News broadcasters try to remain neutral upon delivery of headlines, presidential candidacy status, and so on by communicating all sides of “the story”. “The story” can be many things from credentials of presidential candidates (where the story should cover the all candidates and their pros and cons), to the war and the pros and cons to that issue…the point being is that news broadcasters (ones with integrity, anyway) will present all sides of “the story” so that individuals may decide their stance on the issue presented according to the information presented. The same cannot be said with political pundits.
A pundit is someone who explicitly expresses their opinions—which is totally polar to the method of a news broadcaster. In this, therefore, the pundit is usually emotionally tied to the outcome of the issue presented! Automatically, we can already deduce the use of pathos on the textual level will be present in many political pundits’ rhetorical analyses. This certainly applies to Glenn Beck. From issues ranging from Muslims and terrorism, to immigration laws, Glenn Beck says a lot—but not a lot of facts. Occasionally he seems to throw in facts by leading into the phrase “according to sources”. In all logic, it’d be nice to know exactly what sources he referred to in order for the audience to deem them credible or not. In a self-titled program on CNN he aired a commentary where Beck ties Europe’s political correctness with growing Muslim violence. In this commentary he says: “In France, England, Russia other major countries, the forces of radical Islam and political correctness have conspired to slowly gain power and influence. And the continent is on the press of civil war.” He calls this growing power of radical Islamists “the perfect storm”.
Now, I don’t know how much of the statement above is true. But that aside, Beck thinks that radical Islam is slowly coming to power and civil war, and this may be true. However, the way Beck presents the issue is nothing more than superficial. A strained voice, riled-up monologs, challenging and engaging eye contact with the audience, flaying arms, and stressed/frustrated body language all point to pathos.
Even when Beck furthers his argument with potentially valid intertextual evidence for his arguments, they’re not cited and not presented fully in context nor scope. As in the same broadcast above Beck adds,
“In an article this weekend, with the headline ‘French Police Face Permanent Intifada’ described how French police officers are still engaged in a perpetual violent conflict with Muslim neighborhoods…. These are the same areas where riots broke out last year…. Listen to this, a gang of about 30 mask-wearing youths forced passengers out of a bus and onto a suburb street just outside of Paris. They set the bus on fire, then called the firefighters. Firefighters arrived—came to the rescue—they (the firefighters) were stoned on the scene. This is not an isolated crime. This is calculated, well organized act of terror and it is happening everyday. Many reports say, that chants of ‘Allah U Akbar’ (meaning the one god) could be heard.”
Beck titles this commentary “Blood in the Street?” in the foreground and “Coming Violence” in the background behind him which appeals to pathos again. Without the whole scope of the riots presented one can easily unknowingly jump onto Beck’s side of the fence.
I’ve read this article and done some research, yes, Beck presents some aspects of the article well but makes many assumptions on many different levels. “This is a calculated, well organized act of terror and it is happening everyday.” Is not a valid statement, because these things are not happening everyday. And “Many reports say….” may initially sound like great supporting evidence to the passive listener but, again, we have no idea upon the integrity of the reports Beck “cites”. These reports could be from blogs, or biased websites for all we know.
Furthermore, Beck makes Muslims seem like they are the only demographic taking part in these riots. French laws do not allow Jamey Keaten from “The Associated Press” (the author of “French Police Face ‘Permanent intifada’”) to count or even make note of the majority of nationalities participating in this arson. Therefore, although Beck heavily suggests that Muslims are the main cohorts, he nor anyone else not at the riot could be sure of who actually participated. Now the riot did take place in an immigrant-laden neighborhood, so it would be fair to deduce that the riot was caused by immigrants? Yes but on the same condition as the Boston Tea Party.
These little things may seem insignificant and even nit-picky at the same time but in reality details like these all add up to a bigger picture—a bigger picture which can be persuasive for the wrong reasons.
Beck calls the riot in the Keaten’s article an act of terror, and it may well be. However, he lumps all other forms of resistance to the French government. But Beck fails to identify distinctions between organized resistance and acts of terror. In fact, France is struggling with racial integration. Also note that France is nowhere near the United States’ advancement of racial integration. The “European Committee Against Racism and Intolerance” concluded and released a report saying that migrant youths are being excluded from education, housing, and public places. Upon visiting France, the UN News Centre later released an article also features an article titled: “Racism targets ‘visible’ minorities in France, UN independent expert says,”. Within the article the United Nations’ Independent Expert on minority issues, Gay J. McDougall, released the following statement: “Racism is alive, insidious and clearly targeted at those ‘visible minorities of immigrant heritage, the majority of whom are French citizens.” Therefore, minorities in France could be seen in the same light as minorities in the late 1900’s of the civil rights era in the United States of America. Thereby, instead of “…organized acts of terror” the riots can be seen as riots for their rights to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness—an important fact which Beck fails to acknowledge.
I do not know how many people are aware of the fact that political pundits share opinions and not always facts—more so, I do not know how many people are able to look past that. But Glenn Beck is an example of how bits of pathos, and unexamined issues and evidences presented slip by seemingly valid to the point of the pundit. To an uninformed audience, a pundit could be perceived as a good source of information, unbiased news, and fact—which can be true. At the same time, pundits like Glenn Beck have the great potential of being misleading unless scrutinized.
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