Fox News’ Steve Doocy was interviewing Mitt Romney and quoted President Obama as saying, “unlike some people, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.” Unfortunately, that’s not what Obama said… While Obama did say, “I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mounth…,” Doocy added on, “unlike some people” while making it seem like a dig at Romney.

Romney took Doocy’s word for it and had this to say in response:

Well, you know, the President is really taking aim at anybody he can find these days. In fact, in my case, I’m certainly not going to apologize for my dad and his success in life. He was born poor. He worked his way to become very successful despite the fact that he didn’t have a college degree. And one of the things he wanted to do was provide for me and for my brother and sisters.

I’m not going to apologize for my dad’s success, but I know the president likes to attack fellow Americans.

The damage wasn’t isolated to Fox News… The Washington Post, New York Post and Ann Coulter all furthered the spread of misinformation…  Since Obama has made similar statements (without “unlike some people”) in the past, there is little reason to believe it was a dig at his opponent, unless you’re paranoid and/or delusional.

White House press secretary Jay Carney addressed the made-up quote:

And I suppose anybody who thinks it was a reference to them might be a little oversensitive, because — unless they think that when President Obama said it three years ago it was in reference to them

Doocy issued the following statement about the misquote:

“Last week, President Obama talked about not being born with a silver spoon in his mouth. That was interpreted as a big dig at Mitt Romney. When I was interviewing Governor Romney on this show, I asked him about it. However, I did some paraphrasing that seemed to misquote the president. So to be clear, the President’s exact quote was ‘I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth.’ And I hope that clears up any confusion.”

Not exactly an apology or even admission of guilt… he doesn’t denounce the interpretation of the actual quote as a dig at Romney – he only claims that his paraphrasing “seemed to misquote the president.” No, Steve, you did misquote the president. You were wrong to do so.

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The Fox Effect

Using leaked internal emails and Roger Ailes’ own writings, including a never-before-seen private letter, there has never been a more compelling summation of Fox’s dangerous and destructive role in our democracy.

Based on the meticulous research of the news watchdog organization Media Matters for America, David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt show how Fox News, under its president Roger Ailes, changed from a right-leaning news network into a partisan advocate for the Republican Party.

“The Fox Effect” follows the career of Ailes from his early work as a television producer and media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush. Consequently, when he was hired in 1996 as the president of Rupert Murdoch’s flagship conservative cable news network, Ailes had little journalism experience, but brought to the job the mindset of a political operative. As Brock and Rabin-Havt demonstrate through numerous examples, Ailes used his extraordinary power and influence to spread a partisan political agenda that is at odds with long-established, widely held standards of fairness and objectivity in news reporting.

Featuring transcripts of leaked audio and memos from Fox News reporters and executives, “The Fox Effect “is a damning indictment of how the network’s news coverage and commentators have biased reporting, drummed up marginal stories, and even consciously manipulated established facts in their efforts to attack the Obama administration.

Click here to get your copy of The Fox Effect!

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Rick Santorum accused Fox News of “shilling” for Mitt Romney during an interview with Fox’s Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday morning.

SANTORUM: The man has had a ten-to-one money advantage

He’s had all the organizational advantage. He has Fox News shilling for him every day — no offense, Brian, but I see it — and yet, he can’t seal the deal because he just doesn’t have the goods to be able to motivate the Republican base and win this election.

Kilmeade defended his network, saying Romney’s campaign team answered interview requests, and that he had tried to get Santorum on his show for at least three and a half months, with no response.

KILMEADE: I’ve just got to take you on Fox News shilling for Mitt Romney, 24 hours a day, I totally disagree with that. You can feel the way you want, I’m just telling you there’s no way I agree with that.

Sure, Santorum may be a bit whiny, and obviously Kilmeade is going to defend his employer and coworkers, but it is definitely noteworthy when a Republican presidential candidate calls a right wing media outlet out for their obvious bias.

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According to a a new poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Fox News viewers know less than those who don’t watch any news.  The poll asked New Jerseyans about current events and confirmed what many consider to be the obvious: “Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News… the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all.”

But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

As for networks informing their audiences, this is where it gets interesting…

Only 55% of New Jerseyans are able to name correctly either Mitt Romney or Herman Cain as the Republican candidates most recently leading in the polls, with 37 % saying that Romney is ahead, and 18% saying that Cain is. Watching Fox News didn’t help or hurt respondents on this question. MSNBC, however, helped: Watching MSNBC was associated with a 10-point increase in identifying Romney as the leader, and a 5-point drop in the likelihood of identifying Cain compared to those who got no exposure to news at all.

