The Responsibility Of Cable News

Great video from Media Matters



(h/t Oliver Wills)

Glenn Beck = Orson Welles

A light bulb just came on in my head. Since Richard Polawski murdered three police officers over the weekend and it became apparent that he had been influenced by right wing propaganda, Glenn Beck and the rest of the right wing echo chamber has pushed back hard against any charges that they were responsible for Polawski's actions. Just the fact that they have been so defensive shows in my opinion a guilty conscious but I have been very dissappointed that most of the mainstream media has not really picked up the story or really fully examined the role that right wing fear mongering rhetoric is having on influencing these kind of situations. Then it occured to me, this is much like Orson Welles' radio broadcast of "War Of The Worlds"

On Sunday, October 30, 1938, millions of radio listeners were shocked when radio news alerts announced the arrival of Martians. They panicked when they learned of the Martians' ferocious and seemingly unstoppable attack on Earth. Many ran out of their homes screaming while others packed up their cars and fled.

Though what the radio listeners heard was a portion of Orson Welles' adaptation of the well-known book, War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, many of the listeners believed what they heard on the radio was real.

Basically what happened back then was that people were listening to the radio and caught some part of the broadcast and then thought it was a real news report. Back then it was common for the radio to carry important messages to the citizenry. When major events were going on the radio was usually how you found out. Besides that everything about the broadcast was made to sound like a real news report.

Orson Welles then went on the air as himself, setting the scene of the play: "We know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own..."

As Orson Welles finished his introduction, a weather report faded in, stating that it came from the Government Weather Bureau. The official sounding weather report was quickly followed by "the music of Ramon Raquello and his orchestra" from the Meridian Room in the Hotel Park Plaza in downtown New York. Actually, the broadcast was all done from the studio, but the script led people to believe that there were announcers, orchestras, newscasters and scientists on the air from a variety of locations.

snip

The script specifically attempts to make the interview sound real and occurring right at that moment. Near the beginning of the interview, the newsman, Carl Phillips, tells the listeners that "Professor Pierson may be interrupted by telephone or other communications. During this period he is in constant touch with the astronomical centers of the world . . . Professor, may I begin your questions?"

During the interview, Phillips tells the audience that Professor Pierson had just been handed a note, which was then shared with the audience. The note stated that a huge shock "of almost earthquake intensity" occurred near Princeton. Professor Pierson believes it might be a meteorite.

Another news bulletin announces, "It is reported that at 8:50 p.m. a huge, flaming object, believed to be a meteorite, fell on a farm in the neighborhood of Grovers Mill, New Jersey, twenty-two miles from Trenton."

Now what does this have to do with Glenn Beck? EVERYTHING. You see he has a show on a cable news station and he presents himself as someone who is telling the truth. He probably doesn't believe half of what he says but what he does believe is that scaring people over dumb shit will help the political party (Republican of course) that he aligns himself with. He sees nothing wrong with claiming President Obama will take everyone's guns or that we are on the edge of facism or that our whole way of life is going to crumble and we will turn into a third world country all because he doesn't like the fact that we now have a Democrat as President.

Now many people of course dismiss the things he says because he is obviously a little touched in the head and most of what he says doesn't even sound possible let alone probable. Yet and still right now he has the second highest rated cable news network show and he gets millions of views each day. Many of those viewers DO take him seriously and DO believe that he is bringing them the truth that "nobody else will". So what happens when you believe that a person is presenting the news to you truthfully and that person warns you every single day that you are under attack and that people will be coming for you and your kids soon and that you have to rise up against these unseen liberal forces? Well, just like with the Orson Welles broadcast, you react.

All across the United States, listeners reacted. Thousands of people called radio stations, police and newspapers. Many in the New England area loaded up their cars and fled their homes. In other areas, people went to churches to pray. People improvised gas masks. Miscarriages and early births were reported. Deaths, too, were reported but never confirmed. Many people were hysterical. They thought the end was near.

Hours after the program had ended and listeners had realized that the Martian invasion was not real, the public was outraged that Orson Welles had tried to fool them. Many people sued. Others wondered if Welles had caused the panic on purpose.

The power of radio had fooled the listeners. They had become accustomed to believing everything they heard on the radio, without questioning it. Now they had learned - the hard way.

So you see the question at this point really shouldn't be whether Poplawski was influenced by the right wing echo chamber to commit his crimes, there really can't be any doubt about that anymore. There are at least two questions that remain for us though,

1. How many more people will die as a result of someone reacting to all the right wing fear mongering by reacting with violence?

2. How much longer will the rational people in this country put up with this kind of hate rhetoric being spewed everyday on Tee Vee and in some cases by sitting Congresswomen?


