voter education

Bus Project Punks Stossel With Response Video by: torridjoe Sat Oct 11, 2008 at 21:04:58 PM PDT Being 21st Century information warriors and all, Jefferson Smith and the folks at the Bus Project couldn't resist answering the nonsense being peddled by the witless John Stossel in the trad-med, with their own decidedly witful response parody. Yeah, why are we letting Joe Smith vote, anyway?? :) (Watch the vid) Discuss :: (2 Comments)

Jefferson Smith to ABC's Stossel: Step Off on Youth Voters! by: torridjoe Fri Oct 10, 2008 at 14:14:32 PM PDT I've never liked ABC's John Stossel, who for many years has done special assignment segments for 20/20. He enjoys cracking conventional wisdom, which ordinarily I think is good--but he stretches his definitions and manipulates his coverage when the conventional wisdom is actually just fine. I'll tell you where I read these more concrete points on Stossel's Stretches in a moment, but the orginal source is Wikipedia: A February 2000 story about organic vegetables on 20/20 included statements by Stossel that tests had shown that neither organic nor conventional produce samples contained any pesticide residue, and that organic food was more likely to be contaminated by E. coli bacteria. The Environmental Working Group objected to his report, mainly questioning his statements about bacteria, but also managed to determine that the produce had never been tested for pesticides. They communicated this to Stossel, but after the story's producer backed Stossel's recollection that the test results had been as described, the story was rebroadcast months later, uncorrected, and with a postscript in which Stossel reiterated his claim. Later, after a report in The New York Times confirmed the Environmental Working Group's claims, ABC News suspended the producer of the segment for a month and reprimanded Stossel. Stossel apologized, saying that he had thought the tests had been conducted as reported. However, he asserted that the gist of his report had been accurate. In a March 2007 segment about finances and lifestyles of televangelists, 20/20 aired a clip of a TV minister originally broadcast by the Lifetime Network in 1997. The clip made it seem that the minister was describing his wealth in extravagant terms, when actually, he was telling a parable about a rich man. ABC News twice aired a retraction and apologized for the error. The minister filed a lawsuit against Stossel, his source for the clip, 20/20, and ABC for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.  I read about Stossel over at Future Majority in Michael Connery's blog, regarding this distorted and anti-democratic segment ready to air later this evening. Titled "Maybe it's your civic duty not to vote," Stossel tries to assert--pretty thinly--the idea that some people are too stupid to vote, and simply shouldn't contaminate the pool of franchisees with their ill-informed viewpoints. Stossel also seemed particularly concerned about young people voting, as they are scheduled to do in droves next month. I thought I'd ask Oregon's Pied Piper of the youth vote, the Bus Project's Jefferson Smith, what he thought of Stossel's idea. His answer, below...   There's More... :: (1 Comments, 583 words in story)

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