“Given the amount of time and effort the media spent covering these candidates, the fact that only about half of the public can name one of the front-runners is embarrassing,” said Cassino. “The fact that Fox News, the preferred media outlet for many of the candidates, doesn’t do better in informing viewers is very surprising.”

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Bill O'Reilly - upset over other news organizations reporting hacking scandal

Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly is clearly upset about the hacking scandal involving parent company, News Corporation, it’s UK counterpart and the big boss, Rupert Murdoch. Unfortunately, in this case, he’s not upset about being employed by an organization that has reportedly been involved in illegal activities.

No, Bill O’Reilly is upset that other media outlets are reporting on it. Imagine that, the media reporting on a major scandal involving hacking of politicians, celebrities, 9/11 victims, police, corruption, arrests, resignations, etc. etc. etc. O’Reilly thinks that’s just “vicious” and “over-hyped.”

O’Reilly was speaking on his Tuesday show to Nile Gardner, a British member of the Heritage Foundation. O’Reilly noted that the scandal was a serious one, and said that any guilty journalists should be prosecuted. But then, he said that the scandal was being over-hyped.

“You have the New York Times absolutely running wild with the story,” he said. “Front page, front page, front page. Column, column, column. Vicious stuff, vicious stuff. And it’s all ideological, is it not?”

Gardner agreed, saying that there was a “witch hunt” against Murdoch and News Corp developing in the United States. He may have been referring to an FBI investigation currently looking into allegations about the phone hacking of 9/11 victims.

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In the following clip, you’ll see Fox & Friends discussion of News of the World, also owned by Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp. At the very least they appear to portray the now defunct news organization as victims. While addressing actual hacking victims, Citicorp, Bank of America & American Express, guest Bob Dilenschneider of the Dilenschneider Group, includes News of the World, the perpetrator of the U.K. phone hacking scandal!

Dilenschneider: Why are so many people piling on at this point? We know it’s a hacking scandal. Shouldn’t we get beyond it and really deal with the issue of hacking? Citicorp has been hacked into. Bank of America has been hacked into. American Express has been hacked into. Insurance companies have been hacked into.?.?. . So we have to figure out a way to deal with this hacking problem. That’s what we have to do.

The following analogy by clockworkdiamond from Reddit puts this into perspective:

Wow, way to spin it to make news of the world out as though they are the same kind of victims as other corporations that got hacked. Lets be clear, this company was not the hacked, but the hacker. They are the criminals, not the victims. This is like saying “sure we were raping people, but rape is a serious thing in this country, so we should focus on that”.

If you can stand it, watch the end and you’ll notice that Steve Doocy mentions the “mainstream media,” of which he must have forgotten they are part of… He states that there are more important topics – Cue Casey Anthony!

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Fox News - Our viewers will believe anything

FoxNewsBoycott.com previously pointed out Bill O’Reilly’s use of propaganda techniques. Now, Dr. Cynthia Boaz at Truthout.org has doubled that list and have provided evidence of the techniques used by Fox News.

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren’t activated, you aren’t alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypass the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don’t think rationally. And when they can’t think rationally, they’ll believe anything.
2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person’s credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. “liberals,” “hippies,” “progressives” etc. This form of argument – if it can be called that – leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.
3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you’re using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It’s often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.
4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin’s mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they’ll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.
5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It’s technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.
6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I’d call a “meta-frame” (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like “show of strength” are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force – it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence – whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment – are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence becomes synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.
7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a “win.”
8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user’s claims veracity in the viewer’s mind.
9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of “the people” and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always “elitist” or a “bureaucrat” or a “government insider” or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused “elitists” are almost always liberals – a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.
10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and “real Americans” (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn’t love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It’s a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.
11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated over and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. “Saddam has WMD.” Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it’s true or if it even makes sense, e.g., “Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States.” If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox’s own slogan of “Fair and Balanced.”
12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. The disdain for education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.
13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here’s how it works: if your cousin’s college roommate’s uncle’s ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev’s niece’s ex-boyfriend’s sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.
14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they’ll talk about wanting to focus on “moving forward,” as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.

