We may often disagree with WJR-Detroit‘s local morning radio host but he held a feisty but fair discussion featuring Michigan-based Melzer and our Washington D.C.-based national editorial director Jefferson Morley.

Also of special interest was the segment Beckmann had with Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis after Melzer and Morley clicked off (which is included at the end of the MP3 linked below). In it, Anuzis suggested that Michigan Messenger is somehow part of some master plan by the Democratic Party to “distract” people away from alleged voter fraud on the part of the Democrats.

I can assure Anuzis that we do not take marching orders from the Democratic Party. The idea of our being part of some massive, coordinated conspiracy by Nancy Pelosi is pretty funny to all of us here at the home office. The Democrats barely send us their press releases!

We are issue-oriented, in favor of democracy, justice and accountability. The Dems are not our saviors simply because of their party affiliation. Sometimes even Republicans get some of that stuff right, and Democrats often get it wrong — a point to which both Melzer and Morley speak in the interview.

Listen to Melzer and Morley mix it up with Beckmann here.

The poll confirmed what many former listeners of the powerful radio station have been saying for years since the station lost the broadcast rights for Detroit’s professional sports teams. To illustrate how conservative the listeners of the 50,000-watt radio station have become with a steady diet of conservative radio hosts, the poll put former conservative Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in second place with 25 percent over Arizona Sen. John McCain with just 10 percent. The real election results were much different, with McCain finishing second behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 30 percent of the vote and with Huckabee in third with just 16 percent.

The self-proclaimed “Great Voice of the Great Lakes” has become the “Great Conservative Voice of the Great Lakes” with an almost exclusive line-up of conservative hosts that includes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Even the few local hosts are conservative, and in a poll the Michigan Messenger conducted last October, WJR morning host Frank Beckmann was voted the second-most-biased commentator or reporter in Michigan. This was an honor Beckmann did not appreciate, and he claimed in numerous emails he was fair and balanced, despite plenty of documentation to the contrary.

Last week Beckmann, who hosts the morning show on WJR-AM, was railing against the international scientific body the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that just issued a report that said, “warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” His take on all those who believe climate change and global warming are serious problems is that they are environmental wackos. “They have really gone over the edge; that’s why I call them wackos,” Beckmann said. “I’m not into name-calling.”

Why he does not consider calling someone a wacko as rising to the level of name-calling I have no idea. But after about a month of monitoring his show for two and a half hours a day, I have begun to see how his conservative Republican bias manifests itself despite repeated denials and claims that he is fair and balanced.

Continued -His conservative guests outnumber other guests by a wide margin, and when he does have the conservatives that reflect his views and opinions on, he rarely has anyone from the other side to counter what they say. They can rest assured they will not be asked any tough questions or challenged, and chances are very good that Beckmann will agree with everything the person has to say.

A perfect example of that was at play Tuesday when Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter was a guest in what turned out to be little more than a 10-minute campaign infomercial. Duncan’s quote that, “We (Republicans) are the party of the middle class” really surprised me; not so much that he said it but that it went unchallenged. It’s Republican tax cuts over the years that benefited the richest 5 percent in this country at the expense of the disappearing middle class that has created a huge and widening gap between the rich and poor and shrunk the middle.

Beckmann’s support for the Iraq invasion is pretty clear, and that’s reflected in his choice of guests, including author and retired Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, who was on the show Tuesday. His support for the war is so strident that Peters has been described by some people as being from the “Diplomacy Be Damned, Shoot the Bastards” wing of the Republican Party.

The same show also featured an interview with John Howell about a boycott of the anti-Iraq war film “Redacted.” You can be sure that neither Peters nor Howell got any tough questions.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia, was on the show. McCotter was riled up about people in his district receiving robo-calls about the inability of the federal government to hold Communist China accountable for its repeated violations of fair trade policy. He was there to complain about the “Great left-wing attack machine,” and he had a receptive audience. This is the first time I have ever heard of this alleged machine. McCotter, and Beckmann too, seem to believe only Democrats and liberal groups use “attacks,” as he calls it.

