Regarding the former, Beck thinks the pastor is an idiot. Regarding the latter, well Beck had plenty to say on that including that the media appears to be engaged in reporting what he calls “future news” — truth be told, a pretty nifty sum-up of what’s been going on this last week. Mostly, however, Beck was enraged by how the media chose to frame his appearance on 9/11 with Sarah Palin (he included my headline among those he was not happy with, though apparently did not read the full post).

Here’s how the appearance went down according to Beck. He was hired to make a speech (a fairly normal occurrence), Palin called him to ask if she could introduce him, he said yes. A few days later Palin Facebooked about it and the media blew it into a big controversy. Subsequently, Beck’s PR company announced that Beck was intending to donate the money, something which apparently angered Beck because even though it was always his intention to do such it’s actually nobody’s business how he spends the money he earns. And by the way this is America and the whole free market system is about to collapse because people are not being allowed to go out and make money.

All of which makes sense. And Beck is right to say he is not ashamed to make money, though considering his preoccupation with dates in the past I think it’s, shall we say, naive on his part to think people wouldn’t assume this was the latest ‘date’ event. Anyway, here’s what I bet happened. Beck got hired to do the speech, as he says. Palin asked to be included. Up until that point, to the best of my knowledge, the event had not been heavily promoted either on Beck’s site or his show, which is notable considering how heavily he has pushed other events in the past. It wasn’t until Palin Facebooked the event that things got hairy, mostly because of how she framed it: “I can think of no better way to commemorate 9/11 than to gather with patriots who will “never forget.”” That was the line that lit the media firestorm that Beck was eventually forced to put out. Basically Sarah Palin went rogue on Beck’s PR team is what it sounds like to me.

You can watch Beck’s long rant about all things media below.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d think they just put two days together and acted like they didn’t,” said host Jon Stewart, before going on to present video evidence that that was precisely what they did — including Hannity exclaiming over how many people cared enough about freedom to come down to be heard on a Thursday. Er, Saturday. When is the Superbowl again?

It’s really blatant and remarkable and thank God they were watching, because this sort of misrepresentation is simply not an accident. And, to the point made by the White House about Fox not being a news organization — well, a news organization does not sub footage of a bigger, better attended rally in for footage of a smaller, less attended rally in order to make the latter rally look bigger. That falls under the category of “producer whipping up the crowd for the camera” and for which that producer was “disciplined” for the “mistake” and about which an internal Fox standards email was subsequently sent. As our colleague Zeke Turner put it back then: “When somebody comes to you, as a journalist, for information and allows you to control their field of vision, it’s expected that you’ll turn your lens on the truth. Not an augmented or altered version of the truth.”

This is an augmented and altered version of the truth. One wonders if the rebuke from Fox to the other networks for not adequately covering this huge and momentous occasion would have been next. Watch this footage.

> Update: FNC tells us Hannity will address this on his show tonight. -SK

Related:
Grass Roots or Astro-Turf? Video Shows Fox News Producer Rallying 9/12 Protesters
Internal Fox News Email Addresses “Standards” After 9/12 Flap
“How Did ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and CNN Miss This Story?”

Here’s Tapper’s exchange with Gibbs:

Voight, an outspoken (if not rabid), critic of President Obama, has starred in a over 70 movies and TV shows. Since Gibbs said he was sure that what he was thinking would get him in trouble, I took a shot in the dark:

And here, I was hoping he’d hum a few bars of “Dueling Banjos.”

I guess I’ll take his word for it, although I’d hate to think what kind of “Midnight Cowboy” joke he could have made.

He also asked me if my questions were in order of importance. For the record, I don’t believe that this was a declaration of war on Mediaite.

Rachel Maddow took some time on her show to vet a number of yesterday’s highlights, including Rep. John Boehner’s constitutional misstep, as well as taking a peek into the past statements of rally goers like Mark Levin who recently described Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor as “Ruth Bader Ginsburg plus about 50 pounds.”

Olbermann first quoted Beck as saying:

“Ten years ago, I could have shouted every single day about Usama bin Laden and his wacky, crazy threats to kill Americans in New York and no one would have been willing to stand in line two hours while some security officer made grandma take off her shoes. Today, things are different. America is changing. We’re not letting you get away with it anymore. …The 912ers are willing to stand in line and take off our shoes before the towers hit the plane.”

