Get real facts before believing biased TV ads
Linda Polivick // The Indianapolis Star (Letters to the Editor)December 1, 2009
Central Indiana viewers have been bombarded recently with advertisements regarding health-care reform. It is important for viewers to understand who is funding these advertisements. The ads urging us to "rethink health-care reform" come from an organization called the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative pro-business group that opposes minimum wage increases and any requirement for employers to insure their employees. This group is funded by Washington lobbyist Richard Berman, whose other interest groups have opposed the efforts of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and restrictions on tobacco.
The 60 Plus Association, which has funded some of the other ads opposing health-care reform, has Pat Boone as its spokesman and bills itself as "the conservative alternative to AARP.'' Factcheck.org has called the content of 60 Plus Association's ads "mostly false.''
These organizations have every right to purchase airtime promoting their views. Full disclosure of their funding sources would allow the viewing public to better evaluate their claims.
Linda Polivick
Noblesville
Richard Berman has been a regular front man for business and industry in campaigns against consumer safety and environmental groups. Through his public affairs firm, Berman and Company, Berman has fought unions, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, PETA and other watchdog groups in their efforts to raise awareness about obesity, the minimum wage, the dangers of smoking, mad cow disease, drunk driving, and other causes. Berman runs at least 15 industry-funded front groups and projects, such as the Center for Union Facts and holds 16 "positions" in those organizations.
Each year, Berman, using his front groups to spread misinformation, spends millions of dollars distracting the public with misleading ads.
As a result of his largesse, in 2006, Richard Berman used $2,000,000 in cash to buy this $3.3 million house.
