Kudos to TV host

For years the National Federation of Independent Business has been the darling of the media.  The NFIB had successfully sold the story that they represented small businesses.  The organization had the money to get in front of the national press and reporters were happy to have an easy “go-to” group on small business issues.

All that has now changed since the NFIB was a lead party in the Supreme Court failed challenge to Obamacare (Affordable Care Act).  The truth about the NFIB’s source of funding and their support for big business positions on issues is now on the media’s radar.  Not only has the NFIB been the target of numerous national print stories challenging its “small business” credentials, even TV reporters are now not simply accepting the organization’s blustery talking points responses to questions.

This Sunday my friend John Arensmeyer, founder and CEO of the Small Business Majority, and Jean Card, VP of Media and Communications of the NFIB, were guests on MSNBC’s “Your Business”.  Host JJ Ramberg started out asking Ms. Card what was in the healthcare reform law that would adversely affect small businesses.

Ms. Card began her response with the typical NFIB misleading “facts” but was quickly stopped by Ms. Ramberg.  The host was not going to let her viewers hear that Obamacare was going to force small businesses to buy health insurance when the truth is that there is no health insurance mandate for small businesses with fewer than 50 employees (97% of all businesses).  Watch Ms. Ramberg push-back on the NFIB spokesperson here.

Congratulations to Ms. Ramberg for not being duped by the PR machine of the small business pretender organization, the NFIB.

Gotcha....well almost

My friend Eric Boehlert, senior fellow at Media Matters, strongly believes he was the target of a James O’Keefe-style scam to catch him saying something to discredit him in the eyes of his readers.  Actually I think his detractors are just jealous of how good Eric looks when appearing on MSNBC programs.  Anyway, read his story as reported in the Huffington Post today:

It was the middle of the day on Friday, and Eric Boehlert heard a knock on the door. A senior fellow at Media Matters, a nonprofit watchdog that challenges conservative news outlets, Boehlert works from his Montclair, N.J., home.

A short, bearded man stood outside, holding a clipboard and wearing a Verizon uniform. He asked Boehlert if he'd be willing to take a customer survey. Verizon had, perhaps coincidentally, been at the house a week earlier to handle a downed wire. Boehlert quickly agreed and noted that a Verizon worker had actually failed to show up when he said he would.

But as the survey went on, it started getting strange. "The only weird part before he got to his final question was he started telling me, 'Oh, you know, it's really tough out there, the economy, and I'm just happy to have a job,' and stuff like that, which I thought was weird for a customer rep to be telling one of his customers," Boehlert recalled to HuffPost.
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