 

It’s an amazing, if not depressing, look at our society’s perception of news, politics and each other, manipulated by the marketing machine that is News Corp, parent company of Fox News. Many, if not all, of these techniques can be found employed by those working for any number of Rupert Murdoch’s properties around the world. Additionally, we’ve seen every one of these techniques used by Fox News fanboys defending Fox News, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, etc. Now that this list is being shared, be sure to keep an eye out for these propaganda techniques and be ready to call the fanboys out.

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Before launching Fox News Channel in 1996, FNC President Roger Ailes was a media strategist for Republican Presidents, Nixon, Reagan and H.W. Bush as well as a producer for Rush Limbaugh (see GOP Connections to Fox News page). It should be of little surprise to learn that Ailes would like nothing more than to push GOP propaganda onto Americans via a right-wing TV news channel, like Fox News.

A 300+ page cache of documents obtained by Gawker from the Nixon and Bush presidential libraries includes a memo titled, “A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News.” The 15 page plan includes the opinion that “People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. The thinking is done for you.”

Today television news is watched more often than people read newspapers, than people listen to the radio, than people read or gather any other form of communication. The reason: People are lazy. With television you just sit—watch—listen. The thinking is done for you.

Knowing the differences between news and entertainment programming and the relative difference in rules, the plan was to circumvent the system and get GOP opinions into what they believed to be the “liberal media” and therefore delivered by who they saw as the enemy. Just as Fox News continues to claim to be the opposition to the mainstream media (of which they are part).

This is a plan that places news of importance to localities (Senators and representatives are newsmakers of importance to their localities) on local television news programs while it is still news. It avoids the censorship, the priorities, and the prejudices of network news selectors and disseminators.

The memo included handwritten notes from Roger Ailes, clearly stating his interest in making the plan a reality. Not only that, but using his media consulting experience to suggest changes and address possible repercussions.

Notes written by Roger Ailes in the margin of the memo.

Basically a very good idea. It should be expanded to include other members of the administration such as cabinet involved in activity with regional or local interest. Also could involve GOP governors when in DC. Who would purchase equipment and run operation—White House? RNC? Congressional caucus? Will get some flap about news management.

Ailes wanted in… here’s his note to Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman:

Bob—if you decide to go ahead we would as a production company like to bid on packaging the entire project. I know what has to be done and we could test the feasibility for 90 days without making a commitment beyond that point.

The first version of the plan was to be called “Capitol News Service.” After Roger Ailes was fired by the White House, he was involved with Television News Incorporated (TVN), seemingly the subsequent version. As reported by Rolling Stone, TVN was financed by the President of Coors Brewing Co., Joseph Coors, and “was designed to inject a far-right slant into local news broadcasts by providing news clips that stations could use without credit—and at a fraction of the true costs of production.”

The documents obtained by Gawker include other “dirty tricks” memos. A memo from Roger Ailes to Haldeman involves a scheme to infiltrate a political opponent’s organization – “I would like to see us get one of our people inside the Wallace organization immediately.” There was also evidence of a “news” piece to be directed by Ailes and financed by a pro-Nixon front group that would have used two pro-war Democrats, who he calls “dupes for the administration,” to respond to a CBS News special.

Ailes was working on as a response to an anti-war CBS News special.

As you can clearly see, these examples demonstrate a direct GOP connection between Roger Ailes (American President of Fox News Channel) and a plan to air GOP propaganda on TV, disguised as news, plus other dirty tricks involving media manipulation. “Fair and balanced?” Really?

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Fox News host Sean Hannity aired a special on “liberal media bias” that CNN’s Anderson Cooper claims was edited in a “completely misleading way.”

In the clip from Hannity’s show, Cooper is shown calling the attacks on Joseph Wilson, the former Bush administration ambassador who set off the Valerie Plame scandal, “a victim of a Bush administration smear campaign.” However, as Cooper showed, the clip had begun in the middle of a sentence. Cooper was actually saying that Wilson was claiming to be a victim of a smear campaign, not stating his own personal opinion.

“I try to choose my words very carefully and I don’t like it when someone cuts around them to make it seem like I’m saying something I’m not,” he said, adding that he hoped Hannity did not “knowingly, falsely edit something to make a point. After all, that would be biased.”

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While it’s old news that Fox News is the king of spin and that there were many falsehoods reported by FNC personalities about the health care debate, here is a little proof that came to light recently. Internal memos show Fox News deliberately echoing GOP talking points.

