Anyone up for emailing/calling guilty conservative media outlets and demanding a correction?

I already did.

(don't forget the links above if you do)

Fox News has already won the right to lie in a previous court case.

See: http://www.relfe.com/media_can_legally_lie.html

I remember seeing that case. It was a Florida court of appeals, may CA would be different. At the very least the publicity would put Fox in a bad light. In this case to win, they had to admit to lying to their viewers. In a national case that wouldn't be good for them.

I am not a lawyer, and one should be consulted for proper legal advice. But to me, that looks like quite a different situation. The Florida case is about the station controlling the content of its broadcast and controlling what its staff says. The ACORN case would be a case of the two ACORN staff shown in the clips suing for defamation. I would think they should be able to sue O'Keefe and Fox.

Yes Valerie, I think that's the larger issue. That Republican's can again potentially disenfranchise poor African Americans by crippling an organization that empowers them by registering them to vote. Like Broward County in 2000. Like challenging voter registrations of African American's serving in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2004. That also makes me extremely angry.

Maybe Rachel could track down those employees and have them talk about what really happened in those interviews and the impact of having lies spread about them via Fox News leading to the loss of their jobs. And the loss of their organization. They could tell the public what Acorn really did and meant to the people they served.

It's definitely poor people in general, regardless of race. I make a decent wage, but like to live in cities, close to downtown. Where I was then, at that specific store, it was lower income white and hispanic people.

I wonder if there is more to the story, however, since that Vera guy DID call the police. Wouldn't he have explained this to ACORN? Could they have fired him for something else? Would ACORN not check?

Updates please!

I just keep picturing how smug that O'Keefe and his, "like, um" sidekick looked on TV.

True, it's urban poor people. I really can't explain why Acorn would fire Vera. Maybe it was political pressure. The story was ahead of them, they were going to loose funding. Seems like they could have handled it better. That's why I think Rachel should interview the employees who were fired. And maybe Acorn management to find out exactly what happened.

Didn't the people carrying the Confederate Flags shoot at Americans carrying the American Flag?

It amazes me when I see people (here in Florida) riding their Harleys with both an American Flag and Confederate Flag flowing behind them. Can't they make up their mind?

FreddieVee

Simsink brings up a very important point: that media, including both centrist and leftist, failed to provide truthful, investigative reporting loud enough to loosen the domination of Fox News opinionating.

The problem in making up for that discrepancy is the possibility of reciprocal demagoguery, something that can be seen sometimes in resulting "we're right, they're wrong" comments.

Absolute truth, though difficult to attain, should be the goal. Truth allows people to form rational opinions and make the best decisions. The pursuit of truth could have resulted in enough scrutiny of the O'Keefe videos and maybe delay the final discrediting of Acorn. In pursuit of truth, donors could have waited for investigative reports such the California AG's. In pursuing the truth, we wouldn't still be waiting 6 months later for other states such as Maryland and New York to provide the findings of their own investigations. In fair and balanced truth, all involved Acorn workers would have been interviewed for their perspectives.

Equally importantly, we have to remember that in order to rise above the same demagoguery employed by Fox News, we have to be able to face (apparent) truths that are painful.

Acorn was a troubled group, and was involved in various controversial actions recently. That an amateur videographer was able to drive a stake into the organization shows how shaky Acorn policy was resulting in inconsistent responses per location. Why didn't all locations call the police? Why did Juan Carlos / Mr. Vera (I can't tell the actual name based on the segment) attempt to play along in order to get more information instead of outright saying such activity cannot be supported by Acorn? And why do I need to have Bill O'Reilly body-language reading skills to understand Stewart's true intent? Did she call the cops after her interview as Mr. Vera did?

The California Attorney General's press release even lists faults found in Acorn's activities. The report then goes even farther to say that Acorn's successor, ACCE, run by the same people from Acorn, may not be able to fix the organization's troubles.

The truth, as I see it, which is also always open to re-examination, is thus:

O'Keefe didn't deserve HR809 and additional attention, but successfully duped many of us and in Congress. Acorn was ineptly run and deserved a reboot. Fox News is too loud, has laser-beam focus, and eager to destroy opposing views, but predictable. Non-Fox News is too slow, too quiet, too little, and too late. This is Rachel Maddow's show, and she'll put whoever she thinks deserves it on her bull-pucky list; I, however, don't think O'Keefe deserves the recognition.