Tag Archives: media

Rush Limbaugh Blames Women for Advertiser Boycott Success

This is at Salon this week: Limbaugh, in case you’d forgotten, called Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” after the Georgetown University student spoke out in support of insurance mandates for contraceptives. He later apologized – profusely so – but the damage was done. … Continue reading

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Rhetoric Watch: How Rick Perry Parries

This blogger nails it: Perry’s rules of rhetorical engagement boil down to 1) constantly impugn your opponents’ motives by insinuation; 2) shamelessly misrepresent their policies; 3) tag existing federal programs and functions with inflammatory and manifestly inaccurate labels; 4) eschew … Continue reading

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Glenn Beck, Teledemagogue?

I’ve never seen the appelation teledemagogue  used before, but it strikes me as a perfect descriptive for Glenn Beck. Just as an evangelist can engage in televangelism, a demagogue can engage in teledemagoguery. And so there are televangelists and there are … Continue reading

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Steven Pinker is skeptical of new media skepticism

At the New York Times this week, Steven Pinker has a not-to-be-missed op-ed on new media skepticism. A taste: Media critics write as if the brain takes on the qualities of whatever it consumes, the informational equivalent of “you are what … Continue reading

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Conspiracy Bait: Greenscreens are Everywhere—and Maybe Even Coming to the News

You certainly couldn’t fake a moon landing in 1969, but I suppose that, with contemporary technology, you might almost get away with it today. In the future, will government and corporate officials—and those in our assorted propaganda industries—start using the greenscreen technology below to … Continue reading

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The Last Daily Newspaper in the United States?

Kevin Drum at Mother Jones makes a prediction: I’ll stick with 2025 for now.  There may be small local papers around for longer than that, but no big city dailies.  New York will be the last to go, but in … Continue reading

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Quote of the Day: Robert Lifton on the “thought terminating cliche”

Thought terminating cliches? You know, like the ones that Americans hear weekly from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. Here’s the psychologist Robert Lifton, from his book, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism : “The language of the totalist environment is characterized by … Continue reading

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Tricks or Tweets? Twittering Ghostwriters Behind the Machines

Who are all these people who have time to follow the tweets of stars and politicians? And could anything be more pathetic—or wasteful of a human being’s time? Well, yes, there is something more pathetic and wasteful. It turns out that … Continue reading

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Lest We Forget: In February, 1972, Billy Graham and Richard Nixon Discuss Jews, in a Paranoid and Anti-Semitic Fashion, in the Oval Office

A segment from the Nixon tapes reveals a dark, anti-Semitic and paranoid streak in both Billy Graham and Richard Nixon:

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The GOP’s Got Game? Republican Michael Steel Makes a Hip Hop Play for the Urban Youth Vote!

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John Cleese of Monty Python on Twittering

John Cleese deconstructs “twittering” in ten short seconds here.

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Maybe I Do Want Popcorn

Do subliminal flashings of images (like a popcorn box on a theater screen) work afterall? For years, we’ve been told “probably not.” Now there are researchers saying, “maybe so.” Not sure what to make of this, but an article on subliminal messages … Continue reading

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No Bible Used at Obama’s Second Oath-Taking

I read in the NY Times this morning that Justice Roberts had administered to President Obama the oath of office one more time (to correct the flubbed wording on Inauguration Day). But I also noticed that, rather deep in the article, … Continue reading

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“The VET Who Did Not VET”: See Here The Second Most Amazing Ad of This Campaign Season

I still think this is first: And here’s a poll for you to render your own judgment:

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No Press Conference, No Attention: Andrew Sullivan Says Media Should Stop Running Clips of Sarah Palin’s Stump Speeches—Until She Holds a Press Conference

Andrew Sullivan thinks that the media is enabling the McCain campaign’s sheltering of Sarah Palin—and should stop it now: Until governor Sarah Palin gives a full press conference, it seems to me that the cable news outlets should stop running her … Continue reading

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“Drill, Baby, Drill” or “Lie, Baby, Lie”? Sarah Palin Continues to Repeat Lies That Have Been Thoroughly Debunked in the Press

Salon.com reports that, in a Republican rally on Saturday in Nevada, Sarah Palin continues to make reference to things that, elsewhere, have been debunked as falsehoods: In her 20-minute stump speech, Palin reprised the greatest hits of her Republican National … Continue reading

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Via Teleprompter, “She’ll Talk Directly to the American People”: McCain Campaign Surrogate Mocks the Notion that Sarah Palin Needs to Make Herself Available for Interviews and Questions From The Press

The following video is so gross to watch, I simply don’t know what to say. The cynicism is bottomless: When a national party can shield its candidates from interviews and press conferences, how is democracy to function properly? How are … Continue reading

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Know How Wile E. Coyote Keeps Running Even After He’s Gone Over a Cliff? That’s Andrew Sullivan’s Analogy for the McCain Campaign Since Sarah Palin Joined the Ticket

McCain’s Sarah Palin VP-pick has just taken the Republican party over a cliff.  The party just hasn’t looked down yet. Andrew Sullivan: My view is that the GOP is now like Wile E Coyote about half a mile off the cliff … Continue reading

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American Fast Food: The Back of a Televangelist’s Book Deconstructed

Daddy eye!     I think that the back of this old book advertises itself in a crassly mendacious fashion. Here’s some things that I notice: The photo and the author’s name take up the top half of the back cover’s display—suggesting that … Continue reading

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Turn Me on Ad Man: A Great Book on the Dark Arts of Persuasion

The book, Age of Progaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion (Holt 2001), attempts to demystify propaganda and the persuasion process, and it does so in a scholarly, fluid, and engaging manner. The authors, Anthony Pratkanis and Elliot Aronson, walk … Continue reading

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