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BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.
This thread is long overdue. The subject of right wing media, its reach and the effect it has on the average U.S. citizen's thought process keeps coming up over and over again all over D&D, especially in the weekly election thread that Joementum runs. It causes a lot of de-rails and clouds a lot of discussion, to the point where it obviously deserves its own thread. Several SA posters have expressed interest in such an idea, but no one has started a thread specifically dedicated tot the topic. I've promised to do it several times so here it is, finally.

I think the psychological effect of media outlets like FOX News and AM talk radio (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Neil Boortz, etc.) is much more profound and psychologically effective at framing the national political discourse than most liberals around here would care to admit or acknowledge. To most of us, it all seems like a joke, and it largely is, but there's a reason that our current president, who has governed slightly to the left of Ronald Reagan throughout his first term, is the first thing people think of when they hear the word "socialist". There's a reason that roughly 40% of Republican voters still aren't sure where Barrack Obama was born and what his religion is. There's a reason that most Americans think that their taxes have been raised over the last 3.5 years. There's a reason that people believe that ACORN and the Black Panthers decided the 2008 election and that voter ID laws are necessary in order to prevent widespread voter fraud that doesn't exist. There's a reason that people think that poor people drive Hummers and eat lobsters paid for by their sweet, sweet welfare checks and food stamps and that most of those people are black. "Obama-phones", a program started 19 years ago, has become a meme, and was even featured in GOP campaign ads, for a reason.

I honestly think that the reason for all of these things is due to the influence of right wing media. It's way more pervasive, effective and far-reaching than logical people here give it credit for. They tell lies with impunity every day and speak as if those untruths are accepted facts. Eventually they do become facts, at least for those that sit in cubicles and have radios on while they work. I listen to these shows from time to time, for as long as I can stand it anyway, and these people are horrible in ways that are truly poisonous to the way that average people view reality and their lives. I can't tolerate listening to it or watching it for longer than 5 minutes, yet I know a lot of people who fill their heads with it for 8 - 12 hours day.

Let's take a look at the heavyweights of this phenomenon:

Rush Limbaugh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh

The grandaddy of right wing carnival barking and the most listened to radio show in the country. A disturbingly large percentage of the population receive their news from this man for 4 hours every day and think that he is the only person with a voice and who possesses the courage to tell them the truth. They laud him as a hero and a champion of the voiceless, oppressed, white, christian silent majority. When I first heard his show back in 1991, I thought it was a parody - and it was - until he started making money. Now he has supplanted Howard Stern as the king of radio.

His racist, xenophobic and verbal diarrhea are a matter of public record and very well documented. He could have his own thread all by himself.

He is now dead.

Sean Hannity:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Hannity

Probably the second most trusted and popular right wing creep currently polluting our airwaves. The guy is the walking definition of a corporate shill and a sanctimonious prick who will do anything for a dollar and comes off like a used car salesman or infomercial spokesman every time you hear him speak. He lies with impunity ever single day, shouts down his interview subjects for refusing to answer loaded questions along the lines of "have you stopped beating your wife" and he and his callers jerk each other off taking turns calling each other "Great Americans", so long as they tow the Republican line and regurgitate talking points into each other's mouths and ears ever day.

His show on FOX News used to be called "Hannity and Colmes", where he kept a supposedly left wing counter voice around to appear fair and balanced, but has since been re-named "Hannity!", exclamation point included.

Neal Boortz:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Boortz

This guy used to make a certain amount of sense as a sort of libertarian alternative to assholes like Rush and Sean. He used to rail against Bush as much as he did Bill Clinton and was an early champion and proponent of The Fair Tax initiative. I think he's responsible for a much of its popularity. These days, he's almost entirely open about his racism, regularly calls our President and his economic policies "Marxist", "Socialist" and "anti-capitalist". He's retiring in December and since he announced it, seems to not give one single gently caress at all how loudly his racist dog whistles sound or any ramifications that might result from any of the horrible bullshit he says. To prove he's not the racist jerk he really is, his show will be taken over by Herman Cain. One of the good ones.

Michael Savage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Savage

This dude is probably the worst of the worst. He's most famous for telling a gay caller on his short-lived TV show to "get AIDS and die, you sodomite" which led to the cancellation of his show. His real name is Michael Weiner and he hates it when anyone tells him that or addresses him by that name. He's sort of the white, male Jewish version of Ann Coulter, who, like her, is so far out and antagonistic that it should be obvious to anyone paying attention that they're just in it to make money, and they've figured out a way to do it by just being professional trolls who took their shtick outside of internet message boards. Mike Savage is truly horrible in a way that Coulter can't compete with because he seems so deadly serious about it.

