May 10, 2002

8:01 PM

Forget the commercial media spin...here's a no-nonsense article on Pim Fortuyn and how the 'mainstream' media, for the sake of ratings and profits, tried its darndest to make him look like the second coming of Hitler. Heck, I notice that at least one MeFi'er is guilty of that. Article by Adam Curry.
posted by clevershark (27 comments total)

Scary. I avoided Adam Curry's blog before, but no longer. I was duped too. It's incredibly sad if it is true.
posted by mblandi at 8:59 PM on May 10, 2002

Yeah. Great information. But how is it someone so experienced in the media, for so long, could get by all this time with such atrocious spelling?

Still though good food for thought, as far as weaning yourself off the teet (sic) is concerned.
posted by crasspastor at 9:10 PM on May 10, 2002

But how is it someone so experienced in the media, for so long, could get by all this time with such atrocious spelling?

He was on TV, crasspastor.

And while his article has a lot of interesting information, and his passion is admirable, his obvious anti-media bias makes me take his opinions with a grain of salt.
posted by diddlegnome at 9:35 PM on May 10, 2002

Mblandi's right. The VJ has a brain. Who knew?

Better still was the article he makes reference to. He's right again, its a must-read.
posted by BentPenguin at 9:40 PM on May 10, 2002

. . .And the radio too diddlegnome. Media's the media's the media. Hell, you're supposed to be able to spell better than that just to graduate high school.
posted by crasspastor at 9:41 PM on May 10, 2002

BTW. I'm not a maven.
posted by crasspastor at 9:42 PM on May 10, 2002

My point is the same. Radio people don't get paid to spell any more than TV people do. But yeah, he should have learned better in school.

And if by maven you mean nit-picker, well, I get paid to be one, and I found his creative spellings ("dressed to the nice" was especially entertaining) amusing rather than off-putting. He ain't working for the New York F-wording Times, after all. :)
posted by diddlegnome at 9:48 PM on May 10, 2002

This article from the Times, hardly a bastion of politcal heterodoxy, makes a very clear distinction between Fortuyn and Le Pen/Haider/[insert fave far-right racist here]. A gay media view. (I got both these at aldaily.com).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 9:55 PM on May 10, 2002

It's interesting how well Curry’s piece is being received here (so far) given that his core message is so very near what was said in this thread here, and the eventual direction that this thread over here went into – that is to say, that the media often presents folks who are “right of center” in a completly inaccurate, incomplete and biased manner.
posted by nobody_knose at 10:02 PM on May 10, 2002

oops - i placed those links in the wrong order...oh well.
posted by nobody_knose at 10:03 PM on May 10, 2002

(Personally, I think) You've got it wrong nobody, because this isn't particularly about right-wing targeting and left-wing sympathy, it is about a case of (right-wing) targeting that is money-driven media manipulation possibly gone horribly wrong-- might I add a typically leftist concern. You can't boil shit down so dualistically.

His core message isn't lefties targeting righties, like what was suggested in the pipe-bomber NEWSMAX! thread, but that media will contort things wildly with dangerous consequences, a Nader message if I ever heard one.
posted by mblandi at 10:29 PM on May 10, 2002

nobody_knose

It seems to me that the mainstream media tends to misrepresent everyone. Whether one is on the left or the right.

All I can say is thank God for the internet and the ability to do further research and fact checking.
posted by yertledaturtle at 12:22 AM on May 11, 2002

I think the explanation is that the media wants a broad overview of the political landscape.

Le Pen, Haider, Berlusconi, Fortuyn are all in roughly the same area. They all oppose immigration (particularly Muslim immigration), even if they don't all oppose it for exactly the same reasons.

They're all part of the same phenomenon. They all think Muslim immigrants are undermining the unique character of their nation. Fortuyn was, in my opinion, more of a paradox (somehow the solution to intolerance is... intolerance), but that doesn't mean he's not part of that general trend towards an anti-migrant Right wing.

In fact, I think Fortuyn was somewhat more dangerous, because he hid his intolerance behind "the protection of tolerance". Twisted.

(But that doesn't mean he should have been shot.)
posted by robcorr at 1:46 AM on May 11, 2002

Wait a minute! Gather some background information before you blame the mainstream media for not checking the facts.

linklust.com: "Adam is not totally independant, he openly applied to become a member of Pim's party."
Dave Winer: "Adam was a supporter of Fortuyn."
posted by arf at 1:59 AM on May 11, 2002

All I can say is thank God for the internet and the ability to do further research and fact checking.

Ha

oops, I mean Bravo!
posted by y2karl at 3:19 AM on May 11, 2002

the media often presents folks who are “right of center” in a completly inaccurate, incomplete and biased manner.
The big media's job as far as political discourse is concerned is to establish consensus. They are the defenders of "political orthodoxy". Indeed they define what mainstream is allowed to be.
Anyway the Italian prime minister (Sylvio Berlusconi) makes Foruyn look like a radical leftist as far as immigration rhetoric goes. But he's supposed to be mainstream so it's OK.
An aside: Could Dutch MeFites indicate the correct pronounciation of Pim Fortuyn's name? Also apart from his personal views were some of his supporters skinheads and Nazis as I have read in Greek newspapers?
posted by talos at 4:05 AM on May 11, 2002

Could Dutch MeFites indicate the correct pronounciation of Pim Fortuyn's name?

That's tricky because there's no real english equivalent to the dutch uy- or ui-sound. Curry's example "For-Town" probably comes closest.
posted by milov at 4:12 AM on May 11, 2002

...were some of his supporters skinheads and Nazis as I have read in Greek newspapers?

