Van who?
The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz writes about the MSM missing the Van Jones story…
As a proponent of creating “green” jobs, Jones was a respected figure within the environmental movement. But he was sufficiently obscure as a special adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality that major news organizations basically ignored him. Only The Post ran a profile, in December, and a story last month on his government work.
Beck, by contrast, drew an avalanche of coverage for calling President Obama a “racist” who harbors “a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture” — the remarks that triggered the boycott. He also raised the race issue against Jones, touting a videotape in which the activist said last year that “the white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities.” The other cable networks, meanwhile, gave Jones scant attention, with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann assailing Beck’s role in the attacks.
Beck, who also hosts a popular radio show, is enjoying a ratings surge, averaging 2.25 million viewers on Fox. He regularly tries to deflect criticism by describing himself as a recovering alcoholic and “rodeo clown.”
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September 14, 2009 at 8:54 am
Two weeks ago, Kurtz was blasting Beck for going after Jones only because Jones’ former group was forming a boycott against his show.
Sorry, Howie, but you’re every bit as a guilty as the rest of the MSM in this one.
September 14, 2009 at 10:11 am
Weren’t ‘green jobs’ the future of the American economy? I recall candidate Obama promoting them numerous times as, among other items, the solution to the loss of our manufacturing economy.
The fact that the Administration’s point man on this is now gone is a pretty big story, it seems to me. Bigger than the coverage given.
Not Cabinet Level removal coverage; but still big.
I think that an ‘eccentric’ like Beck – sorry, he’s just not ‘all there’ – pushed this so hard made the press leery of following it. That’s not a defense, just an explanation.
September 14, 2009 at 11:36 am
Steve, Beck may be not be “all there” (we agree with you on that), but he’s been on top of the news lately, from propelling this Van Jones story to the 9/12 rallies to the ACORN videotapes.
September 14, 2009 at 1:45 pm
You can say what ever you want about Beck, but so far he has been right on the money.
September 14, 2009 at 2:20 pm
PR, he’s sometimes right, but an exposition on communist symbols in the artwork at Rockefeller Center is just weird. Dennis Miller said it was like deciphering the cover of “Sgt. Pepper”. Good stuff.
September 14, 2009 at 3:40 pm
but an exposition on communist symbols in the artwork at Rockefeller Center is just weird.
It would be like Olbermann pointing to a Norman Rockwell painting on a building in Topeka, Kansas as evidence that the Daughters of the American Revolution were going to stage a coup.
He really is analagous to the “Michael Moore/Oliver Stone The- neocons-and-Halliburton-and-the-military-industrial-complex” type explanation of how the world works.
Nobody runs the world. It’s screwed up all by itself.
September 14, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Well Becks been hitting them out of the park and showing up the MSM to boot…you know he’s getting results when even the Dems in Congress are willing to vote pulling funding from Acorn…KO only wishes he had that kind of influence..no wonder he targets Beck now instead of O’Reilly. LOL!!!
It is a shame that it takes Beck to force the MSM to do their job…they should have been covering Jones and Acorn from the start but instead they buried because it makes Obama look bad.
Dose anybody still with a straight face deny the overwhelming Liberal bias of the MSM?..(and yes FOX dose lend to the right I don’t deny that.).
September 14, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Overwhelming liberal bias is a conservative fantasy. There’s plenty of bias and outright opinion on both sides to go around. A little liberal bias in the run-up to the Iraq War would’ve been nice.
September 14, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Joe, I would encourage you, and everyone here, to read Bernie Goldberg’s “Bias”.
I would also encourage you to look at the overwhelming proof in polls, like that one that showed the national media voted for John Kerry over Bush by a 5-1 margin.
Or maybe, just open your eyes.
Of course there’s conservative bias on Fox News, and on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal. But it’s liberal almost everywhere else in the “news” business.
