Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:00 pm
On his radio show recently Glenn Beck claimed that the fake racism charges trumped up by Fox News and Breitbart was really a plot by Obama to discredit Fox News. Beck asked, “Is there a possibility that anyone who is involved is going to use this emergency or plotted this as a way to destroy the credibility of Fox News?”
Here is the audio courtesy of Media Matters:
Beck said, “Now is it possible with the Sherrod business that the reason why the President acted so quickly, and the NAACP immediately came out and said we were duped by Fox News. That’s weird because I work at Fox News and I wasn’t duped on this story. Isn’t that weird, huh? I have never seen them move quite so rapidly, and now what are they going to do? They are going to try to hire her back, and when she gave a statement she was told by the White House, you have to resign right now because you are going to be on Glenn Beck tonight, which she wasn’t. She wasn’t on my show the story wasn’t even on my show.”
He continued, “So now the President looks bad, like he’s making a decision based on facts or did he make them based on facts, but you just can’t trust the media? You can’t trust these journalists. This almost destroyed this woman’s life, and what did we do? We just trusted the media to do it. We just trusted. You can’t trust the media. Is he doing it to, is there a possibility that anyone who is involved is going to use this emergency or plotted this as a way to destroy the credibility of Fox News, which I’m glad to say we got the story right, try to destroy the credibility of Fox News, or destroy the credibility, and say you just can’t believe anything.”
Beck went into full blown defend Fox mode, “So when any charge is brought up in the future, they can so oh that’s Fox News. They were also the ones. The last time we listened to them. They take things out of context all the time. We just tried to do the right thing and the last time we listened to them. Is that a possibility? That’s the only one so far that seems to make real sense to me. That’s where we’re headed with this. Again, control of the media. I told you there’s sometimes too much information out there you don’t know what to believe. Isn’t that what the president said? Trusted source, I guess you can trust him.”
Just to summarize Beck’s point, Breitbart’s edited video of Shirley Sherrod’s remarks and the endless Fox News coverage of them were all a part of an Obama plot to destroy the credibility of Fox News. The White House would have to give Breitbart the edited video and tell Fox News to run it knowing full well that it was inaccurate, and Obama went through this elaborate plot for the sole purpose of ruining the credibility of Fox News so that people would not listen to them anymore.
FNC’s credibility has been gone for a long, long time, and it makes no sense that with all the challenges that our nation is currently facing that Obama would waste a second of his time plotting against a small cable news network, which only boasts 2 million or so daily viewers. There was no plot here. Fox News, Breitbart, and the Obama administration all look bad. The only person who looks good is the victim, Shirley Sherrod, because most people would have never heard her life story if not for Breitbart and Fox News.
Beck’s conspiracy theory was a desperate stab at keeping his audience clueless. The sad part is that many people will choose to believe Beck because they have become emotionally invested in the ideology affirming propaganda machine that is Fox News. Beck’s conspiracy theory makes no sense at all. It doesn’t hold up to the slightest bit of critical thought. This Obama/Sherrod conspiracy theory is the right wing talking point of the day.
Here is Rush Limbaugh pushing it today:
This conspiracy theory should only fly with the most hardened of ideologues, but remember, the right wing mindset is fueled by fear and paranoia, so the claim that Obama is plotting to get Fox News is right up their alley. It is a stupid theory being pushed by cynical people who are trying to keep their audience dumb, so that they can continue exploiting them for personal gain. Fox News, Breitbart, and even this White House’s weak kneed reaction to anything racial has been exposed for the world to see, and the picture is not a pretty one.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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