Bill Sammon, Fox News’ controversial Washington managing editor, sent the following memo regarding the use of the phrase “public option.”

From: Sammon, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM
To: 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Subject: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

1)      Please use the term “government-run health insurance” or, when brevity is a concern, “government option,” whenever possible.

2)      When it is necessary to use the term “public option” (which is, after all, firmly ensconced in the nation’s lexicon), use the qualifier “so-called,” as in “the so-called public option.”

3)      Here’s another way to phrase it: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”

4)      When newsmakers and sources use the term “public option” in our stories, there’s not a lot we can do about it, since quotes are of course sacrosanct.

Fox’s senior vice president for news, Michael Clemente sent he following reply, in which he said that he preferred Fox staffers use Sammon’s third phrasing: “The public option, which is the government-run plan.”

From: Clemente, Michael
To: Sammon, Bill; 054 -FNSunday; 169 -SPECIAL REPORT; 069 -Politics; 030 -Root (FoxNews.Com); 036 -FOX.WHU; 050 -Senior Producers; 051 -Producers
Sent: Tue Oct 27 08:45:29 2009
Subject: RE: friendly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the “public option”

Thank you Bill

#3 on your list is the preferred way to say it, write it, use it.

Michael Clemente

SVP-News

212.XXX.XXXX

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You’re probably wondering two things: 1) why is there a post on FoxNewsBoycott.com about Keith Olbermann, and 2) don’t Fox News personalities frequently support conservative candidates? Answering the second question first, absolutely, which answers the first question.

Apparently MSNBC has decided to suspend political commentator (read not journalist) Keith Olbermann indefinitely, without pay. Olbermann donated the maximum amount to three candidates during the midterm election and someone higher up (MSNBC President Phil Griffin) got their panties in a bunch. Granted, journalists should be unbiased, but as with Fox News personalities like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, he’s a commentator known for voicing his opinion. The difference, of course, is that his opinion is, typically, far more liberal than the others mentioned and/or Fox News does not have a similar policy covering this issue.

The following statement was released to Politico:

OLBERMANN: One week ago, on the night of Thursday October 28 2010, after a discussion with a friend about the state of politics in Arizona, I donated $2,400 each to the re-election campaigns of Democratic Representatives Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. I also donated the same amount to the campaign of Democratic Senatorial candidate Jack Conway in Kentucky…I did not privately or publicly encourage anyone else to donate to these campaigns nor to any others in this election or any previous ones, nor have I previously donated to any political campaign at any level.

So, what about Fox News?

Over 30 people on Fox News’ payroll have shown their support of the GOP over 600 times during the midterm elections. Here’s who they are, should Fox News decide to hold their employees up to the same standard that MSNBC did:

• Fred Barnes, Fox News contributor
• Glenn Beck, host of Fox News’ Glenn Beck
• Eric Bolling, host of Fox Business’ Follow the Money
• John Bolton, Fox News contributor
• Tammy Bruce, Fox News contributor
• Elaine Chao, Fox News contributor
• Monica Crowley, Fox News contributor
• Mike Gallagher, Fox News contributor
• Newt Gingrich, Fox News contributor
• Sean Hannity, host of Fox News’ Hannity
• Mike Huckabee, host of Fox News’ Huckabee and Twentieth Television’s The Huckabee Show
• David Hunt, Fox News contributor
• Laura Ingraham, Fox News contributor
• John Kasich, former host and contributor
• Brian Kilmeade, co-host of Fox News’ Fox & Friends and host of Fox News Radio’s Kilmeade & Friends
• William Kristol, Fox News contributor
• Michelle Malkin, Fox News contributor
• KT McFarland, Fox News national security analyst and host of FoxNews.com’s DEFCON 3
• Angela McGlowan, Fox News contributor
• Dennis Miller, Fox News contributor
• Dick Morris, Fox News contributor
• Rupert Murdoch, CEO and chairman of News Corp., parent company of Fox News
• Andrew Napolitano, Fox News senior judicial analyst and host of Fox Business’ Freedom Watch
• Sarah Palin, Fox News contributor and host of Fox News’ Real American Stories
• Dana Perino, Fox News contributor
• Dave Ramsey, listed Fox Business personality and former host of Fox Business’ The Dave Ramsey Show (through June)
• Sandy Rios, Fox News contributor
• Karl Rove, Fox News contributor
• Rick Santorum, Fox News contributor
• Doug Schoen, Fox News contributor
• Andrea Tantaros, Fox News contributor
• Stuart Varney, Fox News contributor and host of Fox Business’ Varney & Co.

