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- Directed the anti-Bush media blitz for the group September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
- Radical anti-war protestor and Communist journalist
- In the 1960s, was a media specialist for the Liberation News Service and a photographer for the Weathermen, a domestic terrorist group
- In the 1970s, orchestrated the "No Nukes" concerts
- In the 1980s, worked in media relations for the Communist regimes of Angola, Nicaragua, and Grenada
- His company, Fenton Communications, assists in the public relations strategies for MoveOn.org and Win Without War
David Fenton, the man who dictated the direction of a March 2004 media blitz on behalf of the anti-Bush and anti-war organization Peaceful Tomorrows, was a 1960s radical/anti-war protestor. He began his "journalism" career as a photographer and media specialist for the Liberation News Service, which was named in admiration of and loyalty to the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. The anti-American, Communist movement Fenton and his colleagues emulated called for the "overthrow [of] the camouflaged colonial regime of the American imperialists and the dictatorial power of Ngo Dinh Diem, servant of the Americans, and [to] institute a government of national democratic union [in Vietnam]." Aside from covering various aspects of the counter-culture and anti-war movements, Fenton and his Liberation News Service associates, headed by Allen Young and George Cavalletto, were active supporters of the left Fenton was a member of the White Panther Party, counterpart of the Black Panthers. In the 60's and early 70's, Fenton also snapped photographs for the Weathermen, a terrorist cult which bombed the National Guard offices in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Capitol building, the New York City Police Headquarters and the Pentagon. The Weathermen, later known as the Weather Underground, took over Students for a Democratic Society, the largest leftwing students' group of its day, in 1968 and closed the organization down, saying that it had "Smashed the Pig," The Weathermen thought SDS was too reformist and wanted to launch a race war in America, to hasten the Armageddon in which the Third World would wreak its revenge on the "Amerikkkan" beast. The Weather Underground was a terrorist organization which issued "War Communiques" and set out to "bring the monster [the U.S.] down." The latter 1970s saw Fenton's foray into the anti-nuclear movement. His left-wing work throughout the decade culminated in his orchestration of the famous "No Nukes" concerts, which were headlined by performers Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt. This Western "disarmament" movement greatly pleased the Soviet Union. By the 1980s, Fenton was a hot commodity. He was recruited to shape and mold the public perceptions of Communist-led governments and Marxist guerillas alike. The year 1986 found Fenton in the throes of the Communist-led Angolan government's Bureau of Information and Propaganda. He was hired to sully the reputation of a right-wing rebel group that the Angolan Communists had been fighting against for years. Fenton did similar public relations work for Nicaragua's Sandinistas. The Communist-backed Sandinistas regarded themselves as integral to a proletariat revolution in Nicaragua. To this end, Fenton provided necessary guidance in the public relations department in an effort to sway favorable opinion about this Marxist faction. Rounding off his Communist ties, Fenton conducted media services for Grenada's Prime Minister, Maurice Bishop. Bishop was a staunch supporter of Fidel Castro and his Marxist government in Cuba, and sought to repeat that government's philosophy in his own homeland. Since 1989, Fenton and his company, Fenton Communications, has been largely preoccupied with creating media strategies for left-wing groups, including one of his primary clients, Environmental Media Services. Its anti-biogenetic message, which claims that genetically engineered foods are dangerous to eat, has made millions of dollars for Fenton's clients, which include such health food producers as: Whole Foods Markets, Honest Tea, Kashi Cereal, Green Mountain Coffee, and Rodale Press, a magazine publisher of periodicals concerning organic gardening and foods. This approach has also worked for ice cream producers Ben & Jerry's, another client of Fenton's. Starting with a series of press conferences in the late 1990s, Environmental Media Services promoted the idea that a hormone given to dairy cows to produce milk could cause cancer, despite the fact that the FDA had shown the hormone to be safe. Ben & Jerry's ice cream stood to gain from the bad press aimed at the dairy industry because their ice cream is made with hormone-free milk. One of Fenton's most publicized achievements was his 1989 attack against the producers of Alar, a preservative used in apples that he erroneously reported as carcinogenic. The misinformation Fenton fed to the news media triggered mass hysteria and caused the apple industry to lose over $200 million in revenue. Later, in a memo uncovered by the Wall Street Journal, Fenton bragged, "We designed [the campaign against Alar] so that revenue would flow back to the Natural Resources Defense Council from the public." The Natural Resources Defense Council was another of Fenton's primary clients. In recent years, Fenton has expanded his clientele, which now includes antiwar and anti-Bush groups. Trevor S. Fitzgibbon, Director of Media Relations for Fenton Communications, assists in the public relations strategy for MoveOn.org, MoveOn.org Voter Fund, and Win Without War. According to Fenton Communications, "Fitzgibbon's messaging and PR efforts on behalf of MoveOn.org have helped position the online advocacy group as a national political force in American life." Arlie Schardt, a senior consultant at Fenton Communications and chairman for Environmental Media Services, served as Al Gore's national press secretary during his first presidential campaign. Fenton's recent addition of Peaceful Tomorrows to his list of clients marks yet another notch in his political bedpost, despite the claims of its members to be nonpartisan.
This profile was adapted from the article titled "Peaceful Tomorrows, Leftists Todays," written by Thomas Ryan and published by FrontPageMagazine.com on March 17, 2004.
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