National media sanctions mob mentality
It was only a matter of time. The former head of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, today had his home vandalized. Someone broke out the windows of his home and his Mercedes. An e-mail claim of responsibility has been made by a group calling itself “Bank bosses are criminals.” The group also made a threat: “This is just the beginning.”
Goodwin left his job at RBS last October with a pension of 700,000 pounds (about one million dollars). When the UK government bailed out RBS, they asked Goodwin to give back the pension he earned after eight years creating one of the world’s largest companies, he refused. His wife has been yelled at, and his children have been bullied.
Last week in America, the news media somewhat gleefully reported on a bus tour of wealthy AIG executives’ homes. About twenty mostly-jobless people – followed a horde of national and international media – went to the homes of two AIG execs demanding “their” money back. The media gathered sound bites from the protesters, identifying each person by their name, and the name of the company they used to work for.
CBS, ABC, NBC, and CNN all reported the story. They were clearly duplicitous in trying to embarrass the homeowners – even though, ironically, the people whose homes were targeted had already agreed to give the money back. There was no concern over the deliberate attempt to smear private citizens who have only received money they were legally and contractually entitled to.
One of the first rules learned in journalism is to “follow the money”, but the news reports in the “mainstream media” clearly did not do so in this case. Reporters either did not ask, or did not care to report, who paid for the protest, stating only that the tour was organized by the Connecticut Working Families Party.
What is the “Connecticut Working Families Party”? It is an activist group jointly founded by ACORN, according to a newspaper editorial posted on the CWFP’s own website. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck investigated further, revealing that the tour bus and the protestors were actually paid for by ACORN.
The same ACORN that President Obama worked for. The same ACORN that has been involved in civil disobedience against home foreclosures. The same ACORN that gets money in the Obama stimulus plan. The same ACORN that will be involved in the government’s 2010 census count, which will realign congressional seats, voting districts, and funding distribution. ACORN is the activist organization that the national news media sanctions – by not reporting on its mob-mentality of activism.
About Sir Fred Goodwin: He is said to be considering a move so South Africa. No surprise – when news of his home vandalism was carried by the left-wing Huffington Post, the first reader comment was, “They shoulda been more clever like leave some mercury on the floor and put some toxic mold in the walls. Breaking glass is so yesterday.”