Glen Beck:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck

This guy's star has fallen dramatically since his peak of teaching us all how Bill Ayers, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mussolini all somehow conspired to elect Barrack Obama. He's most famous for demonstrating this by writing on a chalkboard and crying every night and, over this time, largely succeeded in convincing about 30% of the population that fascism is a left wing political ideology, Hitler was an extreme leftist and that Barrack Obama was an extreme leftist, bent on fascism, who wanted to destroy America.

He finally became so insufferable that even FOX News couldn't air him any more as an increasing number of advertisers refused to have their ads aired on his show lest they be in any way associated with him and his bullshit.

...

God, I can't believe I posted that whole OP and didn't mention Matt Drudge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Drudge

http://drudgereport.com/

This guy is sort of the godfather of of conservative internet news the way Rush is to radio. A lot of conservatives I know have The Drudge Report as their start up page. He sort of sets the table, even more than Limbaugh, for whatever the conservative agenda is for the day that all the radio shows and FOX will follow and hit on.

The National Review:

A right wing tabloid with an inexplicable reputation for sophisticated, intellectual conservatism. Founded by William Buckley, National Review got its start in the fifties defending segregation, and it's all been down hill from there. Home of pseudo-intellectual hacks such as Jonah "Liberal Fascism" Goldberg, Mark "OOGITY BOOGITY MUSLIMS" Steyn, and Suzanne "Stop the war on men" Venker. Its role in the right wing noise machine seems to be to take the talking points of guys like Limbaugh and Hannity and give them an air of legitimacy by paraphrasing them with big words, using its intellectual reputation to turn it into a Serious Thing that Serious People need to Seriously Consider.

Also notable for the National Review Cruise, offering the opportunity to pay thousands of dollars to spend a week trapped on a boat with a bunch of conservative hacks.

...

As more and more money rolled in and the idea of the persecuted white conservative rebel began to take hold, more and more copycats continue to try and repeat the successful model made famous by some of the people I listed above. It really is bad. These people have not only polluted and virtually rendered invalid the concept of real and honest journalism, but they've managed to convince a disturbingly large percentage of the population that honest journalism, fact checking, sourcing and confirmation are pointy headed pursuits, championed by unpatriotic geeks, part of a left wing conspiracy and that intellectualism is something worthy of scorn and distrust.

Even worse, as FOX News has become more and more popular (the highest rated cable news outlet in the world in fact), based almost entirely on the idea that all other news media was "liberally biased", once respectable news outlets have not only begun to bend over backwards to avoid reporting the truth in an effort to shield themselves from this perception, but they've begun to copy FOX's model in an effort to attract ratings; becoming more sensationalistic in thier reporting and inviting more and more right wing "journalists" on their panels to "balance" their coverage.

It's really sad. Since the removal of The Fairness Doctrine by Ronald Reagan, the right wing media machine has really succeeded in moving the Overton Window, over time, so far to the right that it has genuinely affected the national discourse, the language people use, and the way people view news, information and certainly the role of government. I don't think this success and its effects can be overstated. Read any comments section of your local news website, the letters to the editor section of your local newspaper, or just listen to your friends or folks you overhear talking in a bar or restaurant.



...

This thread is for monitoring right wing radio, TV and websites, reporting and posting examples of outrageous claims and stupid and demonstrably false statements made by same, bolstered by screen caps and audio clips debunking the lies they say, and offering your own observations, wiki-links and what have you of anyone I haven't mentioned. Also, for anyone who thinks that the "left wing media" does the same thing all the time, this thread is for you to provide those examples and to source your claims.

edit: added Matt Drudge.

BiggerBoat fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Feb 18, 2021

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Heck Yes! Loam!
Nov 15, 2004

a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.
We needed this thread. The other threads get bogged down by it, and the only other thread it fits into is the chain email thread. Thanks for the effort!

Gunshow Poophole
Sep 14, 2008

OMBUDSMAN
POSTERS LOCAL 42069




Clapping Larry
It's a bit of a departure from the "mouthpiece" type of personality you've listed out, but I think Roger Ailes deserves inclusion in the heavy hitters list. He's was hired along with a lot of other NBC employees to create and launch the propaganda network we know as Fox News. He was a political consultant on the Nixon and Reagan campaigns and contributed to GW Bush's victory.

Also yes, thank you for spinning this topic into a new thread, it's a huge factor in every political, social and economic issue in the United States.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.
Cross posting from the 2012 election thread, but here's what I heard today:

Rush was just on the air telling me that the media narrative for tonight is already set and they're already predetermined to call the debate for Obama and run their "Comeback Kid" headlines. Of course he also tells me that "the media" is already in the tank for Obama and all that poo poo too so here's a grain of salt to go with my post.

He said that "Romney will have to mop the floor with Obama tonight for the media to declare him the winner", ignoring that the media honestly acknowledged Obama's defeat in the last debate and somehow called the VP debate a draw. How badly would Obama have to destroy Romney tonight in order for Limbaugh or Hannity to admit that he won?

este
Feb 17, 2004

Boing!
Dinosaur Gum
Is Bill O'Reilly no longer part of the Axis of Evil Liberty?

