US network faces backlash after Democratic debate
From today’s Guardian UK:
A spokesman for media monitoring organisation Media Matters said the network missed an opportunity to “offer the American people a frank discussion of the issues that we all face and how these candidates plan on tackling them.
“Instead, those that tuned in saw a veteran news team clearly out of touch and more interested, frankly, in gaffes and gotchas than health care, the war in Iraq, and our failing economy,” said the spokesman, Karl Frisch.
Read the whole thing after the break.
Talk radio host links fire victims to those who ‘hate America’
Los Angeles Times
Glenn Beck’s comments draw a rebuke from one media watchdog group, whose spokesman calls them ‘heartless.’
By Andrew Blankstein
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
With at least 1,000 homes destroyed, two deaths reported and more than a quarter-million people ordered to evacuate, the wildfires ravaging Southern California have been as indiscriminate as they have been devastating.
But the images of charred residences, grieving homeowners and valiant firefighters apparently were not enough to move conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck, who told his listeners on his nationally syndicated show Monday that those suffering losses “hate America.”
“I think there is a handful of people who hate America,” Beck said. “Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.”
Rush Limbaugh Comments Spark Outrage
ABC News
Democrats and Veterans Group Outraged by Radio Host’s ‘Phony Soldiers’ Comment
By Jennifer Parker
In what has become the latest partisan battle over the Iraq war, congressional Democrats and a veterans group are expressing outrage over comments made by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh on his talk radio program last week.
The war of words began last Wednesday when Limbaugh, a longtime conservative radio talk-show host, insinuated that veterans who question the war in Iraq are “phony soldiers” on his talk-radio program.
Limbaugh was responding to a caller who argued that anti-war groups “never talk to real soldiers.”
“They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media,” the caller said.
“The phony soldiers,” Limbaugh responded.
Fox’s Bill O’Reilly Says His Stereotypes Taken Out of Context
Washington Post
By Paul Farhi
Bill O’Reilly says he thought he was dispelling stereotypes when he told his radio audience last week about his recent trip to Harlem with the Rev. Al Sharpton. Instead, O’Reilly found himself yesterday fighting accusations of racial insensitivity.
During a 35-minute discussion about race relations last Wednesday on his syndicated “Radio Factor,” the pugnacious host repeatedly decried “demeaning” portrayals of African Americans, particularly in hip-hop videos. To illustrate his contention that such images provide a false impression of black culture, he recalled having dinner with Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a famous soul-food restaurant in Harlem:
“I couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia’s restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City,” he said. “It was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks [and has a] primarily black patronship. It was the same. And that’s really what this society is really all about now here in the U.S.A. There’s no difference.”
Bill O’Reilly Says He’s Being Smeared
Associated Press
By David Bauder
NEW YORK (AP) - Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly said Wednesday his critics took remarks he made about a famed Harlem restaurant out of context and “fabricated a racial controversy where none exists.” He criticized the liberal group Media Matters for America as “smear merchants” for publicizing statements he made on his radio show last week.
O’Reilly told his radio audience that he dined with civil rights activist Al Sharpton at Sylvia’s recently and “couldn’t get over the fact that there was no difference” between the black-run restaurant and others in New York City.
It was just like a suburban Italian restaurant, he said. “There wasn’t any kind of craziness at all,” he said.
Group Points Out O’Reilly Race Comments
Associated Press
By David Bauder
NEW YORK (AP) — After eating dinner at a famed Harlem restaurant recently, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly told a radio audience he “couldn’t get over the fact” that there was no difference between the black-run Sylvia’s and other restaurants.
“It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun,” he said. “And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”
O’Reilly said his fellow patrons were tremendously respectful as he ate dinner with civil rights activist Al Sharpton.
Is Glenn Beck the Most Annoying Man on TV?
GQ Magazine
Or Does it Only Seem That Way?
By Benjamin Wallace
“Here’s a comment that will get me fired,†Glenn Beck says from behind the custom-made standing desk (bad back) that dominates his tiny CNN office in New York. In the flesh, he is thinner, less pink, and softer-spoken than the close-talking guy on television. Still wearing radio casual—bleach-spotted jeans, Adidas sneakers—from the morning’s three-hour broadcast, he forks down a take-out salad while going over material with one of his writers for tonight’s TV show, which will be devoted largely to the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. “This guy makes you have respect for suicide bombers,†Beck says, trying out today’s career-immolating zinger. “At least they’re killing themselves because they believe in something larger.â€
“I love that,†says the writer, who stands on the other side of the desk. “And it’s true.â€
“Whew,†Beck says. “I can’t wait for the letters we’re going to get.â€
On the Glenn Beck spectrum, this is actually pretty tame, but post-Imus, the specter of getting canned for ill-chosen words is much on the minds of everyone in the provoking/offending business. And Beck, with his Headline News gig, has more to fear than most. In the past week alone, Al Franken has gone on CNN to call for Beck’s firing, and Media Matters, the liberal watchdog Web site that led the Imus pile-on, has short-listed Beck for similar treatment.
Tucker on Receiving End of Bashing After the Host Boasts of Hitting Gay Man
New York Daily News
By Helen Kennedy
MSNBC TV host Tucker Carlson fought back against accusations of gay-bashing yesterday after he crowed on the air about beating a man who “bothered” him in a mall bathroom.
“It infuriates me to be called a gay-basher, since he was the predator, not me,” Carlson said.
Carlson, a conservative pundit known for the trademark bow tie he wore when he co-hosted CNN’s “Crossfire” shoutfest, now hosts “Tucker” on MSNBC.
In an on-air discussion Tuesday about Idaho Sen. Larry Craig’s arrest for making advances in a men’s room, Carlson volunteered he had been “bothered” in a Washington bathroom 20 years ago.
Immigrant Advocates Demand Radio Station Fire Host for Remarks
San Francisco Chronicle
Hunger Strikers Should Starve to Death, He Said
By Kantele Franko
Bay Area immigrant rights advocates say radio host Michael Savage should be fired for using hateful language when suggesting supporters of an immigration reform bill who fasted in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza last week should starve to death.
During a July 5 broadcast of “The Savage Nation,” his nationally syndicated talk show, Savage said, “I would say let them fast till they starve to death … because then we won’t have a problem about giving them green cards because they’re illegal aliens.”
More than 30 protesters publicly denounced Savage and the on-air remarks outside San Jose City Hall on Thursday and said his comments should not be disregarded on the basis of constitutional free speech.
Migrant-Bill Backlash Targets Talk Radio
The Arizona Republic
Media Critics Press for Change in Broadcasting Law
By Daniel Gonzalez
Talk radio’s role in killing immigration reform in Congress is spurring a backlash.
Some Democrats in Congress, maddened about radio attacks on the bill, would like to revive a federal rule that requires broadcasters to present opposing views on important issues.
Those on both sides of the issue agree talk radio played a major role in derailing the Senate immigration bill.
The constant drumbeat on talk radio stations across the country galvanized voters to jam the Senate’s phone system with angry calls.
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