April’s Fools: C-SPAN Begins the Month with More “Blame-the-Jews” Tirades
One of C-SPAN’s most popular programs, Washington Journal (a 3-hour daily public affairs and call-in show), ushered in April with a double dose of “blame-the-Jews” tirades from the same caller. Once again, when it came to bashing Israel, a network host failed to uphold C-SPAN’s ostensible “one-call-per-30-days” rule.
It must be noted that C-SPAN, watched by more than 28 million viewers weekly (according to the network’s own estimate), allows no ethnic or religious group or nation except Israel and Jews to be repeatedly vilified on Journal broadcasts.
On April 5, “Pat” from Pittsburgh, an obvious conspiracy theorist, charged preposterously yet without challenge by either host Peter Slen or the guest that Israel manipulates U.S. elections through manufacture of voting machines (click here to listen):
When the American people are witnessing the massive manipulation of the election process when our election machines are being manufactured in the state of Israel which is manipulating our country on virtually every level, I think it is understandable that the skepticism of the American people is as high as it is.
On April 1, “Patrick” from Pittsburgh had launched into a propaganda tirade that began with an unsubstantiated and hearsay claim of a diplomat finding a key section of the U.S. State Department “occupied by Israelis,” proceeded to the wild assertion that there are “a billion” Americans (there are a little more than 300 million) and ended with the canards –- popular with both neo-Nazis and the extreme left –- that “Israel is the puppet-master of America” and leading this country into “another war of lies.” The guest’s dispassionate refutation of the caller’s smears could not relieve, ex post facto, Washington Journal host Paul Orgel of his professional responsibility to have recognized and quickly terminated the anti-Israel, anti-Jewish phone call in the first place. This is not a matter of censoring informed opinion, but of preserving air time from the lunatic fringe. Click here to listen.
C-SPAN can be contacted at (202) 737-3220, 877-662-7726, [email protected], [email protected]., twitter.com@cspanwj or facebook.com/CSPAN about its dismal, indefensible record of permitting on a regular basis (usually without challenge), callers’ defamations of Jews and Israel.
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