September 14, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Bernie Goldberg is a bitter old tool, and you assume all reporters are biased based on their political leanings. I disagree. That 5-1 margin supposedly favoring Kerry didn’t seem to stop the “MSM” from giving the Swift Boaters months of coverage. Not to mention the lambasting his inept campaign and waffling statements took.
As long as FNC is the top-rated cable news network, and The WSJ is one of the most influential newspapers in the country, I refuse to accept the conservative fantasy that most people are being fed a steady diet of liberal bias, with poor little FNC/WSJ/Rush the lone wolves in the wilderness crying out for Truth.
September 14, 2009 at 5:55 pm
See, Red? You and I have trotted these arguments out so many times WE don’t even care anymore. What this blog needs is a good Live TV Hazard. I hear Ainsley Earhardt is back…
September 14, 2009 at 6:20 pm
Beck may be grasping at straws at times, but the fact that a self-avowed communist was appointed as an advisor to the POTUS is HUGE NEWS! For the media to ignore this story is unforgiveable.
September 14, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Missy, I think it’s fair to say “the media” did pay attention once Beck brought it to their attention. We can’t expect them to do an in-depth vetting of every appointment, and Van Jones wasn’t on anyone’s radar. The ‘vetting thing’ rests with Obama’s team, which dropped the ball.
I know many of my more-liberal-than-me friends feel like the guy was railroaded, but I disagree. The Marxist leanings in his past were problematic, although I would hesitate to write him off based solely on them, but the ’9/11 Truther’ petition IS unforgiveable.
September 14, 2009 at 6:37 pm
As Bernie Goldberg repeatedly states, the MSM’s liberal bias isn’t that they intentionally skew the news to favour that side over the right, it’s that most spend the majority of their time around like-minded people and simply don’t perceive the different perspectives from which to view some issues.
Gun rights, for example: It has to be very difficult for someone who has spent most of their adult life living in the cities or burbs of NY, DC, or LA and can dial “911″ to have a police car show up in five minutes to understand living out in the boonies of the Midwest where it can take more than an hour on a good day to get help. To some, guns aren’t *just* for hunting or sport; they can be for protection against predators, be they bears or bad guys.
September 14, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Al, your comment about ‘like-minded people’ has validity. My perceptions of things has certainly been affected by getting to know people from ‘the other side’ here. It hasn’t necessarily changed all my views, but it has given me the oppurtunity to see those I disagree with as something other than ‘wrong’.
September 14, 2009 at 8:58 pm
I agree wholeheartedly, joe.
That’s why I don’t like watching Sean Hannity’s solo show. I think he’s a nice guy, intelligent, and I usually agree with him, but that constant droning drum beat does nothing toward helping me see the important issues of the day more clearly. He’d be great teamed-up with Kirsten Powers, one of the few liberals on the telly who has demonstrated an ability to effectively take on Sarah Palin without resorting to insult, and is comfortable enough in her beliefs to straight-out acknowledge when the governor has it right.
September 14, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Al, that, among other things, is why I’ve tired of Keith Olbermann. It’s possible to disagree with people without seeing them as the devil. They may actually just have a life experience that generates a different opinion than yours.
September 15, 2009 at 3:43 am
I love how the media is marginalizing Beck, and making excuses for ignoring the Jones AND the ACORN stories, while simultaneously wondering why no one trusts them and why their ratings/sales are so low!
September 15, 2009 at 5:58 am
It’s possible to disagree with people without seeing them as the devil.
You’ll never be able to make it in cable news (or talk radio) with that attitude.
Repeat after me: I and my side are always right; they and their side are always, not just wrong, but evil.
September 15, 2009 at 9:42 am
Missy, I’m not sure what media you’re watching/reading, but I don’t see much marginalization of Beck going on, even on MSNBC. KO/Maddow/Big Ed, et al, may not like him, but they clearly consider him a real threat. I don’t like him much more than they do, but I agree he is becoming a force on the Right. I just wish the dude would calm down a bit. Sometimes he’s right, but you never know when he’s gonna turn The Crazy on. A bit like KO, in that respect.