"... The mainstream press thinks Kirk was a kind, empathetic believer in free
debate because for years mainstream journalists have avoided learning
what right-wingers say to one another when they think we're not
listening. Mainstream journalists have never made it a habit to watch
Fox News, listen to talk radio, read right-wing websites, examine
right-wing books, or turn on right-wing podcasts. When Rush Limbaugh was
alive, they never read the full broadcast transcripts he posted on his
site. Apart from a few commentators, they've never made a habit of going
to Media Matters or Right Wing Watch to learn what conservatives are saying. They don't pay attention to the email forwards, the online memes, the bumper stickers.
Instead, they go to diners and conduct focus groups, where
right-wingers give them the polite version of their thoughts on politics
and culture.
"And now right-wing spin doctors are giving the mainstream journalists a
polite version of who Charlie Kirk was -- and the journalists have no
prior knowledge to compare it with, and apparently no idea where to find
contradictory information..." -- Steve M. at "No More Mister Nice Blog," on the "nearly unchallenged deification of Charlie Kirk." As Steve illustrates in the post, decades of working the refs by the right- wingers led us to this place rather than to an honest analysis of Kirk as a white nationalist extremist. Now, thanks to the unchallenged hagiography emerging around Kirk, there's been a move on to create a "National Day of Remembrance" honoring him. We live in stupid, awful times.
No comments:
Post a Comment