Ex-conservative takes on right-wing

By Hatzel Vela
NLGJA Reporter Staff

Conservative pundits have systematically infiltrated the media with a unified voice in a way that Democrats have failed to do, said David Brock, a former reporter for the Washington Times and other conservative publications, who now dedicates his time to exposing misinformation in the conservative media.

Brock, an author and activist, created controversy when he publicly came out of the closet and switched from conservative media insider to liberal activist.

In Friday’s plenary, “Conversation with a Newsmaker,” Brock spoke about why he abandoned his conservative ideas, the current conservative movement and what he called their perfectly engineered propaganda system that has penetrated the American media.

“They have an incredible dissemination system of right wing propaganda that didn’t exist in the ‘80s,” Brock said.

They’re doing this mostly through conservative radio and cable news channels, he added.

“The right-wing media has operated with impunity since its inception,” Brock said.

Brock was taught, he said, how to put a conservative gloss or spin on the stories he wrote for the Washington Times.

The conservative media intentionally and systematically skews the facts, Brock said.

“There are people consuming that media that don’t know they’re being misled,” he added.

Brock gained national recognition when he wrote a book that tested Anita Hill’s credibility when Judge Clarence Thomas was in the process of being appointed to the Supreme Court.

After writing that book, Brock said he became disillusioned when he realized he was being fed lies.

“I separated myself from the conservative movement because the corps of people I was working with were fundamentally dishonest,” Brock said.

Now, Brock is on a mission to discredit those lies. He recently founded Media Matters for America, a group dedicated to monitoring and exposing conservative bias and misinformation in the media.

His new book, “The Republican Noise Machine: Right Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy” examines the tools and strategies used by the conservative movement to dominate mainstream media today.