Heck Yes! Loam!
Nov 15, 2004

a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

BiggerBoat posted:

Cross posting from the 2012 election thread, but here's what I heard today:

Rush was just on the air telling me that the media narrative for tonight is already set and they're already predetermined to call the debate for Obama and run their "Comeback Kid" headlines. Of course he also tells me that "the media" is already in the tank for Obama and all that poo poo too so here's a grain of salt to go with my post.

He said that "Romney will have to mop the floor with Obama tonight for the media to declare him the winner", ignoring that the media honestly acknowledged Obama's defeat in the last debate and somehow called the VP debate a draw. How badly would Obama have to destroy Romney tonight in order for Limbaugh or Hannity to admit that he won?

Ha, You actually think they wold ever admit that? Not a chance. Romney dance on a burning american flag while doing lines of coke off a gay prostitute, and they would say he was better than Obama. There is no rational thought behind what they say.

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

este posted:

Is Bill O'Reilly no longer part of the Axis of Evil Liberty?

He's now considered one of the "reasonable ones" because the Overton window has moved so far. He and Jon Stewart joke around these days. He's on The View and poo poo so liberals are somehow cool with him. He's as much of a dick as anyone I posted in my OP but, and as largely responsible for the coarsening of modern political discourse as anyone I can think of, but he's obviously happy enough now to coast on his accomplishments on into retirement and leave the bullshit to younger and more eager beavers.

Reminder that Bill O'Reilly was one of the first media figures to openly call out victims of 9/11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BAFb97L3KU

He's a human turd just like almost everyone else on FOX.

Ogmius815
Aug 25, 2005
centrism is a hell of a drug

este posted:

Is Bill O'Reilly no longer part of the Axis of Evil Liberty?

In comparison to the people on that list O'Reilly is a very reasonable person.

Stanos
Sep 22, 2009

The best 57 in hockey.
It's a shame whatever caused Michael Savage to become such a bitter man happened because he used to do a show on Friday where it was a bit folksy and he'd tell stories about his childhood and his past. It was a lot more interesting in that Garrison Keillor type of way. Sucks about his disgusting views however.

fade5
May 31, 2012

by exmarx
You mention Ann Coulter under Michael Savage entry, she should probably get her own entry as well, just because she is probably going to come up a LOT.

Another thing that should probably be mentioned is freerepublic and conservapedia, along with links to their mock threads.

Also, I present the Boondocks with the Real Ann Coulter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1seThIG34R8
:nws: For swearing, and because it's, well, "The Boondocks".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boondocks_%28TV_series%29


I applaud you for making this thread, and hope that in 20 years we can close it as Fox goes off the air. Hey, I can dream can't I?

Also, I noticed a couple of spelling errors in your post: tot instead of to in the first paragraph, and "Barrack Obama" in the second paragraph.

LET'S DO THIS!:black101:

fade5 fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Oct 17, 2012

agarjogger
May 16, 2011
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/
http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insurrection-timeline

This is absolutely my favorite topic. These people are an electoral backstop to the GOP, tens of millions strong, a bloc which seriously limits the extent to which the Republicans can ever be made to pay for all the poo poo they break. Anyone whose picture of real America doesn't acknowledge the masses of casual, weekend-warrior fascists-in-training nurtured by talk radio has only the loosest of grasps on our politics.

The most important in American politics is this: when WHATE 105.3 and QFAG 790 go off the air, will their listeners forget these terrible ideas and allow some safer ones to make their way in? Or are they ring-wing converts for life. Do they believe this poo poo enough to aggress in the name of it?

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

Stanos posted:

It's a shame whatever caused Michael Savage to become such a bitter man happened because he used to do a show on Friday where it was a bit folksy and he'd tell stories about his childhood and his past. It was a lot more interesting in that Garrison Keillor type of way. Sucks about his disgusting views however.

His bitterness is contrived and driven solely by profit. Don't feel sorry for him. His "folksy stories" just turned out to be less lucrative than being a screaming, antagonistic, bile spewing jerk. That's really all there is to it. If singing peace and love folk songs and telling stories about his childhood made him any money, he'd be well tot he left of Michale Moore.

paranoid randroid
Mar 4, 2007
I get the distinct impression Coulter's on the wane, mostly due to simple redundance. I remember back in like 2004, she was the outrageous commentator. The old school lefty blogs like Sadly, No and Hullabaloo et al spent a disproportionate amount of time kneading their foreheads about her.

