Does the WashPost's Ruth Marcus even watch Fox News?
October 20, 2009 10:10 am ET by Eric Boehlert
After reading her predictable, talking points-approved condemnation of the White House's push back against Fox News, my suspicion is that the Post columnist doesn't watch Fox News. And my guess is she's not alone among the growing army of Village pundits who have all stepped forward to uniformly announce that the White House is way off the mark in deciding to fact check Fox News.
In a way, Marcus is simply reinforcing the age-old Beltway truism: When Democrats criticize the press it's whiny and petty, but when Republicans do it, it's savvy and brash. (Just ask veterans of the Clinton administration.)
But more specifically, Marcus is commenting on a media landscape of which she is completely ignorant. For instance, she claims Fox News operates just like MSNBC did during the Bush years. MSNBC featured Bush bashers Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, and today Fox News boasts Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, so c'mon what's the big deal. I guess the big deal is I don't remember either Olbermann or Maddow comparing MSNBC employees to persecuted Jews during the Holocaust, which was the twisted comparison Beck recently made regarding the Fox News staff.
In other words, I don't recall Olbermann or Maddow going bat shit crazy on national television, scribbling away on a chalkboard as they fantasized about connecting George Bush to every conceivable strain of historical evil. And I don't remember either MSNBC host launching hateful and hollow witch hunts against semi-obscure administration officials, the way Hannity has latched onto the homophobic attacks against Kevin Jennings.
But guess what? The same elite pundits who are telling the White House is chill out over Fox News are the same elite pundits who for weeks have refused to acknowledge the hateful Jennings witch hunt. Which brings me back to my original question: Do journalists like Marcus even watch Fox News? Do they understand what its programming day now looks like? My guess is the answer is no, even though lots of them have taken it upon themselves to speak out as Fox News experts; to lecture the White House about how normal and mainstream the cable outlet is.
For Marcus' edification, here's a recent example of where the Fox News family broke from the standards of professional journalism and clearly pushed a falsehood.
Here's another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another.
Yes, that list just covers a sampling from this October. And no, I don't recall MSNBC flooding its airwaves with provably false programming the way Fox News now does on a routine basis.
Can any serious journalist look at the kind of media malpractice record that Fox News has accumulated this year and really claim that it's not doing anything that's unusual or unique in the ranks of modern-day American journalism? Or that it's just like MSNBC, but from the right? Or that the White House should not be concerned about the nearly uninterrupted falsehoods unleashed in its direction?
Can any serious journalist look at that record and claim that it's the White House that ought to change its behavior? They can if they don't actually watch Fox News.
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Perhaps because there are so few serious journalists anymore (and most of those few that are left don't work for any of the corporate owned media and so we see very little of them) that the answer to this question is a proverbial... NO!
Of course she does! This is exactly why she's able to make the statements she did. The mindset of a typical Fox viewer is such that he/she automatically believes what they're seeing is correct, and that the other channels can be lumped into the same "liberal" mass. We've seen it countless times from the unhinged who blunder their way onto this site. They take Fox's accuracy on faith, and turn a convenient blind eye to the "... and another, ..." list.
Not if she watches it the way she should - with a critical eye.
Not if she keeps an open mind about politics. Not if she can see shades of gray instead of just black and white.
And not if she does her job as a journalist to do research first before coming to conclusions. We were reminded yesterday by the fool who tried to assert that MMFA needed to do some research about George Soros's background, because he's a Nazi sympathizer, reasonable people do the research first, before they make accusations.
Clearly Marcus isn't a reasonable person who keeps an open mind and who does research before they come to conclusions.
All the more reason that Ms. Marcus should be first in line to trash Fox "News." Every one is harmed by bigots, but especially minorities such as blacks, Jews and gays.
One of her comments?
"A billionaire Nazi collaborator promoting liberal causes is some story."
