Fox has long been a propaganda arm of the right wing fringe. Good entertainment, but no one should mistake it for news, let alone fair and objective.
Mainstream television analysts should have pointed this out, but they lost their balls years ago, and have become entertainment outlets as well. "Saucer boy" was at most a local news event, maybe something that deserved 60 seconds. But wow, were those shots of the saucer flying over Colorado great to capture eyeballs.
Turns out it was a publicity stunt. It worked, too, showing that the nation's media has become so craven that it can be manipulated by a simple wannabe actor looking for a "reality show."
But back to Fox: Aside from Jon Stewart, who is giving Fox the incredulity and scorn it has earned? Even the print media has mostly (read it here) failed to point out the obvious:
Fox is not much more than a smear machine.
And now, like every bully, Fox "news" has become a whiner.
"Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars," Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente said in a statement.
How absurd. Declare "war?" Please, Mr. Clemente, don't flatter yourself. It doesn't take that much effort to point out that Fox is a propaganda organ. Plenty of time left in the day to improve the plight of mankind.
See the innuendo in Clemente's statement? That is a Fox technique. Because it is easy, because it can trick simple minds. Make a statement by asking a question. Never miss an opportunity to show disrespect for the other guy.
Like the venal utterance from Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who thought it "interesting" that swine flu epidemics broke out during Democratic administrations. Like nearly everything out of the weaselly mouth of dim-witted Sarah Palin.
The Fox mission is to scream instead of question, to ask loaded questions, to play games with language and not engage in thoughtful discourse.
Fox is the channel of fear mongers and is used for hate speak. It is more Archie Bunker than Walter Cronkite. Mistaking Fox for news ruins the dialogue in this country over important issues. The Obama administration is right to give it the attention it deserves.
1 comment:
It is a mistake to act as though Faux News is the disease. It is merely a symptom.
MSNBC is as bad as Faux, just from the other end of the political spectrum. CNN has clearly decided to be "more like Faux," which has led to the hiring of Rick Sanchez, the most insufferable ass on cable news (in a highly competitive field).
CNN still has some top flight journalists — Christiane Amanpour, Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper — but when they're gone, they'll be replaced with more Rick Sanchezes and Nancy Grace clones.
They're just giving the people what they apparently want — which is celebrity news, freak-of-the-day reports, dead-horse bludgeoning of local crime stories, half-baked political commentary masquerading as "news."
Two days ago, the top stories on CNN online were Balloon Boy and the Twitter twitter about a picture of Megan McCain's boobs.
This on a day when Sunni insurgents blew up five Iranian Republican Guard officers among 30-some others (I dunno, maybe that's significant?) and the Pakistani Army launched an offensive into South Waziristan, (where Megan McCain's boobs are nowhere to be found but where Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri just might be).
This is part of a continuing trend — people get their "news" from blogs and talk radio (or Comedy Central, which is either sad or ironic, depending on your opinion of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert); they very rarely seek opinions or perspectives that vary from their own preconceptions.
Programing that is actually thoughtful and informative is either publicly-funded (PBS) or it tanks because it can't hold viewers/listeners.
The whole shallow, ADD culture is the problem. Faux News is the smell, not the rot.
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