Nowadays she's practically a footnote. Oh, wacky Auntie Ann went and called half the electorate filth undeserving of death. How quaint, considering that we gone and loving elected people to national office that say the exact same thing and can have people nodding along as if they aren't complete lunatics. She ain't an outsider anymore, she's the mainstream. Can't score readers through sheer shock value anymore, because she isn't shocking. Same deal with Michelle Malkin, the poor man's Coulter. The market's glutted with their sort, and they're slipping away.

duck monster
Dec 15, 2004

fade5 posted:

I applaud you for making this thread, and hope that in 20 years we can close it as Fox goes off the air. Hey, I can dream can't I?

I always find myself wanting to appologize to americans and brits for inflicting Rupert Murdoch on you guys. Sorry, this is australias fault :(

Dudes completely loving with the political discourse here in australia too. Owns 70% of the print media and in my view is almost entirely responsible for australias decline from a euro style liberal welfare democracy in the early 90s into a racist loving rat trap in 2012

20 years of hysterical headlines about "welfare cheats", "muslim extremists", "communist labor/union conspiracies" etc will do that to a country.

duck monster fucked around with this message at 01:13 on Oct 17, 2012

BiggerBoat
Sep 26, 2007

Don't you tell me my business again.

fade5 posted:



Also, I noticed a couple of spelling errors in your post: tot instead of to in the first paragraph, and "Barrack Obama" in the second paragraph.



Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of typos. I can't type for poo poo. I read it over and had my wife read it too so we did the best we could. Hopefully, people will get over it and forgive me. PM me what you find and I'll go back in the OP and edit it.

Thanks.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

duck monster posted:

20 years of hysterical headlines about "welfare cheats", "muslim extremists", "communist labor/union conspiracies" etc will do that to a country.

It's not like Europe is that much different these days anyway.

(to tie this into the topic, are we only discussing American media or would UK/Euro stuff also be fair game?)

SpRahl
Apr 22, 2008

Ogmius815 posted:

In comparison to the people on that list O'Reilly is a very reasonable person.

No he's really not. I know that its apparently the thing now to call O'reilly one of the good less bad ones but he has done just as much harm as the others. He may not be as crazy as Beck, as insufferable as Rush or as smug as Hannity but he is still part of the problem

particle409
Jan 15, 2008

Thou bootless clapper-clawed varlot!
While not new (or a US publication), here's a fun song about one of the conservative rags in the UK.

The Daily Mail Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

edit:
Oh yeah, in case anybody missed it, here's a rawstory.com article on Fox's analysis of the VP debate.

Fox News psychiatrist wonders if Biden is suffering from dementia (video in article)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/14/fox-news-psychiatrist-wonders-if-biden-is-suffering-from-dementia/

Basically, contributor Dr. Keith Ablow says that he'd have to put dementia down in the differential when looking at Biden's performance.

particle409 fucked around with this message at 01:41 on Oct 17, 2012

jimmyjams
Jan 10, 2001


King Kong of Megadongs
Gobblin' them mega schlongs
Makin' sure they mega long
Stroke' 'em if they mega strong
A thread about right-wing media can't be complete without a reference to the old marxist concept of cultural hegemony:

Wikipedia posted:

Cultural hegemony is the sociological theory, by the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, which proposes that a culturally diverse society can be dominated (ruled) by one social class, whose dominance is achieved by manipulating the societal culture (beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, mores) so that its ruling-class worldview is imposed as the societal norm, which every social class then perceives as a universally valid ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo — as natural, inevitable, and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.

Which describes right-wing media pretty well I think - a bunch of millionaires manipulating as much of the working class as possible into believing "what's good for us is good for you" in order to justify the status quo and keep people from wanting things like universal healthcare or better labor laws or higher taxes on the wealthy.

Sydney Bottocks
Oct 15, 2004
Probation
Can't post for 61 days!

duck monster posted:

I always find myself wanting to appologize to americans and brits for inflicting Rupert Murdoch on you guys. Sorry, this is australias fault :(

Dudes completely loving with the political discourse here in australia too. Owns 70% of the print media and in my view is almost entirely responsible for australias decline from a euro style liberal welfare democracy in the early 90s into a racist loving rat trap in 2012

20 years of hysterical headlines about "welfare cheats", "muslim extremists", "communist labor/union conspiracies" etc will do that to a country.

I'm not a UK native, but it seems like he's had much the same impact on their news there, too, at least in the print media, anyways. I'm amazed it took a cellphone hacking scandal (involving what is mostly a dying news format, and certainly a very minor part of Murdoch's empire, to boot) to finally present any kind of a threat to Murdoch's rule. But sadly he still hasn't been completely toppled yet. :sigh:

Back here in the USA, Bill Maher had a good blog post here that mentioned how appealing right-wing media is to the conservative mindset. He was primarily focusing on how partisan pollsters like Rasmussen are starting to skew their results to be what conservatives want to hear; but he makes a good point in that so many conservatives are in this enclosed bubble nowadays, where they don't hear any news that doesn't originate from a right-wing biased source, and so consider anything that doesn't jibe with that worldview to be erroneous at best and outright false at worst.

