you know, "the media" thinks in terms of constructing a narrative. that's even what they learn their job is in communications programs. and there's a half-assed lame-brained metaphysics that sort of says that narratives are all there is to reality. so they swing into action and they create a narrative. and the fact that they are beautifully fact-free - absolutely pristine of actual information - shows the whole big problem with that half-assed theory of truth itself. and it's also true that even the discourse will eventually be bent by actual facts; bad or purely hallucinatory or prospective though the narratives may be (they fit the event into a pre-existing template at almost any cost), they always also bend in the screaming wind of reality. still there could be more faced-up and less dishonest approaches, especially in the reporting of news.

cnn is actually polling on the question of whether extreme rhetoric led to the shootings, as if they think everyone is obliged to take up a position in absence of facts. polling is a key moment in imposing the 'frame' or creating the truth by constructing the narrative. indeed for all i know everyone actually does have a position on the matter already, perfectly predictable from their party affiliation. that's a hell of a way to develop an answer to a question of fact, isn't it? it's a kind of category mistake, as though: 'was loughner influenced by right-wing rhetoric' is a question like 'is abortion wrong?': you have to decide on the basis of your moral/political values. if you find yourself agreeing with your own segment of the political spectrum on this, i would reflect on your belief-generating procedures. i am going to regard that provisionally as disqualifying you: apparently the question for you is not at all about factual truth. btw, i don't think the facts are helping the glenn-beck-did-it theory so far.