Politics

Canada Fires the Messengers

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Canada's Liberal government in British Columbia has fired its entire communications division - 300 unionized civil servants - and replaced them with 180 non-union political appointees in order to ensure that government information providers are "committed to the goals of the Liberal administration." Union president George Heyman says Premier Gordon Campbell is "using reorganization as an excuse to lay off workers and replace them with political hacks.

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Main Source: 
Canada.com, June 28, 2002
Topics: 
International
Politics

Social Insecurity and "The Fear of All Sums"

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

"During the 2000 election campaign, George W. Bush was able to get away with the nonsensical claim that private accounts would not only yield high, low-risk returns, but save Social Security at the same time. For whatever reason, few reporters pointed out that he was claiming that 2-1=4," notes New York Times economist Paul Krugman. "But when it came time to produce concrete plans, the arithmetic could no longer be avoided. Sure enough, the plans laid out by Mr.

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Main Source: 
New York Times, June 21, 2002
Topics: 
Politics

Axing the Tough Questions

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

The recent disclosure that President Bush received a general warning before Sept. 11 of possible hijackings prompted a firestorm of spin. Conservative pundits and politicians fought back on cue, showing impressive message-discipline as they argued in unison that criticism of the president amounts to treason in the face of terrorism. Democrats "need to be very cautious not to seek political advantage by making incendiary suggestions," said Vice President Dick Cheney (without specifying any "incendiary suggestions" that any Democrats had actually made).

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Main Source: 
Spinsanity.org, May 21, 2002
Topics: 
Right Wing
Terrorism
Rhetoric
U.S. Government

Debunking Lynxgate

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Details of "the great biofraud," as the Washington Times dubbed the affair, emerged just before Christmas of last year. Wildlife scientists in Washington State were accused of "planting" clumps of wild lynx fur in national forests. Supposedly the fraud was planned so the Endangered Species Act could be invoked to close the forest to campers and loggers. In reality, as government employees have insisted ever since the beginning, the whole story is a fabrication.

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Main Source: 
Outside magazine, April 2002
Topics: 
Right Wing
Environment
Media

Think Tanks in a Time of Crisis

Submitted by Laura Miller on

Conservative and right-leaning think tanks continue to get more mainstream media attention than centerist and progressive groups according to a new report by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. "The overall percentages for the year were consistent with findings for previous years, with conservative or right-leaning think tanks garnering 48 percent of the citations, centrists receiving 36 percent and progressive or left-leaning think tanks receiving 16 percent," FAIR writes.

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Main Source: 
http://www.fair.org/extra/0203/think_tanks.html
Topics: 
Left Wing
Right Wing
Media
Think Tanks

Help Needed to Save Pacifica

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Now that community radio advocates have regained control of the Pacifica Radio Network, they are discovering that the outgoing Pacifica managers "treated the network like a trough," in the words of current acting executive director Dan Coughlin. In addition to racking up huge personal expense bills and handing themselves "golden parachute" severance packages, the former managers ran up millions of dollars on attorneys and PR firms.

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Main Source: 
http://www.savepacifica.net/20020313_edreport.html
Topics: 
Left Wing
Media

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