An intellectual freedom blog with an emphasis on libraries and technology

Thursday, May 13, 2004

Right-Wing lie factory


I usually avoid inflamatory writing. But my new find is a man named David Brock who has already published one book (Blinded by the Right) and his new book, The Republican Noise Machine : right-wing media and how it corrupts democracy is due on May 18th. You can read an excerpt by Brock in Salon.com The Mighty Wind Bags to find out what he experienced from the inside of several right-wing media enterprises. (Salon.com requires a subscription or forces you to endure an ad. It's well worth either for this article).

Summary: Brock describes himself as a reformed right-wing extremist who worked for the Washington Times and the Heritage Foundation. He explains that wealthy republicans subsidize pundits, radio shows, internet sites and print publications and how these publications take unsubstantiated stories and repeat them endlessly in what Rush Limbaugh calls the "Echo-chamber" -- the repitition of a story so many times that they force it into the "mainstream" media despite having no credible (or any) basis in fact. After a while many ask why the mainstream media ignores the "story" thereby forcing the baseless accusation into otherwise reputable publications.

Remember the "Gore is a liar and exaggerator" stories? Several polls found that most Americans believed that Iraqis participated in the September 11th attacks. These are just two examples of stories without any factual basis. No one could ever produce a quote of one of Gore's alleged lies or exaggerations from any public record of his speeches or writings. And the hijacker beastiary consists of 15 Saudi Arabians, 1 Egyptian, 1 lebanese and 2 from the United Arab Emirates.

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