REPORT: Fox Promotes Birther Myth In At Least 52 Segments
Following potential Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's embrace of theories regarding President Obama's birthplace, Fox News has significantly ramped up its coverage of birther conspiracies. A Media Matters review of Fox News' opinion programs found that in recent weeks, the network devoted nearly two hours and 20 minutes to the issue, and in the vast majority of the cases, the hosts either espoused birther conspiracies or did not challenge or correct false claims about Obama's birth that aired on their shows. By contrast, when possible GOP presidential candidate and Fox News host Mike Huckabee similarly questioned -- but subsequently walked back -- Obama's origins, Fox devoted just over five minutes of coverage to Huckabee's false claim that Obama was raised in Kenya.
In Recent Weeks, Fox Has Dramatically Increased Its Coverage Of The Birther Conspiracy
As indicated below, in recent weeks, Fox News has significantly increased its coverage of those who falsely claim that President Obama may have been born outside of the United States. In fact, Obama was born in Hawaii -- a fact that has been repeatedly confirmed by official records and Hawaii Department of Health officials. As Media Matters has noted, several Fox News figures have embraced the birther conspiracy theory, while others have repeatedly failed to debunk false claims about Obama's birth. So widespread was Fox's coverage of Trump's embrace of birtherism that some Fox News hosts reported on and joked about the birther conspiracy theory in segments not relating to Trump.
For more information about Fox's embrace of the birther conspiracy, SEE HERE.
At Least 84% Of False Claims About Obama's Birth Went Unchallenged
Many of the segments discussing Obama's birth certificate included several falsehoods, such as claims that Obama has never produced a birth certificate; that Obama's grandmother claimed he was born in Kenya; and that Obama spent $2 million in legal funds blocking the release of his birth certificate. In those segments, Media Matters found that the vast majority of the time -- 44 out of 52 total segments in which a false claim was made about Obama's birth certificate -- Fox News hosts did not push back and correct these falsehoods.
For more information on falsehoods surrounding Obama's place of birth, SEE HERE.
Fox Follows GOP Candidates' Leads On Covering Questions About Obama's Origins
By contrast, on February 28, Huckabee repeatedly falsely claimed that Obama grew up "in Kenya." Unlike Trump, Huckabee immediately backtracked once audio of his comments was widely highlighted by the media. Similar to its coverage and embrace of Trump's birtherism, in this case, Fox News followed Huckabee's lead and devoted very little coverage to Huckabee's comments: a total of five minutes and 17 seconds, versus the nearly two hours and 20 minutes it spent covering Obama's birth certificate.
For more information on Huckabee's comments on Obama being raised in Kenya, SEE HERE.
Methodology:
Media Matters searched Fox News Network transcripts in the Nexis database for "(Birth w/10 certificat!) or Kenya! or Hawai! or Eligibil!" from February 21, 2011, to April 21, 2011. In addition, Media Matters reviewed archived video footage of all Fox & Friends programming, including weekend broadcasts, for the same time period. For purposes of this study, Media Matters only reviewed Fox News' opinion programming, which included the following shows: Fox & Friends, Fox & Friends Saturday, Fox & Friends Sunday, Justice with Judge Jeanine, The O'Reilly Factor, Hannity, On the Record with Greta van Susteren, Glenn Beck, Huckabee, and Your World with Neil Cavuto.
If during the segment either a guest, host, or video clip was aired in which a false claim was made about President Obama's birth certificate, this segment was evaluated to determine whether or not the host debunked the false claim. If the claim was left to stand unchallenged or if the host him or herself was the one making the claim, Media Matters logged this response as "no" pushback. If the claim was corrected by the host, Media Matters recorded this as "yes" to the question of whether the host debunked the falsehood. If several false claims were made in the same segment and the host debunked some but not all of the false claims, this was labeled as "partial."
Already have. See:
link
See borderraven's lunacy, in which he claims Obama is not natural born because of his father and some obscure reasoning, not backed up by any court cases.
More of the suttle racism the PudBasggers are so good at nd the base loves so much.
The kind of racist nonsense like when Rancid Ronnie annouanced his canadancy for Prez from Philadelphia, MS. Those who were paying attention knew how Rancid Ron was telling the Southern Racists that he was really one on them.
The coverup there involves his papers on Marxism. It is well-known that Obama's family had a long history of anti-Western, pro-communist philosophy. It is a legitimate inquiry, and should have been included in the media's vetting process to learn more about Obama's background. I could care less what grades he had or why he was accepted into Harvard. And it absolutely has nothing to do with race, so keep on race-baiting, race-baiters...