I wonder where they were during the Clinton presidency when rich guys like Richard Mellon Scaife were offering rewards for people to dig up dirt on the Clintons through the so-called “Arkansas Project.” I wonder if McCotter has ever been publicly accused of murder, rape or drug smuggling like Clinton was.

He also made the ridiculous statement that Republicans don’t use robo-calls.

McCotter’s biggest complaint was over the McCain-Feingold Act and what he calls attack ads by faceless, liberal groups that receive unknown financing. The McCain-Feingold Act is a bipartisan campaign finance bill that tried to regulate so-called “soft money.” Getting the bill passed was a hard-fought battle, and it has not been very successful at regulating soft money, but apparently McCotter thinks it does not go far enough. If he has a bipartisan proposal to improve it then he should propose it.

“When Frankenstein turns on them, then perhaps we will see something done with the wonderful McCain-Feingold Act that so many liberals and well-intentioned people want to make politics more transparent and free of money,” he said.

Beckman’s agreement that only Democrats engage in attack ads was very interesting. “They say we have the American Family Values and the political right that finance campaigns,” he said. Apparently, the word “we” means Beckmann includes himself in the Republican Party.

The film, by Academy Award-winning director Brian De Palma, was financed by self-made millionaire Mark Cuban, owner of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks. It’s a fictionalized story about the brutality of combat, based on the March 2006 rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her entire family near Baghdad by four members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, and the cover-up that followed. Several soldiers have been convicted in connection with the crimes.

The boycott includes the Mavericks and their sponsors, and other companies owned by Cuban, including HD Net, Magnolia Pictures and Landmark Theatres. Conservative Fox News host Bill O’Reilly has also supported the boycott of the movie.

Continued -John Howell, a former U.S. Marine from Illinois who says he became involved in the boycott from writing about Iraq on his Web site, was a guest on Frank Beckmann’s radio show on WJR-AM last week to talk about the campaign. 

“I don’t know why anyone would see a movie when Brian De Palma said he made a movie that he said is anti-troop,” Howell said. “It is not anti-war, it’s anti-troop. He said if George Bush can lie about Iraq why can’t I; these are quotes by Brian De Palma.”

Howell said he has picketed outside theaters where the movie has been shown. The film opened on Nov. 16, but is only being shown in Cuban’s Landmark Theatre chain. It is the nation’s largest theater chain dedicated primarily to exhibiting and marketing independent films.

Howell said he had not seen the film. “You won’t see us in front of ‘Rendition’ or ‘Lions for Lambs’ protesting because those are policy movies,” Howell said. “We can discuss policy all day long, but you should not defame the troops. I will not give them a dime of my money to see it.” 

The boycott group has a Web site that features an online petition, and Howell said there are plans to send the petition to Cuban. He also said there are plans to picket at Mavericks’ road games. Howell called the movie “un-American” and “treasonous in a time of war,” and said that it gives “aid and comfort to the enemy” and that it will serve as a “propaganda and recruiting” film for al-Qaida and jihadists.

  “This movie will get service members killed,” he said. “Any guy in the Muslim world who is on the fence who sees this movie, with the way they can edit this film, will turn them into a jihadist.”

De Palma, who also wrote the screenplay, said in interviews that the movie was very similar to his 1989 film “Casualties of War,” which was set in Vietnam. In other interviews De Palma said he wanted to bring the horrors of war back to the American people that have been hidden from the American public, such as barring video and still photos of the flag-draped coffins of fallen U.S. service members returning home from Iraq.

But Howell said if De Palma wants to do a film about atrocities, then he should “make a movie about the atrocities committed by al-Qaida.” 

“Redacted” opens Friday at the Maple Art Theatre, 4135 W. Maple Road at Telegraph, Bloomfield Hills.
]]> http://michiganmessenger.com/469/anti-iraq-war-movie-redacted-is-drawing-fire-as-it-comes-to-michigan/feed 0 http://michiganmessenger.com/450/as-globe-warms-wjrs-beckmann-discredits-granholms-climate-initiative http://michiganmessenger.com/450/as-globe-warms-wjrs-beckmann-discredits-granholms-climate-initiative#comments Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:01:11 +0000 Kevin Shopshire http://www.michiganmessenger.com.php5-9.websitetestlink.com/?p=450 WJR-AM radio host Frank Beckmann took his act — and his conservative views — on the road last week to the Los Angeles Auto Show.

