Media Matters: Fox News isn't news -- this is news?
It is perhaps not unsurprising but still disappointing that several in the mainstream media rallied around Fox News this week following the White House's well-warranted castigation of the network as an "arm" of the Republican Party. The most prominent defense of "one of our sister organizations" came from ABC News' Jake Tapper, who was baffled as to why the White House would declare Fox News "not a news organization." On Tuesday, he had the following exchange with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
Tapper: It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news organization" and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it's appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one --
(Crosstalk)
Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.
Tapper: But that's a pretty sweeping declaration that they are "not a news organization." How are they any different from, say --
Gibbs: ABC --
Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?
Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o'clock tonight. Or 5 o'clock this afternoon.
Tapper: I'm not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I'm talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a "news organization" -- why is that appropriate for the White House to say?
Gibbs: That's our opinion.
Of course, Tapper was lauded by Fox News and other conservatives. (Which is not the first time.) Glenn Beck called Tapper a "watchdog of freedom," while Sean Hannity praised Tapper's ability to "recognize the great quality of Fox News." Bill O'Reilly said Tapper did "pretty good" and "really challenged" Gibbs, and the Fox & Friends gang called him a "great reporter" for his defense of Fox. Lou Dobbs called it an "extraordinary exchange."
But Tapper's real mistake was suggesting that the White House's criticism of Fox News amounted only to criticism of their "opinion programming or issues ... with certain reports." Tapper's remarks echoed Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente's comments from last week: "It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming."
Putting aside the suggestion that the relentless and vicious assaults on Barack Obama and the administration by Beck, Hannity, and O'Reilly alone shouldn't have any bearing on how the White House treats the network, Tapper is ignoring that those shows set the agenda for the rest of the network. And of course, Tapper is ignoring that the attacks of Fox's triumvirate dictate his own network's -- and the rest of the media's -- agenda as well. Is there any doubt that Glenn Beck's war on ACORN -- he's reportedly mentioned ACORN 1,224 times (versus 50 mentions of Al Qaeda) since his Fox News show started -- is the primary reason his network and other media are still talking about the organization? Beck and his fellow Fox News personalities have repeatedly called for Obama administration officials to be fired, asked viewers to dig up information on administration officials, and fearmongered about Obama, his advisers, and his policies. How can that not affect Fox's "news" coverage of those same officials?
Fox's "news" staff regularly conflates commentary and news reporting. The network's "news" reporting is full of smears, falsehoods, deceptive editing, and GOP talking points. Just Thursday morning, the Fox & Friends crew parroted a House Republican press release and repeated its claim that the stimulus impact is "6 million jobs shy of what the administration promised us" since the administration stated "that 3.5 million jobs would be created. And, in fact, the United States has lost 2.7 million since the stimulus plan." However, the administration estimated 3.5 millions jobs created or saved by 2011. It's so much easier to read GOP talking points than actually do journalism!
The problems with Fox News aren't confined to "certain reports." Nor are they confined to Fox's "opinion programming."
Fox has organized and promoted campaigns against the administration. Fox has allowed its personalities to use the network to raise money for conservative PACs -- money that is used for more attacks on the administration.
And Fox News' actual "news" is anything but.
As Media Matters President Eric Burns pointed out this week, "Fox News is the story."
Beck's little red book of smears
On the walls of the Forbidden City, looming over Beijing's Tiananmen Square, there is a giant portrait of Mao Zedong. Mao's specter similarly looms over Glenn Beck's show.
Beck has figured out that Chairman Mao is the best vehicle for him to attack progressives as "communists." After all, communism is still kicking in China -- well, not really, but just enough for Beck to launch McCarthyism 2.0: Great Wall Edition.
And as was the case with Joseph McCarthy's crusade, no connection is too tenuous, no comment too innocuous. Beck's favorite target du jour is White House communications director Anita Dunn -- no doubt because she was the first to call out Fox News for its "war against Barack Obama and the White House."
Beck managed to dig up a speech Dunn gave to graduating students earlier this year in which Dunn called Mao one of her "favorite political philosophers" (she also mentioned Mother Teresa) and related this anecdote:
In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this against all of the odds against you?" And Mao Zedong said, you know, "You fight your war, and I'll fight mine." And think about that for a second.