That being said, I'm glad Obama finally got around to releasing his true birth certificate. Win for him.
It's also a win for Trump....he's the one that got the ball rolling again, and he's the one that has every right to take most of the credit. He never accused Obama outright of being born outside the US. The only thing Trump basically lied about was when he said his investigators have found "astounding things"...
Right. Keep up the silliness, and our guy's a shoe in in 2011. And it sure is a win for Trump, to be proven absolutely wrong on something, and get caught lying at the same time, such as the "astounding things" you trumpet.
Wow. The level of mental illness it must take to post such a thing and feel good about it.
Really? So when YOU refer to "Obama's family" are you including Barack Obama's father, the man who left Obama's life when he was 2 years old? Or are these the people YOU claim "had a long history of anti-Western, pro-communist philosophy"?
Ann Dunham - Mother of Barack Obama born in 1942, died in 1995. Born Stanley Ann Dunham, she was an American anthropologist who specialized in economic anthropology and rural development. She earned her Ph.D from the University of Hawaii and worked with the United States Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation, and Women's World Banking, championing microcredit for the world’s poor.
Stanley Armour Dunham - is the grandfather of Barack Obama. He was born in 1918 and served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II, enlisting just after the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Stanley and his wife Madelyn raised Obama in Honolulu, Hawaii. In addition to Obama, Stanley is related to six US presidents: James Madison, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. He died in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1992, and is buried at the Punchbowl National Cemetery.
Madelyn Lee Payne Dunham - Barack Obama's maternal grandmother was born in 1922 and died on November 2, 2008. She was a bank vice president in Hawaii. Obama said that when he was a child, his grandmother "read me the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and told me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something." According to Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father, his great-grandmother Leona McCurry was part Native American, which Obama believed Leona held as a "source of considerable shame" and "blanched whenever someone mentioned the subject and hoped to carry the secret to her grave"; whereas McCurry's daughter (Obama's maternal grandmother) "would turn her head in profile to show off her beaked nose, which along with a pair of jet-black eyes, was offered as proof of Cherokee blood." To date, no concrete evidence has surfaced of Cherokee heritage. Obama's maternal heritage consists mostly of English ancestry, with much smaller amounts of German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, and French ancestry.
I'll give you an "A" for effort and an "F" on the FACTS!
April 25, 2011 - "Well I've been told very recently, Anderson, that the birth certificate is missing," Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper Monday. "I've been told that it's not there or it doesn't exist. And if that's the case it's a big problem."Trump claims Obama birth certificate 'missing'...
March 30, 2011 - "I have a birth certificate. People have birth certificates. He doesn't have a birth certificate. He may have one but there is something on that birth certificate -- maybe religion, maybe it says he's a Muslim, I don't know. Maybe he doesn't want that. Or, he may not have one."
"I grew up with Wall Street geniuses. What they do in terms of fraud, and how they change documents -- and I'll tell you something, if you notice, those dates were three days later. And here's what I ask people -- who puts announcements? Two poor people, a man and a woman with no money, they have a baby. There's announcements in the newspaper? Nelson Rockefeller doesn't put announcements in. I've never seen one."
TRUMP: Maybe Obama's Missing Birth Certificate Says He's A Muslim...
Trump just lost ANY chance of EVER winning the presidency. In fact he may not keep his show and if he does, right-wing loonies will be forced to watch NBC, because no on else will.
So he may "win" with Republicans, but 50% of those nuts also believed President Obama wasn't born in this country or is a Muslim or a secret terrorist, so "winning" that group isn't saying much.
Good question but:
They probably don't even have to move on. That is how stupid their audience is. They may ask: Why did they wait so long? Or they may suggest that the long form certificate could be forged. Evidence? They don't need no stinkin' evidence. And of course there will be more to come when someone at Fox reads Jerome 'Swiftboat' Corsi's new book Where's the Birth Certificate?. Actually the folks at Fox will probably hire someone to read Corsi's book and reduce it to a list of lame talking points. I don't think they have the intellectual capacity to think in complete sentences.
If this controversy was helping him, why did he acquiesce?
Makes no sense, and neither does Jay Carney's announced reason, that this was becoming a distraction. It was a distraction a long time ago.
Ding, ding! Right on cue, exactly as Purple State said above, in speculating that the birthers would then say "If he had it all along, what took him so long?" Good job, hoosier! You didn't let us down!
Remember: the birthers have stated that if Obama just released the long form, they would be satisfied. Now watch them move the goal posts.
They are birthers for life. They are the partisan marks that keep playing three card monte long after everyone else has figured out it's rigged.