Bill Maher posted:

When we talk about the conservative bubble, we’re generally talking about the Fox-Rush-Drudge information bubble, and the people who reside in it. This is the information loop that allows any willing right-winger to live in a world where the opinions they already are the only ones that get recited back to them, and the opinions they will one day have get fed to them so they can later recite them and hear them being recited back again, and around and around we go, all without any having to hear any opposing viewpoints expressed beyond – possibly – those of tokens like Kirsten Powers and that old school Irish Dem who periodically loses it and tells Sean Hannity to go gently caress himself. I think his name is Bob Beckel or something. And I’d like his job some day.

If you’re a conservative, wherever you turn, the bubble is there. If you want to get your news on TV, you have Fox. If you’re the type who frequents talk radio, there’s Rush, along with a dozen other Rush clones. If you want to get your news online, you get all the links you want to read assembled for you by Matt Drudge, complete with misleading headlines, bad pictures of Hillary Clinton and Michele Obama, and a smattering of racism. Anywhere a Republican wants to turn for news, there’s a friendly face. And by “friendly” I mean the “smiling veneer over the contemptible inner core.”

fade5
May 31, 2012

by exmarx

BiggerBoat posted:

Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of typos. I can't type for poo poo. I read it over and had my wife read it too so we did the best we could. Hopefully, people will get over it and forgive me. PM me what you find and I'll go back in the OP and edit it.

Thanks.

Actually, that was all I noticed, everything else looks good. I couldn't PM you anyway, I don't have platinum:v:.

Really, I guess we should have Mitt Romney in the OP as well, at least until he loses in November. Yes, he will lose. gently caress this country if an rear end in a top hat like him can win the presidency.

ChrisAsmadi
Apr 19, 2007
:D

particle409 posted:

While not new (or a US publication), here's a fun song about one of the conservative Rupert Murdoch rags in the UK.

The Daily Mail Song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI

The Daily Mail isn't owned by Murdoch.

particle409
Jan 15, 2008

Thou bootless clapper-clawed varlot!

ChrisAsmadi posted:

The Daily Mail isn't owned by Murdoch.

I wasn't sure and was just too lazy to check. Serves me right.

Zewle
Aug 12, 2005
Delaware Defense Force Janitor
I nominate Talk Radio Hero Mark Levin.

I've heard only ~10 minutes of his show from being in my dads car. He just strings together a series of dubious premises that are never actually explained or justified in an impressively constructed cadence full of pathos, ethos, and absolutely no logos. Among the more unsettling parts was him playing an obviously professionally made ad claiming and desperately assuring it was made by high-schoolers and college students that was a generic rightwing shill ad, but had alleged teenagers clamoring for "Reagan principles" that even built up to the requiem for a dream theme. It was creepy propaganda because this is clearly trying to make baby boomers think teenagers are particularly conservative or yearning for "Reagan principles".

You could use trig functions to map when he'll have a NPR whisper or be shouting. He is so goddamned creepy; he sounds and talks like the camera voice from facialabuse.com

Vladimir Poutine
Aug 13, 2012
:madmax:

computer parts posted:

It's not like Europe is that much different these days anyway.

(to tie this into the topic, are we only discussing American media or would UK/Euro stuff also be fair game?)

In some ways, the global situation, but particularly the UK and Australia, provide plenty of context. It was only about 15 years or so ago when News Limited newspapers actually supported the major left wing party in Australia. Turns out their policies weren't so billionaire-friendly and the Murdoch papers changed their tune.

The relationship between Murdoch and the Labor Party of Australia is fairly complicated, as this article from 1994 when they were still bedfellow shows:

quote:

Since he established himself as a newspaper proprietor in Sydney 30 years ago, Rupert Murdoch has unashamedly used such flattery to back political winners, only to dump them when he was convinced that they were washed up or that his newspapers might be left dangerously stranded on the losing side of politics.

The most notorious example was his brief flirtation with Gough Whitlam, who led Labor to power in 1972, displacing the Liberal(conservative) government after 23 years. The circumstances were roughly analogous to those in Britain in 1994: a tired, ailing conservative administration with which voters were disenchanted, and a revamped Labor opposition with a personable, intelligent leader offering new ideas.

A year before the 1972 campaign, Murdoch invited Whitlam to dinner at the Hungry Horse, an aptly titled Sydney restaurant where Murdoch was a habitue. 'How do we get rid of this government at the next elections?' he asked his guest. Murdoch donated money to Labor's campaign and even helped design its press advertisements. When Whitlam won, Murdoch claimed he had 'single-handedly put the present government into office' - a grandiose claim echoed by the Sun after John Major's victory last year.

