Fox News' Militia Media: Mainstreaming The Fringe
Rupert Murdoch's all-news channel didn't debut in America until October 1996, but it's chilling to consider the what-ifs of how today's Fox News lineup of doomsday, anti-government prophets would have reacted to controversial and defining news events in the early 1990s -- like Waco.
Last week, I wrote about the inherent dangers and irresponsibility of Fox News consciously shaping itself into a kind of militia news outlet and how it's impossible to ignore the anti-government message some viewers such as Richard Poplawski, the man accused of shooting and killing three Pittsburgh police officers, might be taking from Fox News.
But let's take a step back and see just how extraordinary Fox News' latest lurch to the revolutionary right really is. And let's clearly understand how Fox News is actively trying to mainstream fringe allegations, how Murdoch's outlet functions as a crucial bridge -- a transmitter -- between the radical and the everyday.
What Fox News, and specifically Beck, is doing in early 2009 is giving a voice -- a national platform -- to the same deranged, hard-core haters who hounded the new, young Democratic president in the early 1990s in the wake of Waco (i.e. the Clinton Chronicles crowd). What Fox News is doing today is embracing the same kind of hate rhetoric and doomsday conspiratorial talk that flourished during the '90s, and Fox News is now dumping all that rancid stuff into the mainstream. It's legitimizing accusatory hate speech in a way no other television outlet in America ever has before.
Read the full Media Matters column here.
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What's so sad is that it lumps earnest conservatives - people who care deeply about the Constitution, small government, the rights of states to self-govern, etc - in with the right wingnut lunatic fringe. Perhaps this is the whole point. I don't know.
What I do know: I'm surrounded by Conservatives baffled by, and resentful of, the lunatic fringe that purports to "represent" them. It's possible that the "neocon right wingnut" is as much a media construct as the "bolshevik liberal." Who ARE these people, these wingnut strawmen, that we love to do battle with in the bowels (of the comment section in blogs), but never seem to meet in real life?
unlike all you gosh-darned librals I really enjoy Glenn Beck and Fox News especially their 2 hour report "Invisible Muslims Are Hiding Somewhere In Your House Waiting For You To Fall Asleep So They Can Attack!"
Fox News Motto:"We're Not Part Of The Lynch Mob We're Just Here To Cover The Lynching!"
Pravda had more shame than Fox News.
Well said. It is mainstreaming the fringe. Fox could not be further from any standard of professional media. The supermarket tabloids are better grounded in reality. Fox has voluntarily become a part of the fringe with the white supremacists, militias, gun nuts, religious extremists, and other professional haters. They should be exposed until the day they finally end up in Obama's recycling bin. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta
"Mainstreaming the Fringe" is a great phrase and captures perfectly what Fox News is. It gives a megaphone to the crazies and provides the illusion, to the crazies, that they somehow are mainstream and all of America agrees with them.
It's the equivalent of making "bleep bleep" noises behind somebody that thinks they are being stalked by Aliens.
I read the article and while they review all the supposed unfair accusations against Bill Clinton, they can't give any examples of how Fox News is driving some sort of milita right wing kook extremist message. So they covered the tea parties. The increase in spending is out of control and they covered that in full during the Bush administration. Give me a break.
Um, Glenn Beck's 'War Room' special was pretty far out there for one example. And I wouldn't say they 'covered' the Tea Parties as much as they 'promoted' and 'orchestrated' them. The responsibility of journalism is to report the story, not to BE the story.
Um, it has been shown this was a grass roots effort, Fox did not "orchestrate" it
media matters...
MAJOR EPIC FAIL BY THE WINGNUTS: 250,000 GRAND TOTAL
http://www
Anybody surprised? Everything the Republicans start out doing ends up exactly the same.
I would like to see many more of these rallies and we will, the next is on the fourth of July and then another just before the next election, repubs are finally waking up and taking action and its about time, we have been ridiculed for the last eight years and have had enough.
so would I. These things keep the repubs looking like idiots.
fox news makes me laugh.....
one day.......
No kidding. I haven't been laughing much about these tea-baggers, because someone amid all those noisy, but generally peaceful people are a handful of wretches who believe this propaganda and will attempt to act on its behalf. Watch how quickly then Fox news covers its a$$!
It's sad that TV people will do ANYTHING for ratings, including push a political agenda that could in the end destroy the lives of themselves and others. By sponsoring demonstrations--no journalistic integrity at all there--they are making themselves dangerous to themselves and others. Isn't that the criteria we use before committing someone to an institution. Hey, if nothing else they're completely delusional and should be forced into counseling.
The First Amendment protects you until you incite violence. Fox News looks and sounds a lot like the pre-Rwandan genocide media.
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Last night, on Fox News, you could hear elected officials tell cheering crowds that we need a ``revolution'' while all-white audiences cheered beneath Confederate flags.
MSNBC, the so-called liberal network, is making a big mistake by playing the ``teabag'' demonstrations for laughs. You don't need many terrorists to create big trouble. Only 19 did the damage on 9-11.
The unspoken but clear message of the Fox-led demonstrations is unbalanced hatred toward a black President. Fox is leading the unhinged fringe down deeply dangerous and destructive paths. What will stop them?
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