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Go Home How the Media Botched the Arizona Shooting

POLITICS JANUARY 14, 2011

How the Media Botched the Arizona Shooting

BY T.A. FRANK

When disaster strikes, journalists have to write something about it—and write it fast. That means they have to take mental shortcuts, calling up established narratives and laying them out like old wrapping paper for new and more ambiguous facts. (Wife poisons husband. Revenge killing? Money killing? Self-defense killing? We stand at the ready with a lot of templates.) While the resulting gift isn’t always pretty, it’s generally good enough for deadline work.

But sometimes the shortcuts produce a journalistic stampede at the worst possible time. That’s what happened last weekend, when 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner shot six people to death at an Arizona Safeway and gravely wounded many more, including Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The dominant storyline in the press—one that persisted in the face of all the facts—was that right-wing hysteria and lunacy had given rise to Loughner’s atrocity. Only on Wednesday night, when President Obama delivered a speech that effectively told everyone to cut it out, was the stampede halted (one hopes). But it’s still worth reviewing how the nation’s leading periodicals descended into such mindlessness.

Let’s go back to this Saturday. When news of the incident first broke, bloggers began to speculate that this was a Tea Party-related incident. No evidence of that emerged. Once a little more information trickled out, The New York Times and other outlets linked Loughner to a far-right publication called American Renaissance. That likewise had no basis in fact. Over the next day or two, as Loughner turned out to give off numerous indications of mental illness but very few of right-wing ideology, the dominant analysis became, “Okay maybe this guy was nuts, but, still, he was at least indirectly a product of a climate of political hysteria.”

By Monday, The New York Times’ editorial page had kicked into action. It conceded that, sure, Loughner operated “well beyond usual ideological categories,” but, still, it was “legitimate to hold Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media responsible for the gale of anger that has produced the vast majority of these threats, setting the nation on edge.” The Los Angeles Times followed suit. It admitted that, sure, Loughner and “his own demons were primarily to blame,” but it still condemned the “increasingly incendiary and violent rhetoric that characterizes today's political debate,” for which “the right bears the brunt of responsibility.” Meanwhile, dozens of opinion writers were busily adding related but equally ethereal musings to the heap. Writing in the Guardian, blogger Jessica Valenti blamed a “country that sees masculinity—especially violent masculinity—as the ideal.”

There is of course one advantage to all such lines of argument, if argument is the word for it. They are entirely faith-based, which makes them pretty much irrefutable. But faith-based punditry works in more than one direction. Seven years after the massacre at Columbine High School—in which two senior students shot and killed twelve students and a teacher—CBS News invited Brian Rohrbough, who had lost his son Dan, to explain why he thought the shootings had happened. “The public school system has taught in a moral vacuum, expelling God from the school and from the government, replacing him with evolution, where the strong kill the weak, without moral consequences and life has no inherent value,” Rohrbough said. “And I assure you the murder of innocent children is always wrong, including by abortion. Abortion has diminished the value of children.” Most liberals (myself included) would disagree with Rohrbough’s explanation for the shooting, but they’d have trouble explaining why it’s any less plausible or substantive than explanations blaming Jared Loughner on rightwing hysteria.

So why did the press go so far astray this week? How did many fine, otherwise fair-minded journalists allow their judgment to become so clouded? Let’s venture briefly—and hopefully not too speculatively, lest I be accused of double standards—into the realm of cognition. Organizational theorists such as Karl E. Weick, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan Business School, have researched how we react to unexpected events. In his 1995 book Sensemaking in Organizations, Weick notes that we humans automatically categorize what we encounter, ushering messy new complexities into tidier established categories (“myths, metaphors, platitudes, fables, epics and paradigms,” to be precise). When something bad and inexplicable takes us by surprise, our brains reach for the handiest existing narratives, and accuracy falls by the wayside in favor of simple plausibility. “The stories are templates,” writes Weick. “They are products of previous efforts at sensemaking. They explain. And they energize.”

Contributing to such tendencies are the habits of newsrooms. In their 1989 book How Do Journalists Think?, S. Holly Stocking and Paget H. Gross note that a typical reporter launches into a story with an investigative hypothesis, one that is often bolstered during the reporting process by “confirmation bias.” Only with great reluctance—in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary—is such a hypothesis normally discarded. Added to that is the weakness that competing hypotheses are tested one at a time, so that alternative explanations for the same data points are almost never considered simultaneously. “For example,” write the authors, “if one is testing a theory about the negative impact of feminism on women’s lives, one is unlikely also to test theories about its positive impact.”

At this point, however, a reader might reasonably ask why, in this case, launching into a discussion of political hysteria was such a bad thing. If the shootings in Arizona can serve as a springboard for discussing a significant, if not necessarily related, societal menace, why not let them do so? After all, much of the right truly has become unhinged.

Well, yes, but let’s remember that the deaths caused by Jared Loughner were preventable. There were concrete things that could have been done and that we now should do. Some people think we should place more restrictions on gun ownership. Some think we should provide more security services to members of Congress. Some think we should have improved mental-health resources. Such solutions may be wise or foolish, but the point is that they are directly relevant to the tragedy of last weekend.

By focusing on explanations that are abstract and speculative and only indirectly related, however, we risk losing sight of the crucial and immediate questions at hand. For instance, when Congressman James Clyburn was interviewed by NPR about the shootings, Clyburn followed the lead of all the major news outlets and focused almost entirely on “the discourse around the political arena,” suggesting a reexamination of the Fairness Doctrine. In short, Clyburn largely ignored a real problem while pledging to focus on an imagined one. That is the danger here.

In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York killed 146 garment workers, most of them women and immigrants. Fortunately, the outrage that followed it went in a healthy direction, resulting in new federal workplace safety laws. This was a lot more helpful than essays blaming the fire on misguided ideals of femininity. There’s a place for speculation and supposition, of course. But not a big place, and not for long. It’s well past time for journalists to move on from what we don’t know about the causes of last weekend’s tragedy and grapple seriously with a great deal that we now do know—even if, God forbid, it means we’ll have to abandon our hypotheses.

