By now, voters in Alabama are accustomed to misinformation. Especially since 650,000 of us were targeted in the Project Birmingham campaign back in 2017. However, there is a different kind of misinformation campaign underway in the 2020 election. Rather than publishing falsities or creating fake Facebook and Twitter content, the media is simply omitting information outright.
Let’s go back to September 27th, 2017. This was the day after Roy Moore won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Alabama. Immediately, reports came out framing the general phase of the special election as the KKK fighting Doug Jones against Roy Moore.. Then in October of 2017, stories about Russian twitter followers were published. Moving on to November of that same year, we all remember the Washington Post story that reported sexual assault allegations against Moore from a group of women that didn’t know each other and didn’t want to come forward. How they were persuaded to remains a mystery. Then onto December where a write in candidate was promoted on social media and Alabama’s other senator went on the record stating that he would be writing in a candidate in light of the November allegations. So much misinformation in such a short time. Much of it has been since been discredited in the months after the election.
In the time that has past since December of 2017, voters have learned about Project Birmingham, the misinformation campaign that was underway back in the late summer and fall of 2017. They have also read the reports of the ongoing defamation lawsuit against Roy Moore. In light of this, many of the 651,000 that voted for Roy Moore, even though the media had branded him a pedophile, are more motivated than ever to get to the polls and right the wrong of 2017.
Even though voters have an understanding of the fact that they were targeted for misinformation, the media appears to have a different idea of what happened.
Let me explain. Polling since April 2019 has had Roy Moore listed in the top two spots out of a list of up to six candidates (depending on who was listed as a candidate in the poll) which is proof to me that what I just told you about the Moore voters from last time is correct.
Even in the face of this reality, I’ve noticed the media chooses to omit certain bits from the story when mentioning Roy Moore and his bid for another Republican nomination for U.S Senate. Take a look at these examples below. Notice when they mention Roy Moore, they describe him as “the former candidate who lost amid allegations of sexual assault” etc.
CNN – No mention of Project Birmingham when talking about the last election.
MSNBC – Nope.
Former Fox News Anchor, Shepard Smith – Not a mention.
Why is it that they are leaving out a huge part of the Special Election of 2017 in Alabama, Project Birmingham? They frame this as if they wrote these articles on December 13th, 2017, right after the election when people actually fell for it!
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