Month: January 2011

Fox News Pollster Spills The Truth About Fox News

Posted by on January 31, 2011 at 11:11 pm. 5 Comments :

Frank Luntz is a fixture on Fox News. His polling and focus groups are regularly featured on the network and, by some weird coincidence, always seem to reflect poorly on President Obama and Democratic policies.

Luntz was called upon again to survey opinions of the President’s State of the Union speech. What he delivered was a shamelessly partisan spectacle that was tainted further by his leading questions and open bias. James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times noted how Luntz slyly planted impressions in the minds of his panelists. But there was something even more surprising in what Rainey learned from Luntz when asked about his misrepresentations:

“Luntz defends himself by saying that he has conducted focus groups before that favored Obama, including during the 2008 campaign. He has suggested that his airtime has previously been cut on Fox because his findings didn’t comport with the outlet’s orthodoxy.”

So there you have it, straight from the mouth of Fox’s golden boy political analyst. Even if you’re a favorite son in the Fox family, if you do not deliver the prescribed dosage of rightist rhetoric you will be punished, even exiled, by the network magistrates.

The obvious result of this is evident every day on Fox News. The network broadcasts a lock-step conservative version of current events because anything that diverts from their philosophy is excised before it can get on the air.

But there is a less obvious problem that results from this ideological intolerance. If you are, say, an ambitious pundit who wants to see his work receive recognition, and also wants the remuneration that goes with it, you might just be inclined shape your analyses to comply with the criteria handed down to you by your big media patrons.

So whether you are a pollster, a columnist, an academic, or even a politician, you know exactly what you have to say to get on Fox News. How many of their contributors and guests gleefully adjust their opinions in order to get more airtime? Thanks to Frank Luntz we know of at least one.

Breitbart, Fox Nation Blame CNN For Fox News Mistake

Posted by on January 30, 2011 at 3:08 pm. 4 Comments :

Andrew BreitbartUnder the conspiratorially accusatory headline, “Did CNN Sabotage Rep. Bachmann’s SOTU Response?” Andrew Breitbart posted an item that illustrates what a pathetic excuse for a news analyst he is.

Michele Bachmann’s “official” Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union speech was ridiculed by many because she appeared to be staring off into the distance somewhere over the left shoulder of the viewer. The explanation for this was that there was one camera with the TelePrompTer that was provided by the Tea Party staff, and another that was used for the television networks’ news feed. This resulted in giving Bachmann an even more otherworldly aura than she has normally.

Leave it to the Rightist Panic Squad to assume the existence of a clandestine plot to sabotage Bachmann and the Tea Pods. This is how Breitbart’s web site laid out the evil scheme:

“Our sources tell us that CNN had originally agreed to use the live feed set up by Tea Party Express, which had a teleprompter running on the lens in which Rep. Bachmann was delivering her speech. But, when Rep. Bachmann left the camera set-up and sat in the House chamber to hear Pres. Obama’s speech, CNN set up a camera of their own, just off to the side of the main, tele-prompter/camera. Thus, when CNN provided their network feed it ended up skewed and off-kilter.”

Imagine that. After the congresswoman left the room, CNN scurried to stage a production fiasco that would humiliate her. There is just one little problem with this scenario: The network pool camera was provided by Fox News, not CNN. So either Fox News was the dastardly conspirator, or Breitbart and his “sources” are liars and/or morons.

The folks at Fox happily posted Breitbart’s item on Fox Nation, further disseminating the false conspiracy. And while Breitbart’s site was eventually updated to reflect the fact that it was Fox’s camera, Fox Nation, as of this writing, has still not made the correction.

Even though Fox provided the pool camera, CNN was the only network to air live coverage of Bachmann’s response. Perhaps that is where the real conspiracy lies. CNN’s devious scheme was to actually let the country hear Bachmann. How insidious! And Fox, of course, conspired to protect Bachmann by declining to air her response.

However, we must not forget that CNN abandoned their principles by promoting the corrupt Tea Party Express, and their redundant GOP State of the Union response, in the first place. It is another example of associating themselves with a disreputable political entity, as they are doing with an upcoming GOP debate co-hosted by CNN and Tea Party Express. This relationship was negotiated by CNN’s new president Ken Jautz, who is the man who gave Glenn Beck his first job on television, so I suppose our expectations should not be very high. But it is still sad to see that in their desperation for ratings they have sold their journalistic soul.

Fox Nation’s Gorilla Story Stirs Racist Frenzy

Posted by on January 28, 2011 at 7:16 pm. 9 Comments :

Today on the Fox Nation web site, they posted a story on the popularity of some new videos of a gorilla walking upright like a man. That seems like it should be an innocuous little animal tale with a precocious jungle creature imitating human behavior. But this is Fox Nation we’re talking about.

