Fox News Watch doesn't disclose Pinkerton's role in hyping tea parties
SUMMARY: During a Fox News Watch panel discussion of media coverage of the April 15 tea parties, panelist Jim Pinkerton did not disclose that he had urged people to get involved in "protesting against the evils of over-taxation and its wicked handmaidens, over-spending and over-regulation."
The April 18 edition of Fox News' media criticism show, Fox News Watch, featured a discussion on the "mainstream media" coverage of the April 15 tea parties, panelist Jim Pinkerton did not disclose -- and host Jon Scott did not mention -- that, in a post on FoxNews.com, he had urged people to get involved in "protesting against the evils of over-taxation and its wicked handmaidens, over-spending and over-regulation" and supplied information on "how and where to get connected to a tea party -- or how to start your own tea party." Pinkerton, a regular Fox News Watch panelist, asserted during the Fox News Watch discussion that "the mindset of the mainstream media" is to "trash an anti-government pro-tea party" and that "the real driver [of the parties] was the Internet." He also asserted that CNN's Susan Roesgen's grilling of a tea party attendee who called Obama a "fascist" was the "least professional cable news performance I've seen in the history of cable news, watch her ranting about the conservatives and calling them every possible name."
Pinkerton wrote in an April 8 post on FoxNews.com's Fox Forum: "Anti-Tax Tea Parties: They are not just for American history any more -- we need them now! And you can be a part of this new making of history." Later in the post -- which was also featured on another Fox News website, the Fox Nation -- Pinkerton wrote:
Today, in our time, we need to make a similar point in the face of arrogant power. And you can, too, on April 15, when millions of Americans will gather in peaceful protest across the country, protesting against the evils of over-taxation and its wicked handmaidens, over-spending and over-regulation.
If you visit the Web site of Tax Day Tea Party, you will find plenty of information on how and where to get connected to a tea party-or how to start your own tea party.
Plenty of big names will be involved, ranging across the country. Glenn Beck will be in Texas and Newt Gingrich will be in New York City. Sean Hannity will be in Atlanta. Neal Cavuto will be in Sacramento. And many, many more-FOX News and FOX Nation folks will be providing full coverage.
But most of all, the "Tea Party 2" movement needs YOU.
As Media Matters for America documented, despite its promise to deliver "total fair and balanced network coverage" of the April 15 tea party protests, Fox News hosts aggressively promoted the protests and encouraged viewers across the country to get involved. From April 6 to April 15, the network aired 107 commercial promotions for its coverage of the tea-party protests, featured at least 20 segments about the protests, directed viewers to a "virtual tea party" on FoxNation.com, and repeatedly described the protests as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties." During the lead-up to the April 15 protests, tea-party organizers also used the planned attendance of several Fox News hosts to promote their protests. Indeed, Goldberg noted: "I think there,s a perfectly legitimate criticism against Fox for not so much the coverage but the commercials promoting, you know, the coverage, which was, in effect, advertisements for these things. But this was all transparent; people knew that's what Fox was doing."
From the April 18 edition of Fox News Watch:
JON SCOTT (host): This week on Fox News Watch, tea time across the USA. As some in the mainstream media mocked the movement, Americans turn out and talk back.
[...]
SCOTT: Just some of the sights and sounds there of the anti-tax tea parties that were held all over the country on Wednesday. In the mainstream media, it seemed many didn't know what to make of them. Take a look.
[begin video clip]
ROESGEN: OK, let's see, you're here with your 2-year-old. And you're already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?
MAN: Because I hear a president say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln's primary thing was he believed that people had the right to liberty and had the right --
ROESGEN: Sir, what does this have to do with taxes? What does this have to do with your taxes? Do you realize you're eligible for $400 credit --
MAN: Let me finish speaking -- let me finish my point. [...]
ROESGEN: I think you get the general tenor of this. It's anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox.
[end video]
SCOTT: All right. Jonah, you're first up. What's your reaction to what we just saw there?
GOLDBERG: This is a family show, right?
SCOTT: Yes, it is.
GOLDBERG: I thought this was a refreshing and wonderful moment of honesty from CNN, where you actually got to see the mindset that is pretty commonplace around places like CNN, where I used to be a contributor. And I think it shows the sort of general disdain of a lot of people in the mainstream media for these sorts of things. You would never see something like this at a massive immigration rally, where someone making fun of somebody, you know, butchering the language or anything like that.
SCOTT: You used to cover, Jane, for the LA Times -- you used to cover the media business. MSNBC and CNN, some of their hosts were using a very derogatory term, a slang term for oral sex in discussing these parties. Can you explain why?
