CNN's Martin notes that Media Matters has "the documentation" proving FNC "news" programs echo its "opinion" shows
October 24, 2009 12:02 pm ET
From the October 23 edition of CNN's Campbell Brown:
Previously:
Fox News' War On The White House
Burns in Huffington Post: Fox News Is the Story
Fox's news programs echo its "opinion" shows: Smears, doctored videos, GOP talking points
The other right-wing media mogul you should worry about
Palin's book and Obama's bow: a media week to forget
Media Matters: The Palin chronicles
However, I disagree with the claim that "FNC 'news' programs echo its 'opinion' shows." There are no news programs on FNC. Only opinion shows.
The problem is privatized 24 hour news organizations. CNN should deserve the same amount of scrutiny as Fox for even featuring this segment. It is ludicrous that they are even discussing the media vs. the White House! Jeffrey Toobin is right. They should not allow Fox News to set the agenda for the rest of the news organizations, but the grand ol' irony of that one is that he is making this point in a segment about a debate manufactured by Fox News! Please, please Toobin, tell me some gosh-darn news! What about Afghanistan? What about Blackwater's crimes? Its name change? What about that freakin' healthcare bill that every Congressmen is complaining about being "too long and big and scary"?! WHY DON'T YOU(and here's a radical thought) READ IT?! YOU'RE SUPPOSE TO BE JOURNALISTS!!!
[I'm sorry for the rant.]
If a dog growls and bites, why pet it, let alone try to feed it?
Is there an unspoken impurity within the culture of corporate-owned news organizations that renders criticism of Fox as hippocracy? Is this why so few who draw a news media paycheck feel comfortable calling Fox out for what they do? If so, then where is the line that Fox must cross that finally gives them the professional high ground to do so? Just how brittle is the corporate glass house they report from?
If this is the case then when asked to opine about the Fox controversy, all these talking heads need to say is that " Fox viewers watch Fox to hear what they want to hear and Fox is a successful business" and leave it right there.
As a consumer of news, I have no problem with labeling Fox as a communication arm of the Republican party and an engine of conservative activism.
However, think about this: If a "Tabloid" at the checkout counter started actually started reporting acurate truths about important ongoing events: Would they ever sell a single paper? The more extreme and outrageous, the better the sell. Unfortunately, some people will believe anything.
a) Fox News anchors drive the lies that their opinion shows create and turn them into talking points other news organizations have to follow and
b) Fox News pushed, encouraged and promoted the anti-Obama rallies, which disqualifies it from being called a News organization.
Why why why why why why why doe the other so-called News organizations bend over backwards to DEFEND Fox, when Fox is trying to destroy them and journalism?!
Watch for a kinder, milder, victimesque Fox for a week or so. But they will fall back into their old Con ways.
Even tough the Fox got the coleeges to start on their side, they will loose them by fals claim that critisism from Obama is the same as blocking them out of acces to administartion, by falsley accusing Obama that critisizm is the same as attacking the jurnalists right on informations/ attack on first amendment.
Critique is nothing else but a critique.
Now the FNC will have whole lots of jurnalists investigating their stories, that was Obama's intention.
It's called - the tail wagging the dog.
State the lies on the "opinion" shows, repeat it until the "viewers" get riled up, then report on how riled people are about "what's being said" on the "news".
All you need to do is to selectively choose what to lie about in the first place - set the agenda.
The rest flows naturally.
A self-perpetuating, agenda-setting operation.
It's as much brilliant, as it is insidious.
And, it's not a new strategy. It worked well for the Nazis in Germany.
http://www.psywarrior.com/Goebbels.html
With the cruise missle strikes on terrorist targets in response to the African embassy bombings that soon followed his admission of guilt in the relationship with Lewinsky, the movie is almost eerily fortelling, but it was certainly not a poke at the Clinton administration. The events hadn't occured yet.
You're here, at Media Matters, and you can't find any trace of the lies shoveled out on a daily basis by the Faux News Channel? You don't understand how to click your mouse? You're really that deliberately obtuse?
None is so blind as he who will not see.
i think the best analogy to relate to this whole thing is like in baseball when a batter keeps fouling off pitch after pitch after pitch, and the more you foul it off, the better it gets for the batter. and once they see what they like, they will jump all over it.
in this case, the more that people hear the real truth about fox news, the more they will become convinced about who they are. and when you are the white house, you have the biggest megaphone in the country, if you know how to use it. lets hope they dont weaken and continue to stand up for themselves.
What "NEWS" network has EVER organized, promoted and hosted protests against the sitting POTUS and government?
That, in and of itself, immediately disqualifies them as legitimate "news".
The have an agenda against the government ergo cannot be "news".
Why Fox News isn't news
Oct. 23:
Rachel Maddow points out what has been largely overlooked in the discussion of the White House feud with Fox News, that explains why Fox is not news.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/33456104#33456104
I won't hold my breath.
Your premise is false on its face anyway. There is nothing wrong with citing opinion pieces, shows, and websites as long as you identify it as such. The problem with Fox is that they frequently parrot false and misleading opinions as factual.
In the same vein, Obama and friends instantly undermine their position when they go on nbc or msnbc to whine that foxnews is a propoganda machine. They use one propoganda outlet to discredit another. Of course they realize the mindless lemmings who worship at the feet of our chosen one are so transparently stupid that this hypocrisy will go over their heads. As examples of the lemmings, I refer you to the blogger on this site, and their adoring sheep who thank them for their articles.
And yes, Martin is dumb as rocks if he thinks the half-wit hacks at mmfa are fair arbiters of what constitutes a valid news network. But if you've ever seen his show, you'd already know that.
Citation of heavily edited footage from anti-ACORN hacks dressing up early for Halloween attempting to entrap low-level office workers into giving advice to fake criminals:proof positive that ACORN is a criminal organization.
I'm glad we got that hammered out.
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The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
I watch all three at various times during the day, and watched FOX almost exclusively a few years ago, so I can comment on it. [When it become basically just like hate talk radio, I couldn't watch any longer for more than a few minutes at a time.] The Foxbots here, most likely, watch ONLY Fox and are, therefore, unable to make an informed criticism of MSNBC or CNN. That's been my experience, anyway. They watch only the "news" which agrees with their own perception of "truth."
Just a side story of the media's complicity with Fox News. When the stink of Michelle Obama's "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country" statement...you notice you never heard what she said before that comment. It is not a coincidence. That day Fox News was the only camera at that event. I was working for a network when that video was fed over. Fox just kept re-racking to that one soundbite. They never fed over anything else. No one asked for more or cared to get the raw video supplied to them. They got their right wing controversy hand fed to them and they were satisfied. Do not let other networks off the hook.