Washington Monthly's Steve Benen writes a brief case study showing how misinformation travels through the right-wing media. The Hudson Institute's Betsy McCaughey wrote an op-ed for Bloomberg, and Benen traces her misrepresentations about the stimulus bill from Rush to Fox "News" and the WSJ and back to Rush again:
Remember, McCaughey got it wrong. Limbaugh and Drudge took the wrong information and exaggerated it further. Then Fox News took Limbaugh's lies, and stretched it even further still. That none of this is grounded in reality in any way was of no importance to any of these clowns. Untold thousands of Americans, who don't know better, get their "news" from these people, and have no idea they've been lied to.
Unless people get at least some information fro outside the mainstream (conservative, corporate) media monoculture, they will remain pawns in the Right's disinformation campaigns. Spreading their manure-like propaganda on America's political culture, as we were reminded again yesterday, sometimes bears deadly fruit. A parallel system of liberal think tanks and media outlets might be able to counter these systemic effects, but at risk of falling into a similar pattern of behavioral conformity and ideological rigidity.
What to do?
update (2:34pm):
MediaMatters has details on McCaughey's falsehood; as always, their reporting is excellent.
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