Media Matters Report 'Meet the New Rush, Same as the Old Rush' Raises Questions of Limbaugh's Status as Mainstream Commentator

5/3/2004

From: Naomi Seligman of Media Matters for America, 202-544-9177

WASHINGTON, May 3 -- Media Matters for America today released a new report analyzing six weeks of systematic monitoring of The Rush Limbaugh Show.

Limbaugh's show was transcribed and evaluated daily. "Meet the New Rush, Same as the Old Rush" lists 77 Limbaugh comments from March 15, 2004 to April 29, 2004. The report kicks off Media Matters for America's new Radio Project, which, for the first time, will include daily analysis of conservative misinformation on Limbaugh's show.

"Meet the New Rush: Same as the Old Rush" findings include Limbaugh's commentary on the participants in the March for Women's Lives, which took place in Washington, DC, on April 25, 2004:

Some of these babes, I'm telling you, like the sexual harassment crowd. They're out there protesting what they actually wish would happen to them sometimes. (4/26/04)

In recent years, Rush Limbaugh has enjoyed increased acceptance from mainstream media outlets: He analyzed Election Night returns for NBC in 2002, and The Washington Post's media critic has called him a "mainstream conservative." According to Time magazine, Limbaugh "is the most dominant voice in radio, with 20 million listeners weekly."

"Until a few weeks ago, when Media Matters for America put in place a system to analyze and correct Rush Limbaugh on a daily basis, one of the most influential political commentators in the country operated with almost complete impunity," Media Matters for America President David Brock said today. "That ends today, as both producers and consumers of news will have access, through the Media Matters for America website, to the results of our daily analysis, using Limbaugh's words as a primary source."

According to Media Matters for America's new report, "Meet the New Rush, Same as the Old Rush": "Media Matters for America monitored The Rush Limbaugh Show from March 15, 2004 to April 29, 2004. During that time, Limbaugh used the term 'femi-Nazis' eight times; he suggested that women want to be sexually harassed; he repeatedly equated Democrats with terrorists; he twice resurrected long-discredited right-wing claims that Clinton White House deputy counsel Vince Foster was murdered; he repeatedly called Senator John Kerry a 'gigolo'; he called environmentalists 'total wackos'; he called Howard Dean 'a very sick man'; he said Democrats 'hate this country'; and he referred several times to Democratic National Committee Chair Terry McAuliffe as a 'punk...and so on."

"Meet the New Rush, Same as the Old Rush," as well as real-time analyses of conservative misinformation, can be found at the Media Matters for America website: http://www.mediamatters.org.

Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Media Matters for America is the first organization to systematically monitor the media for conservative misinformation -- every day, in real time -- in 2004 and beyond.

For more information, log on to http://www.mediamatters.org.