General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI listened to right wing talk radio to observe the echo chamber in action.
As a regular everyday listener to public radio (NPR, CBC, and the BBC) I decided to get an idea of what conservative media has been saying about the civil unrest. So in addition to All Things Considered I also listened to The Mark Levin Show over the past two days to get the other side's perspective and understand their tactics.
Links to the shows I listened to: 6/1 (summary, audio); 6/2 (summary, audio)
A summary of the ideas I'd heard in these shows:
- The riots are "insurrections" and "domestic terrorism" and need to be stopped immediately
- Mainstream media is "endorsing" and "excusing" riots (6:10 of 6/2 audio) because they see it as a "learning moment to advance their left wing agenda" (9:05 of 6/2 audio)
- Democrats are not forcefully condemning the violence or are only doing so passively: "Has Biden? No! Barely mentions it, in passing." (4:20 of 6/2 audio)
- The media is more favorable to police brutality protests than Tea Party or opposition to the coronavirus lockdowns (5:30 of 6/2 audio)
- The national media is ignoring what he says will be lasting damage to communities resulting from the riots (21:00); ironically after those comments, Levin read verbatim from an article in the Star Tribune (Minneapolis local paper that is editorially liberal from what I understand) Riots, arson leave Minnesota communities of color devastated
- Most people were "united" in "their repulsion", so the killing of George Floyd is only an isolated incident (4:00 of 6/2 audio)
- At least TWO TIMES in the 6/2 show (6/2 audio, 12:00, 17:30) Levin played audio from an Iowa woman whose sister Italia Marie Kelly was shot to death after a protest where the woman tearfully blamed "protesters" for the killing. Levin demanded to know if Joe Biden would be going to that victim's funeral, in response to news about Biden going to George Floyd's funeral. As usual, Levin also wanted to know why Italia Kelly isn't a national story yet.
My responses:
- The Associated Press had a story about Italia Kelly on June 1: Woman, 22, killed at protest as civil unrest roils Davenport. Its reporting said the shooting was "apparently random." Yet Levin and others in right wing media take Kelly's sister at her word blaming a protester for the shooting. First, it's absolutely despicable that they would rush to politicize Italia Kelly's death like that without waiting for the facts to come out, and Levin had the gall to play that "a protester killed my sister" clip TWICE in the same show where he complained about mainstream media "inflaming" the situation. I will be awaiting to see if arrests are made in Kelly's killing, and I really doubt that Levin will issue a retraction if it comes out that the shooting was not related to protests.
- Despite Levin's calling out of the New York Times and other national outlets for ignoring the riots' impacts on poor communities, back on May 31 the NYT had exactly the story Levin was demanding: Please, I Dont Have Insurance: Businesses Plead With Protesters. And in the very next hour when I switched to a local NPR station for All Things Considered, one of the stories from the first part was: Neighbors In Minneapolis Unite To Protect Small Businesses During Unrest.
- In the middle of his "Just asking questions" about "why aren't Democrats condemning the violence? If they do they're only doing so quietly," Levin also skipped over the ENTIRE PARAGRAPH from former Pres. Obama's Medium.com essay about George Floyd:
- There are instances of cognitive dissonance. At 32:30 of the 6/2 audio Levin asks: "Why are the people in these communities portrayed as supporting the rioters?" That was just a few minutes after Levin literally read a quote from that Star Tribune story where a business owner said: "Even though it hurt my businesses, I understand." Also at 1:28:15 of the 6/2, Levin complains that Sen. Kamala Harris built her career on "identity politics", yet at 1:31:20 Levin calls out Wolf Blitzer, Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, and Andrea Mitchell for ignoring incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism at Jewish business and places of worship - at the same time pointing out that those reporters are all Jewish.
- At 1:26:09 of the 6/2 audio, Levin complains that major city mayors are not forcefully calling for their cities to be protected and the violence to stop, ignoring that the mayor of Atlanta made an entire speech calling for an end to violence with FOUR calls to "go home". As well as comments by the Twin Cities' mayors calling on protesters to respect the curfew.
Conclusion:
As you'd expect, Levin's show has the usual ask lots of loaded questions, whataboutism, hasty generalizations, and strawman arguments you'd expect from conservative talk radio. Levin's "this is what the media isn't telling you" really does sell - but the outcomes show that you cannot get your news only from shows like his and expect to be well informed.