T.A. Frank is a writer in Los Angeles and an editor at the Washington Monthly.

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46 comments

What would you do about this? "While Arizonans go to great lengths to plead that the rest of America not judge their state (or its politics) by the Tucson shootings, the leader of a suburban Phoenix Republican group has resigned — saying threats had been made against him. Anthony Miller, who was recently elected to a second term as chairman of Arizona's Legislative District 20, made his decision on Saturday just hours after learning that a gunman had killed six people and shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ). Miller has told reporters that he'd received verbal and email threats from local Tea Party activists opposed to his re-election and his alliance with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). Arizona Tea Party members had supported Miller's opponent as well as McCain's opponent, J.D. Hayworth, in the November elections. Miller, 43, is the first African-American to lead the GOP's District 20. He said some of the attacks were racially charged. He recalled a person referring to him as "McCain's boy." At one event, he said, a person yelled, "There's Anthony. Get a rope." Miller said that prompted by the Tucson shootings, his wife brought up the hostility and expressed concern about their safety. "I wasn't going to resign but decided to quit after what happened Saturday," Miller told the Huffington Post. "I love the Republican Party, but I don't want to take a bullet for anyone."" http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2011/01/13/132913500/after-shootings-local-gop-official-quits-i-dont-want-to-take-a-bullet-for-anyone

- arnon

January 14, 2011 at 12:24am

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I think this article is a little unfair. The press was voicing concerns shared by many of us, who've been dreading violent deeds to match the rhetoric. Also, it's fine to suggest that we have a nice civil discussion about mental health and gun control in order to prevent future Tucson-type events. However, look what happened vis a vis Obama care. People just went nuts. The supposedly innocent Right accused Obama of "death panels", Rep. Giffords' office was vandalized because she voted for health care reform; and don't even start with guns. So? Is the media really so wrong in this case? It seems to be next to impossible to get people some health care let alone mental health care and any discussion about weapons brings about hysteria. So how are we supposed to act in order to prevent more Tucsons? The fact is we can't. The House is about to vote on the repeal of health care reform for pete's sake which will leave more, not less mentally ill people without resources or treatment.

- Sophia

January 14, 2011 at 1:27am

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Is Frank saying that reports of Loughner's rants about the Second Constitution, paper currency, and government control are untrue? That they do not reveal his craziness to partake of the very same craziness that animates the Tea Party? Or just that the fact that Loughner is crazy means that we cannot by definition locate him within the rightwing extremist movement? Those would be rather different conclusions. If it is the first, then we must indeed conclude that the media are at fault. If it is the second or third, then it is a matter of opinion and argument, and argument that has been raging back and forth here with far more perspicacity than that shown by Frank. Which one of these applies? We don't know which because Frank doesn't tell us. He sidesteps completely the substance of the matter by giving us instead his psychobabble explanation ("cognition") of just why the media make the sort of mistakes that he claims without explanation were made here. Isn't that odd for someone who purports to be correcting the record?

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 6:55am

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Great point all. This piece is also a great example of mistakes the press makes: overcorrecting to fit something they've been criticized for in to its opposite box. The press, like most of us, just cannot tolerate ambiguity.

- WandreyCer

January 14, 2011 at 7:20am

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The Sulzberger fortune, in stock, has declined dramatically over the last decade. In a desperate bid not to lose control of the paper, they have overhauled it, adopting the features, tone and politics of their younger online competitors, and more or less abandoning their vaunted objectivity in the process. They pander to the assumed viewpoint of their typical reader every bit as much as a standard issue tabloid. Ascribing the crime to the baleful influence of the Tea Party was consonant with this approach and the doctrinaire politics that come with it.

- roqabs

January 14, 2011 at 8:39am

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WC gets it. Americans being individualists (so we are told), it's not surprising that so many (Frank included) look for individual (and unambiguous) explanations: Loughner is insane, his school and family didn't seek obvious and necessary mental health care for him, lax gun laws made it too easy for him to buy a gun, etc. That more complex factors may have played a role, even a significant if not only determinative role, is too much to comprehend. So many studies have focused on mob behavior and how otherwise sane and law abiding individuals can engage in violent lawlessness in a group. Soccer fans turning into hooligans being a favorite subject. And of course there is the history (not in the US thankfully) of political extremism gaining such force that entire nations of civilized individuals turn into uncivilized murderers. The line from Loughner's heinous individual act to nationwide or even mob lawlessness is long indeed. But it does have a beginning, however distant that beginning to mob or nationwide lawlessness may seem at the time.

- rayward

January 14, 2011 at 9:04am

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As pointed out all over the place here, there is a wealth of evidence of the reality of rightwing extremist violence and threats of violence, including the rants of Loughner about the Second Constitution and paper currency that come right off the list of extremist rightwing preoccupations. We have just above the report of a Republican leader resigning because of threats from extremists. The question is whether the Times, because is no longer as financially secure as in the past, will now be beaten into submission by the extremist ideologues of FoxNews and the rest of the rabid right. Will Anne Coulter go to bed smiling with victory for having successfully fought off attention to her violent rhetoric by blaming the "liberal press?" She just might if this misbegotten post is evidence.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 9:04am

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rayward, if Loughner were the beginning, you would have a very good point. But the reality of rightwing extremist violence and threats are already far beyond Loughner.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 9:06am