And to think that she was allowed to encourage students to follow their own paths and not do what they are told! Wait a minute, isn't that pretty much the message Beck preaches every day?
Well, no matter. It doesn't matter what she said -- it's that she quoted Chairman Mao! Gasp! You know, like John McCain did -- repeatedly. And Newt Gingrich did. And numerous other conservatives did.
Dunn's reference to Mao even made its way to a straight news story on Monday's Special Report (take note, Jake Tapper).
On Monday, Beck ranted that, because of the overlap in the message of volunteerism from President Obama's "Corporation for National and Community Service and a call for more service and volunteerism" on network television from the Entertainment Industry Foundation, "[i]t's almost like we're living in Mao's China right now" and noted that NBC executive Mitch Metcalf is an "EIF board member," exclaiming, "[M]y God, it can't be." But, predictably, Beck's wild conspiracy theory overlooks that Fox Broadcasting Co. -- which airs Fox News programming and, like Fox News, is owned by News Corp. -- is also participating in EIF's volunteer initiative and has a vice president who sit on EIF's board of directors with Metcalf. Further, News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch sits on EIF's "honorary board of governors."
On Tuesday, Beck moved on to attacking "manufacturing czar" Ron Bloom because he once employed Mao's quote that power stems from the barrel of a gun -- a quote so threatening it can be found on a junior-high boy's Rage Against the Machine T-shirt.
Beck has taken Dunn's and Bloom's employment of these quotes to ridiculous levels, claiming Mao is "the man that [Dunn] turns to most" and that Bloom is the latest in "long line of White House officials who seem to just love Chairman Mao."
(Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs followed Beck's lead again, attacking both Dunn and Bloom over the quotes.)
And of course, it should be noted that Beck's (Chinese) communist witch hunt goes all the way to the top.
In one of his countless bizarre rants in front of a chalkboard last week, Beck started with the premise, "If the president of the United States, Barack Obama, said to you, 'You know who I really love? Chairman Mao.' " With a premise that absurd, you can only guess where it headed. He then proceeded to explain how people like Van Jones, Valerie Jarrett, and John Podesta were somehow used to "keep separating" Obama from Mao so people wouldn't see the direct connection between the two (the "six degrees of Obama"). You know, because President Obama loves Chairman Mao.
This from a guy who wrote that McCarthy made the "cries" of communism and socialism a "joke."
Other notable quotes this week:
- "The Obama administration going to issue a new medical marijuana policy today, which I'm frankly thankful for folks, because we're going to need to be stoned to live for the next three and a half years." -- Rush Limbaugh on Monday. Limbaugh cleverly dubbed the proposal "Don't Ask, Don't Smell."
- "[W]hy doesn't President Obama have his children vaccinated in front of us on TV?" -- Deirdre Imus on Wednesday's Hannity expressing concerns about the safety of the H1N1 vaccine.
- "Jerome Corsi, a terrific author, an amazing, amazing book, an important book." -- Lou Dobbs on his radio show Wednesday following an interview with birther and widely discredited smear merchant Corsi.
- "What was interesting to me is, just from my perspective having been in a White House, there is a network, MSNBC, that I could have said that about the evening anchors, or some people in the morning or -- I could have taken that tack, but I thought it was not the right thing to do, and I think it's mostly because it's really unproductive, it feels un-American, and it's not inspiring." -- former White House press secretary and Fox News contributor Dana Perino, ignoring her own role in advancing Bush administration attacks on NBC.
This week's media columns
In this week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows, Jamison Foser exposes the absurdities of the comparisons between Obama and Richard Nixon, and Eric Boehlert explains why the NFL and corporate America reject Limbaugh and Beck.
In The Friday Rush, a review of Limbaugh's shows during the past week, Greg Lewis discusses how Rush's conspiracy theorizing is taking a backseat to Glenn Beck's.
This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Brian Frederick, deputy editorial director at Media Matters for America. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Colorado.
I want to know what, IYHO, is "really going on" so that I may "open up [my] eyes." So, please, tell me ...
