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JohnSJ
join:2004-08-14
Lafayette, LA
| Titch, Author of Reason Study has AstroTurf History
Much of the discussion here has been pretty abstract--is Reason an "astroturf" organization or not. That's a question of judgment, I suppose.
But part of that judgment ought to be based on the people it hires to do its work and their history.
Steven Titch, author of the iProvo "research" has an ugly and continuing history. He started out writing editorials-for-hire (and continues to run that business) and seems to be climbing the food chain from a direct shill, to a shill who takes dubious cover under the Heartland Instititute (which most folks do agree is an astroturf organization) to now working at the Reason Foundation which is apparently a classier joint.
But his history really should follow him. And the fact that Reason ignores that history reflects poorly on them.
I first encountered Titch during the battle in Lafayette Louisiana for a municipal Fiber to the Home plan. Early on a flood of identical and inaccurate editorials were distributed to the Lafayette newspaper and a bevy of small very local and frankly hard to locate dailies in the tiny towns within about a 200 mile radius. Titch wrote those and represented himself as an expert but was making what I thought were either ignorant or deliberately misleading claims. Expertise did not seem involved. My interest was piqued.
As a little digging revealed Titch ran (and runs) a business called "expert editorials" which, no surprise, offers to write "expert" editorials for public distribution that as the website once coyly put it:Expert Editorial adds a critical “third-party” viewpoint for media and customer marketing campaigns. We can provide your target audience with the context, background and significance of your technology from an analytical perspective that supports, yet remains detached from your own marketing and sales personnel. That qoute has recently vanished from the front page but I'm sure a brief perusal of their offerings will let you know the sorts of services "expert editorials" continues to offer: Opinion and "expertise" for hire from a source that is not directly associated with your company.
In a word: AstroTurf.
He wrote the "advertorial" mentioned above, he authored a slam job for the Heartland institute on Lafayette's plan that makes the same sort of BS claims he is now making about iProvo, and then placed a long "op ed" piece based on the faulty research 10 days out from Lafayette's referendum vote. Along the way his work showed up in first draft form at the Louisiana Public Service Commission hearings as information provided by the incumbent providers, BellSouth and Cox, to the commission. The final draft of that document was the one published by the Heartland Institute whose head vigorously defended it, ignoring the links to it previous use by the incumbents.
Titch byline alone should be enough to confirm the Reason Study as Astroturf.
Refs, for those as want 'em:
The editorials for sale website:
»www.experteditorial.net
Advertorial:
»lafayetteprofiber.com/Blog/2004/···not.html
Heartland "study" and PSC connection
»lafayetteprofiber.com/Blog/2005/···ain.html | |
ncredible
@ameritech.net
| The thing is from the real people response here we do not want any more socialist agendas, we do not want to pay for your health care, your food, or your internet. Some of us real men left want to have pride in working hard and earning money. You are a burden on the rest of us, 150 years ago you would have been cut from the herd, now you drag down the rest of us with how slow you are.
Socialism is not natural, and leftist are not sane. | |
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