People that dont like FOX news

[egg_bread_head]

Why are blacks running around corn fields?

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by Cody-

Fox News has been known for, and is currently still actively participating in, the misconstruing of information - "cherry-picking" and the deliberate mishandling of facts and sources to their own benefit. Bias does not know ideology; if you're willing to accept that, for instance, MSNBC has a particular slant, you're going to have to understand that just because Fox News, the alternative, is shaped to your liking, doesn't mean that it is not a biased source and that its credibility shouldn't be questioned.

Again, Fox News is shit.

I have given examples of others are biased. Please do the same. Just saying something in a discussion doesn't make it so. You have to prove your point.

You are also mistaken in your statement "bias does not know ideology". An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. Given that, you may want to rethink your prior statement so you don't look so foolish.

[scotsmitch2001]

lets just say, Fox News may not lie but they are economical with the truth?

[egg_bread_head]

I was told that pinks like fox news

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by scotsmitch2001

lets just say, Fox News may not lie but they are economical with the truth?

LOL

[spjames]

You wanted examples of Fox news lying or blatantly slanting news stories well here you go ....

Fox news widely (just about every pundit and news show) reported that Obama's trip to India was costing the US 200 million dollars per day (lets not even talk about the claim of the 34 war ships) and did it without any fact checking what so ever. Since the White House never releases information on the cost of over seas presidential trips how did they get these numbers? Well some guy in India got himself a news bit guessing that is what it would cost. Fox ran with what basically amounted to false and unfounded information ie they lied.

Now on to the ACORN video. A video crafted by a right wing ambush video maker. This video was edited to make it look like workers in an ACORN office were aiding a prostitute and her pimp to get government housing. The fact is the ACORN people did not help them get anything. What did Fox News do? They ran with it showing it 24/7 for over a week before the truth came out then they buried it and did not report that any of it was a complete lie. The results were the two acorn workers were fired because of that reporting of false information. Then ACORN had their federal funding cut off causing thousands of ACORN worker to lose their jobs. Did Fox air a report showing that the video was a hoax and contained edited footage of something that never happened? Nope they buried that too. While not out and out right lying it is highly suspicious activity from a network that claims to be fair and balanced. Where was that balance in this case?

Or how about on one hand fox claiming that people that make $200,000 per year are poor while weeks later claiming that teachers making $60,000 were rich and should not be getting paid that much.

Fox news portrays most if not all news items in a conservative slant and in plenty of cases blatantly lie to create that slant. If you want more Fox lies just take a trip over to www.mediamatters.org they are very good at pointing out Fox's lies.

Good luck with your delusional neo-conservative life style.

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by spjames

You wanted examples of Fox news lying or blatantly slanting news stories well here you go ....

Fox news widely (just about every pundit and news show) reported that Obama's trip to India was costing the US 200 million dollars per day (lets not even talk about the claim of the 34 war ships) and did it without any fact checking what so ever. Since the White House never releases information on the cost of over seas presidential trips how did they get these numbers? Well some guy in India got himself a news bit guessing that is what it would cost. Fox ran with what basically amounted to false and unfounded information ie they lied.

Now on to the ACORN video. A video crafted by a right wing ambush video maker. This video was edited to make it look like workers in an ACORN office were aiding a prostitute and her pimp to get government housing. The fact is the ACORN people did not help them get anything. What did Fox News do? They ran with it showing it 24/7 for over a week before the truth came out then they buried it and did not report that any of it was a complete lie. The results were the two acorn workers were fired because of that reporting of false information. Then ACORN had their federal funding cut off causing thousands of ACORN worker to lose their jobs. Did Fox air a report showing that the video was a hoax and contained edited footage of something that never happened? Nope they buried that too. While not out and out right lying it is highly suspicious activity from a network that claims to be fair and balanced. Where was that balance in this case?

Or how about on one hand fox claiming that people that make $200,000 per year are poor while weeks later claiming that teachers making $60,000 were rich and should not be getting paid that much.

Fox news portrays most if not all news items in a conservative slant and in plenty of cases blatantly lie to create that slant. If you want more Fox lies just take a trip over to www.mediamatters.org they are very good at pointing out Fox's lies.

Good luck with your delusional neo-conservative life style.

Thanks for sharing. Here is where the problem lies though. The majority on here have just plain stated "Fox lies" and feel that if they repeat itlong enough it is true. Most know absolutely nothing else.

As for your examples: thanks for the first one. I had not seen that. It does change things a bit. As for the second one, regardless of how it was obtained, it is still pretty damning evidence against ACORN that you want to completely disregard because of the source. That is a bit one sided. Keep in mind, a mind is like a parachute: it doesn't work unless it is open. Just like I am willing to accept your first example.

One of the problems I have is the constant attacks from the left when I don't agree with everything you say. You have resorted to name calling and insulting when you really have nothing to go on except that I don't agree with you.

Another point, there is so much hatred towards Fox because they are viewed to lean right yet you have all the other networks leaning left, some more than others yet so many don't realize that or are unwilling to accept it. Remember the dan blather story that ran just weeks before the election with the intention of changing the outcome of that election? If you remember, it was done that way so the the republicans would take a huge hit and not have time for damage control. Now, when it gets to the point of trying to influence the outcome of an election that blatantly, there is a huge problem. And that is exactly the problem we have.

As I said earlier, you have 6 liberal networks vs 1 conservative: hardly equitable yet it's the leftists screaming the loudest bashing Fox!

Let's try to open that parachute.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by Happily married

Thanks for sharing. Here is where the problem lies though. The majority on here have just plain stated "Fox lies" and feel that if they repeat itlong enough it is true. Most know absolutely nothing else.

As for your examples: thanks for the first one. I had not seen that. It does change things a bit. As for the second one, regardless of how it was obtained, it is still pretty damning evidence against ACORN that you want to completely disregard because of the source. That is a bit one sided. Keep in mind, a mind is like a parachute: it doesn't work unless it is open. Just like I am willing to accept your first example.

One of the problems I have is the constant attacks from the left when I don't agree with everything you say. You have resorted to name calling and insulting when you really have nothing to go on except that I don't agree with you.

Another point, there is so much hatred towards Fox because they are viewed to lean right yet you have all the other networks leaning left, some more than others yet so many don't realize that or are unwilling to accept it. Remember the dan blather story that ran just weeks before the election with the intention of changing the outcome of that election? If you remember, it was done that way so the the republicans would take a huge hit and not have time for damage control. Now, when it gets to the point of trying to influence the outcome of an election that blatantly, there is a huge problem. And that is exactly the problem we have.

