The Propaganda Machine

Via nc links, Columbia Journalism Review looks at one of the more quoted "small businessmen" in media reports:

Take one of the Times’s main anecdotes, Drew Greenblatt, who owns a small manufacturing firm in Baltimore called Marlin Steel Wire and who gets his picture in the Times. This was his third NYT hit in three months. Here are Mr. Greenblatt’s other press hits in June: The NBC Nightly News, PBS Newshour (twice), NPR’s Morning Edition, The Hamilton Spectator. So far this year he’s also been on CNN Newsroom and Fox Business (four times), and in the Financial Times, Reuters, and the Associated Press, plus a number of smaller publications. Two years ago, Greenblatt and his company were the focus of a flattering 2,300 word Atlantic profile and a couple of WaPo profiles in 2001 and 2007. This guy is like the Greg Packer of small manufacturers.
Last month, Tim Geithner popped in for a visit. All this ain’t bad for a company with revenues of $5 million. You’d think it was IBM.
Undisclosed in any of these stories is the fact that Greenblatt is an executive-committee member of the board of the National Association of Manufacturers, the powerful DC trade lobby. NAM not only pushes Congress for anti-labor policies (like banning picketing), it lobbies for government-funded workforce training programs (“to be led by the business community,” naturally).
Back in October NAM partnered with Deloitte to put out a report that used sketchy methodology to claim that 600,000 jobs are going unfilled because manufacturers “can’t find people with the right skills.”
Back in 2009, Greenblatt was upset that Congress and President Bush had upped the minimum wage from $5.85 an hour, telling Investors Business Daily that “The minimum wage (hike) is another anti-small-business and another anti-job plan.”
Last September, Greenblatt testified to Congress for NAM in favor of so-called free-trade agreements in Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. Earlier in the year he testified to Congress for NAM in favor of sharply reducing corporate taxes, increasing foreign labor visas, and drilling for oil and against new labor regulations. He (NAM) was against new labor rules, consumer-safety rules, and environmental regulations.

And most of the media outlets fail to mention his ties to the National Association of Manufacturers.  It would be nice to hear from more businesspeople who aren't right wing nuts, but I'm not sure how many of them are out there.  Seems like every one I talk to is unhinged from reality.  As somebody commented on this story, maybe employers ought to be paying better wages to lure qualified candidates for open positions, maybe they ought to be paying more taxes to support the schools instead of slashing funding, and maybe they ought to be providing more on--the-job training.  Instead, they are just busy putting out propaganda.