Posts Tagged ‘Fox News’

In an effort to win over the hearts and minds of the average Fox News viewer, President Obama agreed to do an interview with Bret Baier. What followed has now become somewhat of a controversy and also a shining example of everything that is wrong with Fox. By the count of the good folks over at Raw Replay, Bret interrupted Obama sixteen times. Watch the video for yourself.

Now I tend to agree Chris Hayes of The Nation; I like it when journalists really sink their claws into an interviewee. Those in power must be questioned. That’s a given. And while confrontational, Mike Wallace was infamous for his “going for the jugular” style of interviewing. The problem is, of course, Bret Baier is decidedly not Mike Wallace. As pointed out by Think Progress, Baier’s interveiwing posture differs greatly when he’s dealing with a Republican president. Who led us into war under false pretenses. Took a huge national surplus and plunged into into a huge national debt. Violated the Constitution …ah, you get my point.

Baier is clearly motivated by right-wing politics. That would be okay if he, or anyone else at Fox News, would simply admit it. Fox News was and always will be a channel of propaganda. They have an agenda and they have zero qualms about forcing it down the throats of the American people. They practically revel in it. And the Orwellian doublethink they employ that justifies their actions by stating they’re only being the answer to a liberal media, and then subsequently denying any bias in their vast content is just mind-blowing. Scarier are the millions of viewers who believe it every last word.

To illustrate my point further, allow me to remind you of how Fox News treated Katie Couric’s interview or even Charlie Rose’s interview of Sarah Palin. You know, the one where she was unable to answer simple questions about how government works, the horrific policies of George W. Bush that she supported but couldn’t actually explain, or simply what magazines she read? The wingnuts out there thought that Couric and rose were being unfair. Yet I’m willing to bet they’re frothing at the mouth that anyone would dare question Baier’s constant rude interruptions of a sitting US President. I look forward to a similar treatment of Dick Cheney, but I think I’ll be ultimately disappointed. As usual.

I realize that this is bit of old news, but in case you missed it, former half-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin has been hired by Fox News as a paid consultant. This should come as a shock to absolutely no one as there are few places a bat-shit crazy right-wing ego the size of Alaska could find a job. Indeed, most of what this woman is quoted as saying stem from comments that are so stupid that most educated people stand in awe at how perfectly idiotic she is. But considering Fox News’ track record of taking in such wayward pariahs and allowing them to make incredibly stupid remarks in the name of ratings gold, it’s a match made in heaven.

But then I stop and think that Fox News has the lion’s share of network news ratings. And I see people clutching copies of that moron’s book like it’s a lost chapter of the Bible. “The Book of Rogue”. And I’m frightened that more than a few people actually think this woman is in any way sincere in her beliefs.

I guess I’m saying that Fox isn’t a surprise, but the collective intellgence on the right is going to dive sharply. Gretchen Carlson is one thing, but this is something akin to mixing that clueless imbecile with the twisted populist nutbagginess of Glenn Beck. And I’m left to wonder if she’ll be tempted more by the power promised by a potential Presidency in 2012, or by the millions and millions of dollars she’ll get from the Murdoch Empire.

Either option makes me want to vomit. People like Palin cheapen the political discourse into partisan sniping, of which I am perfectly aware that I’m a participant. But the difference I see is that I’m not paid to do this. And the fact that she is and is not held accountable to that is infuriating.

A while back Time.com ran an online poll which asked: “Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America’s most trusted newscaster?” The very limited choices were Brian Williams of NBC, Katie Couric of CBS, Charile Rose of ABC and, for some reason, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show. The results, which really weren’t that big of a shock to anyone who watches TDS, clearly showed Jon Stewart was the man people felt they could trust the most. Jon, to his credit, has brought little attention to this poll and will always claim to be comedian above all else.

But what Jon must be aware of is that, regardless of his self-deprecating humor about his role in the media, he is looked upon with a considerable sense professional respect not only from his peers in the entertainment industry, but also his pseudo-peers in broadcast media. That’s why Fox tried (and failed miserably) to launch their own version of a political humor show. But I don’t think they understand exactly why it failed. They already have shows like The Daily Show for their base viewers — it’s their regular evening shows.

Let me explain, and then I’ll have Jon demonstrate it.

Fox News’ Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch know exactly how to appeal to folks when it comes to news. They’re very much aware of the simple fact that shock sells. And they saw a hole in the market that (apparently) needed to be filled: Right-Wing Television Broadcasting. But what one must remember when watching Fox News is that they are geared for entertainment first and news a distant second (if not third behind showcasing the latest right-wing darling). And they know that they have a niche to fill and a base to pander. So you’re not going to find a liberal talk show on Fox News at any point. It’s a small miracle that Shep Smith is still allowed to anchor there considering his repeat offenses against the GOP’s clear daily talking points, but I maintain that they keep him to maintain their fallacy of balanced coverage.