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The essay bounced around tha landscape before settling on: "Well, yes, but let’s remember that the deaths caused by Jared Loughner were preventable." Not really. No more than we can "prevent" any of the myriad other tragedies cause by humans doing bad things to each other, outside of locking up forever anybody who expresses violent thoughts. If that's what is being callled for, be more specific. Or by banning [fill in the blanks -- all guns, some guns, certain guns]. Localities with few gun control laws and localities with stringent gun control laws have lots of violent crimes. You can look it up. Back to the premise of the piece. I read the NYT stories as they were being published and came away with the clear understanding that Loughner was deranged. But the NYT or any other newspaper would have been remiss not to at least report on heated political rhetoric, Palin's use of martial rhetoric and graphic imagery. It was part of the story. Finally --yes there is a finally -- these kinds of essays (that is, that of T.A. Frank) are too easily cobbled together by cherry picking (sorry for the mixed metaphor, unless I had in mind a cherry cobbler) useful bits of whatever is floating around out there that fits the conclusion previously arrived at. Dan

- dbuck1

January 14, 2011 at 9:08am

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I do believe, dbuck, that localities with lax gun laws have substantially higher incidence of gun deaths. And localities like New York that have strict laws are vulnerable to guns coming in from the places without them. You can look that up too. That is surely a part of the problem, as is the acceptance on the right of the rhetoric of violence.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 9:18am

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Frank makes same mistake that he criticizes the rest of the media for making. He faults others for jumping to conclusions about the motivations of the shooter, and concludes himself that the political climate was not a factor. It's been less than a week! It's still too early to drawn any conclusions about Loughner's motives. At this point no one -- not even Frank -- knows if the current political climate played a role or not.

- rlpeterson

January 14, 2011 at 9:46am

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Frank is right about one thing, the media should have been concentrating as hard about how best to protect elected officials from right wing nuts as they have speculating about Loughner's motivations. Each concern is a relevant way of dealing with these events.

- arnon

January 14, 2011 at 9:48am

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Speaking of looking it up, Richard Florida has a piece in the Atlantic on the geography of gun deaths. I won't attempt to summarize it here, but it's pretty interesting. More generally, I think Frank's media criticism here has the same general problem as most media criticism in that it seems to assume that readers are unable to exercise critical judgment. Like Dan, I got the clear impression from the reporting in the NYT and elsewhere that Loughner was crazy - not Sharron Angle crazy, not Tim McVeigh crazy, but Ted Kaczynski crazy (if not crazier, IIRC, the Unabomber's rantings were more coherent than Loughner's). I also recognized that the initial reports were tentative, possibly false in some respects and incomplete in others - that's what happens with breaking news. I don't specifically remember the stuff about American Renaissance, but that could be because I filed it in the "possibly interesting if true, but let's wait and see" part of my brain rather than the "sun comes up in the east" part of my brain. Finally, even if the NYT's editorial the Monday after the shooting was the stupidest ever written in human history, it is not evidence of the "media botching coverage" of the shooting. Editorials are for opinion, not covering events. Indeed, in the quoted passage, the editorial does not even purport to present facts about the shootings, but rather addresses the "gale of anger" created by radical right extremists. (I happen to think the quoted passage is spot on, and it's interesting that Frank doesn't quote the part of the editorial that says the gale of anger caused Loughner to open fire - if indeed such a passage exists.) You can disagree with this editorial, you can read the title and decide to skip it, which I did. But, you can't say that you were misled by it; one, because that would be a false statement - you obviously were not misled because here you are exercising your right to disagree with it, and two, because you're responsible for forming your own opinions. Anyone who slavishly agrees with the contents of another's opinion is a sheep, not a thinking person. The foray into criticizing a Times editorial while ostensibly discussing "coverage" of an event gives Frank's game away. He's not really talking about botched coverage, but rather opinions on the link between right wing rage and Loughner's act that he deems incorrect. He's entitled to do that, but doing it under the guise of media criticism is something of a straw man. He oversimplifies a lot of things said by a lot of news outlets, some factual and some opinion-based, and then criticizes the simplified view for being too simplistic. Some people undoubtedly have overly simplistic views, but if they do, it's their fault, not the fault of the media.

- Geoff G

January 14, 2011 at 10:30am

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Righto Geoff, you nailed it. (BTW Roi, I've thought this for a long time - I sure wish I could vote for you for something).

- WandreyCer

January 14, 2011 at 10:40am

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If an Arsenal man in the midst of a screaming section of drunken Leeds fans falls and hits his head, it's not illogical to leap initially to the conclusion that he was pushed. We live in a cacophony of right wing verbal mayhem. (It's so bad, last night Bill O'Reilly claimed he had established beyond a reasonable doubt that all of the mayhem was on the Left.) That some of us jumped to a (probably) wrong conclusion is regrettable, but sincere.

- Mikelawyr22

January 14, 2011 at 10:43am

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The truth is, the author doesn't know the external (political, rhetorical, etc.) influences upon Lougher, either! None of us do. And we won't until the FBI and other RELIABLE sources begin to reveal them. Some have quoted old "friends" of his, who haven't seen him for a long time. How in the the world can they be considered credible. A Post columnist did so yesterday in his column designed to absolve vicious right wing rhetoric of any culpability. These conversations, including Mr. Franks', do nothing more than further confuse and obfuscate what may have led Lougher to commit this crime. They're ALL speculative. I find it hard to believe that Lougher, on his own, came up with the idea of killing the Congresswoman. Yes, he appears to have a mental illness, which surely propelled him to do what he did. But, in addition to his own mental constructs, there had to be other outside influences at work. He didn't live in a vacuum. There is documented evidence of the rise of right-wing "hysteria" and "lunacy" and the accompanying rhetoric. Plenty of it. Threats against the President's life have reached epic levels. Whether Lougher was directly influenced by any of the well-known conservative talking heads remains to be seen. Let's hope that the ugly words spoken daily by these folks don't lead someone else to do something similar. (And, I didn't even address the issue of guns, other side of this issue…)

- sustaingai

January 14, 2011 at 11:06am

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I'm not entirely certain the press did focus on "was this Tea Party rage?" to the /exclusion/ of "We need to do a better job on mental health" and "We need to do a better job enforcing the laws that keep guns away from the mentally ill" stories. The Monday after the shootings I found all three kinds of articles at Slate, TNR and other publications I read. There are a lot of voices out there -- plenty to go around. The fact that some chose to speculate and finger-point while equally prominent ones chose to dig deep or flog their own hobby-horses is not a sign of media botchery, it's a sign of media diversity.

