anchorman (1952?); Astroturf

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Here we go again.
  
  
ANCHORMAN

    ADS-L archives.  I posted this on 26 June 2003:
  
  Color's Pretty, But Not Yet Ripe; 'Capitol Cloakroom' Has a Birthday; By 
Sonia Stein; The Washington Post (1877-1954), Washington, D.C.; Apr 2, 1950; pg. 
L1, 2 pgsPg. L2:Producer Lewis Schollenberger...  (CBS--ed.)"We let them 
dodger them any way they can, and since a good part of a Congressman's trade is 
knowing how to deflect questions they are pretty successful," according to 
Griffing Bancroft, anchor man on the team of newsmen who handle the show.
  
  
ASTROTURF
  
   From www.wordspy.com (PLUG: buy the book by Paul McFedries):
  
astroturf 
(AS.troh.turf) n. A fake grass-roots movement.
—astroturfing pp.

Example Citation:
"Of the calls we are getting in the D.C. office, about half are Astroturf and 
half are real," said Mr. Milburn, in Mr. Hobson's office, using Washington 
parlance for calls that seem to be from individuals but are in fact orchestrated 
by lobbying groups.
—Katharine Q. Seelye, "Public Is Flooding Capitol With Impeachment Views," 
The New York Times, December 15, 1998 


Notes:
This word is a nice play on AstroTurf, a brand of artificial grass. 


Earliest Citation:
Issue-oriented newspaper advertisements featuring clip-out coupons are often 
designed to show that the sponsor's goal has grass-roots support. But the 
"grass roots is AstroTurf in many cases, artificial turf," says Sen. Lloyd 
Bentsen, D-Texas. A case in point, in his view, is the recent ad campaign by the 
Distilled Spirits Council of the United States against increases in excise taxes 
on liquor. Bentsen reports that a third of the 190 coupons his office received 
were altered to express support for tax increases that the coupon says could 
raise the price of a bottle of liquor $2 and "put a lot of people in the 
beverage alcohol business out of work."
—"Playing on astroturf," The National Journal, April 19, 1986 

Subject Categories: 
The World - Activism 
The World - Politics 

Posted on December 17, 1998