TW: The recent shootings create plenty of opportunity for demagoguery from the left. I will not head down the path of extrapolating the behavior of depraved individuals other than to say if one can isolate their behavior to "individuals" then presumably much "jihadist" behavior can as well, no? Or if not then why not them but the far-right wingers yes?
My point though relates to Fox News and more broadly the right-wing cocoon perpetuated by Fox and others. Charles Krauthammer received an award the other night from Rupert Murdoch for "political commentary" excellence, in his acceptance Krauthammer made remarks which were taken out of context I thought by progressives. Many quoted the part about "alternative reality" as if Krauthammer was critical of Fox, in truth he was being complementary. Here is a longer quotation:
"In that respect, there should be a special award for Fox News. Fox has done a great service to the American polity -- single-handedly breaking up the intellectual and ideological monopoly that for decades exerted hegemony (to use a favorite lefty cliche) over the broadcast media.
"I said some years ago that the genius of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes was to have discovered a niche market in American broadcasting -- half the American people. The reason Fox News has thrived and grown is because it offers a vibrant and honest alternative to those who could not abide yet another day of the news delivered to them beneath layer after layer of often undisguised liberalism.
"What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality."
Putting aside alleged lefty bias in the media to which Krauthammer refers (a huge canard from my perspective but that is for another day), I think Krauthammer is spot on that Fox and others are enabling an alternative reality. A very harmful and wrong-headed alternative reality. The truth is a pliable concept when folks are built up to be respectable sources of information then begin perpetuate ignorance and illogic, their viewers are lead down the path towards ignorance and illogic. A network that features absolute crackpots like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and then backstops them with "fair and balanced" Orwellian journalism from the likes of Krauthammer and Bill Kristol and Neil Cavuto the world gets topsy-turvy where up is down and down is up. Shepard Smith makes unsurprising comment and gets pilloried. Glenn Beck manages to turn a Nazi walking into a Holocaust museum and shooting an African-American guard into a left-wing conspiracy. Who are "they" anyway?
Exhibit A:
When anybody on Fox leaves the rails they are pilloried. Shepard Smith states an obvious point and gets this and this treatment.
Exhibit B:
Glenn Beck of course is the poster child for a certain segment of the right-wing:
No comments:
Post a Comment