conservative propaganda at Brave New Films

Now they can be told: The secrets of conservative talkback radio

2008-12-01T20:09:48Z

Kudos to Dave Zweifel, Editor Emeritus of The Capital Times (cyberspace, via Madison, WI), for these astute observations into the secret Inner Workings of conservative talkback radio programming as are worth thinking about:

Milwaukee's right-wing talk radio clique, personified by WTMJ/AM's Charlie Sykes and Jeff Wagner, is still smarting over the tell-all piece that the radio station's former news director authored for the most recent issue of Milwaukee Magazine.
Dan Shelley took the magazine's readers behind the scenes of the Sykes and Wagner shows and revealed how they methodically appeal to the segment of the population that feels disenfranchised and victimized by the media.
"To succeed, a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims, and the host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered," wrote Shelley, who directed the news department at the Journal Co.-owned station for 11 years. "The host frames virtually every issue in us-versus-them terms. There has to be a bad guy against whom the host will emphatically defend those loyal listeners."
Shelley wrote that conservative radio hosts around the country, including Sykes and Wagner, were e-mailed daily talking points from the Bush White House, the Republican National Committee and, during election years, GOP campaign operations. They would also check frequently with other talk show hosts, including Rush Limbaugh's Web site and the online sites of conservative bloggers, to make sure everyone was on the same page.
He added that there is no way to win a disagreement with Sykes, for example.
"Calls from listeners who disagree with him don't get on the air if the show's producer, who generally does the screening, fears they might make Charlie look bad. I witnessed several occasions when Sen. Russ Feingold, former Mayor John Norquist, Mayor Tom Barrett or others would call in, but wouldn't be allowed on the air."
Shelley continued:
"To amuse myself while listening to a talk show, I would ask myself what the host would say if the situation were reversed. What if alleged D.C. madam client Sen. David Vitter had been a Democrat? Would the reaction of talk show hosts have been so quiet you could hear crickets chirping? Hardly.
"Or what if former Rep. Mark Foley had been a Democrat? Would his pedophile-like tendencies have been excused as a 'prank' or mere 'overfriendly e-mails'? Not on the life of your teenage son.
"Suppose Al Gore was president and ordered an invasion of Iraq without an exit strategy. Suppose this had led to the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and actually made that part of the world less stable. Would talk show hosts have dismissed criticism of that war as unpatriotic? No chance.
"Or imagine that John Kerry had been president during Hurricane Katrina and that his administration's rescue and rebuilding effort had been horribly botched. Would talk show hosts have branded him a great president? Of course not."
In fact, it was Katrina that turned out to be Shelley's last straw.
"Until then, 10 years into my time at TMJ, while I might have disagreed with some stands the hosts took, I did think there were grounds for their constant criticism of the media. I had convinced myself that the national media had an intrinsic bias that was, at the very least, geographical if not ideological, to which talk radio could provide an alternative.
"Then along came the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. Journalists risked their lives to save others as the storm hit the Gulf Coast. Afterward, journalists endured the stench and the filth to chronicle the events for a stunned world. Then they documented the monumental government incompetence for an outraged nation. These journalists became voices for the voiceless victims, pressing government officials to get help to those who needed it.
"Yet, while New Orleans residents were screaming for help from the rooftops of their flooded homes, journalists were targeted by talk show hosts, Charlie and Wagner among them. Not the government, but journalists. Stories detailing the federal government's obvious slowness and inefficiency were part of an 'angry left' conspiracy, they said. Talk show hosts who used e-mailed talking points from the conservative spin machine proclaimed the Katrina stories were part of a liberal 'media template.' The irony would have been laughable if the story wasn't so serious," he said.
Naturally, Sykes attacked the Milwaukee Magazine piece as part of a liberal conspiracy, a point that the magazine's editor, Bruce Murphy, made in his editor's column.
For those of you who are intrigued by talk radio and what makes it tick, you can read Shelley's whole story at <font>www.milwaukeemagazine.com</font>.

Now we know. (Or do we??!!!)

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Calm whisper of the praying which heighth of the celebration noise you inform: The Exaggerator (... and forget thou not The Exaggerator Collection)

Doesn't Joseph Farah (and WorldNetDaily) seem a little ODD?