As I said earlier, you have 6 liberal networks vs 1 conservative: hardly equitable yet it's the leftists screaming the loudest bashing Fox!

Let's try to open that parachute.

Oh, the irony....

[Goldicocks]

I prefer The Onion.

[Dr_Bat]

The Onion is the best

[Goldicocks]

Originally Posted by funson02379

Overall, 25% of respondents watch Fox News at least once a week. That number includes 23% of Democrats and 14% of Independents. The obvious partisan standout is Republicans with 52% watching at least once a week. Similarly, regional viewing is heavily weighted to the south with 39% of southerners tuning in to Fox News. The rest of the nation is far less attracted to the right-wing network who draws significantly fewer viewers from the west (23%), the midwest (21%), and the northeast (13%). Also notable is the dismal performance of Fox amongst young voters (18-29) and minorities, at least 80% of whom report that they never watch Fox News. In fact, more than 50% of all of the groups of viewers (party, region, ethnicity, age) never watch Fox News, except for Republicans (38%).

91.7% of all statistics are made up

[BigTrobbing]

Originally Posted by spjames

You wanted examples of Fox news lying or blatantly slanting news stories well here you go ....

Fox news widely (just about every pundit and news show) reported that Obama's trip to India was costing the US 200 million dollars per day (lets not even talk about the claim of the 34 war ships) and did it without any fact checking what so ever. Since the White House never releases information on the cost of over seas presidential trips how did they get these numbers? Well some guy in India got himself a news bit guessing that is what it would cost. Fox ran with what basically amounted to false and unfounded information ie they lied.

Now on to the ACORN video. A video crafted by a right wing ambush video maker. This video was edited to make it look like workers in an ACORN office were aiding a prostitute and her pimp to get government housing. The fact is the ACORN people did not help them get anything. What did Fox News do? They ran with it showing it 24/7 for over a week before the truth came out then they buried it and did not report that any of it was a complete lie. The results were the two acorn workers were fired because of that reporting of false information. Then ACORN had their federal funding cut off causing thousands of ACORN worker to lose their jobs. Did Fox air a report showing that the video was a hoax and contained edited footage of something that never happened? Nope they buried that too. While not out and out right lying it is highly suspicious activity from a network that claims to be fair and balanced. Where was that balance in this case?

Or how about on one hand fox claiming that people that make $200,000 per year are poor while weeks later claiming that teachers making $60,000 were rich and should not be getting paid that much.

Fox news portrays most if not all news items in a conservative slant and in plenty of cases blatantly lie to create that slant. If you want more Fox lies just take a trip over to www.mediamatters.org they are very good at pointing out Fox's lies.

Good luck with your delusional neo-conservative life style.

If media matter said it, it has to be the truth. LOL LOL LOL What a joke, how about using some of stumbleshits references, like the huffington cunt and the late night comedians.

You progressives make me laugh, lets look at the media shall we, CBS NBC ABC MSNBC CNN C-Span are all LIBERAL, and 1 station Fox News is middle of the road and that bothers you progressives real bad.

And if Fox News is so bad why are their ratings so high compared to the other news stations LOL .

LINK::: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...5-2011/103909/


So yea I see your point LOL LOL Typical progressive never happy.

[Goldicocks]

Originally Posted by BigTrobbing

If media matter said it, it has to be the truth. LOL LOL LOL What a joke, how about using some of stumbleshits references, like the huffington cunt and the late night comedians.

You progressives make me laugh, lets look at the media shall we, CBS NBC ABC MSNBC CNN C-Span are all LIBERAL, and 1 station Fox News is middle of the road and that bothers you progressives real bad.

And if Fox News is so bad why are their ratings so high compared to the other news stations LOL .

LINK::: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/201...5-2011/103909/


So yea I see your point LOL LOL Typical progressive never happy.

Isn't Jersey Shore also the highest rated tv show currently? That speaks volumes about tv stats.

[BigTrobbing]

Originally Posted by Goldicocks

Isn't Jersey Shore also the highest rated tv show currently? That speaks volumes about tv stats.

You have me at a loss as I do not know or watch that show, I also have done no research on that.

But if that is the case then who do you actually believe then??

[uk4sislv]

Ive tried watching both. I laugh, doing the spot the laugh/lie thing. I rarely laugh at Friends, ok some of us Brits just dont get US dry humour. Friends just leaves me feeling 5% happier. I laugh a whole lot more at the rubbish Foxnews air, but it leaves me feeling disturbed. I worry...

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

Oh, the irony....

Another closed mind?

If you will notice, i did agree with 1 of the 2 examples presented to me. Did I just take that person's word? No I didn't but after I did some checking I found they had a very valid point on that 1 topic and changed my stance. That should go to show I do try to be open minded.

He is another one. Cash for Clunkers: most conservatives think it was a huge waste and I partially agree. The general idea was good but it was very poorly executed and I think it could have been done much better.

My cash for clunkers:
1. Vouchers are only good for cars made in the U.S. That would have ensured more money stayed here in the states thus helping the economy. It also would have helped the U.S. auto makers also helping the economy. I am not an economis but why didn't the chosen one or his lackeys think of that?

2. Did anyone else notice that this program only helped a few individuals but actually did nothing to help those struggling from paycheck to paycheck? It only helped those who could afford to buy a new car. WHAT ABOUT THE POOR? It did nothing for them and it could have. Instead of taking those cars in trade in and destroying them, why not take that perfectly good 1994 Ford taurus and instead of destroying it, trade it to the family who is struggling to make ends meet driving around in a POS 1974 monte carlo that barely runs and pollutes a whole lot more than that car that was destroyed.

3. Take that old POS 74 monte carlo off the road. It pollutes more and is less fuel efficient. Then take it and turn it over to the salvage yard. Help those small guys out and give them something they can try to make some money on further helping the economy. Instead, those vehicles taken in trade were destroyed, thus driving up the cost of just yard parts since those parts were destroyed. Stupid! Where do those low income people go on occassion for parts? JUNKYARDS! Excuse me, salvage yards. So yet again, obama fucked the poor!

I thought those were his main constituents. But oh wait, they only watch ABC, NBC, and CBS and believe all the bullshit they feed them because they are in the tank for obama.

So, here is just one policy that was very poorly executed that ALL the networks fucked up on and missed.