MSNBC deserved every bit of ridicule it got, and should still for attacking sitting President Bush on a nightly basis with Olbermann calling him a " Fascist" and worse. where is the condemnation from the left other then the then dem house minority leader? or Media matters? oh.. thats right, we know where it leans. Bush or Clinton never came out and attacked as Obama's administration is doing. this is a grade school tissy fit that us independents are watching and remembering. freedom of the press. last night Rachael Maddow said "some news organizations" stuck up for Fox, she didnt mention NBC also did. makes me laugh.
"What was interesting to me is, just from my perspective having been in a White House, there is a network, MSNBC, that I could have said that about the evening anchors, or some people in the morning or -- I could have taken that tack, but I thought it was not the right thing to do, and I think it's mostly because it's really unproductive, it feels un-American, and it's not inspiring." -- former White House press secretary and Fox News contributor Dana Perino, ignoring her own role in advancing Bush administration attacks on NBC.
what you fail to observe is that Olbermann's show is commentary, not a news a broadcast. interestingly enough, my girlfriend's dad, an avid fox viewer, made the same erroneous comparison. the separation between news coverage and editorial content is a long-standing journalistic tradition, and the fact that fox viewers seem to have such difficulty parsing the distinction just goes to show how successful that network has been in eroding it.
what people object to is not that Fox commentators express their opinion, but the fact that Fox routinely presents incorrect or falsified information as "news," includes clearly editorial content in its non-editorial news reports, and is instrumental in organizing political rallies. the fact that those rallies are directed against Obama is not the point. if tomorrow, for instance, MSNBC started organizing "support health care reform" rallies, I am sure the same media watchdog groups would cover it as are presently covering Fox's activities.
MSNBC is "guilty" of producing highly polemical segments, but they are clearly designated as editorial segments and so fall within the bounds of fair game in journalistic tradition. still, I am sometimes reminded of that 80s TV program "Mad Headroom," which depicted a dystopic future where people voted for their leaders by choosing which television channel to watch.
beyond this, however, the fact that former Bush officials, members of an administration infamous for doctoring news and manipulating the media, would join the hue and cry over this issue simply proves that they have an endless capacity for hypocrisy and dishonesty.
While I'm not defending Fox News, I am presenting a case for effective critique. Media Matters' criticism falls as flat as the White House "opinion" when it isn't supported by unemotional straight evidence.
This is the Internet. Use it to support your case.
If Fox News is guilty of producing opinionated, biased, slanted and editorialized news segments, it ought to be a simple (albeit tedious) task of giving a headline link with date. Put enough of those in a list, turn it into a library on your site and then use the library link when you want to offer criticism of Fox News' ongoing biased and unbalanced coverage.
As it stands now, all I read above is "he said-she said" and "how could he say this or that?" And "OMG, did he have the audacity to say that?"
That's not persuasive, convincing nor enough to keep me coming back. A little decorum and a professional approach to the issue at hand stands in stark contrast to the yelling and name-calling I see, read and hear on Fox and conservative talk radio. Such an investigative approach will also render the left just as vulnerable to the same inquiries, which will likely dredge up as many dirty deeds by dastardly democrats.
Such unbiased assaults by an objective assailant assuages my sensibilities.
Find this sentence above, and click on the link.
Fox's "news" staff regularly conflates commentary and news reporting. The network's "news" reporting is full of smears, falsehoods, deceptive editing, and GOP talking points.
Hopefully you'll do this and then come back here all apologetic.
Try Joe Scarborough's show for a reasoned approach!
Once again Dems miss an opportunity to state a case clearly and make the opposition come to their playing field. Now, news orgs/journalists are defending Fox? Nice job Dems, you blew it AGAIN!
My guess is that rumpleteasermom was basically saying that compared to the Republicans of today....they (Democrats) are too polite, too civilized.
In this case, make Fox News answer for itself. "That's our opinion". Are you kidding me? It's not just opinion, there's proof that Fox opinion/reporting is one in the same. There's proof they have an agenda. There's a valid reason Fox should be excluded. Deliver it.
