General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMalcolm Gladwell Unmasked: A Look Into the Life & Work of America’s Most Successful Propagandist
I'm not familiar with this site, or the people behind it, so caveat lector.
While a student at the University of Toronto, Gladwells admiration for Ronald Reagan led him into conservative activist circles. In 1982, while still an undergrad, he completed a 12-week training course at the National Journalism Center, a corporate-funded program created to counter the medias alleged anti-business bias by molding college kids into corporate-friendly journalist-operatives and helping them infiltrate top-tier news media organizations. To quote Philip Morris, a major supporter of the National Journalism Center, its mission was to "train budding journalists in free market political and economic principles." Over the years the National Journalism Center has produced hundreds of pro-business news media moles, including top-tier conservative talent like Ann Coulter and former Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member John Fund.
After graduating from University of Toronto in 1984, Gladwell spent a few years bouncing around the far-right fringe of the corporate media spectrum. He wrote for the American Spectatornotorious in the 1990s as the primary media organ promoting anti-Clinton conspiracy theoriesas well as the Moonie-owned Insight on the News. From 1985-6, Gladwell served as assistant editor at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which was created to bridge the gap between neoconservatives and Christian fundamentalists and help the two hostile factions to come together to counter a common enemy: activists fighting for economic justice. Rick Santorum was a fellow at EPPC until June 2011, when he left to concentrate on his attempt to secure the 2012 GOP presidential nomination.
...
From the get-go, Gladwells reporting stands out for its unabashedly pro-business, anti-regulation bias. Nowhere was this bias more evident than in Gladwells barely disguised promotion of the tobacco industrys agenda. Gladwells reporting on tobacco issues in the early '90s came just as Big Tobacco was was gearing up for its war against looming class-action lawsuits, as well as the mounting pressure for stricter regulation of the industry. As the Post's business and science reporter, Gladwell carried the tobacco lobbys waterand messageswhile raising doubts about the industrys critics.
One of the more obvious and disgusting examples: In 1990, Gladwell published a rank scare-article arguing that any moves to cut Americans smoking habits could "put a serious strain on the nation's Social Security and Medicare programs"--meaning that high levels of smoking was helping keep America's social safety from going bankrupt, since so many were dying before they could collect.
Full article (long: ~6,800 words): http://www.shameproject.com/report/malcolm-gladwell-unmasked-life-work-of-americas-most-successful-propagandist
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)salvorhardin
(9,995 posts)Good description of Gladwell, BTW --> "preening motivational speaker"
Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)and The Tipping Point. The one who has been writing regularly for The New Yorker since 1996.
Buddies with Santorum? Trying to bridge a gap between neocons and fundies? That doesn't jibe at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Gladwell
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)He's just trying to throw us off.
salvorhardin
(9,995 posts)I looked up the people behind The SHAME Project. They're Mark Ames and Yasha Levine (author of this OP) who also edit The Exiled Online. Formerly, Mark Ames and Mat Taibbi edited the dead tree The Exile, which folded in 2008.
Here's a Vanity Fair profile of Mark Ames and The Exiled from a couple of years ago: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/exile-201002
Canuckistanian
(42,290 posts)I'm listening to Outliers on audiobooks these days and I detect no trace of RW ideology. In fact, it's quite critical of the "hero worship" that RWers espouse as ideal.