Rush Limbaugh HBO Screening - P 2012
Getty Images“Journalists might want to consider arming themselves,” Rush Limbaugh said on his nationwide radio show Wednesday in analyzing the on-air murder of two TV reporters.
“The first fear they had was that it was open season on journalists,” Limbaugh said of those who are covering the killing Wednesday of WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and photographer Adam Ward in Virginia. The shooter, Vester Flanagan, was a disgruntled former employee, though Limbaugh opined some liberals in the media were hoping to pin the killings on the conservative Tea Party or even GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
“If you look at the polling data, not new here, journalism is among the least respected industries or professions in the country today. I think it ranks even below where Congress is,” Limbaugh said Wednesday. “They’re very much aware of it. Doesn’t matter, but they’re very much aware of it. So there was no doubt in my mind. You could see the look on their faces and the tone of the questions to each other, is it open season on the media?”
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He said reporters all over the country are likely plotting ways to score political points while reporting about the unprecedented on-air murders of journalists, but they’re having trouble reconciling the racial makeup of the killer and his victims.
“Everything has to be politicized. This thing eventually will,” he said. “Take out the vocations of the people involved. If you had a couple of white people shot by a person of color, you might not even hear about it. And if you did hear about it, there would be, maybe not excuses, but rationale, and we would be advised that it would be worth our while to figure out, why the rage?” he said.
“But that can’t work, because the victims are in the media, so it’s going to be a very conflicted thing for people reporting on this, trying to convert it into some sort of political agenda.”
“They were ready to go blame Trump for it,” Limbaugh said of the reporters covering the murders. “I guarantee you there were probably reporters, investigative reporters, trying to tie this, if they could, to some political group with which they might not agree, such as the Tea Party. You could see it.”
He added about the killings aired live on air and shared by the killer in social media: “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this. It may be an all-time first. First of its kind. Journalists lives matter.”
Email: Paul.Bond@THR.com