Olbermann’s response: “Beck … shark … jump. You and the 9/12ers have the nerve to exploit 9/11 for your lousy TV ratings. You can not make light of 9/11, nor bandy about as if your petty political grievances are comparable to it, and still be an actual patriotic American. In short, Glenn, 9/12ers, if you are invoking 9/11 just to oppose health care reform, go to hell.”

Olbermann’s comments:

Glenn Beck’s original comments can be seen here:

Related:
Glenn Beck’s Crazy 9/12 Tea Party Had Nothing To Do With 9/11 [Mediaite]

Related:
Equality Marchers to Obama: Enough Already! [Mediaite]
SLIDESHOW: Scenes From The Equality March [Mediaite]

– ‘Fringe media’ newspaper The New York Times finally catches on to what we’ve been saying for a while now: Obama needs his own Glenn Beck and to learn how to employ a chalk board when talking about health care. And for those of you who feel like Beck has just popped up out of nowhere, here’s a look at his early day as a talk radio host.

The email, with the subject line “standards,” addresses the controversy head-on: “We do not cheerlead for one cause or another,” writes Sammon. Full email after the jump:

Sammon uses the incident to drive home the need to be objective:

We do not rile up a crowd. If a crowd happens to be boisterous when we show it on TV, so be it. If it happens to be quiet, that’s fine, too. It’s not our job to affect the crowd’s behavior one way or the other. Again, we’re journalists, not participants — and certainly not performers.

It’s not like the crowd needed to be riled up – every time reporter Griff Jenkins (whose focus is features – and ambushing – and not news) mentioned Glenn Beck there were loud cheers. And as TVNewser writes today, the practice is “fairly common.”

But in the wake of this controversial ad, which attacked their competitors for their poor coverage of the protest, the appearance of tampering with the crowd’s mood had to be addressed by Fox News.

Here’s the full email:

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 2:25 PM
To: 005 -Washington
Subject: standards

For those of us who have only been at Fox for a relatively short period of time, it’s useful to remind ourselves that, as journalists, we must always be careful to cover the story without becoming part of the story. At news events, we’re supposed to function as dispassionate observers, not active participants. We are there to chronicle the news, not create it.

That means we ask questions in a fair, impartial manner. When approaching interviewees, we identify ourselves, by both name and news organization, up front. We seek out a variety of voices and views. We take note of the scene in order to bring color and context to our viewers.

We do not cheerlead for one cause or another. We do not rile up a crowd. If a crowd happens to be boisterous when we show it on TV, so be it. If it happens to be quiet, that’s fine, too. It’s not our job to affect the crowd’s behavior one way or the other. Again, we’re journalists, not participants — and certainly not performers.

Indeed, any effort to affect the crowd’s behavior only serves to undermine our legitimate journalistic role as detached eyewitnesses. Remember, our viewers are counting on us to be honest brokers when it comes to reporting — not altering –the important events of the day. That is nothing less than a sacred trust. We must always take pains to preserve that trust.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please stop by.

—–
» Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

Media Matters was the first to post the video on Friday evening, followed by DailyKos, and now the Huffington Post has posted a more extensive view of the scene and confirmed the name of the producer.

“The employee is a young, relatively inexperienced associate producer who realizes she made a mistake and has been disciplined,” FNC Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton told HuffPo.

At first glance, Noonan’s ‘pump up the volume’ gestures to the crowd seem innocuous. But when you consider FNC’s whole “Fair and Balanced” credo, the interaction between producer and crowd is completely out of bounds. It’s the same problem that newspapers face when they are caught altering photographs to seem more brilliant in print: when somebody comes to you, as a journalist, for information and allows you to control their field of vision, it’s expected that you’ll turn your lens on the truth. Not an augmented or altered version of the truth.

And, given that Fox expressed disgust that other networks weren’t devoting more coverage to an event of such magnitude, one wonders why at least one Fox producer thought the scene needed help getting ready for the camera.

