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By Amanda Carpenter

Mainstream fringe

Media Matters, a liberal organization that tracks conservative bias in the media, gathered like-minded advocacy group leaders Thursday to discuss how the right-wing media had "mainstreamed the fringe."

Senior fellow Eric Boehlert opened a panel, which included no conservatives or Republicans, by saying "the conservative media are giving a platform to what was previously relegated to the right-wing fringe. Mainstreaming this rhetoric sends the message that violent behavior is acceptable, if not welcome. We all need to learn from the recent tragedies in Kansas and Washington, D.C., that this type of hate has no place on the airwaves."

Fox News was the biggest target of the panel's criticism with panelists bashing hosts Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and others for what they called reckless rhetoric designed to incite extremist audience members. Media Matters also singled out talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh by giving away bumper stickers with a Media Matters logo that say: "Rush Limbaugh Doesn't Speak for Me!"

Speakers agreed that the combination of the economic downturn, the election of the first black president and the rise of conservative media were triggers for political violence, such as the killings of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum guard Stephen Tyrone Johns.

At no point during the talk was there any mention of the shooting death of an Arkansas military recruiter, in which a Muslim convert has been arrested and has told reporters the shooting was justified by U.S. foreign policy acts against Muslim nations.

"Hateful words have hateful consequences," said Clarissa Martinez de Castro, the director of Immigration and National Campaigns for the National Council of La Raza. She blasted the "code words" that media personalities use - she mentioned "illegal" among them - to dehumanize Hispanics and beat back immigration reform measures.

NARAL Pro-Choice America President Nancy Keenan said social networking sites and blogs also played a role in promoting hateful rhetoric along with big-name television hosts like Mr. O'Reilly who "give license to the fringe element to act violently."

Ms. Keenan also mentioned pro-life blogger Jill Stanek as one of the blogs, saying that dynamic had led to the "creation of an isolated community that lives within the echo chamber of right-wing media and blogs like Jill Stanek's."