When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might seem to have been news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t. “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.
From the diaries. More than in any past election, online digital technology will be essential to a winning 2012 campaign. For the Republican National Committee, it is not enough simply to imitate the standard practices of the day. We want to raise the bar—identifying and developing new technology to compete in the digital sphere. That entrepreneurial spirit led us to create the GOP Social Victory Center, a first of its kind online application that revolutionizes the way volunteers and activists take part in elections. The SVC, which launched yesterday, puts all the important tools in one place, breaks down geographic barriers, and instantly connects users with our grassroots network across the country. And it’s all right on Facebook. No other campaign or committee—neither the Obama campaign nor the DNC—has done what we have: leveraged the popularity of Facebook to empower Americans to be directly involved in the political process. Welcome to the new frontier of digital activism. Whether we admit it or not, Americans are glued to what is happening on Facebook. 161 million Americans are active users of the site. Fifty percent visit daily. Every day, posts are “liked” or commented on 2.7 billion times. The average user spends six to seven hours on Facebook a month. It only makes sense to offer a one-stop shop for political activism here, rather than asking users to hassle with visiting other sites and creating multiple accounts. After logging into the Social Victory Center—in the same way one uses any Facebook application—users find political news and videos that are customized to their interests and location. They can engage and organize with voters across the country through discussions and event planning features, and they can find ways to volunteer—in their communities or from home. Without leaving the Facebook application, a volunteer can make voter-identification or Get Out the Vote phone calls to pivotal battleground states right from home. We’ve streamlined and simplified a process that was often clunky and frustrating—but one that is critical to voter turnout on Election Day. As volunteers read and watch, discuss and volunteer, their friends are alerted to their actions. Sharing is automatic, allowing us to immediately expand our reach. Time and money will not have to be spent asking people to view our multimedia. Thanks to their friends’ use of the SVC, previously unengaged users will see it all right on their Facebook Newsfeeds. The SVC is not the first time the RNC has developed and deployed cutting-edge technology. In 2011, we launched a video mobile message system, our “mobile army,” with which we can send videos and other exclusive content directly to subscribers’ smart phones anytime, anywhere. With the relationships and following we have built on social media in the last year, we will immediately connect thousands of energized activists with the Social Victory Center. And in no time, countless others will have heard of it—and decided to sign up. The SVC will allow us to do an even better job of listening to our supporters and to conservative grassroots activists across the country. We have worked hard to encourage and support the important conversation and bottom-up activism that the Internet allows. With the SVC, we hope to facilitate more of those conversations and create more connections and relationships. The RNC will, of course, continue with our successful online advertising, our web videos, and our news-driving Twitter campaigns. We unrelentingly hold President Obama accountable to his record and his words, and when news breaks we make sure it breaks through the noise to reach the average voter. Social media has dramatically changed politics in recent years, giving more power to the individual voter and disseminating information at record speed. Now, with the GOP Social Victory Center, Republicans will use this resource to its fullest potential. And that’s certainly something to “like.”
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Social Victory Center and the GOP’s Tech Advantage
It would not be the first time Jennifer Rubin, the Washington Post’s supposed scribe of the conservative movement, has taken liberty to smear social conservatives she loathes. It seems this time she’s being a willing mouth piece for Richard Grenell, the jerk Mitt Romney hired as a foreign policy spokesman. And let’s put heavy emphasis on the jerk part as Rubin does not even bother mentioning it and she blows hot air into her little sad trombone. When the story broke, I first assumed it was the Romney campaign blaming social conservatives as Jenn Rubin is the unofficial official Mouth of Romney . But the more we learn, it seems Richard Grenell metaphorically or otherwise stood over her shoulder as she typed out her screed against conservatives. Heck, she probably has an easily accessible template. Byron York has more insightful information. Turns out the Romney campaign had not even gotten Grenell on the payroll yet. Grenell quit. The Romney campaign asked him to stay. Rubin had to keep updating her post because the facts just don’t comport to Grenell’s spin. What’s so hilarious about the Jennifer Rubin post on this business is she and others cite social conservatives as the bad guy and, more particularly, the left has fingered Bryan Fischer. a guy most people haven’t heard of and who the Romney campaign does not exactly adore or listen to. It’s worth pointing out that the left attacked Romney for hiring Grenell in the first place because they viewed him as a misogynist before he was a gay rights martyr. What Rubin does not mention. and the reason the left does not really like him, is that Richard Grenell had deleted more than 700 tweets of his that offended a host of people. He’d targeted the Gingrichs, Hillary Clinton, and a bunch of others. As a guy who knows a thing or two about what you probably shouldn’t tweet, even I have never deleted 700 tweets, let alone deleted tweets to get a job. But Grenell did. Now, let’s get back to the “gay” part. Jenn Rubin and Richard Grenell want you to know that Mitt Romney hired a guy who was openly and loudly championing gay marriage, for two weeks learned about the 700 tweets Grenell decided to delete, and when Grenell decided to quit they repeatedly asked him to stay. But wait . . . it gets better. The guy running for President of the United States would not, during those two weeks, issue any words defending the would be spokesman and so the would be spokesman quit and ran whining to Jennifer Rubin about evil, awful social conservatives. It’s like a badly acted high school drama. (All voices delivered in a loudly delivered staccato meant to overcome any perceived monotones, much as bad high school plays are done) Richard: “Mittens didn’t pay enough attention to me so I quit. And do you know wwhhhhyyyyyyyy he didn’t? Bryan. Yes, that’s right Bryan Fischer from Mr. Perkins’s class. Mittens is too interested in what Bryan Fischer thinks.” Jenn: “Really?! Well, we shall have to let Sally, Sarah, and Susan know what Mittens did to you. How dare he think he can use us. Oh, I know, we can get on the internet and tell everybody our side of the story first. Of course they’ll believe us. Why would they believe those dweebs?!” Richard: “Oh Jenn, you rock!” Jenn: “Oh Richard, you rock too! Let’s get this done quick before General Hospital comes on.” Richard: “Hey, if you get this out there, won’t people know it’s me telling you this?” Jenn: “Rich, come on. Everybody knows you just say ‘sources say’ and they”ll think Mittens confirmed it. Besides, like would anyone totally believe those dweebs? By the time anyone figures it out, Mittens will totally like regret not speaking up for you.” Boo-freaking-hoo. Richard Grenell is a pompous jerk who deleted more than 700 tweets to take a job. The Romney camp probably should have exercised better judgment up front. The fact that Grenell and Rubin want to use this opportunity to bash social conservatives and push the narrative that the candidate they support is being held hostage by social conservatives says more about them than social conservatives.
