape scrutiny January 17, 1997. Bates No. 2077271685/1689

aim accuracy media guillette bak

adam Guillette has apparently rebooted the old org

President

CONTENTS

Background

History

FOUNDING

SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM

1980s

1990S AND 2000S

Leadership

References...

Contents

Overview

Personnel

Board of Directors (2009)[3]

Office holders

National Advisory Board

Staff

Funders

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch

References

Contact Information

External links

Books

Profiles

Resources and articles

References

Articles by Cliff Kincaid

External articles

ALL POSTS ABOUT ACCURACY IN MEDIA

Accuracy in Media (AIM)

Background

AIM on the Issues

Socialist World Government

AIDS a “Manufactured Crisis”

Intelligent Design

On DDT

Homosexuality

Comments Surrounding 2021 Capitol Insurrection

Stance on Climate Change

Funding...

Actions

Accuracy in Media Contact & Location

Related Organizations

Social Media

Other Resources

Resources...

Crankery

Accuracy in Academia

External links

References

CONTENTS

Background

History

FOUNDING

SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM

1980s

1990S AND 2000S

Leadership

adam Guillette has apparently rebooted the old org

President

John Ransom

Writer

Matthew Convard tiktok corresp?!

Board of Directors

August 2022

July 2022

June 2022

May 2022

April 2022

March 2022

February 2022

January 2022

December 2021

November 2021

October 2021

September 2021

August 2021

Board of Directors (2009)^[3]

Board of Directors (2009)^[3]