So yes, how ironic that a conservative who does watch fox can have an open mind. How many other people is obama fucking now because of the media? THAT is why fox is needed. to try to get a little balance even though there currently is none.

[grig314]

Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans Saturday 2 July 2011
by: Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Truthout | News Analysis


There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.
It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?
My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.
The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.
1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.
2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.
3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.
4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.
5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.
6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.
7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."
8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.
9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.
10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.
11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. "Saddam has WMD." Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it's true or if it even makes sense, e.g., "Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States." If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox's own slogan of "Fair and Balanced."
12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. Education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.
13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here's how it works: if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.
14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they'll talk about wanting to focus on "moving forward," as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.
In debating some of these tactics with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed that the Fox viewership seems to be marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost as though they've been let into a secret society. Something about their affiliation with the network makes them feel privileged and this affinity is likely what drives the viewers to defend the network so vehemently. They seem to identify with it at a core level, because it tells them they are special and privy to something the rest of us don't have. It's akin to the loyalty one feels by being let into a private club or a gang. That effect is also likely to make the propaganda more powerful, because it goes mostly unquestioned.
In considering these tactics and their possible effects on American public discourse, it is important to note that historically, those who've genuinely accessed truth have never berated those who did not. You don't get honored by history when you beat up your opponent: look at Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln. These men did not find the need to engage in othering, ad homeinum attacks, guilt by association or bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're talking about.
One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.
As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.





Dr. Cynthia Boaz

Dr. Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University, where her areas of expertise include quality of democracy, nonviolent struggle, civil resistance and political communication and media. She is also an affiliated scholar at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace International Master in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies at Universitat Jaume I in Castellon, Spain. Additionally, she is an analyst and consultant on nonviolent action, with special emphasis on the Iran and Burma cases. She is vice president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and on the board of Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation. Dr. Boaz is also a contributing writer and adviser to Truthout.org and associate editor of Peace and Change Journal.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by grig314

Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans Saturday 2 July 2011
by: Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Truthout | News Analysis


There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.
It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?
My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.
The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.
1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.
2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.
3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.
4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.
5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.
6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.
7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."
8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.
9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.
10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.
11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. "Saddam has WMD." Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it's true or if it even makes sense, e.g., "Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States." If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox's own slogan of "Fair and Balanced."
12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. Education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.
13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here's how it works: if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.
14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they'll talk about wanting to focus on "moving forward," as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.
In debating some of these tactics with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed that the Fox viewership seems to be marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost as though they've been let into a secret society. Something about their affiliation with the network makes them feel privileged and this affinity is likely what drives the viewers to defend the network so vehemently. They seem to identify with it at a core level, because it tells them they are special and privy to something the rest of us don't have. It's akin to the loyalty one feels by being let into a private club or a gang. That effect is also likely to make the propaganda more powerful, because it goes mostly unquestioned.
In considering these tactics and their possible effects on American public discourse, it is important to note that historically, those who've genuinely accessed truth have never berated those who did not. You don't get honored by history when you beat up your opponent: look at Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln. These men did not find the need to engage in othering, ad homeinum attacks, guilt by association or bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're talking about.
One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.
As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.





Dr. Cynthia Boaz

Dr. Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University, where her areas of expertise include quality of democracy, nonviolent struggle, civil resistance and political communication and media. She is also an affiliated scholar at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace International Master in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies at Universitat Jaume I in Castellon, Spain. Additionally, she is an analyst and consultant on nonviolent action, with special emphasis on the Iran and Burma cases. She is vice president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and on the board of Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation. Dr. Boaz is also a contributing writer and adviser to Truthout.org and associate editor of Peace and Change Journal.

Interesting piece. Thanks for posting it.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by BigTrobbing

And if Fox News is so bad why are their ratings so high compared to the other news stations LOL .

Because of fools like you, obviously.

[uk4sislv]

Valid point about the car scrapping.
What about Obamas health plan to help the poor too? Thats been shot down heavily. The UK have the NHS. The rich and poor all use it. We all value it hugely except the Tories who try to privatise it by stealth. When Obama tries to bring in something partly like it, many Yanks went nuts! We cant understand why you dont want to help those who dont have the dollars for private health insurance. Privatisation is a dirty word here. Sure, many smaller companies are private, as someone had to start them. But anything they sell always extra expense. There are shareholders who demand a profit for starters. When a government takes public owned utility companies, sells them dirt cheap to the rich few, then throws millions of tax payers money to that new company to ensure smooth running, which inturn provides the public with a worse service and now huge bills, thats outrageous! Thats the rightwing for you. Keep the poor poor and make my mega rich friends even more richer.

[uk4sislv]

I dont defend many Foxnews items, but as the BBC also found, Sadam DID have WMD.Very small amounts left when the war started. Enough to load into Scuds. Did you not see the abandoned trucks, 6 i saw, dotted around south Iraq. They were mobile chemical weapon labs. Sadam had only just destroyed the bulk of his WMD under the eyes and pressure of UN inspectors. But we werent to know that until we invaded. The few UN inspectors were being denied access to many places and had to play cat and mouse with Sadams ppl. While the inspectors were trying to get through front gates to instalations, a number of Sadams vehicles would leave from a back gate at speed and not be seen again. Remember? So it made the West think he had a lot more to hide. A big reason why we went to war.

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by uk4sislv

Valid point about the car scrapping.
What about Obamas health plan to help the poor too? Thats been shot down heavily. The UK have the NHS. The rich and poor all use it. We all value it hugely except the Tories who try to privatise it by stealth. When Obama tries to bring in something partly like it, many Yanks went nuts! We cant understand why you dont want to help those who dont have the dollars for private health insurance. Privatisation is a dirty word here. Sure, many smaller companies are private, as someone had to start them. But anything they sell always extra expense. There are shareholders who demand a profit for starters. When a government takes public owned utility companies, sells them dirt cheap to the rich few, then throws millions of tax payers money to that new company to ensure smooth running, which inturn provides the public with a worse service and now huge bills, thats outrageous! Thats the rightwing for you. Keep the poor poor and make my mega rich friends even more richer.

The poor do have healthcare and itis paid for by Medicare. I see it used every day.

My problem with obamacare is this: where is the transparency he promised during the drafting process? Where were the republicans included in that drafting process? Many closed meetings with just the dumbocrats came up with it and then it got rammed down our throats. What about all the special companies that are able to opt out of it? Back on topic though, Fox is about the only network that reported it. The other media outlets hardly gave it any coverage, if any at all. All they want to say is how the right are obstructionists.

