Talk Show Host Happily Gave Lafayette-Shooting-Suspect Airtime To Bash Abortion & Feminists

[kpete]

he made dozens of appearances on television talk shows:

Former talk show host Calvin Floyd had Houser on as a frequent guest, knowing that his off-the-wall opinions would generate audience interest… Houser also had a history of domestic violence…

Lafayette Shooting also offers a lesson about who news orgs choose to give airtime and why:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/07/24/tv-hosts-remember-alleged-lafayette-gunman-as-anti-tax-anti-feminist-gadfly/?postshare=7821437760547990

MORE:
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2015/07/25/late-night-horrorshow-its-about-ethics-in-mass-shooting-journalism/
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/us/louisiana-theater-shooter/https://twitter.com/reedfrich/status/624645432610824192
https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/624640299407519744








The press is totally complicit in treating this as some kind of act of god,
like a tornado or hurricane,
and not a toxic mixture of white male paranoia

[Popcorn 51]

1. Haters are so damn funny.

God knows this place has their share.

[onehandle]

2. Gun culture may have its new poster child.

Zimmerman is so 2012.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. Calvin Floyd is a terrible person and complicit and he is currently attempting to downplay what he

has done. His Facebook page shows him egging on his viewers 'look, I'm going to put a true conservative against a libber!'. Note he says 'feminine rights'? Not women's rights, feminine rights.
This Floyd hosted this man intentionally to create what he called 'fireworks'.

[Kber]

4. Maybe it's time we stop treating hate as entertainment

And start taking this shit seriously.

[freshwest]

6. That would be a sane move. n/t

[Person 2713]

9. Even here recently DUers hoped Trump would continue his hate on Mexicans talk

They want him to say more. Hope he is the nominee
Keep it up? This is great for our party ?
But others are listening to him and he could incite violence towards legal immigrants but if it gets their side to look better they hope he keeps talking hate

[Kber]

13. Solid point

It's easy to laugh and point at the clown car, but there are crazy and potentially violent people in our world who can be duped into thinking their hate is legitimate because we insist on legitimizing it.

[ljm2002]

5. The current line seems to be...

...that Houser was "mentally ill" and that we need more funding so people like that won't be out on the streets. The newspaper headlines call him a "drifter" as though that is what he has always been.

Houser was married for quite awhile. He was given a platform on a local talk show, as you point out, dozens of times, where he could spout his unhinged rightwing views. His (now ex) wife had to get a restraining order.

Yet the sheriff and newspeople now say that he was someone who was, tragically, mentally ill. The sheriff even called for more mental health funding (I wonder how often he has advocated for that position before this event).

How many truly mentally ill people do you know who get on talk shows 60 times? The fact that he was given a platform is VERY relevant here -- it would have reinforced and validated his positions within his own mind. Not to mention of course that he got to spread the hate around even wider, perhaps sowing the seeds of the next violent act within the mind of another deranged individual.

Right wing talk shows being so prevalent, with little or no countervailing programs, has seriously poisoned our national discourse, and we are reaping the results.

[MisterP]

16. in fact it was the listeners of previous hate radio that made damn sure that there's no

countervailing voices on the air

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Berg

[Person 2713]

7. Putting haters on for entertainment .Look at Fox and all these radio shows and the hate they pass on

The press is totally complicit in treating this as some kind of act of god,
like a tornado or hurricane,
and not a toxic mixture of white male paranoia

[Fred Sanders]

8. It is like ISIS turned radical Christian and took over the American airwaves to preach hate.

In English, with white faces.

FOXSIS is already here recruiting radicalized killers - ISIS is not.

"We want the radicals", so says white ISIS and it's media in America. And so they are allowed?!

[malaise]

10. For profit guns and ammo

For profit; rage sold by the for profit media sponsored by corporations and lobbyists who have bought the for profit politicians - what a mess

[Fred Sanders]

11. Hot, steaming corrupt mess, a Third World corruption....that Obama has the wheel is what lets me sleep at night.

I am closely following his trip to Kenya - I have been there, briefly - why the media is not is a question we both know the answer to.

White ISIS in America must be having a whitey-fit, not that that I ever even care to notice anymore.

[heaven05]

14. I will, if you don't mind, use that term

among many I find reflective of the racists of america..... White ISIS....very descriptive. And true. They want to keep women in 'their place', minorities in 'their place' or just get rid of them by any means necessary. And a lot would like to make everyone believe in some entity in the heavens as the sole judge of our lives, with them the executioner if our lives 'offend' that entity and it's rules.

[heaven05]

12. RW radio

a bane to civilized, decent people.

[Ace Rothstein]

15. This guy posted on another forum that I post on.

Creeps me out.