I think so... a couple of the people in his party (LPF) are not entirely sweeties either. Of course some of people that followed him were more extreme. Related to this: I wonder if the party can, and will attempt the same policies that Fortuyn tried to follow... they are mostly unexperienced non-politicians-so-far. And the party is a little disorganized, they can't seem to agree on who the new leader should be.
posted by Icestorm at 5:52 AM on May 11, 2002

I wonder if the party can, and will attempt the same policies that Fortuyn tried to follow...

You also have to wonder whether PF himself could have maintained the facade of respectability for his "prejudiced against the prejudiced" line (I'm with robcorr here), given that the party was so new, and basically making up its policies as it went along.

But yeah, I think Curry's guilty of the same simplifications as the 'mainstream media' - and actually, I think the BBC, at least, did a decent job of presenting PF in his own words. He may also be rather disingenuous over whether PF wanted a ban on new Muslim immigrants: at least, I'd be glad if any of the Dutch here could fact-check this piece from the Graun. The sense I get from these discussions is that Fortuyn, with the advantage of no track record for comparison's sake, was deliberately vague about his policies to avoid being pinned down, while feeding off what people presumed he'd do: a receptacle for the prejudices on both sides of the political debate. In a way, then, it's perhaps no surprise he was apparently murdered for a policy that his party barely advocated.
posted by riviera at 7:25 AM on May 11, 2002

europe seems, more and more, to confuse tolerance with racism. in talking to some english people about the country's attitudes to muslim people living there the europeans are seeming increasingly racist to me. you do not "tolerate" illegal behavior in some minority group. the idea of accepting a minority group's lawbreaking as tolerance is racist in itself. if people live in a country they are held accountable to the country's laws, as they have a vote equal to any other member and can change those laws as well as any other. i have heard english people blame themselves, or the government for criminal acts done by others who are in some minority. that is racist, they are people, who are as bound to the law as you are. to say they are not held to the same laws, or that the cause of them breaking a law was not their responsibility is to dehumanize them.

It is not intolerant to expect all citizens to do their part and to abide by the law, to assume some group can or will not do so is racist and dehumanizing. While I do respect many of the social changes europe has made it seems they are far behind the us in race relations.

Tolerance is only a virtue when what you are tolerating isn't destructive to others. I will tolerate your belief that god exists, if you tolerate my having same-gender sex. These things don't hurt anyone. Tolerance is not a virtue when you begin tolerating hate-speech, violence, law-breaking, mental and physical abuse to women, and gender inequality. Even when these actions are shrouded in things one would otherwise tolerate, such as religion, when they appear they should be called out. As to "the solution to intolerance being intolerance," yes, the basic idea of an enforceable law is that there are some things we will not tolerate, and that is not a bad thing.
posted by rhyax at 8:50 AM on May 11, 2002

ryhax: you're missing the point here. This isn't about the issue that "Tolerance is not a virtue when you begin tolerating hate-speech..." That's a given: you judge people on their actions. Pim Fortuyn seemed to go further than that, by advocating that immigrants should be judged on the perceived beliefs of other immigrants, which is prejudice, pure and simple. It's like arguing that Catholics should be pre-judged as paedophiles, tolerating gender inequality, just because of a perceived culture in the church hierarchy. "Give a dog a bad name, and hang him." It's paradoxical, because Fortuyn himself complained about being subject to that same guilt-by-association with Le Pen and others.
posted by riviera at 9:17 AM on May 11, 2002

As to how racist Europe is, I'll point you to Friday's op-ed by the Economist.
posted by costas at 10:33 AM on May 11, 2002

Does anyone think the backlash against the media portrayal of Pim Fortuyn is wildly exaggerated? Almost all of the unflattering adjectives about Fortuyn have been in articles complaining about how unfair they are. (As an example, the only place on Google where he's called a "hard right winger" is in Curry's piece).

The international media coverage of Fortuyn I have read doesn't use any terms as loaded as "hard right-winger" or "anti-Muslim racist," and since this is the first, last, and only time the guy has gotten any ink in the U.S., I'd have to say the portrayal has been reasonably fair here.

I think the attention given to Fortuyn's treatment by the media is a pretty cynical attempt to revive the favorite story of the right-wing: How that big mean old biased liberal media is beating us up (despite the fact that people like us own it). I'm boggled as to why should American weblogs should care about this supposed bias at all, when a week ago you could ask 100 webloggers who the guy was and get 100 blank stares.
posted by rcade at 12:26 PM on May 11, 2002

Local cuts from BBC World said that Fortuyn was "far right-wing" and that he was an "enigma wrapped in a blanket" . Fortuyn wearing that playing card printed blanket didn't help his image much either.
posted by holloway at 3:33 PM on May 11, 2002

Pim Fortuyn seemed to go further than that, by advocating that immigrants should be judged on the perceived beliefs of other immigrants, which is prejudice, pure and simple.

i agree that would be prejudice but i had never heard those accusations specifically, what policies did he want that would have been like that?
posted by rhyax at 3:51 PM on May 11, 2002

rhyax, there's a link to a Guardian article that outlines some of his policies: the bar on Muslim immigration is the one that represents classic pre-judgement. I've searched around the Dutch sites for corroboration, and I think it's there, but my Dutch only extends to 'alstublieft' and 'dank u wel': can anyone confirm that these pieces say what I think they say?
posted by riviera at 5:12 PM on May 11, 2002

Could Dutch MeFites indicate the correct pronounciation of Pim Fortuyn's name?
bond. james bond.
posted by quonsar at 10:56 PM on May 11, 2002