Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Politico has details on a new conservative group about to be launched by conservative journalists and operatives. The group intentionally copied the design of the Center for American Progress, a highly effective liberal outfit with an opposing mission.
Part assault on CAP and part homage, the Center for American Freedom’s goal is to wage a well-funded assault on the Obama White House and the liberal domination of partisan online media.
Based in Washington, it will have an annual budget of “several million dollars,” according to its chairman, Michael Goldfarb, and will house a new conservative online news outlet, the Washington Free Beacon, edited by former Weekly Standard writer Matthew Continetti. It will also include a campaign-style war room led by two former chiefs of the Republican National Committee’s vaunted research operation, and a media-monitoring shop that aims to do to MSNBC what Media Matters has done to Fox News.
Would that be Ricochet contributor Matthew Continetti? Goldfarb says it's a modest start-up that they hope they can grow in the near future to be competitive.
What's interesting about this is that CAP itself was a copy of conservative think tanks. But while conservative think tanks haven't made too much of a dent in social media, CAP has. So now it's the conservatives' turn to do some copying. Politico writes that CAP has "blended journalistic values of speed and accuracy with ideological and partisan goals to great impact."
More on the Washington Free Beacon:
And Continetti has already hired a staff on a scale that will make an immediate impact on the Washington media scene. They include Bill Gertz, a veteran Washington Times defense national security writer, and the Washington Jewish Week’s Adam Kredo, a well-sourced beat reporter with a reputation for neutrality. The Beacon has also poached Andrew Stiles from National Review online; CJ Ciaramella from The Daily Caller; Patrick Howley from the American Spectator; and Sonny Bunch, a former Weekly Standard and Washington Times writer now at the lobbying and corporate public relations firm Berman & Co. ...
“Our original reporting and commentary will hold the left to the same standards to which ThinkProgress, TPM and Huffington Post hold the right. Liberals in journalism excel at portraying the GOP and conservatives as hypocritical self-dealers and lunatics,” said Continetti. “But it is only the activist press’s ideological and partisan biases which prevent it from seeing the Obama administration, Democrats in Congress and the broader progressive movement through exactly the same lens.”
I can't wait to see what they produce.
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Accuracy? Where is the evidence of this? CAP is a left-wing spin machine and Politico's uncritical brown-nosing of CAP cements the conclusion that Politico is simply an arm of Obama's reelection campaign.
Mar '11
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
This may be a bad idea, as constructed. Who sees MSNBC anyway? This will only bring much wanted attention to a "news" source that is presently out of mind. I would rather they turn their focus on CNN, BBC, CBS, etc., perhaps.
May '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
R0bert Scott
CAP is a left-wing spin machine...
I think you hit the nail on the head. While AEI and Heritage produce working papers and develop new policies in line with certain core values, CAP is specifically designed to influence elections. At this point in liberal discourse, of course, of left-wing counterparts cannot see the difference.
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
We'll have to see how it goes. CAP has certainly gotten a lot of mileage by focusing on the Fox opinion shows.
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
When I search for " Center for American Freedom" online, I get a very sad-looking web site hosted on Angelfire, of all places (and an aol.com email address!).
Pleae tell me this isn't the same organization referred to in Mollie's post.
Edited on January 5, 2012 at 5:17pmRe: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
An excellent staff. Investigative journalism is greatly needed. Eager to see this come to fruition!
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Looks like they have lots of work cut out for them before they actually launch, but I'm excited to see what they have in store. Here's the Washington Free Beacon website. No actual content yet, but it's pretty.
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Misthiocracy: When I search for " Center for American Freedom" online, I get a very sad-looking web site hosted on Angelfire, of all places (and an aol.com email address!).
Pleae tell me this isn't the same organization referred to in Mollie's post. · Jan 5 at 8:15am
Edited on Jan 05 at 08:17 am
Definitely not the same. Goldfarb's last group was the Emergency Committee for Israel, with this site.
Jan '12
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
... and to think it all started with Rush. Now the media tools to fight back are getting much better. I am thankful we on the right are able to do that more now. I am a big fan of Bill Gertz's writing.
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Thank the Maker!
Oct '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Ummm, really?
Make it the number one source of news for Americans?
Perhaps one of the insiders can explain how to anyone outside the business this isn't just shuffling the same assets around into a slightly different configuration.
Edited on January 5, 2012 at 7:21pmJul '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
I have always believed the "way back" to a normal America was through the press and not politicians so it's nice to see a national organization that will provide a conservative source news. It was not that long ago that every metro area had at least two news sources; one leaned left and one leaned right, and what made journalism good then was not the quality of the journalist but the other news source. If the left leaning newspaper went off the tracks the right leaning newspaper set the record straight; neither side had the unchallanged opportunity manufacture an agenda and protect politicians associated with that agenda. I like to call the interaction that took place between those competing news sources "Agenda Wars"; sadly the conservative press began disapearing in the 1970's and only the Liberal Agenda has survived in the local news arena. I don't belive there is any doubt how this liberal agenda has changed the way the average voter thinks of conservative ideas!
I have two questions for anyone who reads this. Do you agree that, "Another News Source" is needed and will you support it if it emerges?
Thanks for reading, Ken
Dec '11
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Why would they market a site that does not exist? Why wouldn't they introduce this effort when people could subscribe to it?
Also, they do not appear to appreciate that the Left has developed a network of bogs and sites that promote each others work.
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
To report on what lies in what media back to what media ?
Confused in Cleveland.
Aug '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
Is this not the same turf that Brietbart and The Daily Caller are trying to work?
I would be worried that there's a significant difference between CAP and a right-wing equivalent: CAP can count on the mainstream media to parrot their talking points and not look too closely at their funding or their slanted point of view. A right-wing equivalent will either be ignored or attacked mercilessly as a partisan spin machine with shadowy funding sources in the background - whether they exist or not.
Jul '10
Re: Conservative Competition To ThinkProgress Launches
The viewpoint has to be articulated to be communicated. And the MSM has awful approval ratings, thanks to the blossoming of information channels via the Web.
I ran into this post from Mollie while searching for Bill Gertz material researching for a China project. Sadly, the Washington Free Beacon is still a "Coming Soon" web site at the moment.