- austinexpat

January 14, 2011 at 11:07am

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This article generates confusion like that railed against. On the one hand, in fact, it will be difficult to find any journalists who went so far as to say that right wing politicians CAUSED the Arizona shooting. On the other hand, in fact, it is easy to find journalists stating that the shooting creates an OCCASION to discuss violence-engendering language in political discussions. In fact, there is much more violence-imaging coming from the political right than from the left. It serves, thus, right-wing spokesmen to blame journalists, e.g., the NYT editorial writers, for conflating CAUSE with OCCASION. Many journals, including the New Republic, have called for a rebirth of civil language in political discussions. It is my thought that the present is an excellent time to do so. The serious discussions concern gun laws and mental health funding, not the media. RN Teare

- rnteare

January 14, 2011 at 12:04pm

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The media did not botch the story. They told exactly the one that they wanted to tell.

- dubrovnov

January 14, 2011 at 12:05pm

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It's not that Loughner was mentally ill, per se. It's that he was a social misfit, obsessional, prone to frequent acting out, being progressively more shunned and isolated leading to more dramatically acting out, etc., and apparently no one was able, or available, or willing to make a decision that he needed to be under close observation. Evidently his parents didn't have the information, or the skills, or willingness to take appropriate action before he harmed himself and/or others. In other words it was a behavioral problem that needed proper attention. It's a mystery how this progressed to a tragic crime without somebody blowing the whistle, triggering (pardon the choice of words) an investigation to find out what was what. Loughner was mentally unbalanced, but he also apparently was smart and high functioning enough to evade detection and identification of his precarious and deteriorating mental/behavioral condition. Probably psycho-sociopathic in addition to (or on top of) being mentally ill. That's a rather more rare bird than a person having a mental illness. As several of those who did have frequent contact with him said, Loughner was "a ticking time bomb." Sometime sooner or later it's likely, though rare, that all the required explosive ingredients will randomly, suddenly converge and intersect so that a crime of this magnitude results. Think Oswald, Sirhan, Ruby. Who knew? I very much doubt that the charged emotional climate at the time was the reason this happened. It may have factored in in some way, but not decisively.

- Tgossard

January 14, 2011 at 12:41pm

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What does strike me about the shooting was that Loughner was easily and legally able to buy a Glock-9 rapid-fire automatic pistol and sufficient ammunition to slaughter every last one of those in attendance, quickly and cleanly, at the drop of a hat. Now that is truly insane. My mind still reels at the thought. Sorry Arizona, you've lost this tourist. Yikes!

- Tgossard

January 14, 2011 at 12:49pm

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The majority of Americans now operate “well beyond usual ideological categories.” The problem with this incident's media coverage is the same problem we always have with our "mainstream" political "debate" among beltway players -- it is always and only covered or conducted in the context of conflict between "Left" and "Right," "Red" and "Blue." As if this is in anyway an accurate description of the country we live in, or the genuine stress points and conflicts in the country and culture at large. The fingerpointing is non-stop, the addressing of actual issues non-existent. In reality, the vast majority of Americans, including, unfortunately, some few like the Tucson shooter with serious mental illness and many, many others just overwhelmed, hurt and confused by recent economic losses, the failure of government to act in positive ways to address their interests, their fears for the future, and the increasing failure of "mainstream" and ideological political power struggles and narratives to address the conditions of their lives, are neither Right nor Left. Many are simply frightened and disillusioned. Most perhaps, or at least a large number that has been growing consistently for decades now, have in fact been thoroughly discouraged by the cynical and increasingly power seeking (rather than problem solving) antics of both ideological sides, as well as the alienating, bullying and bombastic language that has increasingly emanated from the increasingly uncompromising Right. The confused, discouraged, ideologically incoherent and often angry "independent" is more typical of the average American voter (and non-voting American too) than anyone at either ideological extreme. But, contrary to popular opinion among pundits, these "independents" do not occupy a happy, coherent middle ground. It is foolish to assume, as the media has been doing, that their lack of or confusion about ideology makes them less dangerous than some of those who clearly and consistently embrace ideological extremes. This shooter was not only seriously mentally ill, he was also, apparently from the testimony of those who knew him, deeply affected by the often crazy, disillusioned, nihilistic, conspiracy minded and increasingly insane conversation that is filling the vacuum created by ever more limited and useless (in terms of voices heard and interests served) and ever less responsible "mainstream" political conversation. This new, nihilistic, ideologically incoherent and most often paranoid in the extreme political conversation is, except for degraded and exploitive forays by players like Fox and Beck, taking place mostly outside the "mainstream" -- on the internet, on the fringes of talk radio, etc. -- and, in many lives, taking the place entirely of the ill tempered and publicity and power seeking, false and narrow mainstream narrative of "Left" or "Right" (and a happy, non-existent medium between the two) narrative and debate. A "debate' that is attention seeking rather than problem solving and in many ways false -- political theater conducted by an increasingly culturally and economically isolated elite; highly paid pundits, office holders and political and media operatives. The internet movie Zeitgeist, nihilist and terrifying, which the shooter took to heart, can not be cleanly labeled as conservative or liberal. It's paranoid, providing justification for desperate distrust of everything -- authority, ideology, community, the "official" media narrative. It posits, like so many of these new narratives, that we all are being played for fools by our leaders on both "sides." The growth of that message, of alienation, paranoia and despair, and its embrace to even a small extent by the growing number of disillusioned and alienated citizens, poses a danger to our nation and democracy that goes far beyond the terrible, solitary act of a mentally ill assassin. For sure, some of Zietgeist's paranoid notions about the Fed, gold currency, the "second constitution," etc. are, through the Tea Party movement, and as a result of increasing media anything-for-a-buck cynicism, beginning to be repeated and given an airing in broader and more influential media (once again, most forcefully by Beck and Fox). But the shooter of course didn't, and others certainly don't need to, turn to Beck (or Palin) as inspiration for violent acts. Rather, Beck and others have increasingly been dipping into the crazy, alienated conversation outside the mainstream for THEIR INSPIRATION -- to gather attention getting schtick for their cynical media and political acts. This is presented as "representing" those outside the circles of media and power. But it is in fact exploiting them -- in the ugliest, most harmful ways possible. It's perhaps time for both "sides"in the elite's Kabuki drama, if they are serious about the country's welfare, to stop indulging in their endless game of "liberals" vs. "conservatives" and start worrying about and taking responsibility for failures in the economy, the shut out voices of the working class, the ever more narrow and degraded mainstream "debate," the failure of mainstream political culture to address the realities of the young and the future, and the increasing willingness of powerful media players -- "mainstream" "conservative" and otherwise -- to try to make a buck in any degraded way possible. Most notably by exploiting rather than seeking solutions to the country's pain. We need a conversation that represents the genuine interests, and gives voice to the genuine concerns, of those outside the financial, political and academic elites. Instead, we have one that has no interest beyond exploiting the pain of, and arguing over who should get the blame for, the desperation, discouragement and nihilisms that is growing among many of our fellow countrymen.

