Did the famous ACORN videos which are now widely acknowledged to have contributed mightly to the organization’s disrepute among many and its financial fall tell the whole story? Were they the triumph of citizen journalism — showing how a cowardly or political biased mainstream media ignored or failed to report something that was staring them in the face? Investigative journalism at their best? Or were they an example of how cherry picking some tidbits and careful editing can tell a story that may not be the whole story. There are signs the latter may be the case GO HERE.
If this is indeed the case, the whole episode of ACORN, what it was, what it was accused of being, and how it fell and why will likely eventually completely come out. One way or the other. But the fact is that we now live in an age when journalism is being displaced by opinion-based journalism. Professional journalists — whether many on the Internet wish to believe it or not — are trained by most editors and certainly journalism professors that reporting needs to gather, test, and report facts from all sides. Right now both sides will passionately argue the ACORN story and the accurate of the story partially based on political preference — which is how our politics operate. The complete story of what happened to ACORN and the completeness of the videos is yet to surface.
HERE ARE SOME NEW AND OLD MEDIA POSTS NOW HITTING THE INTERNET. READ THEM SO YOU CAN DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS:
—VIDEO – ACORN Worker Told James O’Keefe That He Looked Like Princess Diana
–Video: Release of unedited ACORN tapes reveals glaring distortions by Big Government and Fox News
—California Dreamin’ — Rachel Maddow and Gov. Moonbeam Cover Up the Real ACORN Scandal
–Fittingly, California AG Report On ACORN Issued On April Fool’s Day
–Acorn Says It Continues Its Work
—Maddow reports real ACORN story half-year too late
–Meanwhile, that Acorn “scandal”
–In Exposing ACORN ‘Lies,’ Maddow Leaves Truth On the Cutting Room Floor
–What Did Fox News Know About the Unedited ACORN Tapes and When Did It Know It?
–BROWN: ACORN unjustly attacked by right
—Maddow’s blog reports on her report.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.