Over the past week, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) has been exposed in several cases as committing a variety of illegal acts. But are media outlets reporting the controversy?
The majority of news outlets have either
not reported the story or have barely mentioned what is going on with ACORN, media critics point out.
As of Monday, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC did not even cover the story and ABC and CNN only mentioned it briefly. The story has been primarily reported by FOX News, conservative talk radio, and a wide variety of political blogs and websites like the Drudge Report and Politico.
ABC News anchor Charles Gibson was not even familiar with the scandal surrounding ACORN during an interview yesterday morning. In terms of the print press, USA Today was the first to cover the story on Friday, followed by both the New York Times and the Washington Post on Saturday. All outlets relied on the Associated Press for coverage and the Times and the Post only covered the story after the Census Bureau severed ties with ACORN.
"A major national scandal and none of the broadcast networks is covering it," said Dan Gainor, vice president for business and culture at the Media Research Center, to Fox News. "This is the news media in the era of Van Jones and President Obama. The major outlets cover what they want and create the themes they want."
The videotapes showing ACORN promoting underage prostitution, the establishing of a brothel, and helping people commit tax fraud came from offices in Washington, Baltimore, New York, and San Bernadino, Ca. FOX News began reporting on the stories on Thursday, along with conservative media outlets on the Internet.
"It's just remarkable that these two twentysomethings with not even journeyman experience managed to put this together and do this when everyone else has failed," said Malcolm Klein, executive director for Accuracy in Academia.
"This is the kind of thing '60 Minutes' does, but they haven’t. Certainly it's within the budget of the New York Times, the Washington Post or anyone you’d care to name. With all the news media we have down here, the same five stories get covered 5 million times," continued Klein. "In the meantime, you have many more stories affecting people domestically and internationally that just get ignored."
