Too much of a "good thing"? Fox suggested media "made up" Iraqi "civil war"
SUMMARY: Following Fox News' February 23 suggestion that a civil war in Iraq might "be a good thing," Neil Cavuto switched gears on the March 1 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto and displayed an onscreen caption that asked: " 'Civil War' in Iraq: Made Up by the Media?"
Following Fox News' February 23 suggestion that a civil war in Iraq might "be a good thing," Fox News host Neil Cavuto switched gears on the March 1 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto and displayed an onscreen caption that asked: " 'Civil War' in Iraq: Made Up by the Media?" However, Cavuto's suggestion that the media improperly -- or prematurely -- labeled the recent surge in sectarian violence in Iraq a "civil war" ignored the fact that his own network contributed to the supposed farce.
From the March 1 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
However, in the days preceding, a variety of Fox News anchors, reporters, and pundits fed the idea that Iraq had devolved into civil war:
- From the February 23 edition of Special Report with Brit Hume, with Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes and Roll Call executive editor Morton M. Kondracke; earlier in the program, a clip aired of Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, deputy chief of staff for Multinational Force Iraq, denying that civil war was breaking out:
BARNES: I don't think it's so much the Iraqi army. That's what needs to be continued to be built up as a battle ready force, because I think there is a serious risk of a civil war here. It's a lot -- I think we're a lot closer to it than either General Lynch or General Kondracke said.
KONDRACKE: I'll stick with General Lynch, actually.
BRIT HUME (host): Appropriate. I think it should be General Lynch and Ambassador Kondracke.
- From the February 23 edition of The O'Reilly Factor:
BILL O'REILLY (host): Will there be civil war in Iraq? That is the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo." This is a big story. And some are even ignoring it. But the attack yesterday on the Golden Mosque in Iraq, a holy Shiite shrine, could ignite a civil war in that country that this country, America, would not be able to control.
Here is the deal. It looks to us like Al Qaeda now understands it can never defeat the U.S.A. in Iraq. Now, the only strategy the terrorists have is to ignite a civil war between the Shiite majority and the Sunni minority. If that happens, no one be able to control it, and Iraq would descend into bloody chaos.
[...]
The frustrating thing about it is that the U.S.A. can't control this kind of religious violence. No country could. So, there is little we could do except pray things don't get worse. "Talking Points" believes America's cause in Iraq is noble. We have liberated millions of people and trying to give them a chance of freedom. Also, if Iraq does become a free nation and helps in the war on terror, it would be a huge victory for the U.S.A. But those are huge ifs. And right now, Iraq is tottering.
It's a shame because we've spent billions and lost thousands of lives in this effort. At this point, the only hope is the Iraqis themselves, both Shiites and Sunnis, will understand Al Qaeda is their enemy and wants them to kill each other. That understood, maybe the Iraqis will begin to unite against the terrorists. Maybe. It's a long shot, but at this point, it might be the only shot because the situation in Iraq is definitely on the edge.
- From the February 24 edition of The Big Story with John Gibson:
CARL CAMERON (chief White House correspondent): The president today said the Iraqi people face a time of choosing, all a reference to what the administration believes is an opportunity. They view this current violence, the uprisings as a result of the attack on the Golden Mosque, an opportunity for Iraqis to reject the violence and embrace a peaceful unity government.
It's a-cup-is-half-full-way of looking at what many in the world have said is the brink of civil war in Iraq. The administration's not willing to go anywhere near there. They call it a very delicate time. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that it's very hard and very delicate.
- From the February 24 edition of The O'Reilly Factor:
O'REILLY: All right. You know, I know you have emotion invested in Iraq, since you've been there a number of times. Civil war: I don't think anybody can control that if it breaks out, do you?
GERALDO RIVERA (host, Geraldo at Large): I think that the situation in Iraq has gone from pessimistic to deadly grim. This attack on the Golden Dome at Samarra [Iraq] was -- was a profound and effective one. It's as if someone took out the Vatican or the Western Wall [in Jerusalem]. This is a big deal. Shiites are calling it their 9-11. I think the fuse is now ignited for widespread sectarian violence.