But just 3 years later...

quote:

When the Whitlam government disintegrated three years later, amid scandals and economic mismanagement, Murdoch turned his newspapers vitriolically against it. Although public opinion against Whitlam was already running high, the impact of the Murdoch campaign contributed to Labor's crashing 1975 election defeat.

quote:

For the next eight years, Murdoch supported the federal conservative government under Malcolm Fraser, who, like him, came from the heart of the Melbourne establishment. Simultaneously, the state Labor government of New South Wales, in 1979, awarded the licence to run a lucrative gambling game, Lotto, to a consortium in which Murdoch and Packer had strong interests.

quote:

The present cross-media ownership rules, which Keating pushed through parliament in 1986, were aimed squarely at the main Murdoch-Packer competitors, the former Fairfax and Melbourne Herald empires, which the Labor government regarded as its real enemies.

The new rules enabled Murdoch in 1987 to take over the vast Melbourne Herald group, which his father once ran, and to achieve an unprecedented domination of Australia's newspaper industry. To the continuing discomfort of centre-left Labor MPs, who still remember his turncoat tactics against Gough Whitlam, Murdoch and Packer became embraced as business 'mates' of the Labor government during the Eighties.

That was the last time the Murdoch press really backed the Labor government, and the Labor party had moved firmly to the right just to get a suck at the Murdoch teat. As the conservatives in Australia continued to support Murdoch through legislation over the past 15 years or so, Murdoch continued to move to the right.

The reason I'm posting this in a thread about US media is because I'm convinced that the demise of Murdoch's shaky relationship with the Australian Labor party and increased support from the right is the reason he shifted towards the right side of politics, and therefore why a significant portion of the media in North America and the UK is right-leaning.

duck monster posted:

I always find myself wanting to appologize to americans and brits for inflicting Rupert Murdoch on you guys. Sorry, this is australias fault :(
Just wait until Gina Rinehart becomes the richest person in the world. :negative: Her whole thing is buying the media to promote Milton Friedman style Libertarianism.

Edit: added clarity.

Vladimir Poutine fucked around with this message at 05:16 on Oct 17, 2012

gnarlyhotep
Sep 30, 2008

by Lowtax
Oven Wrangler
It's a shame that most people pay attention to "the media" at all. Especially because "the media" usually means TV and radio. I know I sound like an internet generation kid, but I'm way older than that and still find I can get much more insightful news on the internet.

I think it's not so much an issue with "the media" but that the majority of adult Americans are too stupid and/or lazy to look into alternate news sources. I'm not counting those who use religion as their news.

JediTalentAgent
Jun 5, 2005
Hey, look. Look, if- if you screw me on this, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine, you rat bastard!

Zewle posted:

I nominate Talk Radio Hero Mark Levin.

...

You could use trig functions to map when he'll have a NPR whisper or be shouting. He is so goddamned creepy; he sounds and talks like the camera voice from facialabuse.com

To me he sounds like some radio signal from the 1930s to the point that it's almost haunting and unreal, like I'm half imagining that at some point Rod Serling's going to narrate something about it originating from The Twilight Zone.

Skex
Feb 22, 2012

The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

Stanos posted:

It's a shame whatever caused Michael Savage to become such a bitter man happened because he used to do a show on Friday where it was a bit folksy and he'd tell stories about his childhood and his past. It was a lot more interesting in that Garrison Keillor type of way. Sucks about his disgusting views however.

When was this the 70s because he's been awful for as long as I've known he existed. Then again if my name was Weiner I might have self esteem issues as well. He most likely got beat up too much as a kid and grew up bitter.

I propose that hence forth the right wing echo should be referred to as the Pundittosphere.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl
Nobody's mentioned Alex Jones, either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Jones_%28radio_host%29

Jones claims not to be a conservative, and he certainly isn't a Republican, but if you examine his m.o. closely he's actually much closer to the far-right in Europe and the far right of days past: he aggressively borrows political points from the left (he's against the IMF, and military intervention in general; I vaguely remember him spouting alarmist stuff during the Fukushima disaster) but it's combined with a secular end-of-days shtick, survival mentality, and barely concealed racism (Jones was a big George Zimmerman fan) that make it pretty clearly far-right. If you look closely at his points of reference and what's he's done a lot of his deal is about popularizing ideas that were important in the Militia Movement in the 1990's and repackaging them for the new political climate, specifically the New World Order and all the Waco references.
Alex Jones had a big blow-up with Glenn Beck a while ago and there were accusations that Glenn Beck was stealing Jones's act: it's entirely possible, and Beck's act was something of a mainstreaming of Jones's straight-up conspiracy mentality. The big difference is that while Beck kind of keeps people in the ever-rightward drifting center, Jones wants you to Get Out and Be Prepared for when the black helicopters show up. Beck was always kind of playing at being crazy: Jones presents this stuff like it's totally sane.
Some of Jones's stuff is blatantly crazy: the Bilderburg Group, Bohemian Grove, and lots of other conspiracy stuff you've never heard of. He'll certainly never be on Fox News, and it's tempting to say it's all kind of harmless kookery. But his fans don't think so, and he has real overlaps with the mainstream as represented by Fox News. There's also the same journey ready there for the reader. Infowars.com has the more mainstream stuff: the real weirdness is in the mail-away videos. In the meantime, Jones does endorsements for organic food (the survivalist tie-in) and gold trading. Jones is a big ideological link between what looks like the mainstream populist right and the bona fide far-right.
The problem with this stuff isn't that it can just turn people into cranks, or even Patriot Movement people or whatever. It's also a big canalization of real popular anger about the government into death fantasies and paranoia. Jones mostly doesn't politically motivate people: he demobilizes them, tells them to wait for poo poo to Go Down and that the world is controlled by powerful forces beyond their control. But he's also playing a dangerous game.