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Jennifer Rubin Just Can’t Stop Making Up Stories About Social Conservatives
One of the horrifying sideshows of the Trayvon Martin carnival is how NBC News edited audio of George Zimmerman’s 911 call to create the false impression that Zimmerman had said, “This guy looks like he’s up to no good … he looks black.” As Dan Riehl at Breitbart.com’s Big Journalism reported last month , NBC edited out a key part of that call. Zimmerman said that Martin appeared to be “on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around, looking about.” The 911 dispatcher then asked , “Okay, is this guy, is he white, black, or Hispanic?” Zimmerman was merely answering the dispatcher’s question. Not only did NBC edit the audio, but also edited Zimmerman’s quotes as published on its Internet site, helping to foster the false belief that Zimmerman had singled out Martin because of his race. Yesterday, NBC News fired a producer/reporter at its Miami affiliate — the second such reported firing in connection with the deceptive edit — and the Miami Herald quoted an unnamed official at the Miami station : “The network is very sensitive about the whole Al Sharpton/MSNBC issue, so when the right-wing bloggers started hammering, they needed to throw them fresh meat,” said the station source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the controversy. “It’s not at all clear how this happened. Obviously, there was miscommunication.” This would seem to suggest that NBC News is sacrificing low-level personnel — throwing “fresh meat” to “right-wing bloggers” — in an effort to evade corporate responsibility for an unethical deception that inflamed racial tensions in the Martin case. This enraged me : Journalism has evidently become so politicized that there is apparently no longer even any need for NBC News to pretend that it is engaged in anything other than partisan propaganda — even when, in the pursuit of an overtly political agenda, they are providing manufactured falsehoods to serve as fodder for dangerous racial demagoguery. Executives at NBC News need to provide a full accounting of how this happened. For weeks on end, their MSNBC cable outlet stoked the flames of outrage over the Martin case, outrage the network itself helped create with its editing of Zimmerman’s 911 call. NBC’s credibility as a news organization is at stake, and the network’s executives themselves — who created the corporate culture in which such deceptive “reporting” was tolerated — must be held responsible.
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NBC News and the Death of Truth
Today is April 26th. On this date in 1514, Copernicus recorded his first observations of Saturn. He concluded that God must have liked it, because “he puteth a ring upon it.” Also on this date, in 1711, David Hume was born in Scotland. His “Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth” essay was a big influence on the drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Also, he could out-consume both Schopenhauer and Hegel. On this date in 1865 Abraham Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth was killed by Union soldiers at a Virginia farm. His final words, apparently directed at his hands, were “useless, useless.” To this day, historians are unsure why both of Booth’s hands had the same name. And finally, today is National Richter Scale Day, in honor of the birth of seismologist Charles Richter in 1900. Says David Caruso: I guess you could say he really … [puts on sunglasses] shook things up. YEEAAAAAHHHH ! Consider this an Open Thread . Exclusive: Red State Founder Erickson Fires Back At Sen. Mcconnell | Big Journalism “This was essentially an attack not just on Erickson, but on the new media as a whole. It suggests that those on the internet have no credibility, and that they can be talked down to by their betters in the political bigwig world.” EPA: Hey, sorry about that whole “crucify” thing | Hot Air “The EPA has scrambled to contain the damage from the clip highlighted by Morgen Richmond this morning, which went viral yesterday, showing an EPA administrator bragging about crucifixion as a means to impose the EPA’s will on American subjects, er, citizens.” Meet The Left-Wing ALECs | Free Beacon “The progressive groups leveling charges that the American Legislative Exchange Conference (ALEC) is ‘shadowy’ and ‘nefarious’ rely on hidden donors and overheated rhetoric to attack ALEC and ignore similar activities by liberal organizations.” The Assault on Food | John Stossel “But the scientific question should not overshadow the more fundamental issue. Who should decide what you can eat: you? Or the state?” Today’s Word of the Day comes via Dictionary.com. macaronic (mak- uh – ron -ik): adjective 1. composed of or characterized by Latin words mixed with vernacular words or non-Latin words given Latin endings. 2. composed of a mixture of languages. 3. mixed; jumbled.
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Daily Links – April 26, 2012