Was there ever a time when left and right in this country based their views on a common set of facts? I mean, I could listen to conservative talk radio in one hour complaining how mainstream media is ignoring the damage done to local businesses, and then tune to NPR the next hour and hear literally that kind of story they say is missing!
maxrandb
(15,187 posts)outside local Hate Radio stations
certainot
(9,090 posts)after the protests end.
anti iraq, OWS protests should have included rw radio stations - and the 87 universities that support 260 limbaugh stations
that is where all this lying and alternate reality starts, the only medium where they can do the necessary unchallenged repetition
limbaugh leads and sets the tone for all 1500 stations
all their advertisers need boycotting and condemnation untill the ad industry has to break up the monopoly
Karadeniz
(22,267 posts)kimbutgar
(20,871 posts)It gave me a headache listening to him once.
Hoyt
(54,770 posts)unless it sticks strictly to facts, like "The city deployed 500 patrolmen tonight."
As soon as someone adds "To control riots/dissidents" vs. "To patrol protests/demonstrations," it changes the tenor.
yonder
(9,631 posts)But not to be too flippant: You brave....way to take one for the team.
alp227
(31,959 posts)Reading the Media Matters website inspired me to be an amateur snooper on RW radio. Granted, there are some center-right outlets that I can actually stomach at times (The Bulwark, National Review, Reason)...and then there are the total Trump sycophants like the average AM radio show.
While it's easy to laugh at the stupid things Limbaugh and Hannity says, Levin is a lawyer and self styled constitutional scholar, and he brings a veneer of credibility to his audience. The left ignores the popularity of the intellectual right at their own peril.
certainot
(9,090 posts)pwb
(11,204 posts)A M radio should be shut down.
alp227
(31,959 posts)Mark Levin has 2.2 million Twitter followers and 1.5 Facebook followers. A big part of his large following is not only his passionate delivery on the radio but his background as a staffer in the Reagan administration and former president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, which championed school vouchers and limiting teachers' unions, along with his books.
pwb
(11,204 posts)you should not push right wing sites here. Rules? I will let it slide this time.
femmedem
(8,187 posts)Quite the contrary: the OP was debunking right wing misinformation and giving the rest of us the tools to do the same.
Karadeniz
(22,267 posts)Grins
(7,128 posts)Yes. Prior to August 5, 1987 when, under law, they had to.
That is the date the Reagan administration, with some help from guys named Scalia and Bork, killed The Fairness Doctrine and hate-radio was born.
And congrats on your listening to misshapen garden gnome, Mark Levin. I cant bring myself to do that.
get the red out
(13,458 posts)Before the 24 hour news cycle, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted voice delivering the news (his contemporaries like David Brinkley, Howard K Smith, were trusted as well). He signed off every night saying "And that's the way it is", and people absolutely believed him.
I am not saying the 24 hour news cycle is all bad, I was in jr high when we got CNN and to me if Bernard Shaw said it, then you believe it! With dubious news sources rapidly crowding the internet, and RW radio being the solution for people who wanted to hear bellowed what they just kept bottled up, racism, homophobia, Sexism, anti-Semitism. They wanted their hate to just be another point of view.
Just my long-winded diatribe.
Demovictory9
(32,320 posts)NEVER mentions Trump's destruction of American's justic system or the firing of everyone who might investigate where he doesn't want investigation or his filling the government with lackies and fools ... etc.
DownriverDem
(6,205 posts)Is right wing?
femmedem
(8,187 posts)Last edited Fri Jun 5, 2020, 05:52 AM - Edit history (1)
The OP was saying that in contrast to his usual dose of NPR, presumably including All Things Considered, the OP decided to listen to right wing radio.
My apologies if you meant that as a joke and I'm suffering from humor impairment.
RussBLib
(8,983 posts)That took a lot of work, and psychic punishment by listening to Levin. All those links must have taken a lot of work too.
Thanks so much for doing this. It helps everyone be a little more informed. Now you should take a rest for a bit to cleanse your mind from the Levin BS.
Kudos.
louis-t
(23,199 posts)He's got one of those gravelly, annoying voices that right wing radio loves. Hannity, Levin, a local guy that died, Mark Scott.