So, somehow this poster knew about the form one has to fill out when petitioning to become a naturalized citizen in order to smear Soros, but didn't know that he was a 13-14 year old kid trying to save his life by hiding in plain site as the ward of a non-Jew during the height of WW II. And didn't do any research about it - claimed that it was unreasonable for us to have suggested that she should have done some research first!
MSNBC isn't the only major network that tilts left; they are just much more brazen about it. You know that the White House is on shifty ground when a leftist establishment organ like the Washington Post criticizes them. And it's not just the Washington Post that has been critical. Donna Brazille and Mr. Establishment himself, David Gergen, were both critical of the White House's whining(yes, that's the right word)about news coverage. This administration, of all administrations, complaining about news coverage is like Warren Buffett complaining about his net worth. It's absurd.
You obviously haven't read the WaPo for 5-8 years, have you?
Yeah, you've got to love they way they brazenly give three hours every day to Joe Scarborough, plus allow Pat Buchanan a microphone every time he wants it.
I don't recall MSNBC ever promoting falsehoods as facts -- even after they've been disproven, as Fox has done over and over. (How many people attended that tea party march on Washington again?)
I've never seen Keith Olbermann traffic in unfounded smears and guilt by association as do Hannity and Beck. Even at his most pompous and strident, Olbermann still bases his criticism on facts and evidence.
I've never seen MSNBC try to draw crowds to liberal events, then have one of their producers coach the crowd to cheer when the reporter is live.
I've never seen MSNBC engage in systematic witch hunts over Republican leaders with the sole aim of weakening a presidential administration.
I've never seen MSBNC engage in the tribal, retaliatory, we win/you lose mentality that permeates Fox. The same mentality that caused Fox never to criticize Bush, but his critics instead. I defy anyone to say that MSBNC has not criticized Obama.
I've never seen MSNBC's talk hosts advance extremist ideas(totalitarianism, communism, death camps) as plausible outcomes based on nothing more than conjecture.
I've never seen MSNBC "accidentally" put an "R" after the name of a Democratic politician involved in a scandal -- and continue to make that "mistake" over and over.
I can't recall MSNBC ever passing off Democratic National Committee press releases, complete with typo, as original reporting.
Now explain again how they're simply opposite sides of the same coin?
Here's what I think: (I'm going to set a record for negative reviews here) There is no room for dissent when "your guy" is in office. Do you recall terms like "War criminal" and "illegal war" (even with the consent of Congress)? Look, even though Obama had 52% of the vote a substantial 48% of voters did not vote for him. Most of the news media outlets are in the tank on the liberal side of things, one station, FNC, represents the tilt of about 46% of voters possibly even less. Yet FNC seems to be a huge sticking point with the left. Why is that? Let me say it again ONE station. Do you see the amount of attention this site gives Beck? That's one show on one station. The left can't function without a political enemy. You don't have Bush, the Republican party is impotent, corporate America and government are sleeping together, most of the media is in the tank; and yet you liberals still need a boogy-man. It would be laughable if it weren't so pathetic.
Why don't you focus on pushing your agenda? You have the Presidency, and both Houses; how can FNC or the RNC stand in your way? Stop crying and whining about FNC, the RNC, "Teabaggers" and Glen Beck and get down to your political business. If you really think you are right on your policy and agenda have the guts to act boldly and stop crying about "paper" enemies.
We've seen the effects of Fox's misinformation. 72% of self-identified FOX News viewers believe the health-care plan will give coverage to illegal immigrants, 79% say it will lead to a government takeover, 69% think that it will use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and 75% believe that it will allow the government to kill granny.
Where did those idiots at the town halls and tea bag rallies get all their insane views about Obama being a secret Marxist and assorted other evils? Fox Freakin' News.
BTW, when Marcus substituted for Mark Shields on the News Hour, I couldn't tell the difference between Marcus and Brooks.
What Marcus does not know is that Beck and other Foxies have smeared Obama administration appointees who are Jewish, such as Cass Sunstein and Yosi Sargent.