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How Some Media Morphed Mayor Garcia's 17.7 Second Convention Video Bites Into Party "Rising Star"



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(Aug. 22, 2020, 7:30 a.m.) -- On Sunday Aug. 16, 2020 at 11:21 a.m., Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia's Chief of Staff, Diana Tang, sent media outlets an email using her personal (not City Hall) email domain. It carried the title: "Mayor Robert Garcia’s Statement on Participating in the DNC Keynote Address" and stated:

"Mayor Robert Garcia will be joining Stacey Abrams of Georgia, Congressman Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania and 14 other rising star Democrats to deliver the Keynote Address Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention," it said, adding "the keynote is generally given by an emerging leader in the party and has been recently given by then State Senator Barack Obama and former Mayor Julián Castro. Mayor Robert Garcia is the only Californian participating in the keynote address."

But there was no keynote address as that term is commonly understood. The event wasn't analogous to previous addresses cited in the email. Instead, convention organizers created what amounted to a political infomercial for nominee Joe Biden that included 17 speakers (including Garcia) and labeled it a "keynote address."

The 11-minute video contains three video bites of Mayor Garcia. He's heard for a total of 17.7 seconds.

The speakers' words dovetail with each other, sometimes at midsentence. It's not immediately clear if the speakers were told to use certain phrases and messaging.to enable the editing. Mayor Garcia's words are in quotes below] :

  • [...there's alot riding on this election]..."when we're facing the biggest health crisis in generations, because our president didn't and still doesn't have a plan" [7.2 seconds]

  • [...we've lived insecurity and the indignity of an eviction notice] "I, like many of you, have lived the frustration of paying off student loans." 4:5 seconds

  • [...you built this county] "and you know what? You deserve more than the constant chaos that Donald Trump delivers." 6 seconds

    The video can be viewed in full below. A transcript of the "keynote" can be viewed here.








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As is visible in the video, Mayor Garcia didn't "join" Stacey Abrams (nearly elected Georgia Governor). A video editor inserted his 17.7 seconds into the recorded product in which Ms. Abrams speaks for two minutes.

Mayor Garcia's role in the video isn't and wasn't analogous to addresses by then-state Senator Barack Obama and former San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (named to President Obama's cabinet.)

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The term "rising star," repeated concerning Garcia by a number of media outlets without attribution as to its source, was a collective reference to the 17 party chosen speakers in the text of a Democrat National Convention release. Garcia's staffer applied it to Garcia and echoed/linked it in her Aug. 16 email to media outlets. Some media outlets repeated the opinion term as a fact without citing its source. (Most who did so neglected to mention that Garcia currently faces a grassroots recall.)

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