HALL: Well, let me see if I can be academic about that. I think that they were reacting to what they perceived as Fox -- I think we're talking about the niche-ing of the news. Fox covered this extensively, and I think they decided that it was a Fox thing. You know, you can debate whether Fox promoted it or whether Fox covered it extensively. They decided it was a Fox thing. I think it was embarrassing for that woman to say it was anti-CNN. But I think that many of these people feel as if they're under attack and Fox is promoting this. And that's where they were coming from. Neither one is subjective. That's not objective reporting that woman was doing.
SCOTT: Jim?
PINKERTON: Well, let's clarify this. As the New York Post reported, General Electric gave the order to CNBC to knock off the pop -- the Rick Santelli-style populism, and I'm sure MSNBC was perfectly happy to join them. CNBC and MSNBC are on the government payroll. Of course they're going to trash an anti-government pro-tea party thing. But look, let's talk about the mindset of the main stream media here. There has never been a poor minority that the mainstream media didn't gush over, and they increasingly identify with Wall Street. What is left out is the white middle and working class. To them, they're just a bunch of Archie Bunkers.
SCOTT: Yeah. Judy, the press very eagerly covered the Proposition 8 protests in California, the gay marriage, you know, those -- the protests in support of gay marriage. Would they have gotten -- I mean, did they get the same kind of press? Was it equal?
MILLER: Well, not all protests are equal, as we've seen. I mean, part of the problem -- I think the frustration I felt as a reader and as a viewer,was looking out and seeing it was either tea for not two, but tea for 200, 2,000, 200,000, depending on which station you were watching or which newspaper you were reading. And an effort to step back and look at what was going on here, the fact that the Republicans finally have gotten a sense of how to use Internet network grassroots or Astroturf, depending on --
GOLDBERG: It wasn't the Republicans?
MILLER: Yes, it was. Come on. It was a Republican event and they mastered it, and very few commentators pointed that out.
GOLDBERG: How do we know it was Republican event? What is the actual reporting that it says it was Republican event? Republicans weren't -- Republican officials were not allowed to speak at this, the people who were the main organizers --
HALL: Well, Dick Armey's website was involved in it --
MILLER: Yes, absolutely.
HALL: -- various conservative websites. I think this actually shows a vacuum in the Republican Party. I sort of disagree --
GOLDBERG: I didn't quite hear you answering Jonah's question. Was it a Republican event?
HALL: I think Judy is making the point that you wouldn't know. First of all, I disagree -- wait, wait --
SCOTT: Hold on. I thought I heard Judy say it was a Republican event.
MILLER: I'm assuming it was --
SCOTT: Oh, I see, I see.
MILLER: -- because he media did not fully explore that issue --
HALL: It was never clearly -- Dick Army's website, I gather, was involved. I think it actually shows a vacuum in the Republican Party because I think it came from other places, and I think the Republican Party is thinking how can they act --
PINKERTON: So Jonah's right.
SCOTT: Jonah raises -- Judy raises --
GOLDBERG: I mean, Republicans were trashed at a lot of these events.
HALL: We don't know the answer.
GOLDBERG: I mean, Glenn Beck -- Glenn Beck -- I know Glenn Beck on this network trashed Republicans at the one at the Alamo, and there was huge cheering from the crowd. I think it was much more of a conservative movement event, much less of a Republican event.
SCOTT: But Judy raises a point, Jonah. If this had come about in the age prior to cable news, would it have gotten the same kind of coverage? Would it have gotten any kind of coverage?
GOLDBERG: Oh, probably not. I think -- and that's -- but that's a good thing about cable news, is that it's democratized news coverage somewhat.
HALL: But the point is, I mean, I do think we have to say that the Fox hosts being there and talking about it was a factor. I mean, that is a factor in how it got play.
SCOTT: Did the Fox coverage and the promotion of the coverage, did that force the other networks to pay attention to it?
HALL: I think it did, because the other TV networks ended up leading with it. Here is where The New York Times and The Washington Post buried it inside as a metro story. I think that's a mistake. I really do.
MILLER: I agree. It was a mistake to underplay it.
PINKERTON: The real driver here was the Internet. Again, when you -- if you wanted to watch all the Susan Roesgen thing, which is the least professional cable news performance I've seen in the history of cable news, you want to see her ranting and raving about the conservatives and calling them every possible name, you could watch it on YouTube. You didn't need any of these cable networks.
