Evidence that Faux News Encourages Violence

I posted recently about the shooting spree in Pittsburgh where white supremacist, Richard Poplawski, killed three police officers who responded to what outwardly was a minor disturbance. While the main stream media has been reluctant to place blame on the far right set who promulgate conspiracy theories or on far right news outlets like Fox News, it seems that my conjecture that Poplawski was motivated in part by the constant noise put out by these folks may have been directly on point. Crooks and Liars has new information that demonstrates that Poplawski was following the rants on the faux news channel and Glenn Beck in particular. I believe that Beck, O'Reilly and those like them have a duty not to spew untrue bullshit stories that may well be just enough to put someone on the edge over the line with violence as the consequence. Simply put hate speech and ridiculous conspiracy talk can have disastrous consequences. Here are some story highlights:

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An astonishing thing seems to have happened to the case of Richard Poplawski and the three dead Pittsburgh policemen: It's been turned into a story about dog pee -- and not about the fact that Poplawski was fueled by a toxic mix of white-supremacist/conspiracy-theorist paranoia and mainstream-media fearmongering, including from the likes of Glenn Beck and Fox News.

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Maybe the media are collectively embarrassed by the way this case demonstrates how they play an important role in whipping up the far-right crazies out there -- and they should be. Because not only did Richard Poplawski avidly participate in white-supremacist online forums and right-wing conspiracy-theory sites, he also avidly consumed mainstream conservative media, particularly Fox. The classic instance of this: A few weeks ago, Poplawski posted a clip of Beck talking about FEMA concentration camps on the neo-Nazi Stormfront forum site.

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Well, at least Dennis Roddy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- who was one of the first reporters on this story -- carried most of the details and more in his Monday story:

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Accused cop-killer Richard Poplawski spent hours posting racist messages on an extremist right-wing Web site, decrying blacks and Latinos and warning of forthcoming economic collapse fueled by the "Zionist occupation" of America, an expert in political extremism has determined. Earlier, he had praised the "AK" rifle as his ideal weapon.

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It was an AK-47 that police say Mr. Poplawski used to gun down three Pittsburgh police officers who arrived at his house Saturday morning in the midst of a domestic dispute. An account kept on Stormfront, a gathering place for racial extremists and others from the far-right show Mr. Poplawski's increasing belief in a coming economic and political collapse in the days leading up to the time of the deadly standoff in which he is charged with killing three Pittsburgh police officers.

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[W]hen the memes regarding "suppressed knowledge" that these extremists organize around suddenly appear in the mainstream media -- in places like Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs' and Sean Hannity's cable-network shows -- it has a real amplifying effect: Not only is it final and consummate confirmation of their beliefs in these conspiracy theories, but it induces an extreme apocalypticism, a fear that things must be even worse than they suspected.

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I am sure that Beck and company do not want to admit that they had a part in causing the deaths of three police officers. However, constant incendiary messages laced with hatred towards minorities, gays, or whatever other target is perceived to be good for ratings DO have real and tragic consequences. One would hope that Beck, O'Reilly, et al, would clean up their acts, but I am not optimistic.