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Steve Ivy's Weblog - Since 1999 - XII Ed.

Bill O'Reilly and the Paranoid Style

I don't watch Fox News, as I don't get all the fancy cable channels for my $13/mo. But I've followed from a comfortable distance the bruhaha between Bill "Suitcase Nuke" O'Reilly and Al "Snider-Than-Thou" Franken, as well as the (evidently vivid) on-air blowup between O'Reilly and NPR's ever-collected Terry Gross.

On PressThink, Jay Rosen analyzes why the current media doesn't "get" O'Reilly and his volatile style of delivering, and making, the news, and at the same time introduces us to the idea of The Paranoid Style of politics (Richard Hofstadter, 1964).

I don't really agree with O'Reilly's style of news, but I can see how it could be downright infuriating to his opponents. It's hard to get the moral superiority over someone with no shame. Heh.

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My name is Steve Ivy and I write about technology, the open web, social software, and general nerdity on monkinetic.com. You should follow me on Twitter or subscribe to this blog if you like what you're reading. I spend my days hacking Movable Type, python, Django, and various other efforts at Wallrazer. This is my personal site.