- From the February 25 edition of The Beltway Boys:
KONDRACKE: Hot story number two is "On The Brink." And this is about Iraq. You know, ever since we toppled Saddam Hussein, President Bush's enemies have been saying two things: Is it Vietnam yet? Or, when's the civil war going to start? And up to now, there hasn't been a civil war, but after last week, when the -- the golden shrine in, the Golden Mosque in Samarra, was destroyed and -- and -- and Shiite militias started attacking Sunnis in -- in retaliation, the possibility of civil war has -- have -- has become ever more threatening.
...people will continue to become increasingly aware of how bad things are. FOX is trying everything it can do to tow the line. It just makes them look more ridiculous.
The number of dead and injured on Bush's watch is just... staggering. Depressing. But, look how shiny Neil's tie is!
... when it comes to "made up" news, who can question the expertise of Cavuto and the rest of the Rovian-controlled Duhhbya shills at FOX NEWS?
According to MM, there are stupid questions. And I guess it doesn't matter what the answer is, or what the question's point might have been.
Let's face facts here people, TV News cares about ratings... it's how they make money. And a civil war in Iraq... or any strong surge in violence... makes people watch TV. More conflict means more viewers, means better ratings, means more money.
And please don't say "This is just FOX," because EVERY TV station wants ratings and money. Duh.
With that said, the media EXAGGERATING a Civil War could be a gonzo rating boost. What is the harm in ASKING a question, and investigating if there is, in fact, a media conspiracy?
Just like the Feb 23rd story, it would have been nice for MM to... oh, I don't know... give us something more than pictures... like a transcript of what was discussed in the segment... but I guess that might have been too much to ask for.
And as for ignoring the other FNC contributors... I ask, Did they? Or was that just a part of the story MM "accidentally" omitted?
PS: I saw this very story with Obey tonight! AMAZING! I wonder, do you write for him directly, or does he have to visit the website like the rest of us?
Thanks for slapping "us" back into reality! My image of the current state of "news" is totally blown. I think FOX is on the verge of blowing this whole farce of a civil war wide open!
... FOX news thinks it has the OK to go ahead and report AND interpret the news in REAL TIME.
So, when we learn instantly that bombs are going off in Iraq, and dozens are being killed RIGHT NOW, including lots of our soldiers, FOX feels it's OK to go ahead and speculate that, well, hostilities are escalating.
Then, they have paid panelists, so why not ask them WHY this is happening, and what it might MEAN? CIVIL WAR, they say, is looming. These people just can't get along, they say unnecessarily. It's a mess, and we can't continue to intervene, American troops just can't "control" the area.
All this is in REAL TIME, in instantaneous response to unfolding events.
Then, when the DELAY kicks in ... that is, the time it takes ROVE to decide what the "news" REALLY is, and what it REALLY means, and even what "news" isn't really happening at all, and how the MEDIA should uniformly THINK about an issue ... and sends the MEMOs out to the White House lackeys in the media, FOX is getting increasingly more surprised.
After all, FOX felt safe in promoting the war, and in bashing might-be terrorists, and in holding to a traditional "conservative" line of nationalism. What they're hearing back from the White House is that "conservative" views are no longer applicable. The NeoCons are into GLOBALISM, and scratching the right backs in commerce, and that the DOLLAR now trumps any quaint ideas of "national security" or American sovereignty.
The DELAY in reporting and getting marching orders is causing a real problem for the "fair and balanced" network. If they were JUST reporting the news, there would be no problem. But since their entire style is to promote an agenda, and to "SPIN" everything to a partisan "US against THEM" simplicity, they adopt a stance pro or con on every story from the outset. How embarrassing it is when they hear from on high that they are promoting the old "conservative" line, and not the new "NeoCon" line they SHOULD be promoting in order to support the White House.
It's comical to watch them reverse direction and switch gears, falling all over themselves in the process of backpedaling..
Tex: "Then, they have paid panelists, so why not ask them WHY this is happening, and what it might MEAN?"