I am not talking about restricting free speech here. People can feel free to say what they like. However even with free speech there is a prohibition against inciting panic and violence like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. What I am asking is when will we start holding people responsible for the things they say? And by responsible I mean criminally AND civilly. Jason Linkins over at the Huffington Post pointed out yesterday that Michele Bachmann is still taken seriously and criticized with kid gloves by mainstream media types when they should be calling her batshit crazy. In the time since the shooting in Pittsburgh Poplawski's story has been carried by the local Pittsburgh media and the national media. It is striking how the local papers have no qualms about pointing out Poplawski's ties to right wing talking heads and far right websites but you won't see that in ANY national publication. Has our media gotten so afraid of being called liberal that they now refuse to report the truth when it comes to the right wingers in this country? If so its sad and just another indication of why many of the newspapers are dying a very quick and painful death. I am usually not one to call for people to get fired but when you aren't doing your damn job anyway what good are you?

Maybe more journalists should think about that last question.

Connecting The Dots

Eric Boehlert has a post up at MediaMatters.org about the connection between Richard Powlawski, Glenn Beck, Jim Adkisson and the rest of the right wing hate machine. Definitely worth the full read.

Sorry Glenn But Your Cover Is Blown

From the Anti Defamation League about Richard Poplowski.

Poplawski bought into the SHTF/TEOTWAKI conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker, even posting a link to Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul. When the city of Pittsburgh got a Homeland Security grant to add surveillance cameras to protect downtown bridges, Poplawski told Stormfronters that it was "ramping up the police state." He said, too, that he gave warnings to grocery store customers he encountered (but only if they were white) to stock up on canned goods and other long-lasting foods

Now try to explain that away you fucking moron.

"You Can't Just Make Up Your Own Facts"

If only David Shuster could host Hardball everyday. Oh wait he DID have a show then the geniuses at MSNBC decided that he was expendable. What a frikking joke.

Well at least he was there today to connect the dots from the cop shooting in Pittsburgh to the hate talk from the wingnuts on Tee Vee and radio. And he pretty much sent the 2nd Amendment guy running home with his tail between his legs. Good on him for that and good on Charles Blow for calling the guy's argument "laughable".

Enjoy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Not My Fault

So much for the party of personal responsibility. But then again most of us already knew it was bullshit. Especially when it comes to self described "rodeo clowns" like Glenn Beck.



From Media Matters

From the Post-Gazette:

Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s.

Who's been mainstreaming the "freak" Alex Jones in recent days? Who's been embracing his conspiratorial rants and giving them a platform and legitimacy? Fox News, course.

Click here to watch FoxNews.com intro its webcast segment about "what the government has done to take your liberty and property away." And watch the Fox host introduce the "the one, the only, the great Alex Jones." The radio nut then launches into talk of the "New World Order" a "global government." Listen as Jones warns the Fox News audience about the Obama "agenda" for "gun confiscation." And watch the Fox News online host tell Jones it's been "a pleasure" listening to his rhetoric.

Fox News has been playing with radical fire in recent weeks and months. But can it contain the bonfire? Naturally, that doesn't stop Newsbusters from whining about the consequences and insisting that the GOP Noise Machine has no responsibility for the extraordinary hate it's been pushing since January.

UPDATE: Again, even Little Green Footballs is appalled:

Wow. Racists, 9/11 truthers, and conspiracy theorists, all brought to you by Fox News.
Featuring “the great Alex Jones.”

What the hell is wrong with Fox News?

UPDATE: During his webcast on FoxNews.com, Alex Jones also notes with pride how FNC's Glenn Beck has recently been warning about the emerging New World Order on the air, just like Jones.

Honestly all of Beck's denials sound like a guilty conscious to me. The question is how many more tragedies will we have to go through before some one MAKES HIM take responsibility?

BTW David Shuster was teh AWESOME SAUCE today subbing for Tweety on Hardball and talking about this very issue. Just as soon as that video is ready I will be posting it.

Dave Waldman AKA Kagro X Is A BEAST!

Dave Waldman has a diary up over at dailykos that is definitely worth the full ready about the mainstream media's epic fail covering the cop massacer in Pittsburgh by right wing nutjob Richard Poplowski. But I just HAD to excerpt the ending because it expresses my thoughts exactly.

It's a little shy of two years now since reporters at the press conference at the last event held under the Yearly Kos banner in Chicago expressed amazement at having been shown the FOX Nutwork record of "mistakes" in reporting basic facts that were embarrassing to Republicans. And it seems clear that even now, traditional media reporters are unable to come to terms with the fact that there are people masquerading as "their kind," yet who not only can't and won't work in the same fact-based reality as they do, but actively beam out a steady stream of incendiary, counter-factual rhetoric that you'd have to be willfully blinding yourself not to connect to shooters who end up parroting, well, pretty much exactly what they're broadcasting on FOX.

