Opinion

America’s Worst Radio Host Proves Why We Need Alternative Media

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Scott Greer Contributor
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Smug liberal extraordinaire and host of the public radio podcast “On the Media” Bob Garfield really hates The Daily Caller.

Garfield can’t stand the fact that TheDC (accurately) reported on Khizr Khan’s writings on Islamic law and specialty in immigration law. Those topics are apparently off-limits to reporters who want to be held in good graces by smarmy progressives — even though Mr. Khan is now a public figure and they reveal important information on his background. His immigration work is particularly interesting, considering the father of a slain veteran is now attacking Donald Trump for the candidate’s immigration policies.

But those aren’t credible reasons to Mr. Garfield, and he brought on this humble DC editor for what he calls a “tongue lashing” for our publication’s alleged crimes against journalism and Gold Star families — all on the government-subsidized WNYC, no less.

Mainly, this tongue-lashing amounted to him being a sanctimonious prick and huffing and pouting when I gave him answers he didn’t like. According to his fans, though, I got “shredded” — because all you need to do is be a dick to members of the “right-wing conspiracy” to be a hero to your white liberal fanbase.

During our interview, Garfield resurrected a discredited notion from the 90s that there is a vast-right wing media conspiracy — which includes TheDC, Breitbart and the Washington Examiner — and that we directly coordinate with each other on stories to help out Trump and crush his enemies.

To anyone who has a cursory knowledge of the big conservative media outlets and how they treat Trump and each other, this notion is laughable.

“There’s one segment of the media that absolutely does understand the dynamic, the right-wing media echo chamber, which has dutifully spun the straw of Trumpian outrage into the gold of incitement,” Garfield claimed. “The Khizr Khan blowout is the latest example. Within 48 hours of his speech at the Democratic National Convention, conservative media outlets were busy turning the grieving victim into an enemy of the republic.”

Garfield, being such a gracious fellow, decided to do a fair bit of humble bragging about how he courageously vanquished TheDC’s factual reporting on a public figure in his Monday column at the very low-traffic Mediapost. Along with patting himself on the back for making himself look good during a pre-recorded, edited interview, he insinuated he’s a member of the neutral press.

He bemoaned the rise of partisan press from both the Left and the Right. Shockingly, the WNYC host found the work of the left-wing press “far more rigorous and rational than their counterparts on the right.” Right-leaning media, on the other hand, is “characterized less by original reporting than by rage, resentment and ad hominem.”

So says the man who angrily dismissed TheDC’s reporting as “racist.”

But what he really couldn’t stand about right-leaning media outlets is their reporting on Khizr Khan. Or, as Garfield called it, “digging up dirt” on the Gold Star father. We supposedly failed that in that mission since all we could find is “innocent” facts about the man that have nothing to do with his spat with Trump.

So says the man who’s crowned himself the arbiter of news.

He then went on to congratulate himself on a great interview.

“The interview with Greer is a bizarre voyage through silly rationalization, illogic, naked racism and journalistic sleaze,” Garfield objectively said, before veering to self-praise. “The reason I should be savoring it is that my Twitter feed blew up with praise for my heroic courage and courageous heroism. Hundreds and hundreds of 140-character high fives, which I briefly puffed myself up on and then very quickly deflated. Because, really… courageous? I wish, but, no, it was just a tongue lashing, of the sort I conduct routinely at no risk to myself. I’m not a hero, either. Just fed up.”

Please, don’t give any medals to Bob. He’s just a fed-up average Joe on a taxpayer-funded radio station — just like you.

He then complained about a few loons on Twitter sending him mean stuff while noting most of it was supportive of him. But it’s not a joy to him because he feels like he didn’t inform his audience, that he only entertained them.

Who would’ve thought being an overbearing ass didn’t result in an informative experience for your audience?

Anyway, I went into the interview hoping it was going to be a challenging debate on the media’s coverage of Khan, not an inquisition presided over by a man who calls others racist, yet lives in the lily-white DC suburb of Potomac, Maryland.

The thing that I thought we would discuss is how journalists at premier outlets like The New York Times were responsible for driving the initial outrage for the Khan/Trump controversy and how that fact negated the mainstream media’s objectivity during this contentious election. Instead, I got a pompous lecture on how factual reporting isn’t really news because it counteracts the preferred media narrative. (RELATED: The Disingenuous Outrage Over Khan-Gate)

The whole Khan ordeal and the Garfield interview do, however, solidify why America needs alternative media outlets like The Daily Caller. As liberal writer Damon Linker of The Week recently argued, “[t]he elite media is jam-packed with moralists who have collectively decided in the days since Donald Trump trained his rhetorical fire on Khizr and Ghazala Khan that any pretense of covering the presidential campaign dispassionately deserves to be thrown out the window.”

Journalists — even when they depend on the largess of taxpayers — have decided it is their duty to do everything possible to prevent Trump from winning the election and have consciously shaped their coverage to secure this goal. It’s led those who fret over patriotism and the “cult of the military,” like Mr. Garfield has, to become zealous defenders of veterans’ families — so long as it hurts Trump.

The “On the Media” host may decry the rise of alternative media and the fragmentation of information, but it’s for the best. Stories that would’ve been buried and ignored by the bigger press organs — such as the truth behind the Michael Brown shooting — are now able to be delivered to the public thanks to the rise of alternative media.

In years past, we’d be stuck with Mr. Garfield and his friends determining what’s news — with a heavy dose of their political biases shaping that discussion. Now the people are able to sift through multiple outlets and sources to see what’s really going on with a story. Where they choose to get their news is up to the person himself, and there are plenty of options.

While Garfield deplores the right-wing “echo chamber,” he fails to see the hypocrisy in aching for the return of his own liberal echo chamber in shaping the views of millions of Americans.

Sorry, Bob, but those days are long gone. Maybe it’s time to get used to people having different interpretations of what’s news?

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Scott Greer