Seriously, Fox News? You’re Criticizing Mistakes On MSNBC?

In a stroke of utter dementia, Fox News has published an editorial taking Rachel Maddow of MSNBC to task for a gaffe during a live broadcast. The author of the column is Dan Gainor of the uber-rightist Media Research Center.

Gainor distinguished himself recently by declaring that Arianna Huffington is “the most powerful propagandist since a guy named Goebbels.” He once condemned an imagined conspiracy by George Soros and, in the process, implicated himself. Gainor may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is a tool.

Fox News Faux PasThe problem Gainor has with Maddow concerns a segment on the night of the Iowa caucuses where she read a news item saying that Gov. Gary Johnson, a former GOP candidate for president who has since changed gears to seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination, had abandoned his campaign and decided to throw his support to Ron Paul. As it turns out, that item was a hoax and Maddow quickly corrected the record.

However, this incident has Gainor in such a fever that he composed an editorial castigating Maddow and MSNBC as derelict journalists and he yelps that they “are not newsmen and women. These are Democratic political operatives disguised as TV hosts.” Well, he ought to know. His experience with Fox News is good preparation for recognizing phony journalists. But he never bothers to explain how a botched report about Johnson and Paul is advantageous to Democrats.

Gainor’s umbrage over Maddow’s mistake takes on a surreal hue when compared to the record of incompetence and/or deliberate falsification of the news that is the hallmark of Fox News. Here is just a brief compilation of some their most entertaining blunders:

Inserts picture of Obama instead of Romney.

Poll adds up to 120%.

Posts picture of events in London but says they are in Russia.

Reports that Scooter Libby was NOT guilty.

Reverses the numbers for “favor” and “oppose.”

This is a mere sampling of Fox’s ineptitude. It doesn’t include the many times they have mislabeled Republicans as Democrats, and vice-versa (usually to the detriment of the Democrats). It doesn’t include the affair when Fox was caught reporting a GOP press release as if it were their own news item – complete with the typo that was in the original GOP document. And these examples did not occur in the rush of a live broadcast. They were prepared in advance with plenty of time to review. It got so bad at one point that Fox had to issue a threatening memo to their employees warning them to take greater care or suffer the consequences:

“[E]ffective immediately, Newsroom is going to ‘zero base’ our newscast production. That means we will start by going to air with only the most essential, basic, and manageable elements.”
[…]
“Mistakes by any member of the show team that end up on air may result in immediate disciplinary action against those who played significant roles in the ‘mistake chain,’ and those who supervise them. That may include warning letters to personnel files, suspensions, and other possible actions up to and including termination.”

Needless to say, there haven’t been any consequences. The same bumblers continue to foul up at Fox with impunity. The reason for that it is that it’s difficult to enforce a “zero tolerance” policy if the enforcers can’t count up to zero. Also because many of the alleged mistakes were intentional. Fox deliberately falsifies their broadcasts to advance their political agenda. For more evidence, here’s a collection from Fox Nation that are indisputably lies.

For Gainor to write this article, and for Fox to publish it, just shows how far they will go to deceive their audience. There has never been a “news” enterprise that has so brazenly distorted facts for ideological purposes. And if the best they can do to tarnish the reputation of their competitors is a harmless gaffe that occurred on a live broadcast, it only confirms how pitifully unfit they are to be called a news network.

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2 thoughts on “Seriously, Fox News? You’re Criticizing Mistakes On MSNBC?

  1. I believe it’s called “projection.”

    • Yea, but somehow Projectile Hurling seems more appropriate.

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