Spin of the Day: October 27, 2003

October 27, 2003

Buying Your Way Into Airline "Radio News"

"The caller to Joanne Doroshow's office last month described himself as working for Sky Radio Network, a company that produces programming for Forbes Radio, one of the audio channels available to passengers on American Airlines. As the executive director of the Center for Justice and Democracy, a nonprofit organization that casts itself as a champion of consumer rights, Ms. Doroshow was asked if she would be interviewed for a talk show examining the issue of tort reform. When Ms. Doroshow agreed, she said, the caller informed her that it would cost her organization $5,900 to have its point of view heard. When Ms. Doroshow balked, she said, the caller offered to see if it could be reduced to $3,500. 'I was furious,' Ms. Doroshow said. 'I thought this was another way corporations are dominating what people hear, and are getting only their side presented because they're willing to pay for it.' "

Right Wing Collegians

The student editor of the California Patriot, a right-wing student newspaper at the University of California-Berkeley, claims that conservatives are the true heirs to the university's free speech movement of the 1960s. "The conservatives on Berkeley's campus have employed various strategies in order to insert their views -- whether they're wanted or not -- into campus debates," writes Michael Gaworecki. "They feel that linking themselves to the Free Speech Movement is key to their cause, and employ leftist rhetoric accordingly." But unlike the movement of the 1960s, which was homegrown, "here is a large network of well-entrenched, well-funded, national foundations and organizations sponsoring publications like the Patriot." Organizations like the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's Collegiate Network, the Leadership Institute, Young America's Foundation, and Young Americans for Freedom offer training, financial subsidies, assistance with public relations on campus, and even editing stories if they need it to neo-conservative campus journalists, along with a network for getting jobs after they graduate.