Does the media incite violence?

[ninwa]

...

The hosts also use strong language. When the Prime Minister announces the government's intention to impose a carbon tax, brazenly breaking her pre-election promise, Jones says the legislation will be her "death warrant". He also predicts independent MP Rob Oakeshott will be "bashed up" at the next election, "metaphorically speaking".

It is this sort of rhetoric that led independent MP Tony Windsor to use the considerably more subdued airwaves of ABC Radio National's breakfast show with Fran Kelly on Wednesday to call for restraint in Australia's increasingly incendiary political debate.

Revealing he had received multiple death threats, Windsor drew parallels to the January shooting of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona. Since that shooting, which killed six people and badly wounded Giffords, debate has raged in the US over whether the unhinged gunman had been whipped up to violence by extreme rhetoric in the media. Pima county sheriff Clarence Dupnik chastised those who "try to inflame the public 24 hours a day" with "vitriolic rhetoric . . . about hatred, mistrust, paranoia of how government operates".

Windsor told Kelly he believed Australia needed to "be careful we don't . . . go down the American road. We've got a great democracy here; we can argue . . . without killing each other," he said. "I think we saw instances in America recently where people were incited by various professional media people to hideous acts."

Windsor laid much of the blame for Australia's angry tone at the feet of talkback hosts such as Jones, without naming names.

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Patrick Baume, group communications manager at Media Monitors, says his experience backs Windsor's claim that talkback is becoming increasingly aggressive and politically polarised.

"My impression from five years of watching talkback is there does seem to be more violent words being used," he says. "(The hosts) will say something like: 'We have to politically beat them up.' But it's always framed as not actual violence. They will immediately say: 'Of course I don't mean literally.'

"My view is there's perhaps a little bit less of that natural respect for politicians, both from the comperes and the callers. There seems to be a bit more open attacking."

However, others argue that the angry tone of the talkback conversation simply reflects the depth of community anger, and that politicians would be better advised to listen to it than complain about it.

[MuggedByReality]

        http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-did-the-media-help-to-pull-the-trigger-2020927.html

[Eriny]

Well, Alan Jones pretty much caused the Cronulla Riots. I mean, it was wrong and you can't blame him for the fact that thousands of very stupid people listened to him, but I do think that some talk-back journalists are dangerous. And that really sucks because every time something like that happens (or, with the Andrew Bolt thing recently, when he accused those 9 people of not really being Aboriginal), people do start to think twice about freedom of speech, which is a real slippery slope and seriously comprimises the media's ability to serve the public interest. The media should be able to police themselves a bit on this so that when something important yet controversial does come along, they will still be able to say it.