I live too far from a swing state to feel effective. But if you - as I do with the state of Missouri - have any past association with any of the swing states including, in addition to Missouri, Colorado, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina _ I would encourage you to do as I did -
- review newspaper articles from those states for falsehoods, and
- call out those publishers on allowing journalists to amplify the ACORN smears being flogged by the Republicans and Senator McCain.
more over the fip
I came to the conclusion that I could not sit still in the face of falsehoods when I happened to see a blatant falsehood inserted into an otherwise innocuous article in the Richmond (Missouri) Daily News about a Biden campaign stop.
In an article by its editor, "'Need for change' tour rolls through Missouri" (Dennis Sharkey, News Editor, 10-13-2008) - Mr. Sharkey inserted this bomb of a smear:
Some of the negative attacks do have some consideration by the mainstream media. Recent reports have uncovered possible voter fraud by a voter registration organization called ACORN. Obama’s campaign has contributed $800,000 to ACORN.
Ignoring for the purposes of substance that the author's syntax leaves something to be desired, I decided to call on my background as a Missourian who just happens to know something about ACORN, as I spent a summer working with them in 2003 on their excellent program trying to stem the tide of predatory mortgages and help as many as possible into refinanced loans at more reasonable rates. I am not an ACORN staffer but I know that they cannot fairly be pidgeonholed as a mere 'voter registration' group.
I was also mad about the smear regarding the Obama donation. So I arote this to their editor, and sncourage evey dkos reader with any ties at all wo swing states to take a moment to stop smears by local papers. We must stop this smear of ACORN and stop the false association with Obama.
Here's my letter - copy info at will!!
Dear Editor,
As a former Missourian who as a child loved that I was from the "show me" state, I feel I must call your paper to account for publishing falsehoods without attribution.
Your editor/staffer, Dennis Sharkey, inserted false information - without attribution - into an article describing Senator Biden’s "Need for Change’ Tour" on October 13, 2008. http://www.richmond-dailynews.com/...
In the midst of an article correctly attributing certain statements to Senator Biden, Mr. Sharkey inserted falsehoods about the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now. When I was a law student, I worked in summer 2003 for ACRON and I object to the blatant mischaracterization of ACORN as well as the smear engaged in by your author. ACORN helps poor people. I eschewed the big buck summer jobs, earning only $3000 for an entire summer through the NYU/Revson project to help ACORN identify and phone those suffering from these predatory mortgage loan practices. I was calling mostly white poor people in the Midwest bamboozled into bad loans by bad institutional actors - who folded outrageous up-front fees into years-long mortgage loans thereby amplifying those costs, who inserted huge pre-payment penalties into loan language that rendered refinancing financially impossible. ACORN helped through contact and pressure via the media to get those bad actors to allow refinancing into more reasonable rates – and this was in the year 2003. ACORN was standing with the banking officials from FIFTY states – including, I believe – from the state of Missouri - who were protesting Bush’s use of the OCC look it up] to prevent states from protecting consumers from those predatory financial institutions.
Now, ACORN is conducting voter registration – that’s what community [organizations] do, but this activity does not define ACORN. Moreover, I read from multiple sources that the law requires it must turn in even false registration forms, since registration forms are legal documents. I learn from ACORN that it is flagging and separating potentially false registration documents, when it turns in these documents as it legally must, and that in this way, ACORN tries to work with law enforcement to weed out registrations that it cannot legally withhold. I am not affiliated with ACORN but even I know that there is more to this story than the smears that your author is flogging.
You author falsely suggests that bad voter registration forms are equivalent to fraud at the time of voting. Your author falsely labels the ACORN Community group as a voter registration group. Your author makes the baldly false assertion that an Obama Campaign donation to a separate voter registration group - before it became closely associated with ACORN - was a donation "to ACORN." This is simply not true – yet your paper allowed Mr. Sharkey’s unattributed falsehood to be inserted into an article describing Mr. Biden’s speech as if he were citing a ‘per se’ truth to ‘balance" Mr. Biden’s statements.
I am appalled that your paper allowed those assertions to be made without any attribution, implying that these falsehoods and insinuations were simple truths, needing no attribution.
For the sake of fairness, I encourage your paper to run an article on voter suppression efforts, which balances out the smear your author engaged in about ACORN. You may wish to cite the Baltimore Sun’s editorial on ACORN, "Crying Wolf?": http://www.baltimoresun.com/...
You may wish to look at the following investigation by true journalists, which turned up thousands of instances of actual voter suppression: ‘States’ Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal" which begins: "Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times"; http://www.nytimes.com/...
You may wish to have this author look at the 2008 report by the Brennan Center for Justice: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/...
You may wish – at a minimum - to quote this statement from ACORN:
"In nearly every case that has been reported , it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms, and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions. We are required by law to turn in all forms, but instead of just turning them in and figuring that it is the responsibility of the board of elections to figure out which are valid, we spend millions of dollars verifying that forms are valid, and then separate out those that are suspicious.... There has never been a single reported instance in which bogus registration forms have led to anyone voting improperly." =22383&tx_ttnews[backPid]=12340&cHash=ef14f35f55
I am typing this too fast to catch every single typographical error that may appear in my letter, but my repute is not on the line – yours is. I hope your newspaper will recognize the simple truths in my letter, and recognize its shame in failing to – at the bare minimum - use fact-checking on statements by your editor/staffer, Dennis Sharkey.
Sincerely
I repeat that even those of us who are too far from swing states to affect votes on November 4th can do our part - by calling out smears by local papers in our current or former home states. We must stop this smear of ACORN and stop the false association with Obama.