2008-11-26T13:42:02Z

ConWebBlog, under the headline "Farah Can't Handle Criticism," takes note of yet another example of how the so-called "WorldNetDaily" is unwilling to face up to criticism so directed vis-a-vis its supposed journalistic integrity (or want thereof), its Neoconservative/Fascist bias and "spin," and its deluded egotism against the so-called "Liberal Media Conspiracy" as may conceal projection:

As we found out, Joseph Farah is desperate to disparage and discredit any and all criticism of WorldNetDaily.
Farah's latest target, as detailed in his Nov. 25 column: Kevin Hulten, a blogger for a weekly newspaper in Wisconsin. Writing about someone who forwarded a Nov. 11 WND article by Bob Unruh about how "members of a pro-homosexual, pro-anarchy organization" interrupted a church service in Michigan, Hulten stated: "The mere fact that you reference a 'story' from a site that purports to be 'A free press for a free people' and then in the next breath complains that no news outlets have covered the purported attack should tell you that upon deeper examination that even you know that the old WorldNetDaily is not an acceptable source of information."
Of course, as we've repeatedly detailed, Hulten's basic premise is correct. But that didn't stop Farah from going off the handle. Farah called Hulten's paper (as he did with the Huffington Post, where our article on WND that incured Farah's wrath appeared) "insignificant," a "pathetic journalistic institution" and "that rag," and denigrated Hulten (as he did with us) by calling him a "simpleton" and someone "who pontificates on things he doesn't understand in between blogging about high school football games." He engaged in his usual manhood-measuring game (as he did with us), complaining that the paper's website "provides no place on its website where readers can evaluate the relative experience of its top management and staff." And he engages in his usual disingenuous defense of WND.
Farah wrote that "WND based its Nov. 11 story, written by a 30-year veteran of the Associated Press, by the way, on five separate sources and has yet to be questioned by anyone with any knowledge of the report." In fact, Unruh's account of the church protest is based solely on one person, a right-wing blogger, Nick DeLeeuw. The other sources Unruh cites--a press release from the church, and right-wing activsts Randy Thomasson, Gary Glenn, and the Catholic League's Bill Donohue (the church in question is not Catholic)--are commenting on the incident, not corroborating DeLeeuw's acount. Further, as we've detailed, Unruh's work for WND has produced articles so deficient in journalistic balance and ethics that they would never pass muster at his old employer, the AP.
Nowhere, however, did Farah respond to this statement by Hulten:
This is another important sign to note when evaluating your potential media gathering sites: if investigative articles are followed by attempts to propagandize the conclusions reached in said article with the profits headed directly towards the authors, then this is not a good sign. Not good at all.

The beauty of today's electronic age is that we all have the ability to evaluate the worth of any given form of media, and to discard it if it doesn't live up to certain standards.

It has become extremely popular in some circles to blame the media for all the ills that society faces, especially in the political realm. I often wonder if this media spite is a backlash from partisans who are just a little [N4BSK]ed that certain media members uncovered a little too much dirt about their party favorites.

That said, in today's media world, if you don't like the point of view provided by the source you're evaluating, then you are free to navigate your way to a provider that lines up with the way that you see the world.

But therein lies the rub: if we all surrender the middle ground in attempt to find "media" sources that line up with a certain ideology, how will we ever know what is true anymore?

That, dear reader, is why you get the Lake Stevens Journal in your mailbox every Wednesday.
Further, contrary to Farah's claim that "I still care about truth - and fighting for it everywhere," WND has a long history of lying to and misleading its readers.
We, by the way, are linked to in Farah's column as an example of the "medium-size venues" that have criticized WND. Though WND graciously published our response to Farah at WND, he has yet to comment further on it or actually substantively rebut any specific claim we've made about WND.
Instead, Farah has apparently decided that all criticism of him and WND is not legitimate; he laments in this column that "it seems like everyone wants to take a shot at me and my news agency." Of course, Farah is not shy about passing judgment on other news organizations--usually for daring to express an opinion about WND that is insufficiently praiseworthy.
If you dish it out, shouldn't you be able to take it? Farah demonstrates that he can't.

And in the conservative Weltanschauung, how should readers expect to (quoting Mr. Farah) "evaluate the relative experience of its top management and staff"? What sort of formula do they have in mind? Does it involve the exercise of crimestop, blackwhite and doublethink, Orwellian police-state stylee, let alone pretending to stupidity and calling it being "goodthoughtful"?

One Thing More: Like John McCain previously, could Joseph "WorldNetDaily" Farah be a little ODD? (And no, I'm not talking about the Odd Fellows here.)

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Calm whisper of the praying which heighth of the celebration noise you inform: The Exaggerator (...and forget thou not The Exaggerator Collection)

Drill! Drill! Drill!

2008-12-04T22:47:29Z

Fox & Friends continue to beat the drum of drilling for more domestic oil. Coincidentally, this issue was identified as a "lifeline" Republican talking point in campaign '08.

conservative propaganda at Brave New Films

Now they can be told: The secrets of conservative talkback radio

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