Weekly Standard Editor Fred Barnes Calls On Conservatives To Infiltrate The Mainstream Media

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Weekly Standard Editor Fred Barnes Calls On Conservatives To Infiltrate The Mainstream Media

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/06/barnes-media-infiltration/



By George Zornick on Dec 6th, 2010 at 3:40 pm

Fred Barnes, a frequent Fox News commentator and executive editor of the Weekly Standard, has issued a call to arms: conservatives must “infiltrate” the supposedly liberal mainstream media. “What we need to do right now is dedicate ourselves to expanding our influence and not just sitting back and complaining about the mainstream media, but infiltrating them, overtaking them and changing the American media into something that is fair and balanced, once and for all,” Barnes told a dinner held by the conservative magazine American Spectator.

Barnes outlined his takeover plan for attendees at the swanky event:

Barnes and some other media critics argue that the broader, more liberal media still decide the daily story and political agenda, so he’s calling for a two-pronged war. One goal is to develop conservative reporters. “We need more smart, young people in journalism,” he argues, “to infiltrate—infiltrate!—the mainstream media. It can be done.”

Then he wants wealthy conservatives to build media outlets. Citing the millions of dollars thrown at political campaigns, he says “there is a lot of money out there that can be used to start new magazines, to buy television networks, to buy newspapers, to start newspapers—so much can be done.”

[spanone]

1. as if they haven't????

[malaise]

2. Again? n/t

[SpiralHawk]

28. Yup - the want to ram themselves even deeper up America's cornhole

The RepubliCons & their mainstream media borg got America all screwed up now -- but they know they can do worse...

[TwilightGardener]

3. Did we just time-travel back to the 1980's or something?

[Jackpine Radical]

4. What did this guy do, drop out of a time warp from 1964? (nt)

[Winterblues]

5. "Catapult the Propaganda"

:shrug: surprise...surprise...surprise

[Uncle Joe]

6. That's hilarious, considering they already own the corporate media.

:rofl:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x574113

Thanks for the thread, Amerigo Vespucci.

[polichick]

7. Hel-lo!!!

[Arugula Latte]

8. WTF? He's advocating infiltrating themselves?

[kenny blankenship]

24. Yes, it's called Permanent Revolution

There's no limit to how far right it could take us.

[harun]

9. WTF, they did this like 15 years ago.

[Angry Dragon]

10. As he is shown on the fair and balanced news network

[Atman]

11. INFILTRATE it? They fucking OWN it!

We wouldn't be in ANY of the messes we're in now, from war to deficits, if we had a LIBERAL media that actually asked questions. Instead, we have a rubber-stamp cheerleader GOP media that promotes everything the GOP does and denounces anything the Democrats do.

[glinda]

14. Griping does nothing. There needs to be an all out effort to secure free progressive press.

Majority of the public just about everywhere at this point, is kept ignorant and prodded along. This statement coming at the time of the Wiki revelations sends total flags up also.

[rurallib]

12. just crawl out from under a rock, Freddie?

[TwilightGardener]

13. BTW, I hope you all note the brilliance of this. STILL perpetuating

the liberal media myth, STILL pretending that Fux isn't a RW outlet.

[Poboy]

15. By making the suggestion, it presupposes they haven't been, thus

providing cover for the corporatists. The spectrum of debate is very narrow, but by railing against anyone who isn't a wingnut, the phony perception remains.

[glinda]

16. Griping does nothing. There needs to be an all out effort to secure free progressive press.

Coming at at time during Wiki revelations sends tons of flags up to me.

[RKP5637]

17. WTF - where has this butt-head been ... n/t

[kenny blankenship]

18. Done right, it could last a thousand years!

[Overseas]

19. Matt Taibbi describes how they already have done that. Link below.

Apparently David Gergen mistook him for one of the rising star centrists, Matt Bai, and was surprised to see Matt defending the disenfranchised.

Bai is one of those guys -- there are hundreds of them in this business -- who poses as a wonky, Democrat-leaning "centrist" pundit and then makes a career out of drubbing "unrealistic" liberals and progressives with cartoonish Jane Fonda and Hugo Chavez caricatures. This career path is so well-worn in our business, it's like a Great Silk Road of pseudoleft punditry. First step: graduate Harvard or Columbia, buy some clothes at Urban Outfitters, shore up your socially liberal cred by marching in a gay rights rally or something, then get a job at some place like the American Prospect. Then once you're in, spend a few years writing wonky editorials gently chiding Jane Fonda liberals for failing to grasp the obvious wisdom of the WTC or whatever Bob Rubin/Pete Peterson Foundation deficit-reduction horseshit the Democratic Party chiefs happen to be pimping at the time. Once you've got that down, you just sit tight and wait for the New York Times or the Washington Post to call. It won't be long.

Here's a link to the brilliant short article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/239443/83512

Edited to add that for a more detailed examination of how systematically our mass media have been pushed to the right, I highly recommend "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman.

[tcaudilllg]

20. Well all criticism of position he believes in must be personal, after all.

Because he's a paranoid idiot.

[MedicalAdmin]

21. Translation: Throw money at MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[WilliamPitt]

22. Derp

[Supersedeas]

23. NOTE: deciding the daily NEWS/political agenda must be Ideologically Controlled

yet, they call that journalism?

[blondeatlast]

25. He's deadly serious--that's what's so gawddammed scary about it. nt

[kenny blankenship]

32. I don't think they even know where they want to go- at some point only blood will appease them

[City Lights]

26. "Con"servatives already have Fux.

And with the exception of prime time msnbc, cnn and msnbc are fux-lite.

Not much more infiltrating is needed before the take over is complete.

:nuke:

[Initech]

27. Uh yeah there is no liberal media.

[kenny blankenship]

31. But an already rightwing media could be made more fascist and totalitarian

by continually raging against a supposed "Liberal Conspiracy", which they picture as secretly governing what can be said on air, and spoken of in civic discourse. You have to imagine, then, in an environment where it has become acceptable to say, for example, that President Obama is a Muslim, a foreign national and thus not eligible for his political office, and for another example, that Julian Assange is an enemy combatant, a terrorist, and should be assassinated by clandestine forces of the US Govt., just what kinds of things our right wingers would like to say over the airwaves, but feel they cannot?

[Initech]

34. I fear we're headed toward the world displayed in "V For Vendetta".

I swear they saw it coming. :yoiks:

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

29. Uhm he's about 30 years to late on that one. What's next he's gonna call for sanctions on the USSR?

[HughBeaumont]

30. Isn't that like saying progressives and Democrats should infiltrate DU?

Fred Barnes authored "Rebel in Chief" about Bewsh, as if a wholly owned representative of Corporate BankMerica is some kind of "Rebel". Asshole.

[truebrit71]

33. Did he just wake up from a coma? Dude...you already HAVE infiltrated it..

..