Shock Jocks, Hate Speech and an O'Reilly Ambush

After Jenna Kern, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, decided to write an Op-Ed piece for Newsday questioning whether shock jocks and hate speech contributed to the recent murderous shooting spree in a U-U church in Tennessee, the haters started to come after her as well.

The attacks started first in the comments section of Newsday...("Hi Rory. Guess what?" Ms. Kern emailed. "Newsday has received 3,000 emails against my piece. The online forum comments at newsday.com have been 99% hateful... I actually had someone sitting in a car outside my house for a half hour. I got so freaked I called the cops!")

The hate then continued on the Newsbusters site, a project of the Media Research Center -- "the leader in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias." (Kern reports, "Wow, the blogs have gone crazy about the story I did. How did you handle all the nasty things! I don't have the stomach for it, I'm afraid.")

Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell sent a letter to Newsday Publisher Tim Knight demanding an apology for Kern's opinion piece, and insisted that she "never again appear on the pages of Newsday," stating that her article "was absolutely despicable " and the newspaper "should be ashamed and embarrassed for having printed it..." since it was "nothing more than an in-print character assassination of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, a foray into absurd Leftist delusions of links between them and the vile murderer in a Tennessee church this past July 27.

"This is not a freedom of speech issue," Bozell concluded. "This is Newsday giving this woman a license to assault these fine men in print, accusing them of complicity in murder. Newsday should immediately publish a full retraction, and an abject and absolute apology to those defamed by this woman's wretched words."

Finally, Kern was confronted in her own driveway, as her most recent email explains: "Bill O'Reilly's people ambushed me in my driveway today. With camera and microphone. I guess I'll be on the show tonight or tomorrow. This is not what I had wanted. Yikes. Wish me luck. I don't feel bad about anything I said, but he'll probably edit it to make me look like an idiot."

But before Billo had a chance to air his ambush, his cable nemesis Keith Olbermann scooped him on it on his MSBNC program...and declared O'Reilly again to be the "Worst Person in the World." I couldn't agree more!

Comments

[fishsandwichesr2good]

How can Ms. Kern expect there not to be outrage in response to her dubious linking of talk radio to these murders at the hands of a mad man? This wasn't like Al Sharpton at Crown Heights. Liberals are constantly losing in the war of ideas so they pick at the fringes in a desperate attempt to produce guilt by association. She made herself a public figure with her article so having to deal with the likes of Bill Reilly is a price she'll have to pay. Perhaps she'll think twice next time before she sullies the reputation of people in a vain attempt to score political points.

[Aramingo]

For the "crazy is as crazy does" arguement: What does one make of Manson thinking that a Paul McCartney song about a playground slide being a call to murder? What do you make of the fact that both HInkley and Chapman had well worn copies of "Catcher in the Rye" amongst their possessions? To make those connections - and I am in no way a mental health professional - to me is just nuts. But to take statements such as those described in Jenna's article one step further.... Well, I could (could should be italicised) see a connection there.

[MThomasNC]

I was appalled by the shooting incidents in TN and Ark, one at a church and other state democratic office. These acts have political ramifications. Shock Jocks, both radio and FOX, have contributed to this type of violence. Their whole marketing strategy is creating booey persons or strawmen. The booey and straw men have been liberals. Everything that has gone wrong w america is the liberals' fault. It worked for the past 30 years w electing all those conservatives. Now that folks are out of work, losing their homes, high gas prices, they are pissed off at liberals. Go figure. This is the country that conservatives have created over the past 30 years w their shock.

[Russycle]

The link to the op-ed didn't work for me, here it is for anyone interested:
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oprug135798395aug13,0,425365.story

I find it a very well written and thoughtful piece, hardly a defamatory hit job. In fact, the quotes she includes from Rush, Hannity, etc. are far more extreme than anything she implies or advocates.

[2zzday]

Bozell can't stand it because Ms. Kern used the actual words of Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilly to support her point. This is every bit a free speech issue and if it were liberal talkers and the shooter had their books Bozell would be screaming loudest and longest to hold them responsible for the actions of this crackpot!

[BigRube]

Read Jenna Kern piece. People need to be thinking about the hate that is on the air ways and the books that are out there about hate. It's not just conservatives the liberals are just as bad. The bottom line to all of this is to stop all the hate. This country is going to be completely devided if the hate is not stopped.

