Sarah Palin can’t even pronounce the word “media” properly, but she is its hottest property: selling millions of books, commanding a legion of Facebook fans, and now pulling in two million viewers for her debut as a Fox News presenter.
Conservative commentators
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Download your Pure Poison Wingnut Bingo cards, full of subjects guaranteed to get any Australian trollumnist frothing at the mouth with outrage.
How Glenn Beck is factionalising Fox News
Controversial conservative commentator Glenn Beck may pull huge ratings for Fox News, but behind his back, not everyone at the network is a fan.
Andrew Breitbart: I’m 17 crack-addled monkeys on spring break
Wired profiles conservative commentator and online media mogul Andrew Breitbart, the man behind Breitbart.com, the Big Government/Hollywood/Journalism sites and formerly “Matt Drudge’s bitch”.
The Top 25 right-wing pundits in America
The Daily Beast’s guide to the pick of the US conservative commentariat — from mainstream columnists to bloggers, news anchors and radio hosts.
Insiders returns: now with 50% less science
ABC’s Insiders returns this Sunday, and it has booked the mainstream media’s denialist-in-chief, Andrew Bolt, for episode one, says Tobias Ziegler.
How America’s right-wing grapevine works
The Washington Post looks at how an email by a conservative blogger at 5am can run through the blogosphere, the beltway and the parties, and end up being broadcast to Tea Partiers across the nation by Rush Limbaugh in the very same day.
Pakistan’s Fox News
Pakistan’s mainstream media is increasingly pushing an ominously anti-American line, claims The New Republic, and at the forefront is newspaper The Nation and its editor Shireen Mazari — the country’s answer to Anne Coulter.
Jon Stewart catches Fox News anchor doctoring footage
Fox News presenter Sean Hannity has been caught out airing misleading footage during a story about an anti-health care reform rally to make the event look far more successful than it actually was. The investigative reporter with the scoop? The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart.
In defense of Fox News
So what if Fox News is conservative? asks Matthew Cooper. That’s no excuse for the White House to completely shun it: “If the White House can reach out to the Iranians and North Koreans, for gosh sakes, they can talk to Shepard Smith.”
Flat-screen TVs, conscription and the Left: dangerous liaisons?
Given the Left-liberal orientation of most people attending the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, the Rightward slant of the topics seems distinctly odd.
Women of American Conservatism: the calendar
Ousted Miss California Carrie Prejean, blogger Michelle Malkin, Republican Michelle Bachman and all your other favourite female right-wingers have come together for the Great American Conservative Women 2010 calendar. Saucy.
America: how the lunatics took over the asylum
Birthers, teabaggers, town hallers, speech-to-schools scaremongers… the certifiably insane have officially taken over America’s political discourse. How did things get so crazy, so quickly? Is it fear driven by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, or is Obama himself to blame?
Glenn Beck: a loud, mad Fox phenomenon
Few commentators are dividing US public opinion right now as much as Fox News’ Glenn Beck. Advertisers are boycotting, but ratings are soaring. Tea Partiers love him, the left hate him, and the pundits love to hate him. But is he hurting America by fueling his fans’ fears?
Rush Limbaugh: “We need segregated buses”
Controversial US commentator Rush Limbaugh has given his own special take on the hot issue of race in America: “We need segregated buses … This is Obama’s America.”
The story behind the Sotomayor story
How old video footage dug up by one man of then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor ended up running unquestioned on every major news network across the US, unfairly shaping the entire nation’s public perception of the judge. A case study in churnalism.
Guy Rundle: NRO finds possible evidence of anti-Semitism in 1930s Germany
“Has there been anti-Semitism on the political right?” asks NRO editor Jonah Goldberg. A complex question… unless the topic in question is ‘Germany in the 1930s’.
How the pundits got it oh so wrong on Afghanistan
Given the almost universal recognition that the Afghanistan campaign has become a bloody mess, it’s worth revisiting some of the pundits who initially sold us the war.
Guy Rundle: Devine diagnoses the “narcissism epidemic”: blame parents
In the SMH, Miranda Devine weighs in on the “narcissism epidemic” as documented by, surprisingly, social psychologists. Her diagnosis? Blame the parents.
Why the Right rule Twitter
Lefties may rule the blogosphere, but conservatives have the territory of Twitter firmly in their grasp, according to CNN, due to the medium’s success at pushing single, concise issues and ideas like “death panels”.
Why neocons love Jon Stewart
Comedian-cum-political commentator Jon Stewart may be a rusted-on leftie, but he’s a intelligent one who favours discourse over cheap digs. New York Mag explains why the conservative commentators are lining up for a chance to match wits with the liberal pin-up boy.
Andrew Bolt the Comic Dog
The Oz is graphing the number of words spoken by panelists on the ABC show Q & A to show that surprise surprise the Tories do badly out of it, but the words ratio they should really be looking at is on Andrew Bolt on Insiders, says Guy Rundle.
Reader’s Digest turns right
In an attempt to find a contemporary niche, Reader’s Digest is moving in a decidedly conservative direction: “I love my family, I love my community, I love my church.”
Rush and Newt are winning the media culture wars
If you doubt that there is a conservative inclination in the media, consider how much noise is created when Rush Limbaugh sneezes or Newt Gingrich tweets, says E.J. Dionne Jr
Washington Post / Thursday, 8 April 2010
The Washington Post has a new blog all about the “conservative movement” and Republican Party, promising to explain what the right is “doing, thinking, and planning”. Could be fascinating reading for political junkies of all persuasions.