What really brings their formula into focus, and clearly demonstrates they have no need for a right-wing Daily Show, is their latest hit factory, Glenn Beck. Beck is the byproduct of Murdoch/Ailes and Rush Limbaugh: He reports the current events, parrots a clear right-wing agenda and borderline psychopathic partisanship, and misses not one step when he states that he is “a clown” or one that should be taken too seriously when he, you know, calls the President of the United States a racist. He’s the perfect right-wing machine. But remember: It’s all a show. It’s to be taken no more seriously than the sideshow at the carnival with the guy who sticks rods through his tongue.

The problem, and I think Jon would agree with me, is that when you have a multi-million-strong viewership, the lines of pure journalism get lost in the sensationalism. Or in Jon’s case, the humor. And that is by design. But what continually gets me, and it’s no doubt what gets most of his viewers, is that his humorous commentary is sometimes to caustic that one wonders where the hell the rest of the media is in reporting this nonsense.

The sad fact is that the vast majority of Americans know little about current events. And it’s this packaging of news into shiny, chryon-laden boxes, with little regard to accuracy, that most Americans have come to depend on. And when Fox News’ spokeman publicly blasts the Obama Administration for allegedly not knowing the difference between opinion shows and new shows, it’s more of a reflection that they’re very much aware that neither can 95% of their audience. And that’s why they thrive and why they’re never going to change it.

But now I present you with a clip from last night’s TDS, wherein Jon makes it clear that Fox is without question a highly biased news source.

The recent hullabaloo over the White House calling out Fox News has been entertaining for most, I would hope. Anita Dunn stated that Fox is like “a wing of the Republican Party”. Not to let a ratings cash cow go, Fox immediately let loose their insatiable pack of dogs upon the White House, all screaming about how unfair it was.

Now you have opinion columnists crawling all over each other, most of them making the argument that the White House is being “small and petty” for “pick[ing] such a silly fight.” Granted. However it wasn’t a fight until Fox made a stink about something that is, by and large, accepted as truth for anyone who has tuned in to Fox News. The rest of the media lined up right behind Fox, because they’re apparently used to that perspective on coverage judging by the ratings, and sounds eerily like they’re defending Fox News. Keep in mind that no one appears to be arguing that Fox isn’t a wing of the Republican Party because it clearly is. They are all but unapologetic for their heavily right-wing slanted coverage.

Another item of note is the lack of appearances by the last administration on MSNBC or CNN. There was no wall to wall coverage of that media snubbing, and it happened fairly regularly. Bush and Cheney wouldn’t be caught dead answering actual questions. Hell, Bush couldn’t even hold a town hall without handpicking the people who attended.

But that Obama has such thin skin. Apparently he can’t “take the heat”. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see a doctor about my eyes rolling so far into my head they need to be surgically corrected.

I give Fox News a great deal of grief and I find much of it completely justified. But it’s due to that very fact that I will go out of my way to give some props to Shep Smith. Over the past few years he’s let slip that he’s a conscientious commentator who isn’t interested in selling the Murdoch line of right-wing talking points so much as he is in trying to keep things on a sane level. I think my first indication that he wasn’t knee-deep in the Kool-Aid was the coverage of Hurricane Katrina. “This IS context!”

But he’s a Fox News commentator. I try to keep him at arm’s length because I firmly believe that channel to be the root of all evil as it deals with the social fabric of this nation. But every so often, as in the case where he let the F-bomb fly on live TV (”We do not fucking torture!“), he’ll let it be known that he’s a human being. And you can’t beat Shep’s unabashed mockery of Glenn Beck’s histrionics as true comedy. Here’s the latest example, where he takes a viewer’s email and hoists it up as the example of true idiocy.

It used to be that the only way I could truly respect Shep was if he ever left Fox News. After all, being the only sane guard in the lunatic asylum is guaranteed to ultimately call one’s judgment into question. But as I look at it now, I want Shep at Fox News — I need him at Fox News. If they ever want to have an air of credibility as even a political commentary network, let alone a news network, they need folks like Shep in place to keep them from completely abandoning all hope for unbiased coverage of anything.

So Shep finally earned me as a fan. Now if they could just oust Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, Hume, Doocy, Kilmeade, and the dozen or so brainless bimbo blonde commentators who actually believe guys are not watching them for their looks, Fox might actually have a balanced broadcast. Until then I hope Shep sticks around for quite some time.