Stop trying to stay above the fray when you're smack in the middle of it. Stop letting the opposition frame the argument so that you have to answer them. Stop trying to use a scalpel when a cudgel is needed.
Sam Donaldson is exactly all those things, too.
Not as much as they genuflected to him.
Where was the outrage then?
It was coming from liberals who were being marginalized and ignored, and from clueless conservatives who were claiming that, despite the evidence, the media wasn't being fair to them.
Micheal [sic] More [sic] made a negative movie about him. Can you imagine if Glenn made a movie about Obama?
I can't imagine Beck's movie having anything factual in it, unlike Moore's.
You should be happy there is a news organization is [sic] keeping an eye on the president.
There's a big difference between "keeping an eye on" and telling a bunch of lies in an effort to tear his administration down.
Some one [sic] should. You progressives our [sic] so thin skinned.
And so many of you neocons are functionally illiterate. Why is that?
Your [sic] doing Fox a favor. If I want to see what I missed on fox [sic], I just watch Media Matters. I scratch my head and try to figure out what the point of the sight [sic] is, because you don't even debunk anything you just go after the messenger.
You're getting sillier by the sentence. If you don't think that MMFA debunks Fox on a regular basis, then you have no idea how to read for context.
I am a little more concerned about what the leader of the most powerful nation in the world believes then [sic] some guy on the radio said. Who cares? No one has to listen to them.
It sure looks like you listen to them, and look at the sorry result.
Media Matters is a watch dog [sic] of a watch dog [sic]. I should start a sight [sic] showing clips of media matters [sic].
Please do! The more the truth gets out there, the better.
Media does in fact, matter. We rely on them to do the research that we cannot.
There's the lead story, and that's what the headline suggests. Then there are multiple other things that are highlighted that are not mentioned at all in the headline.
It's not "funny" or remarkable at all, actually.
News organizations tend to support each other because they all understand that a free press is important. Government attempts to muzzle the press should be met with a unified front of all the news organizations. The traditional press, both television and print journalism, understand this.
However, along with this freedom goes an implied responsibility of reporting the facts. When a news organization "goes rogue" as FOX has done, their actions open the door to general criticism about the objectivity of all the news organizations. Pretending to present the news while spewing propaganda, and hiding behind the freedom of the press shield, hurts everyone in the business.
The main stream press must now make a choice to either continue to protect FOX and thereby allow them to continue their dishonest actions, and thereby weaken the legitimacy of actual news organizations, or to cut FOX out from the herd and disown their type of fake journalism.
The actions of FOX won't hurt the very important idea of a free press, but the lack of action by the rest of the journalism community could very well do so.
The Obama administration HAS begun to act and started the ball rolling in the right direction, heightening an awareness that the strength of a democracy rests in an informed electorate.
Don't tell Fox that they are seriously marginalizing themselves.
My Favorite Phylosipher.Then isnt she saying that she agrees with his philosophy, this isnt hard to get.So Fox reports this and so , Why do we have a problem with fox, shouldnt we have a problem with Dunn ?I only get Cnn on my cable package from the stone age.Listen if you really want to talk about not news , have you seen CNN latley. Im 46 years old I voted for Ronald Reagan both terms , I can remember this man getting an anal exam from the media daily.
They were cruel to this man. Now the Dems are all a bunch of Ronald Reagan , Democrats , Hog Wash.! The Clinton Admin. took it on the chin daily, as did both Bush admins.This administration is Sooooo. arrogant to think they can come down on a news outlet because they get bad press!!!How dare they, you should all be up in arms. Whos next after Fox, Media matters maybe? WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!
Modern brain imaging technology confirms that the appeal of television has more to do with form than content. Viewer perception is manipulated by constantly changing images, music and even the appearance and voice of the person reading the news. In my view real "news" broadcasts should be limited to the written word. Anything else is entertainment. If broadcasting in the public interest requires more than simply entertainment, all commercial broadcasters should have their licenses revoked. The least we should do is separate news from advertising. News broadcasts should not be rated nor should they be expected to make a profit as was the case at one time. That should simply be the price of doing business.
Is there any other topics to cover besides the obvious that Fox caters to the right?