Bob Cesca blogs the reason, but the chart says it all.
Wingnuts think we spend a lot of money on foreign aid. When you tell them it's peanuts, they accuse you of making up numbers. But then, they get almost everything wrong, all the time, anyway. And whatever they get right, Glenn Beck just lies about. Fox is wrecking America. Kill it.
Tweet
Of all the great ideas Jay Rosen has had, I never really understood what made this one anything but self-evident. Fact-checking the news in real, or-near real-time, has been an obvious need for over 20 years, and the technology to do it was old school even before blogging, Twitter and Facebook. It's just that no one did it.
But sometimes it takes a famous journalism professor and social media geek to make the MSM see the obvious thing. And actually making them DO the obvious thing is a remarkable achievement; especially in this era of entrenched mediocrity in almost everything. With assists from people like me on Twitter, Jay Rosen hammered this idea home with Meet The Press, ABC, and just about anyone else that would listen. Jake Tapper finally did.
But in fact the whole Sunday format has to be re-thought, or junked so the news divisions can start over with a new premise. Of course the problem is that the people who would have to make that decision are the same people whose entire knowledge base and skill set lies in producing the "old" style of political television. That is what they know, so that is what they continue to do. I guess it's not hard to understand complacency of this kind. But do they really think we don't notice the growing absurdity of bringing to a common table people who agree on nothing?
Bags of kudos to Rosen for putting it on paper in his typically cogent way, and to Jake Tapper for having the good sense to nibble at his master's reigns and try something different.
This entire project is near and dear to my own work, so I have a vested interest in seeing ABC do this for more than a week. But even if I didn't, it would still be a big interest of mine.
There are clues to our future in projects like this, on many levels. So I will tune in to this on Sunday, and see if I can help it gain a little traction.
Please Retweet this post below using green button below. This "experiment" deserves everyone's support.
About Politifact.com — a project in which its reporters and editors "fact-check statements by members of Congress, the White House, lobbyists and interest groups"
About Jay Rosen — Jay Rosen is a press critic, a writer, and a professor of journalism at New York University. He is a strong supporter of citizen journalism, encouraging the press to take a more active interest in citizenship, improving public debate, and enhancing life. His book about the subject, What Are Journalists For? was published in 1999. Rosen is often described in the media as an intellectual leader of the movement of public journalism
Press Think (NYU) Rosen's Journalism Blog — Today we say media instead of "the press." But it's a mistake. The press has become the ghost of democracy in the media machine, and we need to keep it alive.
Jay Rosen: He Said, She Said Journalism: Lame Formula in the Land of the Active User
TweetIn the new issue, Forbes reports that Glenn Beck admits:
"I could give a flying crap about the political process." Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. "We're an entertainment company," Beck says.
The article is a pretty fun ride, with a few Beck bombshells like that above, but also a few big-duh moments like this one:
"I don't necessarily believe that [what Beck says] is reflective of his own personal politics–I don't even know if he has personal politics," says Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers, a trade magazine devoted to talk radio. "I see him as a performer."
Writing about this same article, Think Progress's Zaid Jilani writes:
This isn’t the first time Beck has suggested he isn’t as radically conservative as he seems. In February he told USA Weekend that “you’d have to be an idiot” to “not notice the temperature change” caused by global warming, and that he thinks mankind may play a signficant role in the phenomenon. Beck has previously described himself as “a rodeo clown” and conceded, “If you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.”
Clearly, this is a man with sincere political views, who simply must be heard. Think of his as 21st century Howard Beale; an outraged common man with a $32 million dollar paycheck sticking out of his ass.
Tweet