NPR, Wash. Post latest to dismiss Beck's smears, falsehoods

On the January 25 edition of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, as part of their "Crossing the Divide" series, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik interviewed conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who was described by host Michele Norris as someone "with absolutely no interest in crossing the divide." During the report, Folkenflik purported to contrast Limbaugh with "rival conservative talk show host" Glenn Beck who has his own show on CNN Headline News and was recently hired as a "regular commentator" for ABC's Good Morning America. Folkenflik uncritically reported that Beck finds that "severe rhetoric only drives people apart" and made the misleading claim that Beck has "taken flak" for his beliefs. In fact, Beck has "taken flak" for a host of smears and inflammatory comments he has made -- his denunciations of "severe rhetoric" notwithstanding. For instance, during a November 14, 2006, interview with Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who is the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Beck said: "I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies,' " a comment he later stated was "poorly worded" and "wish[ed]" he "could take back and rephrase." The weblog Think Progress also noted Folkenflik's report.

As Media Matters for America has extensively documented, Beck has a long history of smearing Arabs and Muslims on both his syndicated radio show and his television show, Glenn Beck, including:

• He has declared: "All you Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time" rather than saying that "[w]e need to be ... lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head" will face dire consequences.

• Beck warned that if "Muslims and Arabs" don't "act now" by "step[ping] to the plate" to condemn terrorism, they "will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West."

• He described a letter criticizing Al Qaeda in Iraq as "surprising" because "the man who wrote it" -- Islamic Society of Nevada director Aslam Abdullah -- "is a Muslim."

• Beck mocked Islam by "mark[ing] the death" of Al Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi with a "Zarqawi bacon cake."

• He has said that "[t]he Middle East is being overrun by 10th-century barbarians" and "[i]f they take over ... we're going to have to nuke the whole place."

• Beck aired a segment mocking the names of several missing Egyptian students in which the announcer said that one "may or may not be accompanied by his camel." The segment showed pictures of crowds and pointed to random, unidentifiable people as the missing Egyptians. It ended with a reading of the students' names followed by the announcer pretending to gag as he struggled to pronounce them.

Beck has not reserved his vitriol for Arabs and Muslims alone, however:

• Beck has claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in the middle of the night": "One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."

• Beck has referred to "those who were left in New Orleans [during Hurricane Katrina], or who decided to stay" as "scumbags."

• Beck has called anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute" and a "tragedy pimp."

• During a discussion of the "politically correct world we live in," Beck claimed that Braille on walls (used to identify rooms for blind people) "drives me out of my mind." He then said, "Just to piss them [blind people] off, I'm going to put in Braille on the coffee pot ... 'Pot is hot.' "

• Discussing an illegal immigrant who had been accused of killing a police officer in Houston, Beck asked: "Are you kidding me? We're taking rapists out of your country, and you've got a problem with that, and you're shipping killers to us? Please."

• After airing a clip from the documentary film, An Inconvenient Truth, in which former Vice President Al Gore describes that global warming could cause many highly populated coastal areas to be submerged by seawater -- including the entire city of Shanghai -- Beck responded: "This is what would happen to Shanghai. Does anybody really care? I mean, come on. Shanghai is under water. Oh, no! Who's gonna make those little umbrellas for those tropical drinks?"

Further, in an 1,800-word January 26 feature article on Beck, which noted that Beck's question to Ellison was "surely his most embarrassing moment" and called Beck "a younger, folksier version of Bill O'Reilly," The Washington Post uncritically reported Beck's claim that it is "not true" that he is a global warming skeptic. The article noted that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Beck "CNN's chief corporate fascism advocate" because of Beck's comments on global warming and quoted Beck as saying: "The point here is that people who disagree with me don't actually watch or listen to this show." But in a January 9 article reporting ABC News' announcement that Beck will soon join Good Morning America as a "regular commentator," the Associated Press added that Beck will "make specials on people who believe in the apocalypse, Islam in America and the 'myths of global warming.' "

Moreover, Beck frequently questions the cause of global warming and has cited debunked scientists to support his doubts that "we're the ones causing" global warming. As recently as the January 22 edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck asked rhetorically: "Now, I personally believe in global climate change. Not disputing even that pollution and giant Escalades like mine certainly aren't helping, but are they causing this?" Immediately afterwards, Beck knocked down the straw-man argument that humans are "completely responsible for global warming," which he claimed has "been adopted as universal truth in our country":

BECK: The notion of man's complete responsibility for global warming has wrongly been adopted as universal truth here in our country. Remember, you know, just because Al Gore made a documentary doesn't mean that all the information he presented were irrefutable facts. Where were the SUVs when the dinosaurs were burned?

As Media Matters has repeatedly documented, scientific organizations such as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) share the consensus view that, according to a June 2006 NAS report, "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming" of the planet. Neither these organizations nor Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, make the argument that humans are "completely responsible for global warming."

From the January 25 edition of NPR's All Things Considered:

NORRIS: Our series, "Crossing the Divide," explores ways people communicate across differences in politics, religion, business, and other areas. Today, NPR's David Folkenflik has the story of someone with a contrarian view; someone with absolutely no interest in crossing the divide.

[...]