Obama didn't "wait so long" to provide that to us. But what he did do was eventually submit an FOIA request to get a copy of his original birth certificate made that he could release. But that's not a "certified copy" - it's simply a photocopy of the original.
In Hawaii, if you want to get proof of where you were born, birth name, birth date, etc, to prove your identity and citizenship status, you have one option - the certified copy that Obama provided us 3 years ago.
In any common usage of the term, that was Obama's birth certificate.
That should have been enough. Trump had revived what had stopped being a distraction - so Obama submitted the FOIA request to stop the latest iteration of the distraction!
You will never be happy about a thing, hoosier. You will never be content about politics. Since this seems to be the case, here's a thought: why even follow it at all? Anything they do will not please you. It will just raise your blood pressure until you start to realize just how important Medicare is.
No, before now it was a pet gripe on the internet of a bunch of idiots, liars and kooks. It received only a few widely scattered mentions in primary media outlets, usually disdainful of the kooks. It was only recently that it gained more national traction with Trump's whining and lying and the national media coverage it was getting on a daily basis. It was getting more coverage than it has ever deserved.
Transparency is a good thing.
You shouldn't fear it.
It makes us a better country.
You own Ben Dimiero an apology.
Your words. Your quote.
But then, you certainly own these words, yes?
So, you owe Ben Dimiero an apology.
What he was doing was engaging in sabotage. Which I guess is in keeping with MMfA's new mission statment- an all-out war to sabotage Fox News, as described by one David Brock.
And here we see you using the very same technique. Now, while it's true that you're certain not a professional writer and should not be held to such standards, you are, in fact, expressing your opinion in the very same manner--something you clearly suggested should not be done.
So, that makes you a hypocrite.
Yap away, Scrappy! Yap! Yap! Yap!
You're reaching, Midnight.
And failing.
Appreciate your earnestness, though.
Have you considered applying for a job at MMfA as an Assistant Research Drone Fellow?
And you did criticize the use of a full sentence, in quotes, to express sarcasm--y'know after the whole, "show me the actual quote," rant.
So, the BS, the hypocrisy. It's all yours. You own it.
And now you'll follow up with your apology to Mr. Dimiero, yes? You've been demanding apologies from others, and given how much you've been asking many of us about our principles, well, here's an opportunity for you to display your own.
Or are there stipulations to your principles?
Maybe you can explain the concept of liberal nuance to me, mm-kay?
Let's try this one more time and perhaps a little easier to understand:
Please choose one.
You're kinda projecting based on what you think anyone not an Obamabot thinks, on to me.
Why in the world would you consider it a game to tell me whether or not you still believed in transparency.
You seem to be afraid of the truth.
I can't imagine why that is.
Thanks as always, congero, for pointing out something to these morons that they just don't want to hear. They will of course flail about and claim that the Secret Service was in on the whole conspiracy. But if that's the case, that means this conspiracy is all George W.'s fault, cause, lest we forget, Obama was vetted during Bush's presidency, not his own.
Obama was vetted by BUSH'S SECRET SERVICE - a fact that should've ended all this nonsense back in 2008. And the fact that it hasn't just points out how much these 'Birthers' are basically just lying, racist scum, plain and simple
False.
Try again, hoopvillain.
Where did you read that, btw? Can you show proof of that claim?
Show us where any American citizen has been asked to put up with this manner of nonsense. Records asked for. Records provided. Records certified by government officials. Records challenged in court. Court cases dropped. Forgery accusations made. Forgery accusations proven false. Forgeries offered as "proof" and then exposed to be forgeries. Conspiracy theories offered. Conspiracy theories completely debunked. More conspiracy theories offered. More conspiracy theories debunked. Creative definitions of who can and cannot be considered a "natural born citizen" that cannot be found in the texts of the Constitution or any Federal, state, or local law.
Who has been asked to face anything remotely close to what Obama has faced on this particular matter?
And, of course, it's not going to stop. We'll be hearing the same old nonsense wrapped in new "arguments" now.
You needed to know if Bush had strings pulled to get into the National Guard after he had been president for 4 years during a time of war because why?
Those records have been scrubbed and it's obvious.
Not at all the same as the birth certificate thing, which is just totally a false meme on the part of the birthers.
Did Bush release his or were they leaked?
Stop.
What have you learned that's new on the long form?
Now...how about standing with us and asking that Trump discloses his tax records now? Transparency.
Or hoosier paraphrased: These baseless, racist attacks made by a rich and famous, but hardly serious political player are being given lots of media airtime so I'm okay with it because I think it helps my party.
Now the wackos will question that!
The whackiness will no doubt continue. Conspiracy nuts NEVER let facts get in the way of their "theory".