On Thursday, he railed at Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s executive order creating the Michigan Climate Action Council to develop a comprehensive climate action plan for the state. Beckmann is well known for claiming climate change and global warming is a huge conspiracy and hoax thought up by liberals.

While the world’s most prominent scientists tell us the debate now should be about how best to combat the problem of climate change, not whether it is or isn’t occurring, Beckmann thinks he has all the answers. 

Beckmann complained that there were no scientists on the new council, which is still being formed, but he said the “

His show on Wednesday, as are all of his shows, served as a two-and- one half hour platform for his conservative views. That’s fine, but not when he claims he is fair and balanced. He chose Wednesday to talk about what he calls the Global Warming hoax. Despite every reputable scientist agreeing that global warming and climate change have been caused by human beings through the high emission of greenhouse gases, apparently Beckmann really knows the truth because he did the research on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  (NOAA) web site. He referred the guest to the links on his web site to prove he has the answers on climate change that Nobel Prize-winning scientists do not. So, I took a look. The things he chose to link to clearly demonstrates his bias.

A few that really got me were, “As discussed by (Republicans) L. Brooks Patterson and Bob Daddow at the (Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce) Mackinac Policy Conference” and  “Satirist, Lecturer, Writer, and Political Commentator recently spoke to the (conservative think tank) Heritage Foundation, “Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals ‘Think.”"

Continued -The day after Michigan resident Michael Moore’s latest movie “Sicko” was released on DVD, Beckmann had as guests on his show the makers of the documentary “Manufacturing Dissent,” a 2007 documentary that exposes what the creators say are Moore’s misleading tactics and mimics Moore’s style of small documentary makers seeking and badgering their target for an interview. The film was made over the course of two years by Canadians Debbie Melnyk and Rick Caine. Beckmann did not bother to hide his glee at going after Moore, and his closing comment to the filmmakers said it all, “We’re going to convert all of you liberals.”

On Thursday, Beckmann had state Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, as a guest. The softball questions he throws at Bishop are bad enough, but the disturbing part is what Beckmann lets him get away with saying without ever challenging him. Like this gem:

“The Republicans are in the minority in the legislature,” Bishop said.

I almost fell out of my chair on that one. Even though that’s what voters clearly intended to do last November when 60 percent of the total votes cast for Senators were for Democratic Senate candidates, the Republicans still control the Senate 21-17.

Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley had a few gems of his own. On Thursday he wrote, “Chrysler’s new CEO Bob Nardelli is taking on more than just the nuts and bolts turnaround of the automaker. He appears to be out to break the mentality of collective entitlement that permeates the domestic auto industry, and infests much of Michigan as well. Nardelli is considering extending bonuses beyond the executive suite deep into the ranks of Chrysler workers, based on the company’s performance and an individual’s contribution.”

The “mentality of collective entitlement?” We know where Finley stands.

Recently, the obscene compensation CEOs were making has been an issue as the gap between the rich and poor widens and the middle class is in danger of going the way of the dinosaurs. Nardelli was the poster boy for that problem.

In 1965 the average CEO was earning 24 times what the average worker was making. But in 2005, the average CEO was making 262 times what the average worker is making. As the CEO of Home Depot, Nardelli made $38 million, or roughly $100,000 a day, in 2005, but the average worker who is selling the product and is the public face of the company is making just $10 an hour on average with few if any benefits. Nardelli continued to make this outrageous salary despite the company’s stock going down 6 percent in six years, and it fell 40 percent during his tenure.

Finley uses his Sunday column to tell us how wonderful Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is and how bad Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton is.

“Romney gets the auto industry — in fact, he’s offered himself up to run an automaker if this politics thing doesn’t work out. ”

I’m sure he’s qualified.

Detroit Free Press reporter Dawson Bell came in third in our poll, but I have seen no bias. He wrote three articles last week: a story on the Supreme Court argument on same-sex benefits, the court decision to stop the Michigan primary and a feature on term limits.

