Topic: Media
When The Media Grew Ears: Cable 47 The Side Stream Media (SSM) has something in common with Ron Paul. Beck, Carlson, and Cramer are soul-mates.by William Westmiller
(Libertarian)
Friday, December 21, 2007
When I miss the MUTE button on my cable remote, tying to ignore a CNN report on turtle fertility in Lower Slobovia, I end up on one of the "Side Stream Media": CNN Headline News, CNBC, or MSNBC. These channels have slightly lower poll ratings (Nielsen) than Ron Paul’s poll ratings in Utah. Maybe that’s why they "have ears" for Paul. They want to start their own rEVOLution in viewership habits. These guys aren’t in fifth place. More like 684th, slightly better than "My TV Blew Up".
CNN Headline News
Glen Beck is a fascinating personality and talented performer. He can glide from an hysteric rant to cuddly smooches without taking a breath. He is a genuine celebrity on a channel that spends most of the day reading the first sentences of news, sports, and weather stories. Glen is a "libertarian at heart" and had been trying to arrange an interview with Ron Paul for months.
In the meantime, he stepped on some toes by saying that "fringe elements" among Paul supporters were incipient domestic terrorists. Worse, he implied (and allowed his guest to assert) the claim that Ron Paul himself had picked the Guy Fawkes theme, noting that Fawkes was an English terrorist.
"The vast majority of Paul supporters take this little metaphor the way it’s intended, as a rallying cry to create a dramatic political shift. It’s not really the way I would go, you know, tying my movement in with an historical terrorist attack, especially in post 9/11 America. But, hey, I’m a libertarian at heart. I get it. You raise money however you want, as long as you’re not blowing other people up. If fringe elements take that disenfranchisement and turn it into violence, we endanger the freedoms we’re supposedly all fighting for."
Glen loves to state his case, then ask "Where am I wrong?" In this case, guilt by association. You don’t speculate about what some cranks might do, then identify them as Ron Paul supporters, implying that this association somehow explains their crankiness. Allowing guest David Horowitz to falsely assert that Ron Paul "chose Guy Fawkes as an image," without correction, is just sloppy disregard for the truth. The Paul campaign had nothing whatever to do with picking that theme or that image.
The false claims irritated a fair number of legitimate Paul supporters who informed him of their distress and one YouTube 9/11 "truther", "OzzybinOswald", who labelled Beck a traitor who "deserved the death penalty." Beck considered this a legitimate threat against his life, hired security guards, and started wearing a bullet-proof vest. At least, that’s what he told Ron Paul when arrangements for his appearance were finally settled.
Beck had fellow Mormon Mitt Romney as a guest earlier, skipping over any discussion of religion and politics. As he did with Mike Huckabee, Beck devoted a "full hour to honest questions" (CNN Video) for Ron Paul. Glen put on his glasses, asked fair questions, and allowed Paul to answer them fully. Beck even listened to the answers, showing some sympathy and agreement.
Apparently, Beck likes Ron Paul’s position on the first issue: "If we weren’t both men, yeah know, I’d like to French kiss you on the whole ... abolishing the IRS thing." Beck is happy to call himself a "Zionist" and supports the war against "Islamic Jihadists" that he discusses in his NY Times bestsellingAn Inconvenient Book. He asks, "Are you really serious, do you really believe that this is just about us being over in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East?" and then he listens. This is good.
Beck compliments Paul on the spontaneous fundraising efforts, then peppers it with his own distress: "The down side is that when you have rabid supporters, some of them believe they can speak to their own agendas, using the candidate’s name." Paul makes it clear that he has "no idea who these people are … I’m committed to non-violence, no initiation of aggression. These are my political viewpoints. I believe in political change coming about in the mode of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, through non-violence … I reject anybody that would use violence … I don’t have to endorse what they do. If they try to get away with attaching my name to what they do, it’s wrong."
Beck proceeded to quiz Paul on some "Truther" stories and Paul responds tersely:
Pentagon hit by a missile? Ron: "Preposterous" WTC planes were remotely controlled? Ron: "Just bizarre." US government not involved in the 9/11 attacks? Ron: "I absolutely believe that is true: they did not."
Glen Beck earns a lot of ears, with 289 affiliates to his talk radio show and a growing audience for his CNN-HN show, where he could become cable TV’s top "blowviator." It’s nice to see that he has ears.
CNBC
Jim Cramer is loud, ugly, and cruel, even to corporate executives. His show title is not a misnomer: "Mad Money" is probably the noisiest and most amusing show on cable. What’s unexpected is that he actually understands economics and offers some excellent investment tips. The people who intentionally watch his show (I do) actually know about the FED, gold, and capitalism. That’s right up Ron Paul’s alley and when he brought the candidate into his den of horrors, Cramer didn’t blow a single shrill buzzer or rabid barking dogs at him.
Only slightly out-of-character, Cramer practically drooled over Paul’s views on the FED: "You’ve given me cover, sir. I always feel like I’m out there by myself, criticizing this institution that everybody thinks is like a holy temple, when the reality is that these are just men and women, like you and me, except they’re making policy, with no checks and balances." Seriously, I was expecting barking dogs at that point.
MSNBC
Tucker Carlson is sweet, cute, and kind to everyone. He calls himself a libertarian, so it’s no wonder that he was one of the first to have Ron Paul as a guest, with repeats. Tucker likes Paul, with some reservations about how Paul views "The War", but he’s always respectfully, considerate, and serious. He has ears and he’s willing to listen.
Tucker even brought a few friends along to crash a Ron Paul press conference in Las Vegas. His intentions were innocent - he just wanted to introduce them to the candidate - but it wasn’t exactly what Ron Paul wanted or expected: a brothel owner and (as Don Imas would say) a couple of "Hos." Maybe that got him some support in Nevada, but it didn’t do a lot of good in Iowa. It was the first time I really wondered about Tucker’s "innocence" and intelligence. He’s an "up and coming" cable star (that is a pun).
And, we couldn’t end this discussion of "ears" without mentioning Keith Olbermann: Keith Olbermann.
---
Update: For those who don't know, the scroll line at the bottom of screen is not controlled by Beck or his producers. The "Paul is Dead" unfunny joke from Huckabee was a "breaking news story" inserted by the main CNN-HN control room. It did not appear when Beck's interview was re-run three times this past weekend.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 7 thumbs so far
2007 William Westmiller, all rights reserved.
Published: Friday, December 21, 2007
Last modified: Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The views expressed in this
article are those of William Westmiller only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. William Westmiller is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Want to comment on this
article? Leave your comment here. Your email address is
required to track your comment. However, we will neither
publish your email address nor distribute it to other
organizations or persons. The only reason we might use
it would be if we needed to contact you regarding your
comment. All comments are subject to our
terms of use policy.
2007 William Westmiller, all rights reserved.