The whackiness will no doubt continue. Conspiracy nuts NEVER let facts get in the way of their "theory".
In Recent Weeks, THE ENTIRE MEDIA Has Dramatically Increased Its Coverage Of The Birther Conspiracy ..
That is as intentional as their breathless coverage of Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen, or the Royal Wedding. Anything worthless they will cover endlessly.
And Fox Matters For America once again didn't notice.
John
And really, that is the whole point...FOX 'promote' its so called news...it does not 'cover' it.
No,
By endlessly covering a non-issue they are in fact promoting it and Donald Trump in the process.
John
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110427/ts_yblog_theticket/white-house-releases-obama-birth-certificate
The president had released his certificate of live birth in 2008, but many "birthers" said the absence of a long form birth certificate prompted questions about Obama's birthplace of Hawaii. In recent weeks potential GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has brought birther questions into the forefront of the media.
Really,
Donald Trump has brought birther questions into the forefront of the media?
This is like their never ending statement that goes on year after year:
"The Republicans seem to be doing a better job of getting their message across than the Democrats".
What the media maintains (for a mentally challenged American audience) is that they have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the news cycle.
John
I get where you are coming from, but let's try to understand that the level of crazy has changed. The game has changed. The media isn't even talking about the issues anymore. MediaMatters is doing the best they can to adapt to this new degradation of American Media.
The election of President Obama signaled a new era. We are in uncharted waters now, and it's a massive chore just to keep up with all the big blatant lies, let alone all the nuance.
Cut them some slack.
They always devoted time to the Far Right and Fox News, but they have sold their souls for access to the other networks that are now using them to boost their ratings over Fox News and helping them to promote the "liberal media" myth.
Read all the articles here on every last thing someone at Fox News said and tell me honestly if they can't cover the lies and distortions perpetrated by CNN, CBS, NBC, and ABC every day that are aimed at those who determine every election - swing voting Independents.
John
Why does every last stupid thing Glenn Beck says still matter? Someone tell Fox Matters for America that Beck is leaving !
John
If you took the time to actually read, you will notice in your link my response to that same article you linked.
John
You knew that they (MMfA) do cover others. I may be reading you too literally or something, please clarify.
You knew that they (MMfA) do cover others. I may be reading you too literally or something, please clarify.
You have to really search hard for the other coverage these days. It's almost all Fox News and anything they say. I have been here a long time. The mainstream media has not changed. MMFA has. Listen to any White House Press Briefing on C-Span and it is apparent what they are up to.
Click on any of the dates preceding Obama and see for yourself.
http://web.archive.org/*/http://mediamatters.org
John
Which without question bestows upon him the title of "King of Fools".
In other words, he's bragging that his silly and misguided attempt to win over the most racist and ignorant Americans was just proven more silly and misguided then before.
Kudos Donald! You have proven that you are self delusional as well as a racist and publicity whore.
"There is no way I believe this now after 3 or 4 years. This gave them all the time they needed to further set up this Obama FRAUD.
Posted By: FAKE. They have had YEARS to FAKE IT NOW." | April 27, 2011 at 09:15 AM
"The PDF file shows a certified copy. Why not show the actual birth certificate?"
Posted By: Howard | April 27, 2011 at 09:28 AM
Honestly.... there are those that will hang on to any shred they can.
Why didn't Obama just release it a long time ago? He obviously could have.
This should've closed the case except for racist and those upset that Obama won.
Born in the U.S.A.
August 21, 2008
Updated: November 1, 2008
The truth about Obama's birth certificate.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/born_in_the_usa.html
The funny part is that they are willing to advertise it. Et tu?
Which never got covered like Fox covered this.
>>Why didn't Obama just release it a long time ago? He obviously could have.
Nice way to move the goal posts. Why not admit the birthers were wrong all along? Our side stated all along the obvious, that Obama was born in Honolulu. The birthers were wrong; admit it.
Because he NEVER should have been asked for his birth certificate in the first damn place!!!
This ENITRE birther ride was created by Republicans who wanted to destroy Barack Obama. It was no different than the campaign they ran against popular Bill Clinton, except this time race was involved.
So they set out to portray President Obama as a suspicious looking brown man, with a funny non-American sounding name, who doesn't wear a flag pen, or place his hand over his heart, and OMG he hates American and is really a closet Muslim.
Republicans wanted people to question everything about President Obama. And 50% of the Republican party was stupid enough to buy the campaign, hook line and sinker.
Why didn't he release it long ago?
