Caldara guest claimed Independence Institute "feed[s] accurate information" to the mainstream media

Summary: Newsradio 850 KOA's Jon Caldara failed to challenge the claim of his guest, Eric O'Keefe of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance, that the Independence Institute, Caldara's "free-market" think tank, "feed[s] accurate information" to mainstream media outlets to counter what O'Keefe labeled as "bad information" provided by "well-funded left research shops." In fact, Colorado Media Matters has documented numerous examples of misinformation from the think tank being reported uncritically through the local media.

On his July 14 broadcast, Newsradio 850 KOA host and Independence Institute President Jon Caldara uncritically allowed his guest, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Eric O'Keefe of the conservative Sam Adams Alliance, to assert that Caldara's "free-market" think tank "feed[s] accurate information" to the mainstream media as a counterbalance to what O'Keefe characterized as inaccurate information provided by "well-funded left research shops." In fact, Colorado Media Matters has noted numerous instances in which the media uncritically have reported false and misleading information provided by the Independence Institute and by prominent staff members such as Caldara.

O'Keefe stated that "you need an extra dose of skepticism these days when listening to mainstream media; they're being fed things by these well-funded left research shops," later adding, "we need to have organizations repeating facts, doing what the Independence Institute does -- look at the situation and feed accurate information. The only antidote to bad information is good information."

Colorado Media Matters has noted the following examples of misinformation from the Independence Institute that was spread through the local media:

• On June 15, The Denver Post uncritically published Caldara's claim in a guest commentary that the 2007 Colorado Children's Amendment (SB 199) "does not guarantee a single penny to education or to children" and "has no requirement that any of the money be spent on children." In fact, as Colorado Media Matters has noted repeatedly (here, here and here) when Caldara made similar claims on his Newsradio 850 KOA radio program and his KBDI Channel 12 Independent Thinking public television program, the bill's fiscal note, prepared by the nonpartisan Colorado Legislative Council Staff, estimated that because of initiatives mandated by the legislation, SB 199 would increase spending on preschool education by $6.7 million in FY 2007-08 and by $19.1 million in FY 2008-09. Additionally, the law phases in an increase in minimum per pupil state funding above levels mandated by the Colorado Constitution at an additional combined cost for FY 2007-08 and FY 2008-09 of $19.6 million.

• In a July 14, 2007, Rocky Mountain News column, Independence Institute research director Dave Kopel dubiously asserted that Fox News "is slanted to the right ... to a lesser degree than CBS, ABC and NBC slant left" and cited a Quarterly Journal of Economics study to substantiate his claim. However, the study Kopel cited used a questionable methodology that categorized the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as a "conservative" group and the RAND Corporation as a "liberal" group, and led the authors to conclude that The Wall Street Journal has more "liberal bias" than any other news outlet in America. Media Matters for America has detailed the methodological flaws in that 2005 study.

• On the July 6, 2007, broadcast of KBDI's Colorado Inside Out, Kopel called former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame an "audacious liar[]" and claimed that she "never got put under oath." In fact, as panelist Dani Newsum correctly pointed out, Plame was under oath when she testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 16 about her covert status.

• Caldara insinuated in a May 9, 2007, KMGH 7News "investigation" by reporter Tony Kovaleski that the Regional Transportation District (RTD) was involved in a "pay to play" scheme connected to the FasTracks transportation project because it awarded contracts to 28 companies that had donated to the FasTracks Yes! campaign, which supported the 2004 public transportation referendum that financed FasTracks. However, as the Rocky Mountain News reported on May 7, 2007, of the 94 firms contracted to work on FasTracks, the majority (59) did not contribute to the FasTracks Yes! campaign. The News further reported that "35 firms working on FasTracks made donations totaling $542,570," which was "15 percent of $3.63 million total." It added, "[O]ne of the highest profile contracts so far, the construction management deal on the West Corridor, went to an experienced transit-building partnership of Herzog Contracting of St. Joseph, Mo., and Stacy & Witbeck of Alameda, Calif. Neither firm gave a dime to the campaign and beat out other bidders with both experience building other rail for RTD and a record of campaign donations."

• To back up a dubious claim that then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter "has run, in effect, a sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants, Kopel said on the October 20, 2006, broadcast of KBDI's Colorado Inside Out that "if you say you're an illegal alien, and you commit a felony ... the Denver DA is going to make sure you get a plea deal so that you can stay in the country." In fact, according to the Denver district attorney's office and reporting by several media outlets, it was never the policy of Ritter's office to "offer a plea deal" that would allow an illegal immigrant to avoid deportation. Instead, according to Denver district attorney's office spokesperson Lynn Kimbrough, it was "standard procedure" to refer the illegal immigration status of suspected criminals to federal immigration authorities.