Wake the hell up, people. There's a 24-hour eliminationist "news" nutwork broadcasting poison to already-fevered minds. Call it what it is. Be aware of what they're doing. And reporters, be clear on what they're up to, and whose profession they're using as cover.

And really, when a cop killer's best friend tells you casually that he was consumed with Zionist control of the government and imminent martial law and gun confiscations... that's actually the story!

When a shooter's best friend tells you he killed cops because his mind was being controlled by aliens from planet Xoltron, you have a sad and inexplicable illness on your hands, and "just the facts" reporting is all you can responsibly do.

When a shooter's best friend tells you he killed cops because he believed fake stories you can hear reported as "news" on a well-known (and even "respected!") 24-hour cable television network, you've got a very serious story on your hands that it's actually irresponsible not to look deeper.

This stuff isn't just appearing from out of nowhere. It's being beamed out under the protections you've worked hard to protect for your profession.
To the extent that you refuse to call FOX out for their nonsense, you become partly culpable for its continuance.

Take the reins and lead.

A Total Lack of Self Awareness And Personal Responsibility

Now that the story about that scumbag Richard Poplawski in Pittsburgh killing 4 police officers and wounding others because, in the words of his closest friends, he feard that President Obama was going to take his guns, the reactions on the blogs have been interesting to say the least. You can go to several different conservative blogs and you won't find even the hint of responsibility. Instead with the officers' bodies not even cold yet they try to contend that the guy really wasn't concerned about Obama taking his guns but rather that he lost his job, damn what his friends said. Or you might find words to the effect that the REAL tragedy here is that the guy actually helped those dirty fucking hippie liberals in their eternal fight against the second amendment. In still other places what you will find people absolving themselves by declaring that the guy was just insane. Now this last point has actually been echoed even on some progressive and left leaning sites like Washington Monthly.

Well I am calling bullshit on all of that, especially the whole "he was crazy so its nobody's fault" meme. He may very well have been insane, but that doesn't excuse the fearmongering spouted from the wingnuts which helped to push his insanity to a violent and deadly outburst. I am as big a proponent of free speech as anybody but you can't just keep scaring people everyday and making it seem like President Obama is going to personally target them and take away their freedoms and then turn around and not bear a great responsibility when someone acts out this way. Its just the same as why you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. What it comes down to is that your speech is not and should not be protected when you use it in an irresponsible manner to put other people in danger. There can be no better example of that than this situation. Yeah Poplowski may well have been bat shit crazy without all of the 2nd amendment bloviating from the wingnuts but would he have gone out and shot police officers? Would he have went out and bought an AK47? Would he have lived his life in fear of the government personally oppressing him? I don't believe so at all.

Now I don't expect the assholes on the right to ever change their ways because even though they preach personal responsibility you rarely see them take any, however its about damned time that we on the left stop giving them free passes. When they incite violence they need to be called out for it and held accountable. When they fearmonger and it leads to a tragedy, they should be made to own it. When they preach armed rebellion and revolution and then a nutcase actually goes out and attempts some of the things they allude to then the connections have to be made. I can tell you right now that I personally am not looking forward to 4 to 8 more years of this shit. The only way to change the behavior of the right is to try to shame them. If people actually start pointing directly at them when this stuff happens instead of letting them off the hook then maybe, just maybe, they will calm all that fear mongering bullshit down. But every single time we give them a pass with that "its nobody's fault" bullshit we damn near insure that they will continue to preach conspiracy and violence and sooner or later tragedy will happen once again.

Now as for the assholes on the right who are unsurprisingly now using this incident to score political points, (yes I am looking at you, Malkin, JamieWearingFool, FloppingAces et al) what you are doing is fucking reprehensible. Its amazing how much you claim to love the military and the police but then turn around and publish the pictures of these fallen officers not to honor their memory, but to talk about what you think the left is doing or saying. Well let me explain it to you dumbasses. Nobody gives a shit about gun control right now. What we give a damn about is the fucked up things you are saying and inciting this violence. I own guns and I have no interest in repealing the 2nd amendment but by the same fucking token I don't want to be out in public and end up getting shot because some whack job has been watching too much FoxNews or reading too much bullshit on freeper and then they just go over the edge and really try to start an armed resolution. If you dickheads had any kind of respect you would tone the bullshit down. But because you are all slimy ass bottom feeding bitches I am sure you will simply continue to fearmonger and try to scare people into sharing your beliefs and put even more police officers' lives in jeopardy.