Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Coverage Becomes Media Navel Gazing

Does Moderation Work?
In The Conversation, David Brooks and Gail Collins talk between columns every Wednesday. Tags: Gabrielle Giffords, Tucson shooting Susan Walsh/Associated PressGabrielle Giffords, a moderate in the most immoderate state in the union. Gail Collins: David, we can’t not talk about the shootings in Tucson. I know you’ve been wanting a more moderate and sane political dialogue. But I am sorry to admit that one of my thoughts is that the aftermath of Tucson proves h...

The War on Sarah Palin
I've never seen anyone who inspires such fear and hatred on the left as Sarah Palin. The Arizona shooting has led to a whole new round of anti-Palin hysteria. David Brooks addresses the issue and the media's complicity: Other themes from Loughner’s life fit the rampage-killer profile. He saw himself in world historical terms. He appeared to have a poor sense of his own illness (part of a condition known as anosognosia). He had increasingly frequent run-ins with the police. In short, the e...

Palin Claims 'Blood Libel' by Critics After Shootings
(Adds history of "blood Libel" in ninth paragraph.) Jan. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Calling it a "blood libel," Sarah Palin condemned people who have criticized her for heated political Rhetoric and the role it may have played in the shootings in Tucson, Arizona. Palin, 46, the former Republican Governor of Alaska, her party's 2008 nominee for vice president and a potential 2012 Presidential Candidate, made her statement in an Internet video. "Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own," she said...

'Entertainment' Media Join Chorus Blaming Conservatives for Shooting
It was no less depressing for being predictable. News of the horrendous Jan. 8 shooting of Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others had just broken when some on the left were exploiting it to malign Conservatives. Yet the left has blamed the "vitriolic" Rhetoric of conservatives and the Tea Parties as inciting violence. The Mainstream Media has enabled and even joined liberals in tarring the right with inciting political violence, right down to the gossip, entertainment and "life...

Man-Up Tim Pawlenty
G.I. Wood Shop Inc. Mrs. Peel Oh…My Valve! V The K’s Caption This! An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later. 2012 presidential hopeful, Tim Pawlenty, is taking some well deserved heat, this morning from Conservative Bloggers because of his “weak-tea” responses to a questions posed to him about Sarah Palin’s “crosshairs” map. “It would not have been my style to put the cross hairs on there,” he said Tuesday on “...

About That Heated Political Rhetoric...
You know, the Rhetoric that caused the nutcase in Tucson to shoot all those people? 'HE DID NOT WATCH TV. HE DISLIKED THE NEWS. HE DIDN'T LISTEN TO POLITICAL RADIO'Will the media and Sheriff Dumb*** in Pima County start backpedaling from their attacks on Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and other Conservatives? Of course not, but they're going to spending a lot of time with egg on their faces. ...

Sarah Palin's charge of 'blood libel' spurs outcry from Jewish leaders
Sarah Palin's remarks Wednesday in which she accused critics who would tie her political tone to the Arizona shootings of committing a "blood Libel" against her have prompted an instant and pronounced backlash from some in America's Jewish community. The term dates to the Middle Ages and refers to a prejudice that Jewish people used Christian blood in religious rituals. "Instead of dialing down the Rhetoric at this difficult moment, Sarah Palin chose to accuse others trying to sort out the mean...

My Take: Is Arizona shooting an individual or shared sin?
Editor's Note : Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," is a regular CNN Belief Blog contributor. By Stephen Prothero , Special to CNN After the shooting, the vitriol. First came the thunder from the left, blasting the right for creating a climate of hatred in which taking out your Glock and aiming it at a congresswoman might seem to be the next logical thing to do. Then came the thunder...

John Kerry (D-Lurch) Invokes Giffords Shooting to Push For Clean Energy Legislation
Hey, at least he wasn’t Fundraising off the tragedy (looking at you Bernie). Congresswoman ‘s Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-Ariz.) shooting in Tucson, Ariz., last weekend has brought up several questions about the partisan nature of our current political climate. But today Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a Speech at the left-leaning policy Think Tank Center for American Progress that working in a Bipartisan manner on infrastructure and Clean Energy could help overcome the “div...

ABCNews: "Sarah Palin, once again, has found a way to become part of the story"
Oh no they didn't, you say. Oh yes they did, I say. ABCNews' "The Note:" BOTTOM LINE: Sarah Palin, once again, has found a way to become part of the story. And she may well face further criticism for the timing and scope of her remarks. I accused the Laughner Left of paranoid schizophrenia. There's some evidence of that right here, because earlier in this posting, The Note wrote: Her words, of course, amount to a rebuttal of those who have called her out for using violent images to “target” Rep..

Sarah Palin calls out liberal hate merchants for creating "Blood Libel"
Sarah Palin came out swinging Wednesday by calling out the liberal media and pundits for creating "a blood Libel" for last weekend's Arizona shooting.  Palin said; "acts of monstrous brutality ... begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively" with Americans exercising their constitutional freedoms. "If you don't like a person's vision for the country, you're free to debate that vision. If you don't like their ideas, you're free to propose better ideas. But, especi...

Palin Accuses Critics of 'Blood Libel' (updated)
Far from backing down, Sarah Palin defended herself today against critics who linked her Rhetoric to the Arizona shootings, accusing them of the long-condemned anti-Semitic slur "blood Libel." Palin opponents noted soon after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) that left six people dead that Palin had posted a map on her website last fall with gun sights on 20 districts, including Giffords'. She announced it with a tweet: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!&quo...;

Open Thread: Is the MSM Full of Yellow Journalists?
Over at Ace's place, Purple Avenger ponders whether today's Journalists can really be deemed "yellow" in the late 19th-early 20th century sense. He(?) finds that "what we're seeing now is a somewhat different and more dangerous beast than traditional yellow journalism." The one thing that clearly distinguished the early vanguard of yellow journalism from media today is the perspective it took. The Pulitzer and Hearst types were shameless self-promoters and didn...

