Media Matters For America Calls Out Rupert Murdoch, Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin

Beck claims 'I don't use [violent rhetoric] on or off the air': Oh really?
Beck claims 'I don't use [violent Rhetoric] on or off the air': Oh really? It sure seemed that everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE -- at Fox News was focused yesterday on beating down the horrifying idea that somehow Fox News' incendiary rhetoric might have played a significant role in fomenting Saturday's horrifying tragedy in Arizona. Of course, Glenn Beck -- being one of the chief purveyors of said incendiary rhetoric -- was out there leading the attack, devoting his entire hour to...

Beck, Limbaugh respond to shooting
Conservative media figures like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are raising fears that liberals could use the Tucson shootings as an excuse to clamp down on their voices, even as two prominent liberals made public statements urging that the FCC and Fox News do just that. Limbaugh and Beck, along with other conservative voices like Sarah Palin and Bill O’Reilly, had come under fire in the hours after the shooting from liberals such as Keith Olbermann and Paul Krugman, who accused them of us...

Media Matters Calls On Murdoch To Rein In Beck, Palin
In a letter delivered to News Corp.CEO Rupert Murdoch Monday afternoon, and obtained by TPM, Media Matters founder David Brock says the time has come for Fox News to take responsibility for its programming. Specifically, Brock is calling on Murdoch to make Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck tone down their Rhetoric on threat of termination -- or to be complicit in acts of political violence. "Beck and Palin are two of Fox's most recognizable figures," Brock writes. "Before this heartbreaking tragedy i...

"You can't outsmart crazy"
By Edward Copeland With those words, Jon Stewart gave another eloquent Speech at the beginning of Monday night's Daily Show, dispensing with humor to address Saturday's horrific events in Tucson. With each passing hour and day since alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, critically injuring her, killing six and wounding 14 others, it becomes clearer that this 22-year-old man was not a political partisan but someone who was severely mentally ill. With Arizona...

In Wake Of Arizona Shooting, Beck Backs Off Claim That Obama Wants Him Dead
Beck: "I'm Enemy Number One. Do You Hear Me Whining About It? No." Beck Dismisses Idea That Obama Wants Him Dead. From the January 11 edition of Beck's Radio Show: BECK: Sixty percent of Americans say the Rhetoric in America has nothing to do with the shooting. It's -- it's quite honestly an abomination that it's only 60 percent of the American People. I don't understand how Rhetoric had anything to do with it. It's -- there is zero evidence. And since when -- since when has a spirited debate ...

Vitriol spinners losing the battle for hearts and minds?
The view from our front porch at daybreak this morning: Deck cranes of the container ship "West Bay" out of Hong Kong catch the sun's early rays dockside at Eastern Minerals across the street. "It looks like the vitriol spinners are losing the battle for hearts & minds," we just twittered," referencing a brand new CBS News poll that finds "Most Americans Feel Rhetoric, Tucson Shooting Unrelated": Overall, 57 percent of respondents said the harsh polit...

Rush Limbaugh: Its insane to fault Sarah Palin for Ariz. shooting (Daily Caller)
Read more stories from The Daily Caller Rep. Peter King to introduce bill making it illegal to carry a gun within 1,000 feet of 'high-profile' government official Fellow commenters at UFO Conspiracy website questioned Jared Lee Loughner's sanity in threads We're probably alone in the universe, or else they're out to get us Mark Halperin: Conservatives should turn the other cheek when scapegoated for Murder Could Jon Huntsman really be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012? Talk Radio ma...

Glenn Beck Removes Gun Pose Image From Website Rotation
On Monday night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann highlighted a Screenshot from Glenn Beck ’s website that featured an unfortunate juxtaposition: a photo depicting Beck saying “We must stand together against all violence,” and on the left sidebar, a picture of Beck holding a semiautomatic pistol. The image, first captured by Media Matters‘ Angelo “StopBeck” Carusone , has since been taken down out of “respect” for the events of this weekend, ...

Brave Woman Who Grabbed Clip from Shooter Blames Right-Wing Media and Rhetoric In Fox News Interview
Patricia Maisch, 61, was the brave woman who kept alleged shooter Jared Loughner from unloading a second clip into a Tuscon crowd on Saturday. Wounded herself from a bullet, she saw him attempting to equip his gun with another magazine, grabbed him and knelt on his ankle, delaying the reload and potentially saving many more lives.  So when Fox News interviewed her on Sunday, they clearly wanted to know if her strength could translate to psychic healing as Americans grappled with the tragedy...

Glenn Beck Defends Sarah Palin With New Pledge Scam
It was a no-brainer that Glenn Beck would jump on the hastily gerrymandered “FOX ‘News’ Protect Palin” bandwagon after the Tucson massacre. Beck has a lot invested emotionally in the Half-Governor. Not only is she his BFF—she was his first guest on Fox “News”—but he is also knew that an attack on Sarah Palin for her “target maps” would quickly spread to the Beckinator himself. As offensive as the bulls eyes might have been—and the...

Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Coverage Becomes Media Navel Gazing
The Tucson shootings, three days removed, have reached the predictable place in the story arc in which media analysis turns into a meta-narrative about the nature of the coverage rather than the event itself. The Victims, intermittently remembered, first were props for an analysis of political Rhetoric, then a playing field for accusations of partisan opportunism and, finally, now are an excuse for media navel-gazing. The coverage and meta-discussion have laid bare this essential truth: There ...

Media Matters new gay rights initiative names staffer
Trevor Thomas, director of communications for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, is joining Equality Matters, a Gay Rights and advocacy offshoot of the liberal group Media Matters. Thomas has been named Director of Programs for the new group. The move comes as Media Matters grows and expands beyond media criticism into more direct advocacy. In October, Media Matters president David Brock told Politico that the group was slowly expanding beyond its traditional role, as it collected 15,000 si...

A Challenge To Glenn Beck: Will He Cool His Paranoid Anti-Government Rhetoric?
On Sunday, federal officials charged Jared Lee Loughner on two counts of Murder and three counts of Attempted Murder in Saturday’s shooting rampage in Tucson, AZ that critically wounded Rep. Gabriel Giffords (D-AZ) and killed a Federal Judge and a Giffords Staffer, among others. In the wake of the tragedy, many are wondering what motivated Loughner — whether he was a mentally-ill lone wolf vigilante or inspired by something else. Information coming out about Loughner portrays the ...

How Will We Format Rupert Murdoch's The Daily, Which Comes Out Next Week?
​The Daily, News Corp.'s much anticipated iPad newspaper, will release its first issue on Wednesday, January 19, 2011, according to a report from Forbes' media writer Jeff Bercovici, though a company spokesperson is still mum on the drop date. In the meantime, the new publication, which everyone has been sure to call "iPad-only," now has an intro page at TheDaily.com, meaning it won't really be "iPad-only," now will it? It's as of yet unclear whether the site will feature the full paper ...

How Glenn Beck And Fox News Successfully Painted AZ Shooter As Hitler, Marx Devotee
Within hours of the Shooting Spree in Arizona, conservative blogs lit up with the news that the suspect, Jared Loughner, was an aficionado of Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. A Hitler/Marx devotee, the logic went, is someone too idiosyncratic or crazy to be part of any mainstream political movement. Some went further, and cited the information as proof that Loughner was the sort of big-government liberal they had nightmares about. As with so many of these fast-propagating conservative m...

Glenn Beck Defines Violent Rhetoric And Explains Where Youll Find It
On his Radio Show this morning, Glenn Beck decided to take some time out to clear up what exactly this “violent Rhetoric” everyone’s talking about is. It’s not coming out of the mouths of Sarah Palin or Rush Limbaugh, he promised. Instead, it’s coming from Frances Fox Piven and the other progressive radicals he rails against on his show. However, while we need to “tune in” to this rhetoric, Beck explained, we’re not here to regulate it. Helpfully u...

Sanitizing Extremism: Palin and Beck on Violence and War
Politico: Sarah Palin reached out to Glenn Beck over the weekend, and Beck read some of their email exchange on his Radio Show this morning. “Sarah, as you know, peace is always the answer. I know you are felling the same heat, if not much more on this,” Beck wrote. Beck expressed concern about Palin’s safety, and urged her to hire the same Los Angeles-based security firm that he uses. The Rhetoric of both Beck and Palin has been cited by both liberals and some of the mainstre...

No More Mister Nice Blog
Glenn Beck THINKS I'M A PSYCHOPATH From the Open Letter posted by Glenn Beck on his Web site: All evidence points to the fact that the assailant from this weekend was severely mentally disturbed. His belief system was not rational by any modern political standard. He was an atheist, believed George W. Bush was responsible for 9/11, feared a global currency, cited the Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite books and thought the Mars rover landing was staged. These are not the opin...

Palin's ups and downs
The New York Times zeroes in on Sarah Palin's communications, absence of significant communication, and political future. Under criticism that her political Rhetoric had helped create a climate for political violence, Sarah Palin addressed the issue in Trademark Fashion: via e-mail to the conservative commentator Glenn Beck. “Our Children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence,” Ms. Palin wrote to Mr. B...

Myspace cutting 500 jobs, nearly half of staff
News Corp. bought MySpace for 580 million dollars in 2005 but it has been o... MySpace announced Tuesday it was cutting some 500 jobs, nearly half of the staff of the troubled News Corp.-owned social network, which has been eclipsed by Facebook. "Today's tough but necessary changes were taken in order to provide the company with a clear path for sustained growth and profitability," MySpace chief executive Mike Jones said in a statement. "The new organizational structure will enable us to move ...

murdoch gets letters
and let's hope he takes action on this one. David Brock calls on murdoch to tone down the violent Rhetoric. ...you have the power to order them to stop using violent rhetoric, on and off of fox's air. if they fail to do so, it is Incumbent upon you to fire them or be responsible for the climate they create and any consequences thereof. - Media Matters...

Beck Channels Palin on Tucson Shooting
Yahoo! Buzz On his radio program Monday, the conservative talk-show host told his viewers about an email exchange he had Sunday with the former Alaska Governor and potential 2012 Presidential Candidate, who has faced criticism for a map she posted last year that used cross hairs to identify 20 Democratic lawmakers she wanted to see ousted from office in the November election. One of the lawmakers singled out on the map was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords , an Arizona Democrat who was severely wounded in...

Antidotes to political alienation
It seemed to start slowly, the feeling of alienation. First it was simply exasperation and amusement at the unhinged rantings of Glenn Beck. Then Sarah Palin’s polarizing campaign. But it slowly turned into something more sinister, with violent Rhetoric and calls to revolution — on both the left and the right — being a common occurrence. After the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords this weekend, I began to feel like I didn’t recognize my country anymore. Whatever the motives fo...

Infidel Bloggers Alliance
The Hill: Poll: Rhetoric, Arizona shooting unrelated By Jordan Fabian - 01/11/11 08:13 AM ET Almost 60 percent of the public believes that heated political rhetoric has nothing to do with an Arizona Shooting Spree that gravely wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and killed a Federal Judge. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in a new CBS News poll said rhetoric is unrelated to the shooting, while 32 percent said they believe the two are connected. Many pundits and lawmakers have keyed in on ...

We're Arizona shooting victims too, says Tea Party co-founder
Source: The Guardian A nine-year-old girl lies in the morgue. A member of Congress faces a lifetime of struggle to recover from a bullet in the brain. A city is bracing itself for a string of funerals as it tries to fathom the carnage. But Trent Humphries says there is another innocent Victim left by Jared Lee Loughner's killing of six people and wounding of 14 others in his Assassination attempt against Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. It is his Tea Party movement and, more particularly, his f...