In the interest of being informed, I try to listen to a little bit of Rush Limbaugh every week, just to find out what crazy he’s blasting out now. Usually I can only last a few minutes, but I make the effort. Lately I’ve noticed that any time he reports anything that comes from a source other than Faux News, he’s careful to punch it up with “State Supported Radio CBS”. I really don’t want to go to his website and plow through his rhetoric to get to the bottom of this. Can someone explain this Rushism to me?
And yes, I am a lefty, but I try to stay aware of other people’s point of view so I don’t come across too crazy for one side or the other. A Centrist lefty, maybe?
I assume the rationale would be that broadcast media receives an inherent subsidy from the government by being permitted to use public airwaves. Hence the stricter control over such outlets than over subscription based services such as cable TV and satellite radio.
But Faux, CBS, NBC et al are all the same form of broadcast media, yes? So he’s making a distinction that all but Faux are “State Supported”. That’s the part I’m trying to suss out.
I thought he’s been saying “state sponsored media”. I’ll have to listen again to make sure. I haven’t heard Rush give an explanation either, but my interpretation is that he is trying to claim that corporate media outlets are somehow publishing only what the government tells them to, a la Pravda of the Soviet days.
Note that up until Obama’s inauguration or thereabouts, Rush’s disparaging term was ‘drive-by media’. I never heard much of an explanation for that one either, but presumably he wanted to give the impession that the corporate media were ignoring the facts about the wondrous achievements of the Bush administration. So, apparently it was bad to refuse to publish the government line then, but bad to accept the government line (if in fact this is the case for corporate media outlets) now.
Rush of course has a vested interest in always promoting the idea that he is somehow more trustworthy a source of information than any other outlet available. Thing is, since he apparently does not have any news-gathering network of his own, he is highly dependent on the same media he so disparages for his source material. In point of fact, if the media weren’t actually reporting the news fairly efficiently, there would be considerably more dead air on his three-hour daily show.
So, it’s just a slogan, and like many slogans it is drained of meaning through overuse.
No, “drive-by media” was meant to refer to the way a story becomes accepted as true due to a barrage of the same story being discharged at the public from many outlets echoing each other, in the manner that a “drive-by shooting” will reach its victim by a barrage of bullets at the target.
I thought “drive-by media” was a Palin-McCainism, created to describe what they probably though of as pot-shots aimed at them by the media when they were caught screwing up during the campaign.
Rush knows it isn’t materially true. (Yet.) He said that to get a rise out of leftists. And he’s succeeded. Congratulations, fish, you’ve been hooked.
And that’s SO much worse than the unbalanced (in both the “pro/con” and “insane” senses) support of ALL the other networks for Obama in the campaign and for the next 4 years is okay? :rolleyes:
I’ve never heard it interpreted quite that way; “Drive-by media” always meant the media as a whole attacking people (hence using a term from a form of murder) in sensational ways.
I don’t know if Limbaugh actually thought it up but it’s actually a useful term.
Hmm, I thought that it meant that the media only did cursory research on the topic, then presented it spun in such a way that it fit their ideological leanings. Eitherway, I don’t think that “drive-by media” = hit job.
OK, that one I’d buy, but it still remains a poorly-thought-out accusation to make, since most right-wing pundits seem to have no problem doing more or less the same thing. I think of the various flaps over Obama’s supposed Kenyan birth, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, etc.
Well the media is never fair, but that’s how it is. The media clearly favoured Obama in the last election. They favoured him over Hillary and over McCain and made a joke out of Palin. Now some could argue Palin was a joke, but why were there no jokes or even attempts at our current Vice President?
This is NOT a one sided thing. The media also LOVED Ronald Reagan. They clearly favoured him when they covered him.
As Jay Leno said as Clinton left office before the 2000 election, “Let’s face it Clinton was cool, and it’s easy to make jokes about him. Neither Gore nor Bush is funny.”
Indeed comics have a difficult time saying anything about Obama without sounding racist.
Remember when Republicans always used the word “liberal” as a slam. “The Liberal Dukakis” etc etc.
You have to remember Rush is NOT news, he’s entertainment. It’s always easier to attack than defend, because you don’t have to beat off every charge. Yes even the ridiculous ones you have to defend against, or they come off as looking true.
Except no one understands what it means. I assume its some sort of insult to the media, but I’d think if he were trying to get a rise out of leftists he’d use a term that someone other then himself understood.
I googled the phrase and it gets some use in rightwing blogs, but couldn’t find any indication of meaning. They use it to refer to cable news though, so the “public airwaves” thing doesn’t appear to be correct.
(also “no jokes about our current VP??”, I don’t think I’ve heard Biden come up in anything other then jokes since he was chosen as Obama’s running mate).