- esmense

January 14, 2011 at 1:05pm

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esmense, thanks for reminding about the conspiracy paranoia internet phenomenon. I'm old enough that I don't think that all that wackiness has become mainstream on the net. It used to be only the lunatic fringe groups, most in the Pacific Northwest, that talked among themselves. Something about fluoride in the water supply, number eighty-eight, ufo fantasies and the like.

- Tgossard

January 14, 2011 at 1:28pm

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I think Frank (and Chait and Downie) get it right. I realize I'm in the minority here among Friends of TNR, and maybe among liberals generally, but I was quite struck by the Times's day-after coverage which was very quick -- too quick to my thinking -- to put the focus on Tea Party rhetoric. Its lead news story framed the issue in those terms. Its lead analysis confirmed that focus. I gather that this was similar to the coverage of most media outlets. Yes, mental illness and gun access -- more clearly germane issues -- got an airing, but not nearly as prominently as the Tea Party = Murder? story. Likewise, the antisemitic possibilities got just a little tickle days afterward. The Times proceeded on the next day to run a lead feature story that essentially consisted of an unrebutted brief by the guy at the Southern Poverty Law Center trying to jam the odd puzzle piece into a right-wing picture, and, by association, a Tea Party picture. Yes, roid, Loughner was a hard money man -- an eccentric through not off-limits opinion -- though he's gone around the bend on that issue to the point that he thinks that the government is controlling our minds through grammar, perhaps in conjunction with a genuine Fed conspiracy. To associate this view with Tea Party rhetoric is a stretch. The Guardian reported that Loughner believed that the government staged 9/11 and faked the shuttle missions, and that he thought that the world as we see it doesn't actually exist. The Times reported the opinion of one acquaintance who described his views as more radical left than radical right, and the views of another who saw him as an "anarchist." The Times reported yesterday, in a story with a headline about Loughner's being pulled over for running a red light, that the head of invesitgation for the sheriff's department said that they had been searching for right-wing Internet "associations" and hadn't found any. The "Second Constitution" references in his incoherent ramblings may have been a reference not to the reconstruction amendments but to the Constitution (the Articles of Confederation being the first constitution). When one declines to cherry pick, when one declines to paint with a broad brush (as in, his mind control conspiracy theories are "anti-government" -- just like the Tea Party!), when one stops *trying* to *force* the puzzle pieces to make the picture you want ahead of time, the picture that emerges is of a severly warped guy who picked up on a mix of ultra-fringe notions that frequently defy left-right categorization and don't genreally resemble a Tea Party agenda or worldview (albeit with one or two correlations), and that this event might just as well have happened before the Tea Party even began. I think we look foolish and crass when we pounce on a horrible event like this and try to twist it into a data point in our preconceived worldview. It's backwards thinking -- just like what Frank describes. It's a bad habit. It leads to inaccuracy, which is bad enough. It's also unfair. The coverage handed Fox News a pretty good argument! As in, Look how quick the liberal media is to essentially blame a conservative political movement for these murders. It's outrageous! We don't help ourselves when it turns out that they actually have a point. Sarah Palin has always been a Victim in Her Own Mind. We don't help ourselves when we actually make her a victim. Of course, she doesn't help herself by coming off as peevish and self-centered, as she did in her speech, but she's politically incompetent in addition to being moronic. The point is, she shouldn't have been instantly called on the carpet for this. The media can't insulate itself from this criticism by protesting that it scrupulously put a question mark after the headline -- that it adhered to the style of objective reporting. That style is appropriate -- better than the altnernative -- but its downside is that it masks the underlying judgments that inform the coverage. As I said, I was struck by the way the Times framed this story as one about Tea Party rhetoric right out of the gate. The reason it did that is because it fit its reporters' preconceived notions, but it turned out to make a very uncomfortable fit with the facts, and, at the very outset, with the lack of facts.

