ConsortiumInfo: The Return of Them

“For the last couple of weeks I’ve been writing a number of blog
entries focusing on poorly researched and deliberately misleading
items in the news. One of those pieces is called The Script
Reloaded: Recognizing ‘Them.’ The first premise of that entry was
that it’s easy to spot opinion pieces that derive from a common
source, based on the points made and the language used. The second
was that there’s a difference between pieces from interested
sources that are based on ‘talking points,’ and planted stories
that contain the same message, but disclose its source. For
example, you expect an op/ed piece by a vendor officer, or a quote
from a vendor spokesperson, to be toeing the party line. But when
you read a ‘citizen’ op/ed piece, you don’t necessarily expect it
to have been vendor-influenced unless there’s the usual italicized
disclosure at the end of the piece…”

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