GOLDBERG: One point. I think there's a perfectly legitimate criticism against Fox for not so much the coverage but the commercials promoting, you know, the coverage, which was, in effect, advertisements for these things. But this was all transparent; people knew that's what Fox was doing. Let's flash back to what GE -- to pick up a point that Jim made -- GE basically issued a fatwa to NBC for "Green Week," where they did hundred of hours of environmental messaging in all of their dramas, news coverage, the Today show, throughout the network. And it was all hailed as a wonderful progressive thing. That is a much more pernicious kind of promotion than anything that Fox did.
Avg income of the top 1% in 1979, $535,000, 2006, $1,744,000, more than 3 times as much.
Avg income of the top 5% in 1979, $242,000, 2006, $564,000, more than 2 times as much.
Avg income of the top 10% in 1979, $178,000, 2006, $366,000, 2 times as much.
Avg income of the bottom 20% in 1979, $16,200, in 2006, $17,200.
Avg income of the second quintile in 1979, $35,100, 2006, $39,400.
Avg income of the highest quintile in 1979, $136,400, in 2006, $248,400.
The rich get richer and the poor stay poor, and those damnable rich people keep complaining that they aren't able to keep enough!
You know you are engaging in Class Warfare just by pointing out those statistics, don't you? ;>).
What's stopping you from getting an eighth, ninth and tenth job to put yourself in that higher bracket, you jealous slacker? ;>)
Remember- the rich are rich because they work much, much harder than you. Handling inherited wealth, moving money into the Cayman's, and planning the shift of your work force from Detroit to Sri Lanka is hard work, you know.
James , You are so ful af cr-p as are your posts. You are really buying tat RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA.
Whoa there, yank. Your sarcasm meter must be a bit low, jjamele was in parody mode.
It's worth pointing out that the average income of the bottom 20% and the second quintile has actually DROPPED since 1979, when one accounts for inflation.
My own annual salary has gone up $8000 in eight years- which means that in real terms, I make less now than I did in 2001. But that's because I'm a jealous, lazy slacker, I guess.
And while salaries have gone up marginally, health care costs and the cost of goods have outpaced inflation every year by leaps and bounds. So not only are you making less in constant dollars, your buying power is less, too. So what do the right wingers complain about? The double taxation of dividends, as if any of us slaving away in an office is making squat in dividends or other forms of passive income. That's what galls me so d@mn much. How the right defends the rights of the rich to pay 15% on the gazillions of dollars propagated from doing nothing while the rest of us work our hinders off to pay a 28% income tax rate plus SS and Medicare taxes. That'll teach us to work for a living and not to be born wealthy.
Randy
You think the rich are really bad people don't you? That they got their money by stealing it or having a magical tree in their backyard? There are people who inherited money, but someone before them worked hard for that money and made smart decisions.
And it is not about keeping more, it is about fairness. If I pay 50% in taxes a year and the person next to me pays none something is not right with our system. I beleive all americans should pay taxes and those living here temporarily should pay taxes. The fair tax is a good idea, but liberals would never pass it cause it will not support the numerous federal programs that it creates, and in turn they can raise taxes even higher when in power.
In general if you think about it, who would you work for if there were no rich people? The government? And when Obama says he is going to tax the rich do people not see how that hurts workers all across america. The people who own these companies are paying more to the government and giving less to their employees in terms of raises and benefits, etc.
The fact is, everyone does pay tax of some sort. You like to ignore the very regressive social security tax, which even illegal aliens pay. Most states have sales tax...again, everyone pays. Who pays more percentage of that? Then there is the property tax. Low income home owners pay the going rate on that. Gas tax, etc.
As for the rich deserving what they have. Some have earned every penny. But guess who put the infrastructure in place for them to earn all that money? Their workers and various governments.
Not only that, but how many of the fortunes of today's most wealthy families were derived from huge government contracts during WWII? (And how many of today's most successful companies capitalized on government-funded research? The idea that the wealthy have earned every penny without any help from the government is ridiculous.
And it is not about keeping more, it is about fairness
I agree. It is fair that the top 1% now have a higher share of the collective wealth than at any time since the 1920's? Is it fair that CEO's make hundreds of times more than the rank and file worker, again the highest it's ever been?
You're right. It is about fairness.
If your neighbor pays no income taxes, it's because they make so little that they need all that income to live. If you pay a lot in in income taxes (the top rate is 36%, not 50%), then it's because you will still have lots of money to spend after you pay those taxes. That's the only fair thing to do, and the only fair way to tax. Forcing the poorest of our citizens to pay some income tax when they have so little is not fair.
And rich people have greater wealth than ever before, and they are being taxed at lower rates than a generation ago, so they really have nothing to complain about. We have to pay down our national debt, and doing so via tax hikes on the poorest of the poor will not do our citizens any good.
