Inside the Meme Factory: Conservatives gin up “studies” to suit needs

By Christopher B. Daly 

Here’s a peek inside what I call “the Meme Factory” — the interlocking set of institutions that conservatives built, mainly since WWII, to manufacture “studies,” slogans, and ideas that could probably not pass muster at most universities or scholarly journals but are very useful to the conservative movement. Briefly, the way it often works is that a conservative funder or activist has a notion. The notion is taken to a conservative “think tank,” where it can be refined, simplified, and outfitted with some academic-sounding “research.” The whole package can be offered to sympathetic conservative “journalists” who work at conservative media outlets like Fox, National Review, Newsmax, Breitbart, etc. Then, when real scholars and responsible journalists ignore it, conservatives can cry foul and denounce everyone else as “biased.”

Today’s case in point: a story in the NYTimes not about this phenomenon but which nevertheless reveals a bit of how this system operates. The story naturally focuses on the latest developments. Igt is essentially a “stage-setter” for a hearing set for Tuesday in a federal court in Detroit over the suitability of same-sex couples as parents. But it’s the backstory that really deserves equal attention:

–To start at the beginning, in August 2010, a federal judge in a different federal court in California writes in a ruling that he found “no reliable evidence that allowing same-sex couples to marry will have any negative effects on society.”

–Alarmed, conservatives swing into action.

–In late 2010, they gather at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, one of the central nodes in the Meme Factory. According to the Times, “opponents of same-sex marriage discussed the urgent need to generate new studies on family structures and children.” In other words, they wanted to commission studies whose outcome was pre-determined.

–Result: “the marshaling of $785,000 for a large-scale study by Mark Regnerus, a meeting participant and a sociologist at the University of Texas who will testify in Michigan.” The money comes from two conservative foundations: Witherspoon and Bradley.

–His study comes out in 2012 in the journal Social Science Research, and conservatives immediately start citing it. No surprise: the study “finds” that children do best when raised by their own straight, married, monogamous parents.

–Scholars criticize his methods and motives, prompting the journal to launch an internal audit of its own procedures. Basically, the folks at Social Science Research need to determine how they got so badly used in this case.

–No matter. The Meme Factory has delivered: a study, a controversy, victim status, and news coverage.

Who says American manufacturing is dying?

Below, as a public service, I offer a version of a work in progress. It’s a timeline of the interlocking institutions that make up the Meme Factory — think tanks and media outlets. You’ll notice that some names crop up again and again: Scaife, Mellon, Murdoch, Kristol.

(Please help me fill in any blanks.)

CONSERVATIVE MEDIA AND INSTITUTIONS

 

A TIMELINE

 

Compiled by Christopher B. Daly

MEDIA OUTLETS

 

Debut              Name                                                   Owner/Founder

(not to mention: WSJ, Chi Tribune, LA Times, US News, Reader’s Digest, Forbes, etc)

1944                Human Events                                        Henry Regnery et al.

1955                National Review                                 William F. Buckley Jr.

 1965                Public Interest                                        Irving Kristol  (folded, 2005)

1967                American Spectator                             R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr./Regnery

196?                Commentary (turns right)                 Norman Podhoretz/

1968                Reason  (libertarian)                            Robert W. Poole Jr.   

1975                Conservative Digest                           Richard Viguerie

1982                Washington Times                              Rev. Moon/Unification Church

1985                The National Interest                         Irving Kristol

1988                Rush Limbaugh                                     Limbaugh/Clear Channel

1995                Weekly Standard                                 Murdoch/News Corp/ Wm Kristol

1995                Townhall.com                                      offshoot of Heritage

1996                Fox News                                                Ailes/ News Corp. (Murdoch)

1996                The Drudge Report                             Matt Drudge

 1996                Free Republic (website)                   James C. “Jim” Robinson

1997                World Net Daily                                 Jos.&Eliz. Farah

1998                Newsmax Media                                 Christopher W. Ruddy  (Scaife)

2001                InstaPundit                                         Glenn Reynolds

2002                The American Conservative (mag)     Pat Buchanan, Taki, et al.

2002                Glenn Beck Radio Program                 Glenn Beck

 2007                Breitbart.com                                      Andrew Breitbart

INSTITUTIONS                 [major donors: Olin, Coors, Scaife, Richardson, Bradley]

1943                American Enterprise Institute                        big business

1947                Regnery Publishing                             Eagle Publishing

1957                Hoover Institution                              ?????/ Stanford

1960                Young Americans for Freedom           William F. Buckley

1961                Christian Broadcasting Network        Pat Robertson

1963                Oral Roberts University                     Oral Roberts

1969                AIM                                                    Reed Irvine

1973                Heritage Foundation                           Paul Weyrich             (Coors)

1975                Eagle Forum                                        Phyllis Schlafly  (radio, Web)

1977                Cato Institute                                      Edward H. Crane                                                                                       (Koch, Olin, Scaife, Bradley)

1977                Focus on the Family                           Dr. James Dobson

1977                National Journalism Center                M. Stanton Evans (Buckley; YAF))

1978                Inst. for Educational Affairs               Irving Kristol/William E. Simon                                                (Olin, Scaife, Richardson)

1979                Moral Majority (thru 1989)               Weyrich, Viguerie, Falwell.

1982                Federalist Society                               Edwin Meese, Robert Bork, Olson

1987                Media Research Center                       L. Brent Bozell III

1997                Project for  New American Century         Wm. Kristol / Robert Kagan