[magneato]

I'm with you Big Rube.
I'm not sure about libs being just as bad,though.There is a fair amount of anger from the left,
but there seem to be far more repubs on the air that spew real hate.
The stations are playing to a demographic. You know, people dumb enough to believe O'reilly and Limbaugh gives a rat's ass about them.
It would be the same if progressives wanted hate speech.They're progressive though, so they don't.

[BigRube]

If the shocks jocks don't get off the air there could be alot more of these shootings. They sure want Americans to hate each other.

[jsgaetano]

Well the dude did have Bill O'Reilly's book, as well as books from Hannity and Limbaugh.

Those guys blame crimes on video games, books, websites, etc. So using THE EXACT SAME LOGIC THEY APPLY... how could they possibly feel no culpability? Smells like hypocracy, doesn't it?

Does anyone honestly think these guys can spend years spewing hate speech, and have it NOT lead to murder? Talk about going through life with blinders on.

[susanthe]

Twenty years of hate radio (and more recently hate TV) have changed our national discourse for the worse. It's created extreme terminology, people who talk past one another, and threats of violence. Those threats come from the right - from people like Sean Hannity who said, "I"ll tell you who should be tortured and killed at Guantanamo: every filthy Democrat in the U.S. Congress." Now, O'Reilly is ambushing a woman in her driveway to prove he's not a right wing nutcase?? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

As a Unitarian Universalist myself, I was horrified by the killings at TVUU. I, too, wrote about it, in a similar but more forceful op-ed way, for a small town newspaper. I'm deeply sorry that Jenna Kern had to see everything she wrote about come to life.

[Soundofthunder]

While I disagree with the central argument of her piece - I think crazy is as crazy does - I sure as hell wouldn't condemn her for writing it, even if she saw fit to lay the blame in liberalism itself. My opinion remains as is: crazy people do crazy things and their use of this or that to justify and reinforce that craziness is as capricious as the weather in South Florida. The irony here is that the right's overreaction actually lends credence to her op-ed's précis.

SOT

[infinity]

Are you a board certified psychiatrist or psychologist to make such a "crazy" diagnosis without examining the individual? And what medical or psychiatric definition of crazy are you relying on? Were the Nazi just "crazy" to single out certain ethnic/religious groups for extermination? And what about crazy ol' Joe Stalin? Stop being an apologist for these hate mongers.

[ReelBusy]

So you disagree with her personally but feel the public reaction proves her point to be true?
Which means you're saying you are wrong.
We accept your apology.

[larry278]

In the event Bile O'Really or FAUX NOISE are again sending out camera/sound crews with a producer or wannabe talking head to play gotcha with someone who has displeased FAUX & air the clips on FAUX constantly, other camera/sound crews had been making videos of the FAUX crews playing gotcha. These crews quickly edited their videos & FAUX's rivals put the embarassing videos of FAUX crews fumbling & running away on their feeds. That kept the FAUX gotcha crews muzzled & tied up in the FAUX dog house. Anybody who dares rile FAUX would do well to view the videos of Arianna Huffington &/or Bill Moyers turning the tables on the FAUX producer/hectorer & his/her/its crew. FAUX crews haul ass when the subject of the interrogation(sp?) turns the tables on the FAUX crew & asks poined/loaded questions of the FAUX talking head. I think that the crews from FAUX's oppisition got a number of videos of the FAUX talking heads & crews as they wet their pants, the stain went down their pants legs & started dripping on the floor. Now that was TELEVISION.
As for FAUX shills writing newspapers to complain about the newspaper's contents, print the letters by making exact photo-copies of the letters as they appeared when the paper got them, complete with snot smeers, spilled brown stains, etc.

[Durango]

Wasn't Moyers great?

God Bless him!

[BethStuart]

Current events continue to overtake the printed word. Today, a high school student in Knoxville, TN shot and killed another high school student. Meanwhile, a school district in Texas has voted to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons in the classroom.

More and more, it appears that disagreements are being settled in shootouts. Perhaps it's not surprising in a society awash with guns.

[TexasDem0]

Just what you need, a teacher in the state of panic with a gun.
Assuming the average teacher is properly trained and capable to respond is delusional.

[Arithrianos]

There is no assumption that the teachers are trained, they are required to be trained by law in order to recieve the concealed weapon permit.