User:DiamondDisc1/Alt-right media groups

The following is a list of alt-right media groups.

Sinclair Broadcast Group
Sinclair Broadcast Group is a right-wing media giant that pushes alt-right propaganda through local television stations. Like its competitor Clear Channel (now iHeartMedia), Sinclair was able to purchase multiple stations in individual markets, and consolidate ownership in regional markets because of Bill Clinton's media deregulation bill. Thus another example of how Clinton capitalism sowed the seeds for fascist consolidation of the ideological, non-scientific field of "economics", which in a capitalist society is consolidation of power.

Must Runs
Sinclair makes all of its stations run what are known as 'must runs'. These "news" segments include the Terrorism Alert Desk (where Sinclair pushes anti-Muslim "news", even if the stories have not been verified by legit source).

Salem Radio Network
"Politically, everyone is with it, but theologically, when he says the country should turn back to God, the question is: Which God?"

“This is secular radio. But part of the idea is that you cannot separate faith from the ongoing debate in society at large or the nation’s political future.”

Salem Radio Network is a division of Salem Communications. It provides an outlet for neoconservatives but mainly focuses on its support for the religious right, and other radical right voices. It is arguably more extreme than Fox News and more or less promotes right-wing Christian Evangelicalism. It is a major part of conservative talk radio, only being overshadowed by Clear Channel.

In recent years the network's hosts have become somewhat infamous for being both horribly wrong with nearly every prediction they make and for occasionally having extremely offensive yet utterly bizarre outbursts,   which might be a source of hilarity if some people didn't take them seriously. That being said SRN can be considered somewhat obscure to most mainstream audiences, with most of their current punditry being targeted towards a relatively smaller audience (compared to Fox News anyways) that largely consists of devoted wingnuts who think they are listing to actual intellectuals (irony meter at 50% since they push a decent amount of anti-intellectualism as well).

Influence
One of the founders of Salem Communications, Stuart Epperson, has been named one of the most influential evangelicals in America thanks to his company. The company has helped get George Bush and other Republicans elected, and has helped radicalize the GOP by supporting only hardliners and "true conservatives". The Radio Network itself has roughly 103 stations and millions of listeners. Today, almost all the hosts push global warming denialism, Obamacare death panels (like WND they even had ads for ObamaCare survival kits), subtle to not-so-subtle homophobia, and American Exceptionalism, as well as overwhelming support for the Republican Party. The hosts tend to echo one another and most of the time it seems like just one host could do the jobs of all the others. It's safe to say that most liberals and even centrists seriously underestimated the network's power in its early years and when the Fairness Doctrine was repealed, the station managed to dominate others in relatively little time.

Programs and hosts
As a network, Salem is the right-wing version of Air America Radio as most Salem stations carry the entire lineup of hosts save for one local show. In its heyday, Air America required its affiliates to carry the entire lineup.


 * William "Bill" Bennett
 * Former United States Secretary of Education during the Reagan years and Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under Bush, he is arguably the most authoritarian of the hosts. Bennett supports the War on Drugs and has said that beheading drug dealers is "morally plausible". He has also said that if, hypothetically speaking, all black babies were aborted, the crime rate would drop (though he didn't actually advocate for it). When he was called out for saying this he basically said he was unfairly condemned for a thought experiment. Despite his urging for self discipline and his organizations opposition to the expansion of legalized gambling, it has been revealed he lost millions gambling in Vegas.


 * Mike Gallagher
 * Said by some to be, or to had been, the sixth most popular radio host in the U.S. Has apparently called maternity leave a "racket" and has wanted critics of George Bush, which includes Matt Damon and Keith Olbermann, to be detained until the Iraq War was over because they're "traitors". Hates the Clintons and blamed Barack Obama and other Democrats for the fact that Gallagher was unable to sell his house within three weeks, due to their policies not supporting trickle down economics. Wanted Muslims to have their own line at airports, and didn't specify how you would even identify Muslims at airports.


 * Dennis Prager
 * Most well known for harassing Keith Ellison when Ellison was going to be sworn into office on the Koran, saying that it would hurt American values more than 9/11. He's an anti-environmentalist, pushing the "DDT was banned in Africa" myth as well as global warming denialism, claiming it's just an excuse for the government to take power. Wrote a ten page essay in 1993 on why homosexuality is bad. Got made fun of in the blogosphere when he wrote columns on why women should submit to sex with their husbands even if they're not in the mood. Has accused Ron Paul, and anyone else he doesn't like, of being a "radical lefty". Like Paul he has a strong online following that defends him no matter what he does. Despite the network's strong Christian leanings, Prager is Jewish.


 * Michael Medved
 * Possibly the dumbest of the group, saying that Nazi leaders, including Adolf Hitler, were gay and enjoyed having gay orgies. Has written... questionable things about slavery, including that the Africans who were forcibly brought to America had inferior genes to the Europeans who came to America because the African slaves lacked the "adventuring" gene. Thought the movie Happy Feet was being too supportive of gay rights. Like Prager, he is Jewish despite the network's Christian overtones.


 * Hugh Hewitt
 * Spends most of the day ranting about how liberal he thinks the media is. Got Rand Paul in trouble when he pushed him to talk about "Friends of Hamas", an anti-Israel organization that was supposedly sending money to Chuck Hagel. As it turns out, "Friends of Hamas" never existed in the first place. Championed Mitt Romney for president and thought he would win in a landslide. Oops.