- JakeH

January 14, 2011 at 2:05pm

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"If we cannot be realistic about where the problem lies, I don't think there is much hope of addressing it." There is a process at work, esmense, in which the "mainstream," so-called legitimate media figures, O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter, pick up the nutty memes from the fringe, repeat them and give them the legitimacy conferred by mass media, and thus amplify them. Now people who would never be peeking at the nutcase fringe websites hear these things from "legitimate" sources. They repeat them in conversation. Others hear them in conversation and, influenced as we are by friends and neighbors, they come to think these are legitimate points of view. Think of it as money-laundering. The right-wing media are laundering the fruit-cake ideas of the extremists and we end up with a mass of delusional people. It has happened before, about 80 years ago. It can happen again. Then you get the political opportunists, Palin, Angle, trying to catch a lift from all these, talking about guns and violence while the disgruntled fondle their pistols. If it were merely the extremist fringe talking to itself, it would be much less of a problem. ____________ Thanks, Wandrey.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 2:05pm

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Hmmm. The browser cut and paste the wrong phrase. I had meant to quote esmense saying this: "But the shooter of course didn't, and others certainly don't need to, turn to Beck (or Palin) as inspiration for violent acts. Rather, Beck and others have increasingly been dipping into the crazy, alienated conversation outside the mainstream for THEIR INSPIRATION -- to gather attention getting schtick for their cynical media and political acts."

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 2:07pm

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"The "Second Constitution" references in his incoherent ramblings may have been a reference not to the reconstruction amendments but to the Constitution (the Articles of Confederation being the first constitution).' Oh, come on. The guy is supposed to be a constitutional scholar? Of course he was crazy, but it is equally obvious whose rhetorical table he was dining at. It doesn't matter whether you think "hard money" is a legitimate position (it isn't, but let's not bother with that). What matters is where it fits in the ideological firmament and we know it belongs to the extreme right. The guy was not babbling about corporations and the proletariat, you know. If he were, then we would know that he was a left-wing crazy, not a right-wing crazy. Basically, JakeH, your view is that one can either be crazy or ideologically motivated, but not both. I don't agree with that. More important, however, I think you should stop trying to dress that opinion up with a bunch of chatter about people jumping to conclusions, blah, blah, blah. You are putting lipstick on the pig. I demonstrate no less fidelity to evidence than you do. But I have a different conclusion and a different view about the relationship between craziness and the cultural context in which craziness arises. That might be worth discussing. Your accusations that only those who share your opinions are interested in the truth are not.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 2:14pm

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Actually, I believe that deaths from shampoo on airlines have been reduced to zero since we started banning large bottles of it. You can look it up. Perhaps we might consider something similar with respect to weapons and large ammo magazines. . . .Naaaw!

- dhuey0

January 14, 2011 at 3:03pm

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Roid, no I don't think that it's impossible to be both crazy and ideologically motivated. Also, I don't think I have a different view about the ability of rhetoric to create a climate in which violence is more likely. Where we differ is that, one or two correlations notwithstanding, on the whole, I don't see *this guy* dining at the Tea Party's table, as you put it. His views are not just extreme versions of Tea Party rhetoric, but on a different wavelength. I don't think anti-government theories about, for example, staging 9/11 or mind control through grammar, are even in the same firmament as the Tea Party sort of anti-government worldview -- the sort of thing repeated by Fox in the process you describe. I wouldn't be surprised if he had never watched Fox in his life. It strikes me that he's in a different universe from all that sort of thing.

- JakeH

January 14, 2011 at 3:15pm

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p.s. Sorry if you found my last post pompous. It reflects what I honestly thought at the time, which is that the media was too quick to dress this story up in the Tea Party rhetoric theme. Anyway, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one....

- JakeH

January 14, 2011 at 3:35pm

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I became aware of the massive amount of paranoid, nihilistic political narratives that are taking hold outside the beltway when my best friend's son had a mental crisis that lead to a serious suicide attempt a couple of years ago. Like the shooter, he was vulnerable to the terrifying apocalyptic description of the world being presented, then, mostly in alternative media. But, I now recognize those naratives creeping, cynically I think, into the mainstream through players like Beck and others. What astounded me at the time of this young man's crisis was that once I became aware of these narratives I also started becoming aware of how many presumably ordinary and sound people were actually embracing at least some parts of these narratives. And that phenomenom has been growing. For instance, my friend's mentally ill son's decision to turn all his considerable assets into gold 3 years ago is now a strategy being embraced and encouraged by many mainstream media personalities. Given this, I think we are way past arguing over whether "left" or "right" more at fault or whether Democrats or Republicans are more responsible when these narratives lead to tragedy. Nor should we let anyone off with the "insane individual" argument. The larger and more important fact is this; the mainstream political and media debate has failed the American people. And that failure has created a vacuum that is more and more being filled with alienation and despair. We need a better response to this than the one politicians and media have exercised so far; exploiting the growing fear and pain rather than taking serious measures to address it.

- esmense

January 14, 2011 at 4:40pm

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Well, esmense, if it is not a start publicly and loudly deploring Beck et alia, then what would you recommend short of the messianic?

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 5:24pm

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Ok, Jake, we can agree to disagree.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 5:25pm

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roidubouloi -- I would recommend self discipline and more thoughtfulness on the part of media and political players. You know, "self-control" -- ever heard of it? There really is no reason why our political conversation has to be conducted in the same way that 13 year olds express their differences and insecurities -- except for the fact that it makes for attention getting, if pointless, media theater. I also suggest the media open up access to a wider range of community voices and perspectives. From labor, small business, the religious and academic spheres, etc. How about giving some actual representatives of the private sector working class a regular seat at the media table, for instance -- instead ginning up the occasional false freak show of "Joe the not really named joe not really a plumber merely publicity seeking ***hole hoping to somehow make a buck out this" to stand in for the real thing? If you think the narrow spectrum of opinion and interests being presented in our political media today in anyway reflects this nation and its complexity, or what is needed for fruitful political conversation and action, or that the dead, rote, finger-pointing Kabuki theater of "Left" and "Right" indulged in by an increasing number of political players, is actually addressing and can actually address our problems and/or even help us take care of the most basic of political business, you don't know, or haven't given much thought to, the incredibly complex country you live in. I think the actual state of our economy and infrastructure, and the decreasing optimism of our people, argues against the way our political class has been conducting business. Furthermore, if you think that defending or deploring Beck has anything at all to do with necessary political discussion, you don't understand what politics is either. The Beck debate is nothing but hot air and show biz. Beck is a symptom of a larger failure, not a cause. A failure that our elites, Right and Left, should be ashamed to excuse with the "just a lone crazy guy" defense. But of course that is exactly the excuse partisans and media and elites are trotting out to deflect attention from the oncgoing failures of our political establishment and the continuing debasement of our political conversation.