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

Because of fools like you, obviously.

Stop drinking the hateraide Kimi!

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by Happily married

Stop drinking the hateraide Kimi!

I felt he was entitled to an honest answer to his question.

[stumbler]

Here's Fox News for you.

Alec Baldwin Boycotts Emmys After Fox Censors His Phone-Hacking Joke| Last night, the Fox Network presented the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards. Missing from the glitzy evening, however, was familiar favorite Alec Baldwin. The 30 Rock star pulled out of the program after Fox “killed a joke” referring to News Corp.’s ongoing phone-hacking scandal. In a pre-taped skit for the event, Baldwin plays a TV executive talking on the phone when he says, “Rupert? Is that you? I hear you breathing, Rupert!” Fox notified Baldwin last Thursday that it was censoring the joke “not because the joke involved [News Corp. CEO Rupert] Murdoch but because they take the phone-hacking allegations very seriously and did not want to be seen as making light of them.”

Baldwin unleashed on the network on Twitter, stating, “Fox did kill my NewsCorp hacking joke. Which sucks bc I think it would have made them look better. A little.” He added, “If I were enmeshed in a scandal where I hacked phones of families of innocent crime victims purely 4 profit, I’d want that 2 go away, [too].”

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/...-hacking-joke/

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by uk4sislv

I dont defend many Foxnews items, but as the BBC also found, Sadam DID have WMD.Very small amounts left when the war started. Enough to load into Scuds. Did you not see the abandoned trucks, 6 i saw, dotted around south Iraq. They were mobile chemical weapon labs. Sadam had only just destroyed the bulk of his WMD under the eyes and pressure of UN inspectors. But we werent to know that until we invaded. The few UN inspectors were being denied access to many places and had to play cat and mouse with Sadams ppl. While the inspectors were trying to get through front gates to instalations, a number of Sadams vehicles would leave from a back gate at speed and not be seen again. Remember? So it made the West think he had a lot more to hide. A big reason why we went to war.

I'm sorry, but this is simply hogwash. Hans Blix and his inspection team were forced out of Iraq by the U.S. government because they were determined to go to war, and go to war NOW. Blix had conduced hundreds of inspections and had found zilch. There was nothing in his report that suggested that he had been denied access. In fact, he had been directed specifically to sites the U.S. claimed were the locations of WMDs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10770239

Oh, and the "mobile weapons labs" cited by Colin Powell when he went before the U.N. were NOT mobile weapons labs, as later became clear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041101888.html

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

I'm sorry, but this is simply hogwash. Hans Blix and his inspection team were forced out of Iraq by the U.S. government because they were determined to go to war, and go to war NOW. Blix had conduced hundreds of inspections and had found zilch. There was nothing in his report that suggested that he had been denied access. In fact, he had been directed specifically to sites the U.S. claimed were the locations of WMDs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10770239

Oh, and the "mobile weapons labs" cited by Colin Powell when he went before the U.N. were NOT mobile weapons labs, as later became clear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041101888.html

Thank you sweetie because its important not to let the false propaganda get out were someone might be dumb enough to believe it.

And bless President Obama and his spin team. I swear maybe they read Mike Lofgren's advice to learn to use language.

All we're talking about here is a simple little" Buffet Rule." Which is people as rich as him should at least being paying as much taxes as his secretary does.

So its not class warfare to want millionaires to pay at least equal rates.

PS I bet Fox News is the only network not reporting what I just said this morning.

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by grig314

Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans Saturday 2 July 2011
by: Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Truthout | News Analysis


There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.
It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?
My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.
The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.
1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.
2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.
3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.
4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.
5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.
6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.
7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."
8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.
9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.
10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.
11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. "Saddam has WMD." Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it's true or if it even makes sense, e.g., "Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States." If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox's own slogan of "Fair and Balanced."
12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. Education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.
13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here's how it works: if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.
14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they'll talk about wanting to focus on "moving forward," as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.
In debating some of these tactics with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed that the Fox viewership seems to be marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost as though they've been let into a secret society. Something about their affiliation with the network makes them feel privileged and this affinity is likely what drives the viewers to defend the network so vehemently. They seem to identify with it at a core level, because it tells them they are special and privy to something the rest of us don't have. It's akin to the loyalty one feels by being let into a private club or a gang. That effect is also likely to make the propaganda more powerful, because it goes mostly unquestioned.
In considering these tactics and their possible effects on American public discourse, it is important to note that historically, those who've genuinely accessed truth have never berated those who did not. You don't get honored by history when you beat up your opponent: look at Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln. These men did not find the need to engage in othering, ad homeinum attacks, guilt by association or bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're talking about.
One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.
As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.





Dr. Cynthia Boaz

Dr. Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University, where her areas of expertise include quality of democracy, nonviolent struggle, civil resistance and political communication and media. She is also an affiliated scholar at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace International Master in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies at Universitat Jaume I in Castellon, Spain. Additionally, she is an analyst and consultant on nonviolent action, with special emphasis on the Iran and Burma cases. She is vice president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and on the board of Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation. Dr. Boaz is also a contributing writer and adviser to Truthout.org and associate editor of Peace and Change Journal.

I meant to ask earlier but simply ran out of time.

So do those on here that hate Fox actually believe that fox is the only network that acts this way?

Try watching crhis mathews, katie couric, christian amanpour, keith olberman, rachel madcow... the list is quite long when you add in other networks and they all do the same thing.

Just trying for some equity.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by Happily married

I meant to ask earlier but simply ran out of time.

So do those on here that hate Fox actually believe that fox is the only network that acts this way?

Try watching crhis mathews, katie couric, christian amanpour, keith olberman, rachel madcow... the list is quite long when you add in other networks and they all do the same thing.

Just trying for some equity.

Those are commentators, not reporters. What Fox does is intentionally blur the distinction between the two.

Secondly, I've never heard any of those people make a factual error, or if they did, and it was shown to be incorrect, they issued a correction. When have you ever heard Fox News issue a correction?

But what really interests me about what you post is that you evidently think, as many Fox viewers do, that the entire mainstream news media has a liberal bias. But think about that. If ALL the news media seem liberal to you, maybe you're the one who's an outlier. And so is Fox.