If I pay my taxes and the person next to me pays none because he is using tax shelters and accounts designed to help him avoid paying taxes on the hundreds of thousands of dollars he makes, it's not far. The progressive income tax IS a fair tax.
"In general if you think about it, who would you work for if there were no rich people." That has to be one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever heard.
Oh yeah- Gary Bauer on his hideous Bauer and Rose show called the Tea Party "Revolution" an amazing spontaneous uprising, and didn't even MENTION the month of commercials Fox ran for it.
Of course, Gary Bauer's brain is so mall, I'm not at all sure how he manages to power his own arms and legs.
Backpack full of Duracells ?
VERY impressive, POW! I especially like the "tea toddlers" reference. You'd have a future at Faux if you weren't so witty and intelligent, sorry.
You think the present on-air personalities are not playing stupid? Boy, have they got you fooled. When the time comes, they will all proclaim that they were "just kidding". You'll feel foolish then.
When one of them loses thier on-air job for lying, where do they go? Upper management?
As Gilbert and Sullivan would say:
They lied so often and so carefully
That now they're upper management for Faux TV.
They are the very model of a modern major clusterf--k...
Didn't a greater number than that attend the anti-War rally on the eve of the invasion of Iraq just in DC?
And despite what some on the right have been implying here, those protests got no help, and often minimal coverage, from the establishment media. I recall an anti-War rally I attended in LA in, I think, early 2006: The only mention it got on the ostensible 100% straight news station was that the traffic reports mentioned slow traffic around Hollywood & Vine because of "a protest" - no mention at all what was being protested, or by how many.
phredicles,
This is the same bunch that attacked the MillionMan March by illustrating that there weren't a MillionMen there. And remember the ConTalkers complaining that they were only there because they didn't work.
I suppose all 200,000 of the Tea Toddlers make over 250K a year from their Family fortunes.
You've mastered Fox(il)logic!
"protesting against the evils of over-taxation and its wicked handmaidens, over-spending and over-regulation."
This is the best gem ever!!
The last 30 years we have seen a few conservative lunatics among us destroy the hopes and dreams of just about everyone else... from Reaganomics to NAFTA to Bush policies of crapping on the Constitution...
All this over-taxation (Reagan doubled the payroll tax on the working while lowering the tax burden by nearly half on the wealthy)
Over-spending (on the military complex instead of on We the People)...
and
Over-regulation?? If this is not the biggest joke of it all... I don't know what is!! One thing that is seriously missing... IS regulations!
That is why the whole tea bagging parties were such a sad and pathetic joke! And as usual... the most gullible among us fell for it yet again... which would be damn hilarious if not for the real damage it causes our society!
It is also a sickness that these people, especially the FoxNoise and the Rush Limbaugh types propagate this crapola...
Funny how not a peep from any of these hypocrits is spoken until it is a Democrat in the office... they are trying to lay the blame on Obama for the last 30 years of their crummy policies!
Three other points:
First, Jane Hall has become a first-rate shill for the Fox meme about us-versus-the-"librul"-media; just read her saying it was up for debate as to whether Fox merely gave extensive coverage or actively promoted the teabagging. No, Jane, it's not a debatable point: This was clear and incntroviertable promotion. Period. But this isn't sruprising really -- during the primaries she was constantly whining about the sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton while severely underplaying and even dismissing the racist coverage of Obama (anyone remember the whole "is he black enough" nonsense?). She's since become a true PUMA -- degrading Obama and press coverage of his presidency just like any good Fox employee would.
Second, to see Judy Miller on any media commentary panel, like she's some sort of respectable analyst, is appalling. No she wasn't a martyr for freedom of the press -- she was a shill, parrotting propaganda points from the Pentagon for the ridiculous war that is the real cause of our deficits.
And finally, ever since Eric Burns (no relation I presume) left this show, they have not tried one whit to get someone of serious liberal credentials to contradict the rabid right-wingers on the show. All the while the basic slant of the show -- that the question in each segment is whether or not the topic under discussion is just another example of the "obvious" liberal bias of the MSM -- has become so pronounced, and so agreed-upon, that it's useless to think you're getting anything like an honest discussion on the media.
Just one more example of Roger Ailes's new strategy for the network: Start tilting bats**t crazy right wing to boost ratings.
Y'all are a hoot!
Remember- the rich are rich because they work much, much harder than you. Handling inherited wealth, moving money into the Cayman's, and planning the shift of your work force from Detroit to Sri Lanka is hard work, you know.
If that ain't stereotypical class warfare and jealousy, I don't know what is! You make the assumption that every "rich" person got that way by inheriting daddy's money, then moving it into illegal offshore accounts.