Exactly right! Since the invasion, the mainstream media and Fox have failed to address why the Iraqis have been fighting the occupation. Now that they are fighting each other, the media still doesn't address the cause. O'Reilly falsely states above that it is a religious fight. They may be of different religious groups but they aren't fighting because one group is imposing its religion on the other. Also, it's obvious the Iraqi's aren't going to put up with a the US imposed nonfunctioning sham governmental setup the US calls a democracy. Voting by itself doesn't constitute a democracy. Saudis vote, but it doesn't mean much.
Tex:
I wouldn' t want to have to flop sweat as I go on the air to again defend the undefendable. Hume is obviously drinking.
Videlicet, that Faux News may be deploying outright agents provocateur to manipulate rioting, civil disorder and even Extreme Ultraviolence before the cameras of Faux News-affiliated stringers--and pass it off as "news."
And IIRC, there are still State and Federal laws against the publication and/or dissemiation of false or misleading news reports, under pain of heavy penalties.
(It might not hurt, for the sake of insight, to rent the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, whose subplot revolves around media manipulation and provocation for the sake of whipping up latent hatreds in especially the weak-minded and easily-led.)
Tex, your analysis on this issue is right on point. The nature of 24 hour news shows requires them to be constantly running updates of breaking news. A buffer period then occurs in which the controlling forces there (Murdock, Rove?) determine the manner in which they wish to frame these arguments that best furthers their agenda. Apparently now their strategy is to downplay the Iraq situation as much as possible. While the Orwelian references have been used ad nauseum, another analogy I thought of in reading this piece is of the Midgard Serpent from Norse mythology who could wrap around the Earth and eat its own tail. That is almost what FOX seems to be doing by reporting that its own reporting was erroneous without mentioning its own reporting specifically. My head hurts....
I had plenty to say.....but you just about covered it all.....
Little more can be said to add to your post.
Except that I'll second your thought on how the right-wing talking heads are falling all over themselves in trying to lessen all that is wrong with this regime in DC!
Ed Schultz said today on his show that the Dems should just sit back and say as little as possible and let these guys just destroy themselves........
For whats its worth.......thats not much of a stretch!!
FNC should make a slight modification to their Slogan:
"Fair & Balanced and Everything is Just Fine"
All this discussion overlooks the fact that Fox News has the highest cable news ratings, which means that they are RIGHT.
Doug:
I hope you were being sarcastic when you said "ratings equals RIGHT".
See, O'Reilly apparently DOES have an audience of some 2 million, the "highest rated cable news show".
On the other hand, "American Idol" has an audience over TEN TIMES that of O'Reilly.
What does this show us? That people enjoy watching amateurs make asses of themselves. In both cases.
Considering that his post was pretty out of character for him and closely resembles other silly arguments put forth recently in other threads, I think it is safe to conclude Doug was being sarcastic.
The cable news market is tiny in comparisson to almost anything else. Good for Fox to rule the mole hill.
Fox is right. WAY right. So far right they have become the modern version of Tass, merely a propaganda arm of the state. They really need to drop the word news altogether.
Isn't it a civil war when opposing factions within a country are engaged in a violent struggle against one another in order to gain control of the government? Sound an awful lot like Iraq today. How fine a line between "sectarian violence" and civil war. The talking heads are more than happy to drone on and on arguing the semantics of a situation that has exploded so far out of control that only the truest of the true believers are trying to spin it their way.
The media is more slanted and biased than ever, but it's hard to ignore the expoding mosques and dozens of people being blown up on a daily basis. If it walks like a duck, etc... We set the stage for civil war and expedited the situation when we toppled the Hussein regime. We can't fix it. Time to let them fight it out.
The WAR on Christmas was made up by the media
The IRAQI Civil war has been going on for months.
It's a travesty Americans are continually subjected to the fake fox news. Fox ratings might explain the strange opinions expressed in certain American polling data.
"Television, the drug of the nation Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation"
Disposable Heroes of Hip-hopcrisy
on Katrina if Kerry or Gore were in the WH!