So not that I should be surprised that Andrew Breitbart would liken criticism to rape
But seriously? Sarah Palin is being criticized for using the term “blood Libel” in a statement casting herself and fellow Conservatives as Victims of the Arizona shootings, because liberals are mean when they say that violent Rhetoric can beget violence. Andrew Breitbart apparently decided to respond, tweeting: I used ‘blood Libel’ because I thought using analogy of lefties at pinball machine in Jodie Foster film ‘The Accused’ was too obscure. Oh fuck you. Fo...

Space To Grieve: How The Leftist Media Deprived A Nation The Ability To Mourn The Giffords Shooting
Posted by Melissa Clouthier on Jan 11 2011 Filed under Culture, Featured, Media Bias, News & Opinion, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry I didn’t realize until Ben Domenech invited me onto his Coffee & Markets Podcast, and asked, and I said the words out loud, how much I resented the Leftist Pundits for making the Arizona shooting about something it wasn’t. Within moments of the tr...

Arizona Shooting Coverage Is a Media Campaign to Criminalize Conservatism
Managing Editor's Note: Media Research Center President Brent Bozell issued the following statement after a thorough, two-day review of how the media have covered the tragic shooting in Arizona. Implicating a conservative tie to this heinous act of violence or to Jared Lee Loughner, who is no conservative, is nothing short of a naked campaign to criminalize conservative thought. Sadly, those who point their finger are at the nexus of hypocrisy. Take the unidentified “Veteran Democratic...

Limbaugh Blasts Media Response to Giffords Shooting, Warns of Regulations on Political Speech
Rush Limbaugh took to the airwaves Monday to blast the media's response to Saturday's shooting in Tucson, Arizona. In a lengthy segment on the topic, he called the media's reaction "utterly, childishly silly, embarrassing." Limbaugh went on to speculate that the liberal media will try to use the shooting - and the Conservative Movement's supposed complicity in it - to silence opposing political views. He echoed a number of points made Monday by NB publisher Brent Bozell...

Palin says she is victim of 'blood libel'
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Sarah Palin, in a statement Wednesday, called accusations that political Rhetoric inspired the Tucson shooter a "blood Libel," setting off more Controversy. Palin's political action committee used a map last year with crosshairs in targeted Congressional Districts, including that held by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who was wounded in the shooting Saturday that left six dead and 14 wounded. The former Alaska Governor said in a video politicians and citizens are ...

MSNBC Warns Changing Programing could Spell Disaster for Network.
From Diogenes “It’s About Angry Rhetoric That’s What We’re all About!” Public calls for a reduction in hate filled and inflammatory political rhetoric on Cable News networks have plunged the MSNBC News Channel into utter chaos.  A spokesperson warning that such a move could leave the network with pretty much all 24 hours to fill. Network spokeperson Shadow Pierson-Finkelroy said not to underestimate the giant hole this would create in their programing. “MSNB...

On Big News Night, Tight Race Between Greta Van Susteren and Lawrence ODonnell
Cable news Ratings, January 10, 2011: •On a big news night where Fox dominated the Ratings, there was an unusually tight race at 10 p.m., with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren only narrowly beating MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell among viewers 25-54: 297,000 to 267,000. None of the other head-to-head matchups were anywhere nearly as close, with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly crushing MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (771,000 viewers 25-54 to 435,000) •CNN’s Parker Spitzer switched t...

More on overdermination and political violence
In my earlier diary, "Influence and over-determination", I quoted from Jacob Weisberg at Slate writing about the obvious political context: To call his crime an attempted Assassination is to acknowledge that it appears to have had a political and not merely a personal context. That context wasn't Islamic radicalism, Puerto Rican independence, or anarcho-syndicalism. It was the anti-government, pro-gun, xenophobic Populism that flourishes in the dry and angry climate of Arizona. Extremist sho...

First Amendment Baiting
Sarah Palin’s statement on the Assassinations in Arizona is days late and more than a few dollars short. Jonathan Singer notes: It takes Palin nine paragraphs to condemn the violence. By contrast, Palin begins striking a defensive tone in just the fifth paragraph. What more could we possibly expect than the master of making herself the center of the news cycle? Singer goes on: The assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords that took the lives of six Americans was not about Sarah Palin. ...

Shameless Palin Claims Victimhood, Refuses to Apologize
Wow, Sarah Palin sure has got no shame. You’d think after the horrible shooting in Tucson, and after literally putting Gabrielle Giffords in the cross-hairs, that Palin might have had the dignity either to say nothing or to show at least an ounce of remorse or pledge to lower her own Rhetoric by a decibel or two. But not Palin. No, now she’s made herself the Victim. She said: “Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood Libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violen

Sarah Palin vs. the media
The shootings in Tucson would seem to have immediately complicated any plans Sarah Palin still has to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2012. Wherever you stand on the question of blame — read Chris Selley’s excellent survey on the rush to judgment and David Brooks’ condemnation of  “the Mainstream Media”, among which his New York Times was pre-eminent — the keenness to roast Palin as the inspiration behind Jared Loughner’s madness dem...

Arizona shooting: Sarah Palin breaks silence, blames media, offers no apology
 Wednesday morning Sarah Palin broke her silence concerning the role her violent Rhetoric may have played in creating a climate of political violence leading up to the tragic shooting in Arizona. An angry and defensive Palin offered no Apology for her violent campaign Rhetoric and imagery, instead Palin blamed the media for Manufacturing a "blood Libel." Palin's message came in the form of a slick, well rehearsed, over produced video that was ultimately c...