ACORN Story Grows But Mainstream Media Reluctant to Cover It

Bruce Springsteen once wrote: “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come).” I doubt he expected that story of love gone wrong would become ideal political commentary for the group known as ACORN.

The small scandal showing an embarrassing video of Baltimore ACORN staffers giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel for underage girls is now national news. This story has everything you could ever want – corruption, sleazy actions at tax-funded organizations, firings, government ties, sex, hookers. It is a network news director’s dream. Imagine the ratings!

Only almost no one has been covering it. CBS and NBC just joined the party -- days late.

This is the news media in the era of Van Jones and President Obama. The major outlets cover what they want and create the themes they want. When they find something inconvenient, they let it pass. They didn’t like the Van Jones story because he was a community organizer and environmentalist, so they ignored it. The network news media liked the financial entity known as Fannie Mae, so they ignored that scandal-plagued organization for years. ACORN is getting the same treatment.

But it isn’t working any more. The ACORN fiasco has now impacted four offices – Baltimore, Washington, New York and San Bernardino – with laugh-out-loud videos featuring hookers and pimps reminiscent of the 1970s “Starsky and Hutch” show. Huggy Bear returns! Four employees have been fired, with more likely to come. And the controversy was so laughably bad that the Census Bureau cut off all ties to the group known formally as the "Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now." They called it the “tipping point” to shed themselves of ACORN. More nuts for someone else, I guess.

For the rest of this column including more on the latest CBS and NBC stories on ACORN, go to the Business & Media Institute.