See the video for yourself here (from Media Matters):

The scene as it appeared on Fox News:

CNN’s Rick Sanchez said “you lie!” (seriously, he said that) – since his network and all the others did cover the protests. He also played a clip of Bill O’Reilly saying CNN covered the protests. But Fox News is sticking to their guns, and WashPost is defending the ad buy. What? (Updated, with comment from FOX)

Every network defended their coverage today, and TVNewser has a rundown of those defenses, plus this from Michael Tammero, VP of Marketing for FNC.

“Generally speaking, it’s fair to say that from the tea party movement … to Acorn … to the march on 9/12, the networks either ignored the story, marginalized it or misrepresented the significance of it altogether.”

Oh okay. So in Fox News’ opinion their competition didn’t cover the protests (or ACORN or the movement as a whole) in a way that they approved of. It is the opinion of Fox News (not fact, mind you) that the networks “missed” the story. This clears it up, and the ad makes sense. It’s not “fair and balanced” by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it makes more sense.

It’s also pretty much why the Post is totally fine with their decision. A spokesperson tells Politico, “The Post will not reject an advertisement based on its content or sponsor, unless the ad is illegal, false, advocates illegal actions, or is not in keeping with standards of taste. When we do not see anything in a particular ad that is contrary to these standards, we will not place limits on speech or content.”

Here’s the bottom line: Fox News didn’t “miss” this story because they were the story. They’ve driven the story, promoted the protests and covered them because they are the protests. The Fox Nation, the FOX opinion/community arm of the network’s web properties drove this story by actively helping register people to attend tea parties around the country. Glenn Beck promoted the D.C. protest (“It’s Time To Stand Up” he implored his audience) because he started the entire 9/12 movement.

Just look at the way Foxnews.com’s supposed “news” story covered the protests in D.C. From their “news” report:

They came. They saw. They protested.

Yet it remains to be seen whether the demonstration Saturday in the nation’s capital, against what protesters view as out-of-control spending by an expanding federal government, will conquer Washington.

It’s no surprise the other networks are actively trying to discredit this ad. But CNN sensed a chance to pounce, and they have been most active in refuting the point. Today they sent a statement that included dozens of embeddable links of their coverage, images and more.

> Update Saturday at 2pmET: We got ahold of someone at FOX today for a reaction to the reactions. An FNC exec laughed it off, saying, “‘Thank you very much,’ and a special thanks to Rick Sanchez who has always been a sucker…he’s a gift that keeps on giving.” (See this from July.)

This was part of CNN’s statement:

Fox News’ ad today is blatantly false regarding CNN’s coverage of the 9/12 rally.

CNN provided live coverage of the rally in Washington throughout the day Saturday, Sept. 12. CNN dispatched more than a dozen personnel and multiple camera crews, including the CNN Express, to cover the event. CNN’s deputy political director Paul Steinhauser was live at Freedom Plaza, CNN correspondent Kate Bolduan live from the West Front of the Capitol and roved the crowd, CNN’s Jim Spellman provided live hits all day after traveling for weeks on the actual Tea Party Express, and CNN’s Lisa Desjardins was live from the National Mall.

You get the idea.

Now that brings us to Sanchez. He unleashed on Fox News during his 3pmET hour. But most ironic – he played a clip of O’Reilly, actually saying CNN covered the protests. Check out his rant:

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I didn’t do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.

Back in this country, one might argue a little less journalistic “expression” might do the industry and the nation some good. Here’s the video should you have missed the first time around.

Is this a sign that Carter is planning on going after Glenn Beck? (One imagines the White House is very much hoping otherwise.) The presence of the Obama/Kennedy signs at last weekend’s 9/12 rally were well documented, and last month Beck made headlines for comparing aspects of Obama’s health care plan, to the Nazi’s eugenics program during WWII. The Obama as Hitler signs, meanwhile, made their appearance during some of the more rowdy town halls this summer. It’s hard to miss Carter’s insinuation here.