[ace's n 8's]

The Objective Truth


Much to the dismay of liberals, the cable news breakdown looks like this:
Mainly CNN: 30%
Mainly Fox News: 42%
Mainly MSNBC: 12%
Other cable news channel/website: 9%


A Harvard study of news coverage of the 2008 presidential primary season found CNN to be the most negative toward Republicans among cable news channels: "The CNN programming studied tended to cast a negative light on Republican candidates.



Also within cable news channels CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, Fox had the highest percentage of "neutral" stories about Republicans (just slightly above CNN). Also, while Fox had a higher percentage of negative stories about Democrats than either CNN or MSNBC, it had a higher percentage of neutral stories than negative stories. Taking just the difference between positive and negative stories about both parties for all three networks, Fox rated as the most neutral.


As far as the major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), "The tone of coverage in the 30-minute evening newscasts was much more positive toward the Democrats than Republicans." And for the networks' morning broadcasts, "the shows produced almost twice as many stories focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans (51% vs. 27%)."


Also worth noting is that the most pro-Democrat bias among various forms of media was in newspapers: "Fully 59% of all stories about Democrats had a clear, positive message vs. 11% that carried a negative tone. That is roughly double the percentage of positive stories that we found in the media generally."


Democrats/Liberals trust the media most. Republicans/Conservatives trust it least.


http://spectator.org/archives/2010/1...ve-truth/print

I thought that I should share this with the class.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

I thought that I should share this with the class.

And the source (American Spectator) is a conservative magazine, naturally.

[michael saint]

Originally Posted by uk4sislv

I dont defend many Foxnews items, but as the BBC also found, Sadam DID have WMD.Very small amounts left when the war started. Enough to load into Scuds. Did you not see the abandoned trucks, 6 i saw, dotted around south Iraq. They were mobile chemical weapon labs. Sadam had only just destroyed the bulk of his WMD under the eyes and pressure of UN inspectors. But we werent to know that until we invaded. The few UN inspectors were being denied access to many places and had to play cat and mouse with Sadams ppl. While the inspectors were trying to get through front gates to instalations, a number of Sadams vehicles would leave from a back gate at speed and not be seen again. Remember? So it made the West think he had a lot more to hide. A big reason why we went to war.

Yeah sure, and of course Tony Blair isn't a War criminal.............


Are you related to Tony? Or the murdering Cunt as he is known in my circle of friends.

[ace's n 8's]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

And the source (American Spectator) is a conservative magazine, naturally.

Is Harvard a conservative college? Other than running your jaws, prove to me where the information that I submitted is not accurate.

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by Happily married

I meant to ask earlier but simply ran out of time.

So do those on here that hate Fox actually believe that fox is the only network that acts this way?

Try watching crhis mathews, katie couric, christian amanpour, keith olberman, rachel madcow... the list is quite long when you add in other networks and they all do the same thing.

Just trying for some equity.

Yes I have watched every one of those you mentioned and a few more besides and especially intently lately trying to determine just what you are saying and all I can say is no they do not all do the same thing as far as misinforming their viewers, censoring anything bad about them or
Rupert Murdoch, or making really obvious and amateurish mistakes.

And in fact if anything I think Fox is getting worse as far as reporting and even more slanted. That's why when someone like Ace posts their ratings you have to remember MSNBC, CNN, HNL, and Current TV, Tend to split viewers while Fox draws the block of conservatives.

But I've watched both MSNBC, Chris Mathews, and Olbermann just hammer on President Obama for weeks. They run the stories about Solyndra. They talk about how he might not get elected. They hammer away on the economy and unemployment. To the point that after hosting the Tea Party debates some liberals took to calling them TeaNN.

[Happily married]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

Those are commentators, not reporters. What Fox does is intentionally blur the distinction between the two.

Secondly, I've never heard any of those people make a factual error, or if they did, and it was shown to be incorrect, they issued a correction. When have you ever heard Fox News issue a correction?

But what really interests me about what you post is that you evidently think, as many Fox viewers do, that the entire mainstream news media has a liberal bias. But think about that. If ALL the news media seem liberal to you, maybe you're the one who's an outlier. And so is Fox.

Who are the reporters on fox then that you feel are lying?

BTW, dan rather reported something that was a flat out lie and when the truth finally came out he lost his job. CBS ran that story with the intention of changing the outcome of an election. If that is not unscrupulous, I don't know what is.

Which fox reporters are you saying lied?

Those other media outlets also try to do the same blurring of lines you are accusing fox of.

Look at all the negative air time bush got on the other networks when he screwed up and compair that to obama. obama doesn't get crucified on the other networks like bush did.

Something to think about also about your comment about saying maybe I am the outlier. Media, by nature and make up is LIBERAL. That is why there is the slant there is, or has been at least until fox showed up. Same with the entertainment industry. Just look at hollywood. Now let's look at the other end of the spectrum. The defense industry. I think we can all agree that the defense industry would be much more conservative, right?

See my point?

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by Happily married

Who are the reporters on fox then that you feel are lying?

BTW, dan rather reported something that was a flat out lie and when the truth finally came out he lost his job. CBS ran that story with the intention of changing the outcome of an election. If that is not unscrupulous, I don't know what is.

Which fox reporters are you saying lied?

Yes but as you point out reporting incorrect information was enough to get Dan Rather fired and end his career. While on Fox mistakes, misinformation and falsehoods are part of the daily programing.

And I'll see if I can find some specific examples for you.

Originally Posted by Happily married

Those other media outlets also try to do the same blurring of lines you are accusing fox of.

No they don't. Not even MSNBC or Current TV uses false propaganda the way Fox does and they also hammer on president Obama as bad as Fox does at times. And CNN has started to be called TeaNN by some of their critics.

Originally Posted by Happily married

Look at all the negative air time bush got on the other networks when he screwed up and compair that to obama. obama doesn't get crucified on the other networks like bush did.

You have to be kidding me. Every news outlet in the country allowed George Bush to lie about WMD's in Iraq. Even president Obama and the democrats in office we still don't know all the deals Dick Cheney cut with the oil and gas industry. And I don't remember a single story on Bush doubling the national debt adding more than $5 Trillion dollars to it.

Meanwhile there's days when the other networks are hammering President Obama harder than Fox is. The Solyndra story is a perfect example of that. I've yet to hear one of them explain the deal was started and promoted by the George Bush Administration as well as Obama's.

Originally Posted by Happily married

Something to think about also about your comment about saying maybe I am the outlier. Media, by nature and make up is LIBERAL.

But there's two fallacies involved in that. First the assumption that if reporters vote democtratic that they will automatically give a pro-liberal slant to their story. That simply is not true and lots of studies have actually documented that.

