IIndustry wires trial lawyers up to
hot seat on terrors, jobs, and health
by Roger Bybee
Name a hot-button issue that triggers an immediate and profound emotional response—like terrorism, the outsourcing of US jobs, and anxiety over health care and you will find trial lawyers being vilified by powerful corporate voices.
Trial lawyers are no longer being attacked simply on the dry-sounding and insular issue of tort “reform” that plays well in corporate suites but leaves the general public uninspired. Now, the attacks link trial lawyers and the absence of tort reform to emotionally-charged issues of national security, jobs, and health care.
On these issues, trial lawyers are repeatedly cast as an arrogant “elite” ruthlessly victimizing ordinary Americans on fundamental concerns, without regard to the damage they cause. While these charges may sound ludicrous to those familiar with the issues, corporate media strategists are apparently counting on the sheer emotional power of their super-charged rhetoric to short-circuit any rational evaluation of these accusations against trial lawyers.
The super-charged rhetoric and carefully-crafted messages against civil justice are being disseminated systematically through the collaboration of pro-corporate foundations, organizations like the American Tort Reform Association, several major business coalitions, and the extensive web of corporate-friendly media, ranging from Fox TV to Rush Limbaugh to the Wall St. Journal editorial page. This massive undertaking can only be described as a classic campaign of “propaganda” which scholar Alex Carey defined as:
“communications where the form and content is selected with the single-minded purpose of bringing some target audience to adopt attitudes and beliefs chosen in advance by the sponsors of the communications.” [1]
The annual expenditures behind the tort “reform” propaganda efforts are estimated to be in the $100 million range.[2]
The Politics Of Tort ‘Reform’
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