TEL AVIV — Scores of major news media outlets published pictures of Glenn Beck in Israel while reporting on the radio host’s seemingly unrelated controversial comments regarding a Norwegian summer camp that was the site if a shooting massacre last week.
In a radio segment Monday morning on “The Glenn Beck Program,” the former Fox News star described the deadly attack “as a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like the Hitler Youth. I mean who sends their kids to a political camp?”
Beck was referring to the shooting last week allegedly carried out by Anders Behring Breivik at a Norwegian Labor Party youth camp, killing at least 68 people, many teenagers, and wounding 66.
It was the second attack blamed on Breivik that day. He is also accused of exploding a car bomb in downtown Oslo, near the offices of the Prime Minister of Norway and several other governmental buildings. The explosion killed eight people and wounded 26.
Beck’s remarks about the summer camp received a significant amount of news media coverage.
Some major media outlets reporting on the comments published images of Beck in Israel even though none of the reports mentioned the Jewish state.
Beck visited the Israel earlier this month to address the Knesset, the country’s parliament. On Aug. 24, Beck is planning a rally in Israel called “Restoring Courage.” The event is purportedly a follow up to Beck’s massive “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington DC last summer.
The LA Times published an article entitled, “Glenn Beck hits ‘new low’; compares Norway victims to Hitler Youth.” Splashed across the top is a picture of Beck sitting in front of two Israeli flags.
The photo has no caption. No explanation is given as to why the particular image of Beck was used. Thousands of images of Beck are readily available.
The same picture accompanied CNN.com posting entitled, “Overheard on CNN.com: Beck’s camp comments appalling.”
The CNN blog post didn’t mention Israel. Even the photo’s caption did not explain the choice of an image that included Israeli flags.
The caption stated, “Glenn Beck is taking heat for comparing the Norwegian summer camp, run by the Labour Party and where most of the 76 victims in the terror attacks died, to the Hitler Youth organization.”
USA Today published a similar image in its article titled, “Glenn Beck compares Norwegian victims to ‘Hitler Youth’”
However, in the image used, there is only one Israeli flag and it is less visible. The photo bears no caption.
Reporting “Glenn Beck says Norway camp like ‘Hitler Youth,’” Newsday, meanwhile, used an Associated Press image of Beck with a caption stating the photo depicts Beck gesturing as he speaks in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
CBS News.com took an alternative route altogether, using a picture of Beck addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Feb. 20, 2010. The CBS piece was titled, “Glenn Beck criticized for comparing Norway victims to “Hitler Youth”
On his radio program yesterday, Beck defended his remarks, implying he didn’t mean to draw an exact comparison between the Hitler Youth and the Norwegian political camp.
“If we’re living in a society where we can’t say X in the same paragraph as Y and not be told we are comparing it…we are going to be a society of gas chambers,” Beck stated.
The Hitler Youth was a paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party comprised of teens and preteens that existed from 1922 to 1945.
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