Its like claiming that Barack Obama had lots more stories reported on him than John McCain did. That's only true if you don't actually look at the kind of stories they were. And when we look at that the reason Obama had more stories is because he had more negative stories than McCain had. And if anyone got a free pass in the last election it was Sarah Palin.

And of course the other more glaring fallacy is that while some reporters might be liberal it is not liberals that own the presses so it matters a lot more what their bosses who are almost exclusively conservatives want.

The truth it there is not now and never was any such thing as a "liberal press," and I've proven that many times on this forum.

Originally Posted by Happily married

That is why there is the slant there is, or has been at least until fox showed up. Same with the entertainment industry. Just look at hollywood. Now let's look at the other end of the spectrum. The defense industry. I think we can all agree that the defense industry would be much more conservative, right?

See my point?

No. In fact instead of seeing your point for more than 40 years, about 10 of which was spent in the news business, I've seen the opposite and the mainstream press has a pro-business bias, and spend most the rest of their time on emotionally packed sensationalism instead of reporting actual news.

With the exception of Fox which is actually a conservative/Republican/Tea Party false propaganda machine that deliberately misinforms and brainwashes its viewers.

And I'd also be looking for discoveries such as Fox News being part of the Rupert Murdoch employees hacking the telephones of 9/11 victims.

Here ya go you can actually watch them lying on this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k89BMjzkThA

And here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rqdtZlec0s

[stumbler]

I'm sitting here right now watching MSNBC and they aren't just reporting on Ron Suskind's book that accuses Obama of lack of leadership they are all but endorsing it.

[stumbler]

This is not necessarily an example of Fox News lying but it sure is a Fox Host Greta Van Susteren personally engaged and enraged by Tucker Carlson, Daily Caller editor-in-chief, who she described as a “pig” and “purveyor of smut.”

All the hostility erupts from a blog post Tucker printed that allegedly had a quote from Mike Tyson concerning the claim in a book about Palin having a date with Glen Rice:

“Mike Tyson: Saran Palin met the ‘womb shifter’” on his website.

Van Susteren is claiming that Tucker never should have published what she considers such a disgusting comment.

Tucker on the other hand is claiming that he's not the one saying it; Mike Tyson is. And that if the same thing was written about Michelle Obama or Nancy Pelosi her reaction would be the opposite and Fox News would be running the story and the quote.

I tend to agree but as you'll notice Van Susteren doesn't.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz1YVGG9mo2

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by stumbler

I'm sitting here right now watching MSNBC and they aren't just reporting on Ron Suskind's book that accuses Obama of lack of leadership they are all but endorsing it.

Absolutely. Awhile ago, I saw Chuck Todd criticizing Obama for being in what he called "campaign mode"...strongly implying that he liked the bipartisan, compromising, accommodating Obama of the past three years much better.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by Happily married

BTW, dan rather reported something that was a flat out lie and when the truth finally came out he lost his job. CBS ran that story with the intention of changing the outcome of an election. If that is not unscrupulous, I don't know what is.

I suspect that if the truth were known, Rather was set up. The whole think had Karl Rove written all over it. Who wrote the memo? Did we ever find out? No.

But in any event, CBS acknowledged the error and fired Rather. Would Fox do the same?

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by ace's n 8's

Is Harvard a conservative college? Other than running your jaws, prove to me where the information that I submitted is not accurate.

I trust Harvard. I just don't trust American Spectator to accurately report the study's findings. As usual when people pull this sort of scam, there was no link provided to the original study.

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

Absolutely. Awhile ago, I saw Chuck Todd criticizing Obama for being in what he called "campaign mode"...strongly implying that he liked the bipartisan, compromising, accommodating Obama of the past three years much better.

And I watched CNN and Wolf Blitzer just hammer away on the Solyndra fiasco and not once mention the loan was first applied for in 2007 and given special consideration and approval by the George Bush Administration.

Also doesn't anyone but me remember when both the press and the conservative/Republican/Tea Baggers in congress were screaming for the president to lead and offer his solutions, his plan. And as soon as he does they start screaming "class warfare."

But just in case you haven't been watching Fox News lately I've been watching a lot of it and I think they are going to go clear over the edge. I swear I can sit here and watch what they are covering and how and can tell you the subjects they are trying to avoid like the plague. And Riupert Murdoch and the American Jobs Act and Buffet Rule are right at the top of the list.

And I'd think Fox would have declared war over the Buffet Act and went 24/7 coverage of it. But I firmly suspect they know the class warfare and jobs creators bullshit is a non-seller with the American people so they try to avoid it as much as possible.

[stumbler]

Here's a little more evidence that there is not now and never was a liberal mainstream press. If there were then they would be all over the Wall Street Occupation story instead of mostly ignoring it.

Michael Moore: The media ignores Wall Street occupation

Filmmaker Michael Moore appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show Monday evening to discuss the media’s coverage towards the tea party being notably larger than coverage given to protests from the left.



“A thousand people were arrested a couple weeks ago on the Tar Sands environmental issue,” Moore said to Maddow. “Hardly any coverage of this.”



“Can you imagine if a thousand tea partiers had been arrested in front of the White House? It would be the top of every news story. People are down on Wall Street right now holding a sit in and a camp in down there, virtually no news about this protest. This goes on with liberals and the left all the time, and it gets ignored. Fortunately, there are shows like yours and others who aren’t ignoring it, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t happening and it will continue to happen.”


WATCH: Video from MSNBC, which appeared on September 19, 2011.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/20...et-occupation/

[stumbler]

I'll tell you one people that doesn't like Fox and that be Keith Olbermann.

Keith Olbermann begged Bill O'Reilly to carry out his threat to quit his show if his taxes are raised.


Olbermann used his Wednesday "Worst Persons" segment to highlight what he called a "festival" of outsized O'Reilly behavior this week. First, there was O'Reilly's statement that he has "more power than anyone other than the president." Olbermann said O'Reilly had broken the "megalomaniac's oath by revealing just how nuts he is," and noted that when O'Reilly boycotted France during the Iraq war, "the nation's business activity with France increased."


Then, Olbermann turned to O'Reilly's Tuesday comments, in which the Fox News host said that, if his taxes are raised above 50 percent, "I don't know how much longer I'm going to do this."


"Quit the show?" Olbermann said. "Quit teasing us like that! Jump! Jump!" He added, "at least we finally understand the president's tax strategy: get Bill-O to quit."

