Shocking news from the Land of the Shock Jocks: “For more than five years, Hal Turner of North Bergen lived a double life…The public knew him as an ultra-right-wing radio talk show host and Internet blogger with an audience of neo-Nazis and white supremacists attracted to his scorched-earth racism and bare-knuckles bashing of public figures. But to the FBI, and its expanding domestic counter-terror intelligence operations in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Turner was ‘Valhalla” “his code name as an informant who spied on his own controversial followers.”

Turner, who was charged June 24 with posting Internet threats to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago who upheld handgun bans, was facing as much as 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

Turner’s clandestine past had been confirmed this summer when he was jailed on charges of making threats against three federal judges in Chicago. In court after his arrest, federal prosecutors acknowledged his FBI ties but downplayed his importance and described him as “unproductive.”

But an investigation by New Jersey’s The Record – based on government documents, e-mails, court records and almost 20 hours of jailhouse interviews with Turner “shows that federal authorities made frequent use of Turner in its battle against domestic terrorism.

“As Turner took to his radio show and blog to say that those who opposed his extremist views deserve to die, he received thousands of dollars from the FBI to report on such groups as the Aryan Nations and the white supremacist National Alliance, and even a member of the Blue Eyed Devils skinhead punk band. Later, he was sent undercover to Brazil where he reported a plot to send non-military supplies to anti-American Iraqi resistance fighters. Sometimes he signed “Valhalla” on his FBI payment receipts instead of his own name.”

In interviews, Turner said the FBI coached him to make racist, anti-Semitic and other threatening statements and now he feels double-crossed by the bureau after his arrest. The documents reviewed by The Record, however, show repeated instances of federal agents admonishing Turner for his extremism.

Mark W. Smith reports in the Detroit Free Press that Fox News host and Number Two Rated Radio Shock Jock Sean Hannity apologized on his Fox show recently after it was revealed by comedian Jon Stewart that the program had used archived footage of a well-attended rally and passed it off as a recent health care protest in Washington, D.C.

Hannity gave no explanation and called the use of 2-month-old footage in a current news package “inadvertent.”

Hannity said, “We screwed up.”

A truly “Great American!”

Writing in the Boston Globe, guest columnist Steve Almond asks, “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Fairness Doctrine?”

“OF ALL the Big Lies told by the pooh-bahs of talk radio, opines Almond, “The most desperate and deluded is this: that the so-called Fairness Doctrine would squash free speech.”

Almond believes this to be, “Nonsense.”

He may be right — but he’s wrong in thinking that:

1) There’s a snowball’s chance in hell the hoary old FCC doctrine will ever return; and
2) That the return of the Fairness Doctrine, adopted in 1949 by The Federal Communications Commission to ensure that licensees devoted “a reasonable amount of broadcast time to the discussion of controversial issues,’” and that they did so “fairly, in order to afford reasonable opportunity for opposing viewpoints,’” T is any kind of 21st Century answer to what ails America’s talk show airwaves now.

Almond says, “The real shock is that journalists haven’t supported the Fairness Doctrine,” and posits that “mainstream media’” outlets… dine on the same fears and ginned-up wrath as talk radio.”

It’s true, as Almond writes, that, “This is how fake controversies (death panels, the birther movement, etc.) have pushed aside real issues,” and further that, “It’s quite a racket. Talk radio hosts foment ignorant rage, then their ‘mainstream’” brethren cover this ignorant rage as news.”

It’s just not true that the return of the Fairness Doctrine will put an end to the shock jock racket!

“Talk radio?” sniffed one Democratic digital native, “Why are you focusing on that? The only people who listen are seniors and cab drivers, right?”

Wrong, as a report from the media monitoring firm Nielsen has just shown. In fact, within ad-supported media, the reach of broadcast radio is second only to live television.

The Nielsen analysis of media use found that 77% of adults are reached by broadcast radio on a daily basis, second only to television at 95%. This study, in which consumers were physically observed consuming media throughout the day, found that Web/Internet (excluding email) reached 64%, newspaper 35%, and magazines 27%.

In sum, the study concluded that broadcast radio continues to play a major role to all ages — not just seniors — and almost 80 percent of those aged 18 to 34 listen to broadcast radio in an average day.

“There are a lot of critics out there who want to write off broadcast radio, but this analysis of real-time media consumption shows that it continues to play a very strong role,” said Dr. Michael Link, VP of Methodological Research at The Nielsen Company.

Nuff said?

Rather than “roll over and play dead in response to Obama’s marginalization push against key conservatives,” Rush Limbaugh is responding with his “own offensive,” as Brian Maloney reports on The Radio Equalizer blog.

As ‘revealed” in a Fox News Sunday visit, Limbaugh’s key tactic, according to Maloney: “fearless denunciations of Barack’s socialistic reworking of the American economy and political system, all in strategic settings outside of his radio program.”

Sure sounds ‘offensive” to me!