Reed Irvine, 82, the Founder of a Media Criticism Group, Dies
By MICHAEL T. KAUFMAN
Reed Irvine, the founder of Accuracy in Media, a watchdog group dedicated to exposing, challenging and at times bullying those he accused of slanting news coverage from a liberal perspective, died on Tuesday at a hospice in Rockville, Md. He was 82. A longtime resident of Silver Spring, Md., Mr. Irvine had recently moved to Gaithersburg, Md.
Founded in 1969, Accuracy in Media is a group that, as Mr. Irvine described it, was intended to be "representative of the consumers of the journalistic product and not the producers." Outlining its mission, he said that AIM would "investigate complaints, take proven cases to top media officials, seek corrections and mobilize public pressure to bring about remedial action."
Ideologically, it paved the way for the tide of conservative talk shows, Web sites and news programming that would follow decades later. And while AIM occasionally lived up to its name, it also spent much of its time pursuing conspiracy theories. In recent years, for example, Mr. Irvine turned his attention to such speculative topics as whether the death in 1993 of Vincent W. Foster Jr., the deputy White House counsel in the Clinton administration, was really a suicide. He also challenged the government's explanation of the crash in 1996 of T.W.A. Flight 800, alleging that it had been caused by a rocket.
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