Via Oliver Willis, the ADL reports:
Poplawski bought into the ["s--t hits the fan" and "the end of the world as we know it"] conspiracy theories hook, line and sinker, even posting a link to Stormfront of a YouTube video featuring talk show host Glenn Beck talking about FEMA camps with Congressman Ron Paul.
There's no way knowing whether the Glenn Beck videos are what ultimately caused this bastard to snap. But we can easily deduce that the serious discussion of such wild conspiracy theories on a "mainstream" news media outlet have only served to legitimize and offer credibility to the nonsense this shooter believed to be true.
Put another way, imagine if CNN aired a serious discussion about how the moon landing was faked, without any caveats that the topic is largely seen as preposterous. A lot of people will believe it. Likewise, the establishment press (as documented in my book) was responsible for helping to spread the Muslim rumors about then-Senator Obama during the campaign -- not to mention legitimizing the Swift Boat veterans during the 2004 campaign.
Or, last month, George Will published a totally erroneous "debunking" of the climate crisis in the Washington Post. The Post had a responsibility to police the accuracy of Will's claims -- or to account for his inaccuracies after the fact. They did neither. Who knows how much damage that column has done in terms of impacting the public legitimacy of the climate crisis. The larger the audience, the more influential the voice -- thus, the more accountable the source has to be.
You don't just step in front of one of the largest news cameras in the world and blurt out any pile of bullshit. Especially tearful motivational speeches about stockpiling guns or ginning up militaristic tendencies. Opinion show or not. Again, if O'Reilly is calling bullshit then perhaps Beck has blown the crazy curve.