Prometheus 6

How Liberal Activists Outfoxed Fox
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on June 19, 2007 - 5:52pm.

Fox was pissed. Republicans don't take kindly to losing -- especially Republicans like Roger Ailes, the Fox chief who got his start in politics as Richard Nixon's media advisor. They came up with a brilliant idea: sponsoring a new Democratic debate, with the Congressional Black Institute as co-sponsor.

What good liberal movement, after all, would go after black congressmen?

The answer was: this liberal movement, which refused to be outfoxed. A stalwart African American progressive organization, Color of Change, stepped up as the voice of this next battle: telling the story that "Fox News Attacks African Americans." They circulated two more Greenwald videos: on Fox's serial abuse of the black community, and their denigration of Barack Obama. Color of Change was able to speak to the black community, with the message that the Congressional Black Institute was not speaking for the black community. Noted Greewald: "I want to make something very clear. Had we begun with a white organization... Fox would have grabbed onto that and created fault lines."

One result of my little excursion to Chocolate City this week was seeing the progressive blogosphere in relief against progressive media and the general progressive movement. There's a lot of conceptual cross-fertilization between the three but when you stick general politics on the end you've precisely defined the hierarchy. Blogging is a part of progressive media, which feeds and support the progressive movement.

I see Black folks involved in this to some degree up and down the chain. What I do not see is a lot of distinctly pro-Black policy ideas flowing into that chain. There are exceptions...Black Agenda Report and Colorlines leap to mind, and traditional tree-based Black press like The Afro American Newspaper and the Chicago Defender that intend to continue are experimenting with epaper delivery and video podcasts.

Mainstream blog voices flowed right into the media because any number of them were media folk to begin with. They were bridges, and it's been sucessful enough that it works in both directions for them...Swampland seems to be Joe Klein's fate, may his career's soul rest in peace, but the boy is still drawing a paycheck.

And for all our protestations, the official progressive movement is but so progressive. The conservative movement, having lost its damn mind long ago, dredge up the craziest voices they can find...I swear, I think they search them out...but to my mind progressives stop well before the point where the good ideas start getting a little loopy...never mind the point where the good ideas get scary. I think a lot of good ideas scare folks to death, or at least social paralysis.