FOLKENFLIK: And that often involves barbs aimed directly at liberals. Some feminist leaders become "feminazis." Recently, Limbaugh joked that new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA], the first woman speaker in U.S. history, might well breast-feed a child sitting on her lap during official ceremonies.

Limbaugh says he's just using humor to make a point. But a rival conservative talk show host, Glenn Beck, says such severe rhetoric only drives people apart.

BECK: I truly believe it's going to be the death of us. It's going to be the death of our industry. It is going to be the death of our country, if we don't stop dividing ourselves like this. It is not right.

FOLKENFLIK: Beck has TV gigs on CNN and ABC. Despite that criticism, he's unabashed about his own beliefs, and he's taken flak for them.

BECK: There's nothing wrong with pointing out differences. There's nothing wrong with having a heated debate. There's nothing wrong with doing all of those things, even in an entertaining way, but they cannot define you.

FOLKENFLIK: Press critic Tom Rosenstiel agrees with that -- he leads the Project for Excellence in Journalism -- but he says there's another problem. Limbaugh and other ideological talk show hosts aren't remotely as careful with the facts as the mainstream media outlets they so frequently mock.

From the January 26 Washington Post article:

When the program "Glenn Beck" joined the revamped Headline News lineup in May, initially it looked as if CNN was simply peddling a younger, folksier version of Bill O'Reilly -- a self-appointed truth-squadding right-winger who will not shut up. But Beck, who was recently tapped to make editorial cameos on ABC's "Good Morning America," has brought something new to the TV blowhard genre.

While most sermonizing conservatives wait for a public debacle to expose their failings -- think of William Bennett and his slot-machine addiction, or Rush Limbaugh and his pill problem -- Beck and his many inner demons are on a first-name basis, and he's constantly introducing them to viewers. His alcoholism is just part of it.

Plus, where O'Reilly traffics in absolute truths and certitudes, Beck is a hand-wringer, forever rummaging around the gray areas in any debate, pontificating even as he wonders aloud if his instincts are wrong, or at least worthy of reexamination. He's more culture worrier than culture warrior.

[...]

On the same day as his pornography segment, Beck exults over news that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called him "CNN's chief corporate fascism advocate," evidently because he thinks Beck is a global-warming skeptic. Not true, says Beck, and though he's flattered by the attention, he's irked that Kennedy apparently hasn't bothered to watch his show. (Kennedy, in a brief interview, says he recalls Beck voicing doubts about global warming a few weeks back.) "The point here is that people who disagree with me don't actually watch or listen to this show," Beck tells his viewers. "They're hearing what they think I would say, what they think someone like me -- you know, a conservative hatemonger -- would say."

From the January 22 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:

BECK: Now, I personally believe in global climate change. Not disputing even that pollution and giant Escalades like mine certainly aren't helping, but are they causing this?

The notion of man's complete responsibility for global warming has wrongly been adopted as universal truth here in our country. Remember, you know, just because Al Gore made a documentary doesn't mean that all the information he presented were irrefutable facts. Where were the SUVs when the dinosaurs were burned?

You know, it's just like two doctors having a differing opinion on how to handle treatment of a disease. There are numerous alternative views on why the Earth's climate is what it is.

Now, the thing that I've noticed -- I don't know if I've noticed this, too -- you know the people who are always scolding, you know, people: "Hey, you've got to embrace diversity"? They're often the least receptive to diverse points of view on global warming.

And you'd think, if there's one place that would entertain all of the theories on the weather, it would be the freakin' Weather Channel. Yeah, you'd think that, but you'd be wrong.

James Spann is a meteorologist with the highest level of certification from the American Meteorological Society. His credentials are impeccable until the Weather Channel decided they wanted to take away his AMS certification, because he didn't believe that global warming is man-made and not a natural process. What happened? How did -- why is it, James, that you don't believe that this is a man-made process?

JAMES SPANN (ABC 33/40 chief meteorologist): Well, Glenn, the earth's climate has changed since the day God put it here. We have had these cyclical changes, and I believe that most of this is purely natural.

Quite frankly, to those of us in the operational community -- and we're talking meteorologists that look at computer models and data in a simulated public forecast -- we don't see much difference in the global warming in the last 10 to 15 years compared to the global warming we had from about 1910 to about 1945.The 1930s were extremely warm across the globe, and I just don't see a lot of difference in that.

And to us, the CO₂ emissions -- and let me say this -- I think we should reduce them for better air quality. We're going to run out of fossil fuels. We have many issues; and I'm all in agreement that we should reduce that.

But the idea that this is producing catastrophic man-made global warming just doesn't make a lot of sense. It's a pop gun compared to atomic bomb issues like volcanic dust in the stratosphere, the position of the sun, the temperature of the sun, the structure of the Earth's magnetic poles and ocean currents. That's what makes the big changes.

BECK: OK. James --

SPANN: So, in our opinion, a large part of this is not man-made; it's natural.

BECK: James -- I mean, I'm sure that all makes sense, and you don't look like a kook, but you've got to have somebody chained in your basement, because you're clearly a kook, because you have to be if you come out and say these things.

It's amazing to me that I feel as though we're almost living in McCarthy times when it comes to global warming. They are doing everything they can to shut people like you down. Why?

SPANN: Yeah, there's really -- there's really two issues, Glenn. We've got the global warming issue. Is it man-made? Is it natural? There needs to be a healthy debate.