Regardless of what Carter’s long-term goal is with these sorts of remarks, President Obama wants nothing to do with it. From today’s New York Times:

But this time the White House has made clear that it does not want to engage on the topic, which beyond threatening to distract attention from the health care push could also put further strain on Mr. Obama’s broad but tenuous electoral coalition of liberals and moderates, Democrats and independents. Signaling that he had no intention of lending his voice to Mr. Carter’s accusation, the president declined to answer a reporter’s question on the subject in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

Whether or not that’s realistic remains to be seen. Carters full remarks below.

Last Wednesday Obama made the unusual move of calling a joint session of Congress, once again occupying the airwaves (sans FOX), to once again pitch his health care plan and hopefully clear up some misconceptions about what it does and does not consist of. It was by most people’s measure a fantastic speech…and yet it was mostly lost amidst all the ongoing hubub over Joe Wilson‘s “You Lie” outburst.

On Saturday, Obama sought to follow up Wednesday’s address with a health care plan rally in Minneapolis. Saturday was also known to some 70,000 rambunctious sign-wavers as 9/12, and it was that outburst of sign wavers, marching around Washington, who dominated both the cablers and the next-day coverage.

Being nothing if not persistent, Obama appeared this Sunday 60 Minutes for a second time in six months (video below) to talk to Steve Kroft about…the health care plan. 60 Minutes airs at 7pm ET, which last night put it somewhere between Serena Williams’ outburst at Saturday’s U.S. Open and Kanye West‘s Taylor Swift-directed outburst at the VMA’s. The President really just needs everyone — everyone — to shut the hell up for seven days so he can get his point across!

There is a chance Obama will have another shot at the headline ring. Rumors abound he is set to appear on tonight’s debut of The Jay Leno Show…with special guest Kanye West. Perhaps the Prez can get a few outburst notes from the master. Outbursts have appeared to paid off for everyone else.

President Obama Talks Health Care on 60 Minutes

Watch CBS Videos Online

Sensing that perhaps that number was a little high, he traced the error back to a conservative Twitterer named @pinkelephantpun, who claimed to have gotten the figure from ABC News. (Which, faster than Joe Wilson can amend an apology, ABC News denied.) In fact, ABC estimated the crowd, on the high end, at about 70,000.

That’s a pretty big difference. How big? It’s two orders of magnitude. As King Kaufman notes, it’s like confusing Vermont with Texas. More concretely, it’s akin to confusing the number of pixels in the two images below.

That’s some error!

(N.B. This image, believe it or not, was condensed for size. For actual image showing visible pixels, please see the original post at pbump.net.)

Philip Bump is a technology and communications consultant in New York City who writes “The Wayback Machine,” an occasional column for Mediaite about the intersection of history and the Internet. Follow him on Twitter here.

Billionaires for Wealthcare were on hand to serenade and thank the teabaggers in Washington today. We arrived en force dressed in tuxes and tiaras to celebrate those fighting so hard on behalf of our freedom to deny claims and raise rates. Because hey, at least OUR death panels turn a profit.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I think this one says it all:

As if the “Bury Obamacare with Kennedy” sign wasn’t already dripping with class, the Twelvers cover Kennedy’s name with horseshit to really turn the 9/12 ‘tude up to 11. What’s really disgusting about this is that this isn’t some homemade bit of filth, but a pre-printed message distributed by the American Life League, a right-wing anti-choice group.

There was plenty of homemade hatriot goodness to be seen, however. Here’s a sampling of Alex’s photos from today’s rally. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?

Tommy Christopher is a Mediaite columnist on politics and media and also reports frequently from the White House. Tommy can also be found at his own blog: DailyDose.us. Follow him on Twitter here.

Where was Beck today? In his New York City Studio – but he wasn’t happy about it.

After all the promotion of this Beck-driven event, on Fox News, on Beck’s personal website and on the 9/12 project website, it was jarring to see the Fox News host conducting his program like any other usual 5pmET weekday show. Here’s how Beck explained it:

Well hello America, I have to tell you I’m not in a very good mood today because I would much rather be, can you show the pictures of Washington, I would much rather be in Washington DC today…I’m not in a good mood because I would rather be there quite honestly, and standing in the crowd with people.

