Page:Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.pdf/4

 OVERVIEW


 * COMMUNICATION STREAM OF CONSPIRACY COMMERCE: The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce refers to mode of communication employed by the right wing to convey their fringe stories into legitimate subjects of coverage by the mainstream media. This is how the stream works. First, well funded right wing think tanks and individuals underwrite conservative newsletters and newspapers such as the Western Journalism Center, the American Spectator and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. Next, the stories are reprinted on the internet where they are bounced all over the world. From the internet, the stories are bounced into the mainstream media through one of two ways: 1) The story will be picked up by the British tabloids and covered as a major story, from which the American right-of-center mainstream media (i.e. the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times and New York Post) will then pick the story up; or 2) The story will be bounced directly from the internet to the right-of-center mainstream American media. After the mainstream right-of-center American media covers the story, Congressional committees will look into the story. After Congress looks into the story, the story now has the legitimacy to be covered by the remainder of the American mainstream press as a "real" story.


 * BACKGROUND READING: The emergence of conservative think tanks and their effectiveness at conveying conservative ideas has been discussed by a number of publications. The think tanks serve as the ideas mill for today's Republican Party. The think tanks define and shape the idea's agenda for the party and serve as the training ground for this new generation of conservatives. In many ways, these Republican think tanks are to today's media age of political organizations what the Democratic big city party machines were to the New Deal era of political organizations.

CLINTON LIBRARY PHOTOCOPY
 * RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE: Richard Mellon Scaife is in the vanguard of this aforementioned form of this media age political organizing. Scaife uses the $800 million Mellon fortune which he inherited to fund a virtual empire of right wing newspapers and foundations. These newspapers and foundations, in turn, propagate Scaife's extremist views. Scaife along with a handful of other wealthy individuals and foundations use their power to control the Republican Party's agenda and viewpoints. Scaife, in particular, is one of the major backers of Newt Gingrich. Interestingly enough, Gingrich's views on Vince Foster seemed to dovetail with Scaife's following Scaife's pumping of thousands of dollars into Gingrich's GOPAC's coffers.