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Astroturfing
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12/7/05: Free Press readers will be clued up, we hope, to all the manipulative media tricks politicians use to spin their political messages. Here is a new one - ‘astroturfing’, or the faking of grassroots support for a politician or a product whose popularity needs boosting.
Channel 4’s Dispatches programme (23/05/05), The Dirty Tricks Election, gave an insight into how it worked during Labour’s 2005 election campaign. Dispatches reporter Jenny Kleeman, got a job in Labour’s London regional press office in the run-up to the election, and then in its Victoria Street national campaign office.
She filmed undercover in both places until one day she turned up for work and was swiftly escorted off the premises.
She revealed how party activists posed as ‘real’ people to create the impression that they enthusiastically backed the government, but party minders were very quick to prevent journalists talking to them about exactly who they were at stage-managed photo-opportunities for the media during the campaign.
One of Jenny Kleeman’s jobs was to compile model letters for use in local newspapers. The letters later appeared virtually word for word in local newspapers under the names of local party activists who did not declare their allegiances.
The technique of astroturfing, the programme revealed, originated with pharmaceutical firms encouraging patients to write letters praising the effects of certain drugs. Now it is used by politicians for political propaganda.
Remember that chilling phrase by Peter Mandelson? ‘Our job is the create the truth.’
Last modified: Monday, August 15, 2005
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Shock jailing of reporter in CIA-leak case
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Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
Journalism Ethics
When errors hit the information superhighway
BBC puts its house in order (complaints-wise)
The Blame Game
Shock jailing of reporter in CIA-leak case
Faking It
The Guardian and the Lexus
Launch of The RAM Report
Aliens in the Media
Lies, Spies & Whistleblowers
Sunday Mirror pays out over slur
Check Calls
CBS Purge
Journalism & Public Trust
Regulating journalists... Whatever next?