Roadside_Picnic fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Oct 17, 2012

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
I don't think Fox News, AM radio, etc. really shape public opinion that much, I think they really just tap into a market for people who want to have their opinions/biases confirmed. Just like you go to church and listening to the sermon helps you to maintain your faith, listening to Rush Limbaugh every day maintains your faith in your politics. Rarely is either going to convert nonbelievers, the goal is just to keep the masses energized.

Dyatlov Bass
Apr 16, 2012

by Fistgrrl

BiggerBoat posted:

the right wing media machine has really succeeded in moving the Overton Window

http://www.amazon.com/The-Overton-Window-Glenn-Beck/dp/1451625286/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350456468&sr=8-1&keywords=overton+window

:shepface:

I've read it. It's not anything like you'd expect until you realize that Glenn Beck is the greatest loving troll that ever lived. Or just batshit insane. The protagonist is a self-insert Mary Sue and his plucky squeeze is basically Glenn Beck's television/radio persona with a vagina. It's honestly the most bizarre thing I'd ever read, and I've seen poo poo.

Anyhoo, I feel like Bill "gently caress It, We'll Do It Live" O'Reilly deserves a spot on that unholy pantheon for basically mastering the art of ruling any discourse by shouting it down, and literally inventing "The No-Spin Zone". He's probably one of the principle figures in the establishment of this idea that you're being fed a bunch of bullshit by the Lieberals and their left-wing media, and it's up to ol' Uncle Bill to sort through it for you. He gave Dennis Miller a name and a voice long after that unfunny shill should have been selling his body for drugs, had his own little circle-jerk with Glenn Beck for the longest time, and nowadays gets by with playing off Jon Stewart for some "street-cred", dragging the niche Greg Gutfeld out of the appropriately-named Red-Eye and into the hourly bullshit of FOX News's madhouse (The Five, the conventions, etc.), and "Watters World" which is basically Jay Walking but if Leno was instead Tobey Maguire's goony-rear end Peter Parker, interspersed with video clips which in context were probably the inspiration for the gif of the :psyduck: exploding into :ironicats:s, and all of that dragged out over ten minutes. Really, the only parts left from way back, before most of his poo poo was put up for display in the Bullshit Mountain town museum, is Talking Points Memo (worse than ever), and Pinheads & Patriots.

I could say more about how Bernie loving Goldberg has become the voice of reason on his show, or having a cameo in Iron Man 2 says something about something, but I'm pretty much rambling now. Basically, when historians write about the mind-numbing horseshit that poisoned and drowned the national discourse in America, Bill O'Reilly will be one of the horses' asses.

astrollinthepork
Sep 24, 2007

When you come at the king, you best not miss, snitch

HE KNOWS

General Dog posted:

I don't think Fox News, AM radio, etc. really shape public opinion that much, I think they really just tap into a market for people who want to have their opinions/biases confirmed. Just like you go to church and listening to the sermon helps you to maintain your faith, listening to Rush Limbaugh every day maintains your faith in your politics. Rarely is either going to convert nonbelievers, the goal is just to keep the masses energized.

This is what the minimal effects model suggests, but it's really difficult to believe. I see too many people go loony for infowars and Limbaugh after being relatively sane.

Animal-Mother
Feb 14, 2012

RABBIT RABBIT
RABBIT RABBIT
Remember back at the beginning of his term when Obama was saying that Limbaugh is the unelected leader of the Republican party? And some GOP congressman denied that, but within 48 hours offered profuse apologies to Rush for any perceived disrespect? I wish the president had kept bringing that up.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

astrollinthepork posted:

This is what the minimal effects model suggests, but it's really difficult to believe. I see too many people go loony for infowars and Limbaugh after being relatively sane.

Okay, I'll be real for a second. As a conservative and a Christian, I lie to myself ever day. I know that my entire worldview is probably wrong, but it's a big scary world our there, and regardless of the facts I'm not willing change everything I believe in- everything I am. Fortunately, there's a ton of sources that I can go to that will equip me with the spin, half-truths, and misinformation that I need to go on another day. I think that's where the market for this stuff is. It's preaching to the choir. It's likely that these "sane" people you knew got too immersed in it and lost their self awareness.

