The Rhetoric Of Rush Limbaugh

There has been a shift, it would seem, in journalist integrity and reporting style of political news media over the past several decades. The shift began in the 1970’s when the now prolific Rush Limbaugh was just starting his career in the broadcast industry, but the rise of conservative media is largely attributed to “sweeping deregulation of the media (particularly the removal of the Fairness Doctrine and the easing of ownership restrictions)” (Sobieraj 410). This paper will attempt to trace and analyse the spread of influence and the nature of conservative rhetoric of not only Rush Limbaugh, but right-wing media in general. When analysing right-wing media it is important to consider its origin. The mandate of the fairness doctrine required

The reason that these talk radio programs should be considered infotainment is because their primary objective is to entertain and enthrall the audience with their outrage based political commentary, but do so under the guise of delivering the “news” or the

While this type of outrage based programming is not limited to right-wing media their numbers and influence using this format largely outweighs the liberal counterpart. “The unquestioned leader of this format in the mid-1990s was Rush Limbaugh, whose syndicated show broadcast to between 15 and 20 million people a week on more than 660 radio stations (Kurtz 1996)” (Barker and Knight 151). Rush Limbaugh started his career not interested in politics (Brock 262 – 264), but his rise to become one of the most influential people in the political sphere has been due to many techniques of persuasion and