Interesting factiod: The US added more NEW millionaires in the 90's than in any other period in history Source: IRS.gov (new millionaire=a person or family filing a million $ income tax return for the first time)
Why is it sooooo difficult for you to believe that someone could work hard, get an education, seek a good job or start a business, and earn wealth on their own. Based on the whining i've read so far, none of you people are capable of doing so, so you just cry about it.
I know a pair of school teachers who are multimillionaires. they are both 60-something. I've known them 30 years, and during that time, neither one of them had any employment other than schoolteacher in Nashville, TN. All they did to become millionaires was work their asses off.
He bought a lawnmower and started a lawncare business that he ran during the summer. (notice that grass grows from march til november, which means he cut grass WHILE teaching high school full time.) They bought a cheap rental property, fixed it up nights and weekends, eventually sold it. Bought another, did the same. Bought another mower, and put their kid on it.
Eventually, through hard work, smart investment, wise use of their time and skills, and more hard work, they are, by my standards and most, they are wealthy. They ddin't inherit anything, nobody gave them anything that I know of, they just did it.
They recently paid CASH for a 145,000$ motorhome, and now they go visit all those places they wanted to see, but couldn't go see because they were always working.
Why can'y any of you do that? Could it be that you spend way too much time posting in MMFA, whining about your condition?
So those two school teachers, paid with our tax money, getting summers and vacations off so they could work extra jobs, saved enough money to become millionaires.
Wow, that's great.
Thanks for the information. I'm not sure how it relates here, but thanks anyway.
Enough with the Horatio Alger stories. It's this sort of hooey that gets hard working people to vote against their interests, all because they think they'll be rich someday and they want a system geared toward their interests. Here's the rub: few will ever make the nut. Not because they didn't work hard enough, but because Life's like that. Effort doesn't always equal reward. Luck, bad luck and timing factor into it, too. That "smart investment" you brag about just as easily could have been a series of dumb investments, and for no fault of their own. Ask anyone who put money into "smart" stocks like Bear Sterns and AIG. What we are observing cannot be overstated. While that GDP "pie" grew, so did the top 10%'s piece of it, to levels unseen since the 1920s, our last and worst Gilded Age. And when so few have so much, the top heavy economy suffers for it.
Randy
Pinkerton is a hoot. He is seriously wacky. After Obama made his Special Olympics bowling gaffe on The Tonight Show, Pinkerton said that this appearance revealed Obama in his real element: show biz, not government. Almost anyone else would have concluded otherwise, I think.
I take it because it's so easy to become a millionaire, as you say, you are too.
You make it sound as if everyone can be a millionaire, and if you aren't it's your own damned fault. Not only that, but your example is flawed because assuming they taught in public schools, those teachers were paid with taxpayers' money, which today is in short supply for current teachers because the rich are not paying their fair share!
Here's a mental graphic for you: Imagine two wide triangles. One is upside down -- that represents the wealth held in this country relative to the nation's population. The other is right side up -- that's the population of this country in proportion to the wealth it holds, with the richest 1% at the top. Since that shows it's just not possible for everyone to be able to climb to the top, I suppose we ought to just fault those who can't, like you are doing.
I don't presume to speak for all liberals, but I and the ones I know are not opposed to anyone being wealthy. It's about not turning into a greedy, selfish, spoiled a-hole who wants everything their way and doesn't want to pay any taxes. Do you not think the rich have any obligation to give back to the society that enabled that wealth? As a group the rich give a lower percentage of their income to charity than middle-class or poorer people. Plus the disparity that's grown over the past 30 years proves that "trickle down" economics was and is BS -- the rich have kept the vast majority of those gains for themselves.
So it is only fair and right that in these challenging times we should expect the wealthy to pay more in taxes. Will a higher tax rate make the rich less wealthy? By degrees, yes. Will higher taxes take away their wealth? By and large, no.
I thought for a moment that the Pinkerton in the item's headline was the Pinkerton National Detective Agency (which at one point employed more security personnel than was in the entire standing U.S. Army, causing the State of Ohio to outlaw them as being a "private army")...
I figured maybe this was going to be an item about miners and steelworkers and lumberjacks getting their heads cracked open by Pinkerton agents, while trying to organize a union... but I can see that's not at all what or who Pinkerton is in this case, so carry on and disregard this comment please.
I am not sure but I believe the Pinkertons were the beginning of the State Police in Pa. No comparison now, the PA troopers are a good bunch.
I am not sure, but I believe the Pinkertons got their start in the security business under Abe Lincoln.
Not an active link, just like the faux rallys, promoted & sponsored by Faux News and Dick Armey.