Books
All of the hosts have written books to profit off of their fans. All of these books are well thought out and thought provoking. They argue in favor of neoconservatism and use hasty generalizations about liberals (i.e. Prager calls liberals "utopians") to argue with them. They also lump centrists like the Clintons, Obama, and Chris Matthews in with liberals and left-wingers. Basically, it's another form of their radio show for those who need their own preconceptions confirmed because they don't have enough confidence in their own beliefs.

An upside, maybe?
On the other hand, their Salem Radio Labs division created the open source radio automation package Rivendell (now maintained by Paravel Systems). That can be looked at either of two ways: either some filthy communist mole made a software package that small radio broadcasters can use to make their operations much smoother and gave away the farm from under their bosses' noses, or some ratbastard decided to give away for free the tools that a big radio network uses to homogenize the life out of their programming so other big radio companies could do the same while saving a couple hundred thou on software licenses while making eight and nine digit profits.

iHeartMedia
iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel Communications, is a corporation based out of San Antonio, Texas. It deals largely in outdoor advertising and radio broadcasting. The company also has strong sympathies with the American Right-Wing.

Holdings
In the United States, the company exists in the top 50 markets, and then some. They own and operate Premiere Radio, which provides Wingnut welfare for various loudmouths.

"We want the airwaves"

 * After one of the Dixie Chicks declared Dubya made them ashamed to be from Texas, their music mysteriously vanished from Clear Channel’s stations. But, you know, Liberal media.

2001 Clear Channel Memorandum
A few days after the 9/11 attacks, the top brass at Clear Channel apparently sent an email to over 1,000 US radio stations "an updated and expanded list of songs with 'questionable lyrics' that they should avoid playing." Clear Channel denied the claim, but it received considerable media coverage at the time.

The question was not that there'd be kinds of music that would be inappropriate in the advent of the attacks, but the specific songs Clear Channel ultimately chose. It seemed more like an 60s-style social conservative attack on popular rock music than an understandable suggestions list. The particularly ironic tunes are listed below.


 * almost every famous AC/DC single
 * "Smooth Criminal" - Alien Ant Farm (not the Michael Jackson version)
 * "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" - The Animals
 * "What a Wonderful World" - Louis Armstrong
 * "Walk Like an Egyptian" - The Bangles
 * "Falling for the First Time" - Barenaked Ladies
 * "Sabotage," "Sure Shot" - Beastie Boys
 * "A Day in the Life," "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", "Ticket to Ride" - The Beatles
 * "Hit Me with Your Best Shot", "Love is a Battlefield"- Pat Benatar
 * two Black Sabbath songs, another by frontman Ozzy Osbourne
 * "Burnin' for You" - Blue Öyster Cult
 * "Smokin'" - Boston
 * "Rock the Casbah" - The Clash
 * "In the Air Tonight" - Phil Collins
 * "The End" - The Doors
 * "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" - Bob Dylan (including the Guns N' Roses version)
 * "Learn to Fly" - Foo Fighters
 * "Brain Stew" - Green Day
 * "Hey Joe" - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
 * "Only the Good Die Young" - Billy Joel
 * "Bennie and the Jets," "Daniel," "Rocket Man" - thevery special Elton John
 * "Dust in the Wind" - Kansas
 * "Fly Away" - Lenny Kravitz
 * "Stairway to Heaven" - Led Zepplin (does NOT need a link)
 * "Imagine" - John Lennon
 * "Great Balls of Fire" - Jerry Lee Lewis
 * "Dancing in the Street" (including the Van Halen version), "Nowhere to Run" - Martha and the Vandellas
 * "Crash into Me" - Dave Matthews Band
 * "Live and Let Die" - Paul McCartney & Wings (theyreally love the Beatles...)
 * "American Pie" - Don McLean
 * "Crumblin' Down," "Paper in Fire" - John Mellencamp
 * a bunch of Metallica songs
 * "99 Luftballons" - Nena
 * "Head Like a Hole" - Nine Inch Nails
 * "Leaving on a Jet Plane" (well, obviously), "Blowin' in the Wind" - Peter, Paul and Mary
 * "Free Fallin'" - Tom Petty
 * "Mother," "Run Like Hell" - Pink Floyd
 * "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" - Elvis Presley
 * "Another One Bites the Dust", "Killer Queen"- Queen (remember Freddie Mercury?)
 * the entire Rage Against the Machine catalogue
 * "Aeroplane," "Under the Bridge" - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
 * "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" - REM
 * "Ruby Tuesday" - The Rolling Stones
 * "Evil Ways" - Santana
 * "New York, New York" - Frank Sinatra
 * "Bridge over Troubled Water" - Simon & Garfunkel
 * "I'm Goin' Down," "I'm on Fire," "War" - Bruce Springsteen
 * "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" - Steam
 * "Morning Has Broken," "Peace Train" - Yusuf Islam Cat Stevens
 * "Burning Down the House" - Talking Heads
 * "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - U2
 * "Jump" - Van Halen
 * "In the Year 2525" - Zager and Evans

So, yeah. Five points for effort, Clear Channel?