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Friday I steered you to Krugman. Tonight, add Frank Rich to the mix. Finally, we are seeing the opinion writers of trad med take a long overdue stand against the media which not only enable, they egg-on their rightwing followers into violent acts.
The examples are legion of how the establishment media have played along with the hatemongering tactics, giving the cover of their brand [MSNBC-Buchanan, anyone?] to the vilest of hate speech.
Oh, and as long as we’re doing examples, Frank Rich ably takes on Fox, Limbaugh and the rest of the Usual Suspects, but how about stuff like NBC and Matt Lauer? I thought Letterman’s joke was a stupid joke, too. But I also spoke out about Limbaugh’s jokes about Chelsea Clinton back in the day. But in their $$$$-focused eyes, giving Sarah Palin a platform to shovel her insinuations against Letterman was probably some convoluted way to tear down Conan’s competition at a critical time. Never mind that it tears down public discourse.
Meanwhile, you have hatemongers like Jon Voight with the seal of approval of Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Confederacy of ReTHUGS making not so subtle comparisons to assassinated historic leaders.
Frank Rich applauds Shep Smith, but the rest of the Fox screeders continue right on course, along with hate radio, taking no responsibility for that which they themselves have created. And the other media who play right along with their own he said-she said, left-right, screed’n'scream format, well, they too, as Rich notes, when something dire happens, can’t say they weren’t warned.
Are we headed for the requisite media handwringing about "maybe we should have…" Or will the media actually fulfill their First Amendment responsibility and call the hatemongers who and what they are.
In the blogosphere, our hair’s been "on fire" for a long time on this issue…but until strong voices in the Republican party and the establishment media stop playing Condi "who could have imagined…" and start speaking out, we’re headed to another disaster… Or are there only cowards in the shadows among ‘em, having lit the conflagration now running from the forest fire?
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crossposted at Prairie Sun Rising
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” The Associated Press today announced a program to promote non-profit investigative journalism, including articles from ProPublica, to its members for re-publication. The material will be distributed to AP members — including essentially all of the nation’s leading newspapers — through the Web-based delivery system AP Exchange. There will be no charge to AP members for using the stories, which, in addition to ProPublica, will come from the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Investigative Reporting Workshop. Announcement of the new program, described as a six-month pilot project, came at the annual convention of Investigative Reporters and Editors, held this year in Baltimore.
This move by AP should provide further impetus to the movement we’ve been pushing for editors and publishers to steal our stories under our Creative Commons license. We’ve been pleased recently to see ProPublica articles end up in the Orlando Sentinel and the Arizona Star, and on Web sites ranging from Huffington Post to RealClearPolitics to MainStreet.com. Keep those thefts coming. “
http://www.propublica.org/
Regrettably, now that the Big Switch is done and failed at my house, one of the last things I saw on TV was Charlie Gibson giving Glen Beck a love letter from ABC. It turned my stomach. Off to read the Rich article. Thanks for this.
“only cowards in the shadows”
Perfect Adjectives to describe what these people are.
Well said, both you and Frank Rich.
From authoritarian shock jocks to authoritarian followers to authoritarian followers with guns and blood lust. Those videos from Palin rallies still haunt me. Ironic, how Obama is tiptoeing to appease and yet reality is irrelevant to them. Group paranoia keeps feeding on itself.
Another reason we should demand reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine.