It Matters
by digby
Eric Alterman and Danny Goldberg have news for you:
Did you know that when the White House and members of the media mention “code words like ‘diversity’ and ‘equality'” what they are really proposing is “communist revolution?” Did you know that Osama bin Laden’s remarks about global warming are almost identical to “those of the average, run-of-the-mill leftist, like Obama or Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi or the entire Democrat Party?” Or that the “global warming scam” is “an effort by the left to destroy capitalist economies?” Here’s one I’ll bet you didn’t know: President Barack Obama was “advised by [the] Ft. Hood Shooter.” If you didn’t know the “facts” above, it means you probably haven’t been spending your time listening to talk radio hosts such as Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Neil Boortz, and G. Gordon Liddy. It’s hard work listening to these shows, but progressives should be paying attention to the impact they’re having: 48 million people get their news from these guys, according to the Pew Project For Excellence In Journalism, and the numbers of radio stations that carry at least some talk shows grew to 2,056 from 1,370 the year before, according to Inside Radio magazine. That’s more than twice the collective audience for the three TV network evening news shows combined, more than five times the audience of the three network Sunday news shows, nearly seven times the combined audience for cable news shows, nearly 10 times the audience for NPR’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” and 16 times the audience for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
I was at an event last night with veteran broadcaster Joan Hamburg and she talked about this as well. Some of her stories were enough to chill your blood.
There is a huge audience for this crap and they are engaged, active and freaked out. And their toxic ideas seep out even beyond their numbers in large and small ways, infecting the entire body politic.
I recently watched Hotel Rwanda again. And I got the uneasiest feeling.
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