Washington Examiner ^ | 11/13/15 | Eddie Scarry
The New York Times' Timothy Egan thinks popular conservative commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity wrecked both the Republican Party and democracy at large.
In his latest column, Egan wrote that "real reporters" have suffered a blow from both liberals and conservatives who have targeted the mainstream press as an enemy. He cited this week's incident at the University of Missouri where a communications professor attempted to block a student reporter from covering a protest in a public place. But Egan specifically took exception with the conservative media.
"The true media elites are in talk radio and right-wing television — multimillionaire gasbags from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity," Egan wrote. "Every day, nearly every hour, they attack reporters, using verbal assaults more consequential than the muscle play by an amped-up academic."
He continued, "Conservative media deserve credit for going after the un-American censoriousness on college campuses. But elsewhere, in promulgating a create-your-own-facts media world, they've made a mess of our democracy. ... The main reason that Republican politicians sound so crazy of late is because they get their information, and validation, from the twisted world of partisan media outlets."
Conservative commentators and news outlets have been accused before of "impeding" the Republican Party.
In July, Times reporter Jackie Calmes published a study asserting a large discontent within the GOP directed at conservative broadcasters and bloggers who wield immense influence within the party.
"Once allied with but now increasingly hostile to the Republican hierarchy, conservative media is shaping the party's agenda in ways that are impeding Republicans' ability to govern and to win presidential elections," Calmes wrote in a paper published by the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was interviewed for the study, and said conservative media acts as a cudgel against elected Republicans who show any willingness to compromise with Democrats or veer from accepted conservative dogma on low taxes, less regulation and more confrontation.
"If you stray the slightest from the far Right, you get hit by the conservative media," Lott said, according to the study.
Sean Hannity did not return a request for comment from the Washington Examiner media desk. A spokesman for Rush Limbaugh declined to comment.