Every day, we would see up-close, personal stories of devestation and loss of life. Again and again and again. People would be protesting in the streets against an out-of-touch Dem administration.
Instead we get pictures of Mardi Gras and how back-to-normal things are on the Gulf Coast.
With Fox et al in the media owned by conservatives, the neo-con message is almost seamlessly distributed each day.
Fox News has so many pompous pundits, people who have some kind of fear of putting periods at the ends of their self-absorbed - hyper-bloated sentences, that they’re tripping over each other trying to out bloat each other! (sorta like that last sentence, by the way) Neil Cavuto was just bloating folks. He should step aside and let the real bloaters, like Mr. No Spine Zone bloat! He’s the real professional at it.
...I thought we had always been at war with Eurasia? Or was it Oceania? When you want Orwellian news just turn on the Fox "news" channel.
Every time I think that it can't get any worse....
Do Fox "journalists" only listen to each other's reporting to learn what is going on in the world?
Perhaps they also read some Conservative newspapers and magazines?
I suppose that one can understand their obvious disdain of the "Liberal Press" which they obviously do not read.
But do they also not ever read from any non-Conservative source?
Because this is what happens when one has a limited or single source of information -- not just ignorance but believing the false to be truth. Dangerous. Very dangerous.
People on the "Left" can also make this mistake. Be careful. To believe something, at least read the same thing from two non-related sources. All these Fox People only seem to get their "facts" from each other -- compounded with their absolute belief in the Bush Administration, this country is only going to get worse in the next 3 years. Worse than I can imagine, I'll bet.
I have never been scared of the failure of Democracy, but it looks like it is happening.
I can't decide. From Knight Ridder on Feb 28th we learn...
...a major study, called a National Intelligence Estimate, completed in October 2003...concluded that the insurgency was fueled by local conditions - not foreign terrorists - and drew strength from deep grievances, including the presence of U.S. troops.
They also suffered 1300 dead in one week. As a friend noted, on a similar scale in the U.S., that would be about 13,000 dead.
Not really civil war? or close to it? But if even if they are, it's not so bad? Rrrrrriggght.
Hey, Neil et al...we could use from more "on location" reporting from Iraq. How about voluteeting? It's not so bad over there. Right? (I find it ironic that reporters apparently face more danger in Iraq now than they did in Baghdad during the first Gulf War.)
CD
To many, perhaps, a "Civil War" is fought on a battle field by thousands of uniformed men.
With visions of young men in blue and grey fighting up hill and across farms in their heads -- history learned from popular movies and novels -- the Fox People do not see the battles in Iraq, they see only 2 minute news briefs in their own Media, hear only 30 second sound bites of "20 more dead this day", or the cry of "Liberal Media" echos in their heads so loudly that they dismiss all news not adhering to the "glorification of American Values" as simply more of the nattering nabobs of negativity....
They do not see the last 60 years of Western meddling in the politics of the Middle East as Western governments fought to give control of the economics of the Middle East to American corporations....
They do not see inside the history of Iraq at all....
They do not see.... They do not see....
And that scares me, for it causes the prolongation of wars.
They just don't care.
They aren't stupid. They aren't uninformed.
They are very deliberate, very calculated. These guys (and their handlers) know just which buttons to push to keep control over what a certain segment of the population "knows" to be the truth.
We just learned this week that an astonishing percentage of the troops serving in Iraq believe we're there because of Saddam's ties to 9-11. There's also lots of anecdotal evidence emerging recently to suggest that our troops' access to the internet (and news) is strictly controlled and certain sites completely inaccessible. (I wonder whether Faux is one of the "approved" outlets?)
A significant majority of our servicepeople also think it's time to end the occupation.
I find it interesting that even those troops who believe we are in Iraq in retaliation for 9/11 think it's time to withdraw.
I wonder what that poll would have looked like if they knew the truth?
We've already seen what kind of psychological havoc is being wreaked on those who serve in Iraq. How much worse might it be when they learn they've been fighting and watching their friends die for a lie?
'Cause it seems like most of them, at least those still in-country, don't know it yet.