Readers ranked Beckmann in second place among the most biased reporters, columnists and commentators in Michigan.

Beckmann tried to laugh the poll off, but it bothered him enough to email me six times. 

Detroit News editorial page editor Nolan Finley was picked as the most biased. But the impression I got from him was basically an amused “so what.” 

Beckmann was a little different. Those who have watched Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show “The O’Reilly Factor” constantly describe the national blog Media Matters as a “left-wing smear site” know how some people react when you hold a mirror up to them. What is Media Matters’ great sin and how is it smearing O’Reilly?  Simply by posting actual video of some of the stuff he says on his show.

“I addressed this on the air this morning,” Beckmann wrote of the survey, “and stressed my disappointment at finishing second…..clearly, I failed to energiize (sic) my base and plan to get a better turnout next year……you must be pleased with your truly massive response of 43 votes in a week….that’s  impressive…..I also adopted you as my official liberal website.” 

Continued -I explained to Beckmann that although I too was disappointed at the small number of votes cast, Michigan Messenger has only been around for some six weeks, and that any startup venture in any medium begins slowly. I also explained that an online newspaper is a completely new medium, and obviously more people owned radios than computers. Also, to vote you had to register with a screen name and password, and like talk radio, many people may listen or read but they do not all call in or comment; I guess that’s where the term “long-time listener, first-time caller” came from. But the 43 votes was a constant theme with Beckmann, and he pointed it out in almost every email.

“You act as if your vote with 43 ballots is somehow significant,” he wrote.  “By all measures, my show has been a success…..The Michigan Association of Broadcasters afforded me two  major awards last year, for ‘News Coverage’ and for  ‘Personality of the Year.’ ”

I pointed out to him, again, that although the 43 votes were fewer  than I had hoped for, still it was the readers and not me who chose him as one of the most biased commentators. Perhaps the question I should have asked was if he thought a mere 43 votes was  so insignificant, why was he wasting his time emailing me. He offered to let me appear on his show, but it wasn’t clear he was serious.

I listened to his show last  Wednesday and Thursday while working and a small portion of the show on Friday while driving. I discovered Beckmann was correct when he said he regularly has liberals and progressives on.  But after listening I have little doubt that those who  voted for him made a good decision. He clearly treats non-conservative guests he disagrees with much more differently than conservatives.

On the first show, on Halloween morning, just a few hours after the Michigan House had met until 4 a.m. to approve the final budget bills and avoid a second state government shutdown, he had a lot to say about the budget. He told his audience that the budget just passed actually was an increase from the previous year’s budget, but then failed to say why or  point out that many payments made in this budget were payments that were delayed from last year’s one-time fixes that were due.

It was very telling who his first guest was. Tricia Kinley, the director of tax policy for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, was there to push the chamber’s attempt to kill the recently approved sales tax on some services. There was no one from the other side as a guest, and as always, there was no one to talk about how the budget would be balanced without the tax increase.

Beckmann did have former Democratic Gov. Jim Blanchard on the show, but Blanchard had to call him out on trying to pass off White House talking points on the Iraq occupation as his own opinions.

The next day, Thursday,  Beckmann had the House Republican leader,  Rep. Craig DeRoche, R-Novi, on to talk about the budget, despite the fact that every published report pointed out DeRoche had absolutely nothing to do with the budget negotiations that avoided a government shutdown.  Beckmann let everything DeRoche said go by unchallenged, including the misleading  claim that House Speaker Andy Dillon, D-Redford, has grown government and the number of state employees.

The truth is  that there are fewer state employees now than there were in 1973, as there were  more state employees under Republican governors Bill Milliken and John Engler than there are now. After Dillon’s segment, Beckmann chose to comment on what Dillon had to say but not DeRoche, and DeRoche’s comments went unchallenged again.

On Friday, he had the Senate Majority leader, Sen. Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, on to talk about the budget, and he got more softball questions than DeRoche. Beckmann did not bother to ask him how he actually planned to balance the budget without the revenue increases. Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mark Schauer, D-Battle Creek, should have been on to counter Bishop’s claims — following the pattern of the day before, when the leaders of both parties in the House were on the show.  But that did not happen.
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