Glen Beck – Arch Bull Shitter. Fool or Liar? (I think Liar!)

A non-event became the source of an internet/cable flare up.   By non-event, I mean that the act that precipitated the flare up was a story about someone’s words – the words of White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn.   What she said should have raised no eyebrows, since all she did was admit what we all know to be true, that Fox is biased.

Showing how Fox is fighting back, here is the clip from Glen Beck:

To be clear – I find the Beck presentation offensive – so don’t worry, read on.

And if the claim of bias gets you upset, sorry, and please, don’t shoot back one of those numbers games that demonstrate that Fox is less biased than say CNN or some other media outlet – the right uses a very complex version of a propaganda tool called creating a straw man (a logical fallacy – though I worry when “logic” is invoke to explain things, logic is itself can be a shell game).  Again, a very complex straw man.* The right has deemed as biased  all media but their own.  So when they don’t agree with a negative story about one of their own, by citing liberal bias, the source has to defend both their story and the overall charge of bias.

I rarely watch Fox news, but I am old enough to get the point that when Rupert Murdock hired Republican media hit man, Roger Ailes to create Fox, that he meant to create the biased platform that Fox became.  Again, please don’t argue with me, yes Fox is a right-wing, Republican tool, and it and right-wing radio work hand in hand to spin the facts their way.

In the selected clip, even as he pretends to present context, Glenn Beck obscures the context and willfully misconstrues the meaning.  And note, he is not taking on the issue at hand, bias, but instead is making an attack on Anita Dunn as a person.  The clip has Ms. Dunn delivering a speech to a group a young people (a high school commencement.)  Ms. Dunn uses what turns out to be the an unfortunate quote from MaoTse Tung to explain that, yes, when times are darkest, you should still fight on for your cause.  She also cites Mother Theresa.  It was meant for rhetorical effect, but Mr. Beck pretends to take Ms. Dunn at her word, that, yes Mao is one of her heroes.  Again – it was rhetoric!

Anita Dunn is a 51 year old who has worked primarily for centrists Democrats, among them, Bill Bradley, John Glenn and now Obama.  She is not a political philosopher.  Ok, she said something that could be taken out of context – a gaff at best, but Beck and others are using this clip and other nonsense to repeat their fable (lie?) that, yes, Obama’s crew are dangerous radicals.

What is especially sad is that their audience is a stupid enough to believe it.

What Beck is doing here is “framing an argument”  - framing an argument is not analysis, but advocacy – fit for the courtroom or for the selling of soap.  Advocacy is not reportage and not news.  Reportage requires the gathering of facts and then the hard work of analysis.  In the pre-cable/internet era, if a reporter chose to review something like what happened with Anita Dunn, he or she would never have ended up with Glen Beck’s wall of  heroes – nor with a hammer and sickle on top; take a look at the clip – juxtaposition at its worst.

The earliest newspapers in the US were full of lies, but over time, journalists evolved into hard working professionals who approached each story with hard earned neutrality. The neutral approach is especially well suited to the large diverse continental nation that the US is.  Thus, the typical US journalist is anything but an advocate.  The good ones are fully capable of digesting complex and discordant raw material before spitting out their story.  But real news is expensive and takes time.  Sadly, cable and internet venues are dominated by something entirely different the news of old.  And no – print venues haven’t made too much of the Anita Dunn flap,  but most of them now have internet outlets that gladly join in the search for buzz – read the NY Times blog and its links to see how even the gray lady of journalism lets the nonsense spread.

Why have the MSM changed?

Brian and I often write about the MSM.  Brian generally analyzes the morals and psyche.  So do I most of the time, but this time I thought I’d look at the MSM as purveyors of a product – so subject to market forces and money woes!  (So no different from soda, bubble gum and IKEA furniture).

Over the decades, three major changes have occurred to the way we consume news.  The first was the entrance of cable TV as a news competitor.  The second change was the widespread use of the Internet to aggregate news. The third change was the end of the classified section (replaced by the internet).   Just as Wal-Mart stands for the replacement of small town main streets with shopping malls, so too does Craigslist stand for the destruction of the classified section, which turned out to be the last straw for the newspaper.  Yes, newspapers still survive, but if you live in a town served by a small local paper (as I do) your paper is a shell of what it once was.

First to lose were the print media – because of the loss of revenue, print media have shed pages and employees and closed down their specialist desks and remote news bureaus.  As cable moved in, broadcast media took a hit – and now, broadcast news, which was formerly a loss leader, was expected to be profitable.  Unfortunately for news, the new media outlets (cable and internet) have not assembled anything like the news infrastructure of the old days.  Where a Peter Jennings or Edward R Murrow may have gained seasoning from service in the London bureau (and Daniel Schorr from his time in Moscow) few cable figures** have anything like the reporting experience of folks from the old days.  That is fine as far as it goes.  Many get their overseas coverage from local stringers, but then something else has happened.  As the production of real news declined, news was replaced by gathering a few talking heads to give their opinions about a news item.  Even worse, much of what passes for news is talk about talk, where media types argue over the nature of the news coverage itself.  And no, newspapers haven’t stopped covering news – but the driving force behind the news business is the search for buzz (and ad clicks).  But the buzz is just a feedback loop between bloggers, the internet and cable shows.  As bloggers circulate video clips of talking heads, and talking head talk about the buzz generated by circulating clips, it’s a self-referential morass of blather.

Cable and broadcast news are curious products.  No one makes a direct purchase of either.  Both gain support by having more viewers (and more ad clicks) – and viewers are attracted by cheap buzz or “noise.”

If the exhaustive treatment represented by a New Yorker story (or by a well-researched story in the NY Times) represents high quality journalism, then buzz is the equivalent of potato chips – or the cheap furniture you can buy in IKEA.  That’s fine when you know what you are getting, but it’s a sad day when careful news vanished in a tide of junk.

I am not knocking either potato chips or Ikea.  I happily serve chips and beer at all my parties.  But my guests know its junk, and hopefully, their next meal is a good one.

And re Ikea – we have bought our share.  12 years ago, we needed to replace my sons furniture with new stuff appropriate for a 19 year old.  We bought two chests of drawers at Ikea.  He still has both.  But… I don’t think either will become an antique!

*Re the straw man – now that Sarah Palin has revealed herself as the political drama queen that she is – remember all the noise over media bias in covering the McCain/Palin campaign last fall?  Right wing screamers would count up the negative stories about McCain/Palin, and compare them to the many fewer about Obama/Biden.  But hey, Obama turns out to have been a uniquely magnetic world figure (similar to JFK decades ago).  There is simply no way that an equally similar number of negative stories could have been created about Obama/Biden.  Obama was far more magnetic than McCain, and Biden was a long time senator with friends on both sides of the aisle, whereas Palin was a small town girl who was clearly NOT QUALIFIED. In a man-to-man match up, simply no contest.

Still, the right continues to use their bias analysis, aided and abetted by communications and marketing specialists.

**Is it any wonder that Glenn Beck and Limbaugh are pure radio personalities.  Beck has done comedy one man shows, and Limbaugh has his heart is sports.  Keith Olberman too is a broadcaster, not a newsman (a sports broadcaster too!).