Konstantin
Jun 20, 2005
And the Lord said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.
Keep in mind that these people broadcast their messages over the radio using the public airwaves. These are a common resource, and in order for radio stations to get licensed by the FCC they are required by law to use them for the "public interest, convenience and necessity". I really wish the FCC would enforce their own principles on this, rather than just stand idly by while a bunch of extremists take over a resource that is supposed to be used for the public good.

Roadside_Picnic
Jun 7, 2012

by Fistgrrl

Seoinin posted:

I get the distinct impression Coulter's on the wane, mostly due to simple redundance. I remember back in like 2004, she was the outrageous commentator. The old school lefty blogs like Sadly, No and Hullabaloo et al spent a disproportionate amount of time kneading their foreheads about her.

Nowadays she's practically a footnote. Oh, wacky Auntie Ann went and called half the electorate filth undeserving of death. How quaint, considering that we gone and loving elected people to national office that say the exact same thing and can have people nodding along as if they aren't complete lunatics. She ain't an outsider anymore, she's the mainstream. Can't score readers through sheer shock value anymore, because she isn't shocking. Same deal with Michelle Malkin, the poor man's Coulter. The market's glutted with their sort, and they're slipping away.

Malkin's a lot more loathsome than she's often given credit for. She made her stripes defending Japanese-American internment in the middle of the War on Terror anti-muslim stuff.

Good Citizen
Aug 12, 2008

trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump
Glad to see this thread. I have satellite radio in my car and live in Arizona so we get all manner of totally off-the-rails AM radio stations as well. I hate it but it's also like all that I listen to lately because it's just so nuts, especially the call-ins. Cultivating an absolutely lunatic fringe and then accepting random call-ins from those people is this weird train-wreck style amusement that I just can't look away from. At this point I'm practically a connoisseur of crazy radio personalities.

I've heard a lot of crazy poo poo live, including the SA is CIA rant on Glenn Beck, but nothing so far beats the Laura Schlessinger friend of the family rant. If you haven't heard it before, listen to this audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAD-PipXGwA

I heard that poo poo live while driving to lunch and spent the entire time with mouth agape wondering if I just heard what I thought I heard. It was so surreal that I couldn't believe what I just heard.




Also, if we're listing completely over-the-top right wing caricatures, Mark Levin deserves a mention. That dude is the most weaselly sounding person I've ever heard on the radio. Since we're linking wikipedia here he is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Levin


Also, Andrew Wilkow deserves a mention as well. He's more libertarian than strictly right wing but he's responsible for the most abhorrent rant I've heard on right wing radio. He went on a 10 minute rant about how minorities breed like animals and that social safety nets are only prepared to deal with people who operate on human standards that just left me speechless. I really can't put into words how I felt hearing that speech. Again, linking here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wilkow

Good Citizen fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Oct 17, 2012

icantfindaname
Jul 1, 2008


General Dog posted:

Okay, I'll be real for a second. As a conservative and a Christian, I lie to myself ever day. I know that my entire worldview is probably wrong, but it's a big scary world our there, and regardless of the facts I'm not willing change everything I believe in- everything I am. Fortunately, there's a ton of sources that I can go to that will equip me with the spin, half-truths, and misinformation that I need to go on another day. I think that's where the market for this stuff is. It's preaching to the choir. It's likely that these "sane" people you knew got too immersed in it and lost their self awareness.

Yes but the problem is that these people are like 30% of the voting public. People like Rush channel their political energy and turn it into results by getting them to vote the party line in every election, down to the smallest. These people would still exist without right wing shills to tell them how to think and how to vote, of course, but I have a feeling they would be a much less potent political force without them.

What's somewhat more disturbing is that Limbaugh is in many ways just the kingpin of a huge network of smaller conservative hosts that operate on the local level. I actually think these guys are more of a problem than the big names because they propagate conservatism at the local level. For example Mark Belling [http://www.belling.com/] is the local right wing troll for me. His shows are basically Limbaugh in miniature, with slandering of any local politicians with a D near their name, casual racism about the drat lazy blacks and the failing Milwaukee city schools, shouting down callers who disagree with him and telling people who to vote for in local elections. All the while he maintains power over local politicians by threatening to loose the hounds on them for not being conservative enough.

icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Oct 17, 2012

Grand Prize Winner
Feb 19, 2007


Doesn't our supposedly left-wing media deserve some share of the blame for not fighting the Fox News bandwagon? I mean, who's the leftest person on national TV right now? Maddow? Olberman? As far as I can tell they're both capitalists.

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Donkwich
Feb 28, 2011


Grimey Drawer
Lawrence O'Donnell is a self-proclaimed socialist, for what it's worth. :shrug:

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