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/20...treet-protest/

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by stumbler

I'll tell you one people that doesn't like Fox and that be Keith Olbermann.






http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/20...treet-protest/

I saw a video clip of that last statement by O'Reilly. He left out a few details, though....for example, NOBODY has proposed a top tax rate of 50%. Not even close. And when the rate was higher under Bill Clinton, I don't recall O'Reilly quitting his job back then. The man is, to but it nicely, completely full of shit.

This notion that rich people will stop wanting to be rich if the tax rates are higher is just more Republican BS. There's not a grain of truth in it. They were still getting richer when the top tax rate was 90%.

[Kimiko]

Originally Posted by stumbler

And I watched CNN and Wolf Blitzer just hammer away on the Solyndra fiasco and not once mention the loan was first applied for in 2007 and given special consideration and approval by the George Bush Administration.

CNN seems to have completely abandoned any interest in actual journalism, except perhaps for some woman-on-the-street stuff by Soledad O'Brien. Here's some more on Solyndra.

http://www.grist.org/solar-power/201...-for-two-years

[stumbler]

Originally Posted by Kimiko

I saw a video clip of that last statement by O'Reilly. He left out a few details, though....for example, NOBODY has proposed a top tax rate of 50%. Not even close. And when the rate was higher under Bill Clinton, I don't recall O'Reilly quitting his job back then. The man is, to but it nicely, completely full of shit.

This notion that rich people will stop wanting to be rich if the tax rates are higher is just more Republican BS. There's not a grain of truth in it. They were still getting richer when the top tax rate was 90%.

You are so exactly right. And I cannot believe how gullible Americans are about this. And of course we can thank Fox News for a lot of that. Here's one of their alleged "fair and balanced news" reporters telling the lie and shouting down the truth.

Wallace Won't Let Facts Get In The Way Of Fox's Campaign To Defend The Rich

Wallace began discussing the topic of Obama's tax proposal by saying that "according to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, the 1 percent of households with the highest incomes pay 38 percent of federal income taxes. The top 10 percent pay 70 percent of federal income taxes.


Meanwhile, 46 percent of households pay no federal income tax at all." Wallace then sarcastically asked: "And the president thinks the wealthy aren't paying their fair share?"



(The Tax Foundation, by the way, is a conservative think tank: It has Republicans and Republican advisers on its board of directors; it has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Koch brothers; and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has said it "is not a reliable source.")


When Plouffe tried to point out that "22,000 millionaires pay" less than 15 percent of their income in taxes -- which is a lower tax rate than that paid by the average middle class household, Wallace repeatedly cut him off, telling Plouffe that what he was saying was "not true" and suggesting that Plouffe was "manipulat[ing] the numbers."


Watch:


In fact, according to Gene Sperling, director of Obama's National Economic Council, "a full 22,000 households making more than $1 million annually paid less than 15 percent of their income in taxes in 2009, according to analysis of the IRS 2009 Statistics of Income file by the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis."
And that's not all.


According to IRS data, 131 of the richest 400 households -- i.e., about one-third of that group -- had an effective tax rate of less than 15 percent in 2008. Thirty of those households paid 10 percent or less in taxes. The same data showed that each of those 400 households made at least $109 million in 2008.


According to Chuck Marr, director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "millionaires who receive one-third to two-thirds of their income" from capital gains and qualified dividends pay a lower effective tax rate than people with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 "who receive most of their income from their paychecks." Those households "pay 14.9 percent of their income in federal income and payroll taxes." From Marr's blog post:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109250006


Thankfully, however, I don't think they can shout down president Obama who has now taken the conservative/Republican/Tea Party charge of class warfare and used it against them.


Wanted: Warriors for the middle class

Now the Republicans, you know, when I talked about this earlier in the week, they said, well, this is class warfare. You know what? If asking a billionaire to pay their fair share of taxes, to pay the same tax rate as plumber or teacher is class warfare, then you know what? I'm a warrior for the middle class. I'm happy to fight for the middle class. I'm happy to fight for working people, ‘cause the only warfare I've seen is the battle that's been waged against the middle class over the last 10, 15 years." - President Barack Obama, September 22, 2011

The war against the middle class has been a relatively silent one until now. For decades, certain corporate interests and their influence peddlers in Washington (both lobbyists and politicians alike) have orchestrated a stealth ambush targeted at the core of American society. By and large, outside of high-information circles, the legislative actions that filled their coffers at the expense of middle class wallets went largely undetected by most Americans. Yes, occasionally, an item about the fleecing of the middle class would make the evening news -- a story about a single bullet while a legion of policy missiles were launched behind closed doors.
As most view it, conventional warfare requires both sides on the same battlefield. Perhaps not lined up with sword and shield ready for a cinematic rush to battle, but generally, conceptually, a decades-long war presupposes that both sides are aware that they're engaged in the act.
Yet for those decades, as the idea of a self-sustaining single-income household decayed away into a two- or three-income household barely able to makes ends meet, the middle class has stood on the edge of the battle with its back to the field, unaware of the plotting behind it and unprepared to deal with the consequences of that strategic ignorance. We were, after all, preoccupied with the soul-nibbling banalities of life. Morning coffee. Work. Lunch. Home. Dinner. Netflix. Sleep. Rinse. Repeat.
As mega-rich campaign contributors called on payback in D.C. and as their lobbyists drafted bills to lessen regulation of Wall Street, add more loopholes to the tax code, erode consumer protections and prevent any meaningful increase in the minimum wage, the middle class kept its back turned and its head down, save for peeking up now and again to look at the American Dream on the horizon. We squinted. Did it really look smaller, more distant, this time around? Activists and progressive groups shouted about income equality and the shrinking middle class from the rooftops, but most Americans were too busy keeping that roof over their heads to hear the muffled screams from above.
The aggressive growth of income equality (Jason Schneider/Mother Jones)

This is how the slow motion ambush of our families has taken place. Americans did not see the attack, but the middle class soon began to feel its effects. The nation felt "off track." Elections gave a fleeting sense of hope as we shuffled our way to our polling place and checked the box for individuals who were supposed to have our backs.
Unbeknownst to us, we were not electing lookouts who would signal when the American Dream was under attack. We were electing co-conspirators. On both sides of the aisle, though with the balance tilted heavily to the right, politicians preached solidarity for the common man during the campaign and then solidified their relationships with the uncommon man (that top 2%) on the floor of Congress.
The policies they churned out dovetailed perfectly with the efforts to crush the middle class in the private sector. Paul Krugman explains the result:

Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office — which only go up to 2005, but the basic picture surely hasn’t changed — show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That’s growth, but it’s slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II. Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent. No, that isn’t a misprint. In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million.
So do the wealthy look to you like the victims of class warfare?