• Reporting on a September 28, 2006, debate between the Independence Institute's Linda Gorman and Rich Jones of the Bell Policy Center on Colorado's then-proposed Amendment 42 ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage, the Rocky Mountain News uncritically repeated Gorman's arguments that, if the minimum wage were raised, "jobs for the least-skilled workers will be lost, which would likely force those workers onto welfare." The article also stated misleadingly that the idea that a higher minimum wage will not result in job cuts "is contrary to economic theory" and summed up Gorman's claim that raising the minimum wage "will cost jobs and opportunity." But the News did not point out that hundreds of economists supported raising the current minimum wage and that several studies contradicted the claim that an increase would result in job losses.

Media Matters for America also noted several studies contradicting the claim that a higher federal minimum wage would cause significant job loss. A 1998 Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study of the impact of the two most recent increases in the federal minimum wage found that the effect on employment was "economically small and statistically insignificant ... [and] almost as likely to be positive as negative." Additionally, as the blog Think Progress has noted, a 1995 study by Princeton University economists David Card and Alan B. Krueger found that increases in state and federal minimum wages in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to "increases in pay, but no loss in jobs." The conclusions of Card and Krueger regarding state-level wages were supported by a March 2006 report from the nonpartisan Fiscal Policy Institute, which found that "employment and payrolls in small businesses grew faster in the states with minimum wages above the federal level." In addition, a report from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development found that the state's 2005 minimum-wage increase "produced $175 million in additional payroll and a $3 million boost in state tax revenue."

• On the July 21, 2006, edition of Colorado Inside Out, Kopel distorted an October 2004 remark made by then-vice presidential candidate and Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) in support of expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Discussing "proponents of federal subsidization for" embryonic stem cell research, Kopel falsely stated that "John Edwards in 2004 claimed that [the late actor] Christopher Reeve would walk again." In fact, Edwards did not say that stem cell research would allow Reeve, who was paralyzed, to "walk again." Rather, at an October 10, 2004, campaign stop in which Edwards noted that Reeve had died earlier that day, Edwards stated that "if we can do the work that we can do in this country -- the work we will do when [Sen.] John Kerry [D-MA] is president -- people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk."

Colorado Media Matters also has documented numerous instances of local mainstream media outlets quoting or publishing opinion pieces by Independence Institute staffers without disclosing their affiliation with the think tank or its ideological agenda.

Later in the July 14 interview, speaking of "left groups" that purportedly influence the mainstream media, Caldara referred to the controversy over his use of the expression "bitch-slapped" to describe a Democratic presidential primary debate exchange between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In citing the role of "the local Media Matters," Caldara referred to Colorado Media Matters, which documented his use of the expression on his January 21 radio program.

From the July 14 broadcast of Newsradio 850 KOA's The Jon Caldara Show:

O'KEEFE: There's another element that I'm sure your listeners have heard a fair amount about -- the tough time newspapers are having. Heavy layoffs, loss in circulation. And most of us -- well, most of us don't mourn that, but --

[Caldara laughs]

O'KEEFE: -- it's, part of what is going on here in politics is responsive to that. Newspapers were very political and partisan in the 19th century, and they're slowly faded away. Now we have this situation with layoffs and intense economic pressure. It's making investigative reporters available, and some of these left groups are specifically targeting laid-off reporters. It's also making the established media hungry and less able to check for facts. So they are being fed a lot of their stories, and you need an extra dose of skepticism these days when listening to mainstream media; they're being fed things by these well-funded left research shops.

And again, that is -- we have to understand that's not so much media bias anymore in the mainstream media as it is thin staffs that are dependent for others to hand them stories, and they're -- to offset that, we don't need to grouse about it, we need to have organizations repeating facts, doing what the Independence Institute does -- look at the situation and feed accurate information. The only antidote to bad information is good information.

CALDARA: And the great coordination between these groups -- my listeners remember the great "bitch-slap" moment of 2008, where I had Ann Coulter on and I used the term "bitch-slap." I said, "Did Hillary get bitch-slapped in this debate?" Well, apparently that was supposed to be very offensive, and so the local Media Matters says, "Oh, this is awful, this is awful; do something about it." That's their job. They hand it off to ProgressNow. ProgressNow says, "We're organizing a boycott. That's what we're doing. We gotta get rid of Caldara." And so they go off and do that.

Of course, one, we didn't care. Nobody here at 850 KOA said this was anything but what it was, an interesting hit piece. And then when we found out that the liberals used the term bitch-slap all the time, including Randi Rhodes and Al Franken and James Carville. And then most notably, the same website that called for my discipline or ouster used the term bitch-slap themselves. It shows what they're doing here. But it also demonstrates the coordination of these groups that say, "All right, I'll do this, and then you take the ball and you run with it there, and you do this." Now, none of that says, "Vote for Mark Udall." None of it says, "Let's vote for [Gov. Bill] Ritter." But it helps create that echo chamber.

—E.B. & J.F.B.