Has Lying Become a Requirement for Right Wing Media?

[Ian David]

Has Lying Become a Requirement for Right Wing Media?
Gary Ater
March 28, 2008

I am getting so tired of trying to get some balance with a real and truthful understanding of the news and events without having to listen to all of the out-right false statements coming from the conservative right. When I listen to the more progressive cable TV networks such as MSNBC and progressive radio talk show hosts like Tom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, Rachael Maddow, Stephanie Miller or Bill Press, I seldom if ever hear the mis-statements and falsehoods that seem to continue daily, pouring out on the air waves of the right wing talk and cable TV shows.

In trying to determine why there is this difference between the Right and the Left, I came across the following explanation on the Internet (and yes, it's probably written by someone from the Left). The following explanation does however, offer what appears to be a reasonable statement as to possibly why the conservative, right-wing broadcast and cable media companies feel they must allow this "less than honest" attitude from their conservative TV and radio hosts.

Whether it came from the left or not, the following does in most areas seem to make pretty good sense.

EXPLANATION: Why Right-Wing Media Makes So Many Mis-Statements of the Facts?

"Conservative media corporations are not about to broadcast truthful criticisms of any possible corrupted capitalism in the United States unless events like the Enron collapse absolutely force them into covering the event. And they sure as hell aren't going to do any muckraking of their own, or will they allow or foster any outside skepticism about their own corporate behavior.

More:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/56809

[MidwestTransplant]

1. Not becoming one, it is one.

[L. Coyote]

19. Sorry, it in NOT lying if you don't know WTF you are reading off the teleprompter!!

And, sadly, that is all too often the case.

I e-mailed a complaint to a news "personality" stating the obvious, LIE, and the reply was

"I don't write it, I just read it."

And, if you want to get paid, that's the job!!

[Jack Rabbit]

2. When wasn't it?

FoxNews dutifully reports what Dick Cheney wants us to believe.

[Orsino]

3. Yes.

A philosophy at odds with reality can't be pimped with truth.

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

4. They just do

what comes naturally.

They have also come to the realization that retractions are essentially meaningless once a statement has been made across the airwaves. To paraphrase Burroughs, language is a virus, or more specifically a meta-virus, and in a certain sense, saying something somehow makes it real: we "infect" others' minds with our spoken communications.

Think about it: how many times has your own mind taken a snippet almost heard from across a room and turned it into (in your mind) full-blown fact? Wish fulfillment is part of it, but perhaps the most important element is the power of suggestion.

[Ian David]

6. Do a google search on "The Selfish Meme." n/t

[liberal N proud]

5. It is because the right wing condones it

They would be cut down very quickly if the right wing membership didn't actually condone it and participate in lying themselves.

They call it spin and then they fell better about it.

[devilgrrl]

7. I thought it was a prerequisite

eom

[librechik]

8. they have been lying for at least 20 years! when did this person start listening?

[EFerrari]

9. It's not lying. A lie is opportunistic.

The RW media is a propaganda machine. That's a matter of policy, not happenstance.

[bliss_eternal]

10. Given that little of what they say is actually based in fact....

...not sure that I would ever label it "the truth."

Propaganda? Yes, I think so. But propaganda has a tendency to stretch the truth, to the extent that it no longer has any aspect of truth within it.

Many of the assertions made by O'Reilly, Limbaugh and Coulter seem little more than blatant lies to me, but that's merely my opinion--based on the little I've allowed myself to listen to. Their bs nauseates me.

:hi:

[EFerrari]

11. I didn't say that very well. It's not a lie, but much more than a lie.

It's a PLAN.

:hug:

[bliss_eternal]

12. You totally nailed it.

:pals::hug:

[Mountainman]

13. Lying is the only way they can get support, the truth would never sell in this country.

There use to be a time when news was mostly objective. That was before news departments were profit centers. News was seen as a public service. A democracy needed informed voters. The right has taken that idea and bastardized it. The voters are still being informed only the information is not the truth.

[DarkTirade]

14. It's not their fault that reality has a very strong liberal bias.

:shrug:

[HughMoran]

15. "become?"

Love the Kirk torture :rofl:

[Ian David]

17. Thanks! The one with the sheep I found. The ones with Kirk I mtde myself. n/t

[HughMoran]

18. Really? Those are great

I am a trekie of course, so I totally remember that scene. I wonder if non-trekies realize that he is being tortured there? :D

[baldguy]

16. The RW media couldn't exist without lies.

Like a fish without water, or the NY Yankees without arrogant, overpaid SOBs playing for them.