For some of those wealthy, the spoils of their victory over the middle class is a bitter tasting fruit. Rep. John Fleming (R-LA) complained that after making $6 million in net business income, and after "feeding his family," he has "only" $400,00 left over. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT), who in 2009 had an estimated networth of $31 million, recently told an audience he was "cash poor" and "struggling." And of course, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, whose net worth is pegged between $150 million to $250 million, "set his net worth aside and declared himself a member of 'the great middle class'" last week.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/0...ass?via=blog_1

Originally Posted by Kimiko

CNN seems to have completely abandoned any interest in actual journalism, except perhaps for some woman-on-the-street stuff by Soledad O'Brien. Here's some more on Solyndra.

http://www.grist.org/solar-power/201...-for-two-years

Thanks for the facts. And CNN has started to be called TeaNN because of their constant promotion of the Tea Party. "Liberal Press" my ass.

[stumbler]

I'll tell you what. After watching Fox News just the number of errors they make bothers me enough that I double check everything they say. Like this for instance.

Fox Pundit Blasts Senate For Doing ‘Nothing’ On Disaster Aid, 10 Days After It Passes $7 Billion Disaster Aid Bill

This week, after continually claiming that they wouldn’t hold disaster aid hostage for budget cuts, the House GOP did just that, voting down a continuing resolution that included the aid, and only approving it after $100 million more in cuts were added to the package.


House Republicans then turned around and blamed Senate Democrats for holding disaster aid hostage, with a spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) saying “any political games from Senate Dems will only delay FEMA money that disaster victims desperately need.” Fox pundit Brit Hume picked up on this theme today on Fox News Sunday:

HUME: Let’s just take look at this latest skirmish. You need a continuing resolution to keep the government open and there’s a need for some relief funding because it’s almost been exhausted. So the Republicans pass a bill that has the disaster relief funding in it, to the tune of several billion dollars and they pay for it with cuts in green jobs funding. Well, green job funding ought to be by now a very low priority given the history of it and the fact that its utterly failed to produce meaningful jobs.



They sent it to the Senate. What does the Senate do? The Senate blocks it and then does, so far, nothing. Now, it may be that with the media coverage and the political statements that will be made about this, that if the government shuts down the Republicans will get the blame. But I ask you in this: who’s being responsible? And who’s playing politics?

Watch it:



The only problem with this storyline developed by the GOP and its friends at Fox News? On September 15, the Senate passed a bill containing $7 billion in disaster aid. The bipartisan 62-37 vote took place days before the House ever got around to advancing its own package.


The government’s funding runs out on Friday, so the prospect of another government shutdown is looming. But at the moment, the right seems more interested in trying to pretend that the Senate has not passed something that it most certainly has.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/201...-disaster-aid/


But if the inaccuracy was not enough to make me turn Fox News off certainly their highest executives admitting to Fox's conservative bias would be.


How can anyone put credence in a damn thing they say after admissions like this.


Roger Ailes: Fox News Is On A 'Course Correction' Away From Far Right

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes has given one of his typically candid interviews to Newsweek. The interview was published Monday.


For a man who first made his name as a media guru for Richard Nixon, Ailes is often surprisingly forthcoming about Fox News and his opinions. In previous interviews, he has called NPR executives "Nazis" (he later apologized), said he didn't mind if people thought Glenn Beck was fired from the channel, and admitted that he wants both Bill and Hillary Clinton to join Fox News.



Behind the scenes, Ailes is reported to have clashed with Sarah Palin and told Beck to cool his more controversial rhetoric.


Monday's interview offered up more of Ailes' unvarnished opinions about his network and his employees. He made a big admission to Newsweek, saying that he has made a "course correction" at Fox News, veering it away from the hard-right line it took in the earlier days of the Obama administration. (Ailes offered a preview of this strategy in January, when he told Russell Simmons that he had ordered his anchors and pundits to "tone it down" in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.) Beck's departure, as well as a more nuanced approach to his most famous pundit, Sarah Palin, have been part of that strategy, Ailes said.


He also spoke openly about many of his anchors, saying that Bill O'Reilly "hates" Sean Hannity because he's jealous of his radio success (and thus confirming years of rumors about the animosity between the two).



Ailes also called Hannity "predictable" and said that he sometimes has to have a word with Shepard Smith when Smith says things that may not go over well with the Fox News crowd. (He didn't say whether he was referring to Smith's seemingly pro-union comments about the Wisconsin protests, or his saying that the killing of Osama bin Laden was illegal and that American foreign policy is on a dangerous path.)


Read the full interview, including news about Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry's relationship with Ailes, here.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_980850.html


It certainly will be interesting to see if Fox News does take a less extreme right bias on their reporting. I wonder if the brainwashed parrots would even realize they were being brainwashed to be more liberal?

[Distant Lover]

Originally Posted by Heyesey

Wasn't it FOX news that went to court to protect its right to tell lies?

Originally Posted by thikdik

you are an idiot.

On August 18, 2000, journalist Jane Akre won $425,000 in a court ruling where she charged she was pressured by Fox News management and lawyers to air what she knew and documented to be false information.

The real information: she found out cows in Florida were being injected with RBGH, a drug designed to make cows produce milk – and, according to FDA-redacted studies, unintentionally designed to make human beings produce cancer.

Fox lawyers, under pressure by the Monsanto Corporation (who produced RBGH), rewrote her report over 80 times to make it compatible with the company’s requests. She and her husband, journalist Steve Wilson, refused to air the edited segment.

In February 2003, Fox appealed the decision and an appellate court and had it overturned. Fox lawyers argued it was their first amendment right to report false information.

http://74.6.238.254/search/srpcache?...CxXNeiwgPY6w--

[stumbler]

I'm sitting here right now watching Fox News tell the lie that emails given to the committee say someone at the DOE said Solyndra would go broke in September.

Yesterday I posted the actual email that points out the email is edited to make it look like they were referring to Solyndra when actually the reference was for one of Solyndra's subsidiaries.

And Fox and the Senator both know they're lying because the selective editing has been exposed. But they do it anyway because they know their audience is willingly brainwashed and misinformed.