Well if he would rather be standing in the crowd, with the people, why wasn’t he? This project is something he admits to launching himself, and now we’ve reached the much-talked about date. The two-hour special featured a look at various tea party protests around the country, but the focus was D.C. Instead of Beck on the ground, it was FNC reporter and ambusher Griff Jenkins, making sure to ask at every possible opportunity for members of the crowd to talk to Beck. Wouldn’t it have been more effective if Beck were actually there? And further, despite saying he’d “rather” be in D.C. he gives no reason for why he didn’t actually go. FNC tells Mediaite the plan was always for Beck to anchor from the studio.

Beck described the crowd as a “collection of Americans who want both parties to stop with the corruption stop with the spending and start listening to the people.” It’s not a stretch to say Beck is the leader of this group. But by having him stuck in the New York City studio, it comes across like the general who isn’t willing to hit the frontlines with his troops. Instead, he’s the distant coach – calling the plays in the huddle and letting the players run around and attempt to execute the gameplan.

Beck has an enormous platform in Fox News, and an ever-expanding audience. No one can argue that he’s at the top of his game right now. And he certainly has his critics – many with legitimate concerns. But he’s here to stay – or until he self-destructs. His strong ties to the grassroots tea party movement will surely boost his appeal with those disenchanted with the government. But couldn’t he have attended his own party?

On a side note, here was the other reason Beck wasn’t in a good mood:

And then the other thing is I spent it about an hour in traffic, this is how out of control our government is. Here in New York, they had a Labor Day parade today. The week after Labor Day. Nobody stood and watched it. It was labor unions, just walking down the street, and so they closed the traffic here in New York.

With one project down, it’s time for a new project. Here’s Beck explaining his newest feature, finding 56 “re-founders” in D.C. to “help us get the disease out of there”:

—–
» Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

Even now, I am not sure what it had to do with 9/11 — other than completely co-opting it for Tea Partiers, Fox News, dissent and — oh yes — Glenn Beck.

The thesis: Beck wants this country to return to the values it held on 9/12/2001, the day after the terrorists attacks devastated and horrified the nation and the world. As someone who was in New York on 9/11 (and 9/12, and was evacuated from midtown office buildings in a panic along with thousands after a scare on 9/13), I remember those values being terror, bewilderment, shock, horror, and a profound grief. Over the days that followed, as people walked around in a daze and hugged and clasped hands more than usual, I recognized it as a city-wide sense of bereavement.

But Beck is right — there was also something else. There were people all over the city galvanized to try to help. People with medical training rushing to Ground Zero to see if they could offer assistance. Collections and donations for food and supplies. My roommate and I ran around our high-rise in an impromptu clothing drive, and took bags down to Chelsea Piers where volunteers were being organized. Rumbling past us along the West Side Highway were trucks, laden with white ash-covered debris. After seeing that, my roommate put his head down on his knees and just sobbed.

There was also the well-documented coming together of the country, looking to the President and his bullhorn, unable to turn the TV coverage off, donations pouring in to the Red Cross. There was a nation riveted, wanting to do something.

There was not, as I can recall, an angry if vague call to ward off socialism and cut taxes.

Yet that was what dominated today’s 9/12 Glenn Beck special on Fox News. Starting from the position that “Americans” “with their head in the sand” were to blame for 9/11 on 9/10/2001, he somehow moved to the now-familiar rhetoric of the Tea Partiers, about lower taxes and “taking our country back,” with a dash of fist-shaking at nebulous “political corruption” across government. Beck was careful to point out that the corruption was bi-partisan — he wasn’t on a particular side! — but of course happily hosted Republican Senator Jim DeMint and Congressman Mike Pence — two of “the good guys.” (And, of course, the past few weeks have left us with little doubt as to who the bad guys are. So there’s that.)

But as far as I can tell, other than the obvious and craven “hook” for the special, this two-hour special wasn’t about 9/11. I may have missed it, but I didn’t even see reference made to the 9/12 manifesto — its 9 principles and 12 values — that was supposedly the raison d’etre for the project. That may be because, as True/Slant’s Colin Horgan points out, they’ve been removed from the 9/12 website with no explanation.

>>>NEXT: Glenn Beck doesn’t trust “the media” and hates when you throw around the term “racist.” Also: Wet T-shirt contest!