Secrets of the conservative media machine

[DonViejo]

After mastering TV news and talk radio, conservatives lost control of their message online. That's about to change

BY LEE FANG

Excerpted from "The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right"

To borrow a Sarah Palin aphorism, after their election defeat in 2008, conservatives didn’t retreat, they “reloaded.” Instead of finding new solutions to public policy problems or seriously reevaluating Bush’s failures, conservatives focused almost solely on new ways to communicate their old ideas. To do so, they looked to their natural allies in corporate marketing for inspiration — and they looked to the Left for imitation. The result has been a recent and profound turnaround that has allowed the Right the bury Obama’s message and dominate the political debate.

Historical right-wing domination of the media

Traditionally, conservatives have almost always dominated direct mail solicitations, retained the best pollsters money could buy and paid for the most celebrated advertising makers. Message discipline is the first lesson for any Republican politician. Talk radio? unquestionably controlled by conservatives.

Cable news? Fox News couldn’t be more right-wing and popular. The Right had also dominated the Internet for most of the Internet’s fledging history. Throughout the 1990s and for much of President George W. Bush’s first term, conservatives easily ruled online news. And much of that initial sucess stemmed from foundations and entrepreneurial pioneers such as Matt Drudge, creator of the wildly popular headline-aggregating site Drudge Report, and Jim Robinson of the news message board Free Republic. The pair formed a symbiotic relationship. Drudge, who played a role in breaking the Monica Lewinsky story, made waves in the media with scoops on the latest Clinton scandals, and Free Republic provided a platform for conservatives to share conspiratorial perspectives and to organize their own rallies and events. Many of the angry mobs hounding Clinton at public events were mobilized by Free Republic. The impeachment rally that was organized by the Free Republic, “Treason Is the Reason,” featured Republican lawmakers and writer Christopher Hitchens.

Their efforts were enhanced by well-funded conservative investments in Internet technology. The first major foray into purely ideological online news came from the Heritage Foundation, which worked with National Review magazine to create Town Hall in 1992. The Town Hall bulletin board forum on Compuserve required users to pay to dial into a central terminal to share information and read conservative publications. It later morphed into an Internet site with links to conservative opinion pieces, studies and syndicated columns from newspapers. Town Hall helped organize the top conservative arguments, studies and articles. The one-stop shop, similar in utility to Drudge Report, provided direction for various conservative web sites, talk radio and Republican politicians to get on the same message.

full article:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/23/secrets_of_the_conservative_media_machine/

[TrogL]

1. DU Shoutout!!!

Other organizations, from MoveOn to Democracy for America to the message board Democratic Underground, had helped feed the surge in leftist populism through the Internet by providing opportunities for like-minded people to find each other instantly.

[zeos3]

2. For anyone interested in reading more on the topic...

Check out David Brock's book: "The Republican Noise Machine - Right-Wing Media And How It Corrupts Democracy".

Also, check out "Manufacturing Consent" by Chomsky. There was a documentary made with the same title.

[mojowork_n]

3. My friend made a good analogy the other day...

...suggesting that the actual number of numbskulls living in their mother's basements posting on websites
like Drudge or Free Republic is probably comparable to a similar ratio of troglodytes in earlier decades.

But the development of the internet has allowed them to stand on each others' shoulders, casting a
taller shadow.

By giving them all a digital outlet for their fear and anger through endless posting it appears that there
are more of them and their effectiveness is multiplied.

...Lee Fang's a good reporter. Thanks for posting a good article.