- esmense

January 14, 2011 at 6:07pm

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I quite agree that this is not at all "just a lone crazy guy," but I fail to see who you expect to do what. Who is arguing that we have a systemic problem and who is arguing that there is just a lone crazy guy? You make the Naderite accusation that everyone is responsible, but that is not the case. There is a mainstream media, constantly disparaged by the right as "the liberal media," that has some aspiration to inform, to report news. Are the individuals free from bias? I doubt it, but they do have the aspiration to be journalists. Then we have a broad right-wing media organization that makes no pretense of engaging in journalism, despite the Double-Speak of "Fair and Balanced." It is frank propaganda and hate speech, 24/7. There is nothing comparable to it on the left. There barely is anything that might be called left-wing media. So, what is supposed to happen here? Who is supposed to do what? You seem to think Beck is only "hot air and show biz." That tells me, esmense, how little you understand about politics as it is practiced in the United States. What I want to know, specifically, is what you expect those on the left to do in response to the wave of exremist, rightwing rhetoric?

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 6:34pm

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roi -- You can't distinguish between the right wing media and the mainstream media for this reason; the mainstream media refuses to criticize the excesses of supposedly more "conservative" media, constantly makes false equivalencies, etc. In terms of interest, if not ideology, they are in sync with and act the same as the conservative media. They serve the same masters of profit at any cost (to the viability of our political debate). Certainly we should hold political actors accountable but there is also no point in criticizing those political players on the simplistic basis of Left and Right because the real divisions in this country that need to be addressed are not well described by Left and Right. They are better, and more workably, described in the realistic, pragmatic context of differences and competition between economic, class, geographic, and other demographic differences. To achieve anything, we need to be discussing and demanding much broader representation for the wide array of competing and conflicting INTERESTS that make up our complex nation. Nattering endlessly about the Left/Right IDEOLOGICAL differences between members of a very narrow number of elite players -- who in reality share more common interests with each other than they do with the broader American population -- will get us, and is getting us, nowhere. My political interest for instance has much more to do with the fact that I am a small business owner, an employer, a woman, someone raised in a working class family, that my livelihood is earned primarily (although not entirely) from a domestic market of working and middle class consumers, etc., etc., than my readings of Keynes, Krugman, Galbraith, or Hayek or Ayn Rand. Ideological debate is for college kids. It's within the conflict of real, pragmatic interests that real politics is played. The actual goal, and achievement, of today's ideological debates is to obscure that reality and narrow the number of interests that receive actual representation in our political conversation and our government. Calling attention to that fact is not a solution. But it is a necessary step to finding a solution.

- esmense

January 14, 2011 at 7:27pm

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Exactly.

- CRS9TNR

January 14, 2011 at 8:27pm

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If your point is that the mainstream media is not sufficiently distant from or critical of the extremist rightwing media, I quite agree. The point I have been making here is that people have a responsibility to start calling out the insanity of the rightwing media even if the mainstream media won't. As for the inadequacy of ideology, I can agree, but I also don't think we have what could any longer be described in this country as a very ideological left. Liberals are for the most part pragmatists. We have a fiercely ideological right and a bunch of policy wonks squaring off against them and getting their butts kicked politically. I also think that if one started to posit solutions to our various problems, they would quickly divide along left-right lines. The basic divide between those who exalt property interests, the right, and those who exalt human interests, the left, go back thousands of years, at least to Rome. There is a reason why. No appeal to pragmatism alone is going to eliminate that divide as even pragmatists have to agree on what problem they are trying pragmatically to solve. What is even a problem to be solved is the subject of strong division. Take healthcare, for example. For the left, the problem is how to assure universal access to healthcare and there is a willingness to do whatever will be effective and efficient. For the right, it isn't even a problem. They don't care about access to healthcare and hence have no solution at all to offer (although the feel politically obliged to pretend that the do, or that they would, if only the socialist Democrats would get out of the way). From their point of view, if you can afford it, great, and if not, it is your own damn fault and you can get sick and die.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 8:47pm

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Keynes was not ideological. He was a scientist of economics and was describing, largely correctly, what he took to be the operation of a capitalist economy and the importance of effective demand to its function. Ignoring Keynes is like ignoring gravity. The laws of economics are there and continue to operate no matter whether you respect them or not and no matter whether you like to characterize them as ideology or not. Call gravity ideology. You are still going to hit the ground if you jump out of a building.

- roidubouloi

January 14, 2011 at 8:50pm

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It is encouraging to find a lefty author (finally!) who admits that ascribing the violence of Tucson to "right-wing" rhetoric is ridiculous. But Mr. Frank still wants to rescue the myth that it is right-wing, rather than left, which is distoring public debate. Look, it was only a few days after public criticism of Obamscare that an article appeared on these pages about the evil of criticizing government--with Timothy McVeigh given as a case in point. It was the Left which, having approved a resolution in favor of invading Iraq, rewrote history from the stated reason: that Saddam was a sponsor of terrorism, who, if allowed to acquire WMD would be even more dangerous--to a myth that the war was only about WMD. And then, while the U.S. was at war, demonstrated against Bush-Hitler, and mumbled about impreachment. Not content to stop there, many prominent liberal media types (Krugman, et al) publicly mkused about how nice it would be if Bush, Cheney, and Limbaugh were to die. The Black Caucus tried and failed to claim that the "N-word" had been loudly and often hurled at them in a Tea Party gathering. Look--the Left needs to get an idea which does not echo the verbiage of the 1930s, and stop inventing crises to blame on the "right-wing". The public no longer believes that the Left has a monopoly on truth and virtue.