Check out Fox News’ GOP Connections here.

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News Corp., Fox News‘ parent company, has recently made an extremely unfair and unbalanced $1,010,450 contribution to the Republican Governors Association (RGA). The next largest contribution was made by the Republican National Committee (RNC).

Typically, when a media company donates to a political group, it donates to both sides, as News Corp. has done in the past. For example, General Electric, which owns NBC, and Time Warner, which owns CNN, have donated comparatively near-equal amounts to both  Republican and Democratic campaigns. News Corp. reportedly has not made any contribution to the Democratic Governors Association.

Nathan Daschle, executive director of the DGA, called it “stunning” that a media company would make such a large, partisan investment in politics. “The people owning Fox News have made a decision that they want to see Democratic governors go down to defeat,” said Daschle. “It’s a jaw-dropping violation of the boundary between the media and corporate realm.”

“‘Fair and Balanced’ has been rendered utterly meaningless,” Hari Sevugan, the DNC’s national press secretary, said in a statement. “Any pretense that may have existed about the ties between Fox News and the Republican Party has been ripped violently away.

“No Republican who appears on Fox can be seen as answering to an independent press and all should appear with a disclaimer for who they truly are – the favored candidate of the corporate-friendly network. No Fox News political coverage can be seen as impartial and all of it should have a disclaimer for what it truly is – partisan propaganda.”

There’s no way Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. could have seen this as being anything but politically biased. Obviously they don’t care.

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Without providing specifics, Fox News President Roger Ailes may have made an admission of guilt about the bias found on Fox News… at least as far as the claims that came from the White House.

ROBINSON: Do you subscribe to the statement of your news host Chris Wallace that the Obama administration is “the biggest bunch,” he said, “the biggest bunch of crybabies” that he’s dealt with in his 30 years in Washington?

AILES: That was his…

ROBINSON: They’re whining over nothing!

AILES: Well, I don’t think they’re whining over nothing and I think they have — look, there’s legitimate complaints that they could have. And I’ve had this dialogue with David Axelrod, who I like very much and, there are legitimate areas. I mean, Chris said that, that’s his words, that’s what he believes, and he had reason to believe that. But I don’t think its helpful to say that.

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Fox News contributor Sarah Palin was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where she had some rather entertaining things to say… And it was not the somewhat intelligent entertainment one would hope for from a Vice Presidential candidate, but rather what you would expect from Palin: a tsunami of BS.

PALIN: I studied journalism, my college degree there in communications. And now I am back there wanting to build some trust back in our media. I think the mainstream media is quite broken and I think there needs to be the fairness, the balance in there — that’s why I joined Fox. Fair and balanced, yes. You know because, Jay, those years a go that I studied journalism it was all about the who, what, when, where, and why, it was not so much the opinion interjected in hard news stories. … As long as there is not the opinion under the guise of hard news stories — I think there needs to be clear differentiation.

Not only does she ignore the fact that Fox News Channel is part of the mainstream media, but she ignores all of the evidence that clearly shows that Fox News’ opinions bleed over to their “news” segments… Unless she was talking about FNC being “quite broken.”

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For all those who like to respond to criticism of Fox News Channel commentators such as Glenn Beck, with the idea that there are, essentially, two Fox Newses – the “news” and the “opinion” shows – Media Matters for America has put together the following list. It shows the numerous times Fox News host Chris Wallace (a news guy) parrots Glenn Beck (a commentator).

• Wallace echoes Beck in airing Untouchables clip, referring to the Obama administration’s “Chicago way.”
• Wallace followed Beck’s lead in mainstreaming O’Keefe’s ACORN videos.
• Wallace and Beck repeat bogus claim that U.S. Chamber of Commerce “represents 3 million businesses.”
• Wallace’s “death book” smears followed Beck’s “death panels” smears.
• Wallace echoed Beck in asking if prosecution of Bush admin. will lead U.S. toward “what we’ve had in banana republics?”
• Beck and Wallace have both advanced the meme of Obama as an “apologist.”
• Beck and Wallace use fictional character “Jack Bauer” in defense of torture.

Keep in mind, that was one host and one commentator.

More examples can be found here:

http://foxnewsboycott.com/fox-news/fox-news-vs-fox-news-commentators/

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