It was way too much fun watching Trump go from requesting the birth certificate to hiring investigators, to the birth certificate is missing, to Trump will be making an important announcement real soon freak show. And the cherry on top of the sundae was that same Trump freak show leads the 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls.
I think he ended the Republican freak show party was way too soon. If he had waited a couple more months, Herman Cain would have become the big African king with the really, really small head.
Might want to ask Hillary Clinton about that.
Big, fat, blatant, false equivalence!!!
The 9/11 truthers were never given a serious media platform, unless you count Charlie Sheen and Rosie O'Donell....and that would be admitting you take Charlie Sheen and Rosie O'Donell seriously.
9/11 truthers were comprised of a few liberal "Bush haters", and an even larger number of right wing "government haters".
Get real man, just because one group of nutters attempt to discredit Bush over one thing, does not make it "okay" for another group of nutters to discredit Obama over something as well.
That's just grasping.
"4 years of "dithering". When will he unseal his grades and papers?"
Posted By: Toxic Avenger | April 27, 2011 at 09:32 AM
Lets spend 4 years on that wacko conspiracy.
"Take the time to view the PDF at 800% magnification. Observe how the last digit of the file number has been changed. Try scrolling the file...you'll quickly see that it's a digital forgery.
There is no BIRTH CERTIFICATE. Barrys' biological father was Frank Marshall Davis."
newdebate 19 minutes ago
I knew they'd never be satisfied. We'll be hearing this birther crap till Obama leaves office. And probably many years after that.
"a certificate of live birth is completely different than a birth certificate, doesn't prove anything, just bulls***."
biocybernaut 15 minutes ago
* Intentionally bleeped out of respect for the site.
With the birther conspiracy being put to rest for all but the most fringe-crazies who are either going to vote republican or for a posthumous Leon Skousen, Fox news now announces that although President Obama was born in Hawaii, he is actually a reptilian humanoid in human skin. We'll have Donald Trump, Andrew Napolitano, Dick Morris, and Sarah Palin on later to discuss who hates reptilian humanoids more.
NONE, they are not interested in seeing the light.
Then again, they'll claim that the United States is actually Mexico if that's what it comes down to in order to persist in their racist anti-Obama fantasies.
/snark off
Now that we have seen the document will there be news coverage of Donny being a liar? Will we have congressional investigations into a potential candidate for president being a liar or will Donny say that he was lied to by his investigator?
Come on Fox news give us the "unbiased" truth that we need and only you can give us.
Of course we knew they'd jump right in with claims it's a fraud.. and they are! all over the internet! check out smoking gun, free republic, etc.. it is insane!
Yea, I checked out the free republic stupidity. Really hilarious the way they are screaming "forgery!" I love to see the right implode like that. There were only a few posters on dumb republic who expressed exasperation at his fellow lunatics, pointing out how crazy it made the whole right seem.
On that note, it may not be politically bad that the fringe keeps this alive. It could split the Repubs.
God I love their manipulative inept reporting over there on details ... along with their endless poorly proof-read artilces.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/cable-news-coverage-of-the-birther-issue-msnbc-most-cnn-and-fox-least/
Mediabistro AND Mediaite both reported that MSNBC has given far more coverage to the birther issue, followed by CNN, with FOX a very distant third!
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/which-cable-network-spent-the-most-coverage-on-birthers_b63709#more-63709
As the Project for Excellence in Journalism notes, the “birther” issue only took up about 4% of the newshole, compared to nearly 40% ion the economy. Of course that includes newspapers and magazines. Cable news often covers different stories than their colleagues in print journalism.
Pew took a look at the numbers to determine how much time was dedicated to the issue on cable news last week:
The cable news channel dedicating the most time to the birth certificate was MSNBC, which dedicated about 10% of its airtime to Obama, much of it birth certificate related.
CNN dedicated 5% of its airtime to Obama, nearly all of it dedicated to the claims.
Fox News dedicated around 5% of its coverage to Obama, only a small percentage of it dedicated to the issue.
PEJ also found that MSNBC spent the most time talking politics, totaling 28% of coverage, followed by FNC at 16%, and CNN at 11%.
"As PEJ notes, MSNBC was unlikely to be promoting the nonsense surrounding Obama’s birth, and may in fact have been debunking it. Nonetheless, those segments would have counted toward cable news coverage of the issue. Either way, coverage of “birthers” took up far less airtime than other, more substantive issues like the economy."
Whether MSNBC tried to debunk the issue, or not, they were inciting and fanning the flames. Their coverage was constant. As the report states, FOX had the very least coverage of the three stations.
Let me make one thing clear....From the very beginning I said if there was an issue with Obama's birth certificate, the Clinton machine would have uncovered it during the primary!