- lance00002001

January 16, 2011 at 2:43pm

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Inventing crises to blame on the right? You mean the war in Iraq, the one based on Bush's lies about the presence of WMD's there? The epic economic bust of 2008? The gutting of US regulatory agencies and their resulting complete incapacity as demonstrated during Katrina? Those invented crises? Go head, make my day, lance. Give us the quote from Krugman musing about the death of some public figure.

- roidubouloi

January 16, 2011 at 2:50pm

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Roidubouli: I already dealt with the war in Iraq in my comment. The economic bust of 2008 broke while Bush was president but began with Jimmy Carter revising the Domestic Investment Act to allow banks to make home owners of blacks and latinos in Southern California and in Arizona. Cl;inton require banks to have a minimum number of poor clients, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guaranteed that the banks would not lose their shirts by requiring no down payments and virtally nil interest. Come to think of it, what sane banker would make loans without such a guarantee? The names of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd spring to mind. Of course Republican polilticians were also involved, so that there is plenty of blame to go around. It is a myth to hang the whole thing on Bush. The gutting of regulatory agencies? It is all right for the EPA to ignore Congress go about reordering American lives on its own? Attached is a partial list of Lefty media types wishing for the deaths of various conservatives. I have not yet located the quote of Krugman, but you can Google it yourself. Since late 2007, the Media Research Center has collected numerous examples of the outrageousness of left-wing radio hosts. And, unlike the Left — which attempted to smear Rush Limbaugh with phony quotes — readers can find an audio or video of every one of these quotes posted at our Web site: www.MRC.org. This report includes examples of over-the-top rhetoric from left-wing hosts Mike Malloy, Stephanie Miller, Randi Rhodes, Ron Reagan, Jr., Ed Schultz and Montel Williams, all of whom currently or at one time broadcast to a national audience on either the Air America network or via XM and/or Sirius satellite radio. Among the lowlights: ■ Conservatives Want to Kill Barack Obama: “I really think there are conservative broadcasters in this country who would love to see Obama taken out.” (Ed Schultz) ■ Conservatives Are Terrorists: “Do you not understand that the people you hold up as heroes bombed your goddamn country? Do you not understand that Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are as complicit of the September 11, 2001 terror attack as any one of the dumbass 15 who came from Saudi Arabia?” (Mike Malloy) ■ Conservatives Want You to Die: “If, in fact, the GOP doesn’t like any form of health care reform, what do we do with those 40 to 60 million uninsured?...When they show up in the emergency room, just shoot ‘em! Kill them!...Do we have enough body bags? I don’t know.” (Montel Williams) ■ Conservative Congresswoman Would Have Liked the Holocaust: “[Representative Michele Bachmann is] a hatemonger. She’s the type of person that would have gladly rounded up the Jews in Germany and shipped them off to death camps....This is an evil bitch from Hell.” (Mike Malloy) ■ Dick Cheney Eats Babies: “Cheney, by the way, looks very ruddy. I couldn’t get over that. Like, he must have feasted on a Jewish baby, or a Muslim baby. He must have sent his people out to get one and bring it back so he could drink its blood.” (Mike Malloy) ■ Dick Cheney Should Die: “He is an enemy of the country, in my opinion. Dick Cheney is an enemy of the country....Lord, take him to the Promised Land, will you? See, I don’t even wish the guy goes to Hell, I just want to get him the hell out of here.” (Ed Schultz) ■ Rush Limbaugh Should Die: “I’m waiting for the day when I pick up the newspaper or click on the Internet and find that he’s choked to death on his own throat fat, or a great big wad of saliva or something, whatever. Go away, Limbaugh, you make me sick.” (Mike Malloy) ■ Michele Bachmann Should Die: “So, Michele, slit your wrist! Go ahead! I mean, you know, why not? I mean, if you want to — or, you know, do us all a better thing. Move that knife up about two feet. I mean, start right at the collarbone.” (Montel Williams)

- lance00002001

January 16, 2011 at 9:11pm

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Bad examples, lance. The notion the housing bust was due to either community lending standards or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac standard is one of those rightwing lies that circulate endlessly on the internet to be picked up and repeated by the ignorant. "Sub-prime mortgages" were, BY DEFINITION, mortgages that did no qualify for government agency financing and the amount of community lending compared to the quantity of sub-prime mortgages was trivial. Your examples of left-wing hate speech are much either. As obnoxious as they are, none of them suggests that anyone other than god ought to do the job. Your quote from Williams about health care is especially egregious as the question what should be done for people without insurance in need of care is a perfectly legitimate one for which the GOP has no answer. It is fine for the EPA to do its job within the law as it exists. That is what it is supposed to do. In is not supposed to wait for specific authorization from Congress to carry out is mandate under the law as written. Try harder.

- roidubouloi

January 17, 2011 at 2:07pm

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Roud: Since, sturdy true believer that you are, no amount of evidence will dent your faith, I won't even try.

- lance00002001

January 17, 2011 at 2:15pm

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Good. I have limited time for throwing darts to puncture the thought balloons of the ideological right most of which bear only a very tenuous relationship to reality. Vaya con Dios.

- roidubouloi

January 17, 2011 at 8:57pm

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Roid: There were 45 comments here, and you have 15 of them. Seems you have too much time on your hands, not too little. It would have been better spent on trying to develop a new idea. Sayonara.

- lance00002001

January 18, 2011 at 5:53pm

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