This is the sort of item that Fox Nation posts fully aware of the dog-whistle effect it will have on its readers: a community of dimwits that is simply incapable of masking the open hostility and racism that is at the core of their putrid souls. Here is a sampling of the comments to be found attached to the article:

1preacher: Yea, I could see where this Gorilla evolved from obama’s family.

amveteran: This is a true knuckle dragger. Reminds me of Al Sharpton.

winterhawk: Just as I thought, that’s buckwheat’s daddy.

flyinjohn23: Not only that….He got himself one of those Hiawian Birth Certificates over the internet all on his own too.

1preacher: Because I said that this was obama’s mother, that is racist? Not following that one.

hawk1052: Shelia Jackson Lee, comes to mind.

armed: is the one in the background carrying a teleprompter and throwing tater tots at the other one.

And if that isn’t bad enough, there were at least 13 comments that the Fox Nationalists “flagged for review.” If the examples above made it past their decency filter, we can only imagine how disgusting were the comments that were removed. And in addition to the overt racism, there was also an abundance of derogatory and idiotic remarks regarding evolution and the intelligence of liberals.

These people are sick and beyond pathetic. And Fox News knows exactly what they are doing by throwing this chum in the tank. This isn’t the first time that Fox Nation’s readers behaved so atrociously. Last year they posted feverishly about how they wished the President were dead.

The bigots at Fox are surely comfortable with this sort of hatred. We learned last summer that only 1.38% of Fox’s audience is African American (compared to about 20% each for CNN and MSNBC). So they probably don’t think they have much to lose by being racist jerkwads. Just their humanity, and they don’t have much of that to begin with.

Rupert Murdoch Is De-Pressed

Posted by on January 28, 2011 at 1:56 pm. NO Comments :

Rupert MurdochWoe is he. Media baron Rupert Murdoch is said to be depressed over setbacks to his compulsive efforts to acquire ever more media platforms from which to spew his international rightist propaganda. The news of Murdoch’s depression comes from a trusted ally, Andrew Neil, founding chairman of Sky TV and former editor of Murdoch’s Sunday Times in London.

Neil describes Murdoch’s dismay that criminal activity by his newspapers may frustrate his attempt to assume control over the 60% of satellite network BSkyB that he doesn’t already own. It seems that his minions at News of the World were caught hacking into the phones of politicians and celebrities to obtain information for salacious stories. That behavior may have an impact on Britain’s regulators approving the Murdoch acquisition.

According to Neil, Murdoch is now taking radical steps to salvage the deal. Though years have past since the hacking was first discovered and reported, Murdoch is only now attempting to hold anyone accountable. So he fired an assistant editor. That’ll show ’em. And this new demonstration of hardball tactics comes after he previously paid millions in hush money to prevent the scandal from being exposed. So his first instinct was to sweep it under the rug and, now that the deal is teetering, he shifts to punishing low-level scapegoats.

The BSkyB deal has also been criticized by media watchdogs because it would give an unprecedented degree of control over the British media to one man. And that one man has made it clear that he would exercise editorial control over the Sky News division of BSkyB. He told a parliamentary inquiry that “Sky News would be more popular if it were more like the Fox News Channel.”

That’s what British news consumers have to look forward to if Murdoch is successful. For their sake, I hope he is not. And if that only makes him more depressed I suppose he’ll just have to live with it.

The Unmitigated Hate of Fox News

Posted by on January 27, 2011 at 9:58 pm. 20 Comments :

In response to a long and repulsive record of anti-Semitism and insensitive allusions to Nazis and the Holocaust on the part of Fox News, a coalition of 400 rabbis published an open letter calling on Rupert Murdoch to sanction Glenn Beck and demand that Roger Ailes apologize for their atrocious behavior. The letter was printed in a full page ad in Murdoch’s own Wall Street Journal, and said in part…

“We share a belief that the Holocaust, of course, can and should be discussed appropriately in the media. But that is not what we have seen at Fox News. It is not appropriate to accuse a 14-year old Jew hiding with a Christian family in Nazi-occupied Hungary of sending his people to death camps. It is not appropriate to call executives of another news agency ‘Nazis.’ And it is not appropriate to make literally hundreds of on-air references to the Holocaust and Nazis when characterizing people with whom you disagree.”

Rather than take the responsible path and accept that the criticism of hundreds of independent rabbis is sufficient evidence that Fox has stepped way over the line, Joel Cheatwood, senior vice president of development for Fox News, took a confrontational stance that proved once again that Fox News is committed to an agenda of hate. He said…

“We haven’t seen the ad, but this group is a George Soros backed left-wing political organization that has been trying to engage Glenn Beck primarily for publicity purposes.”

Really? The 400 rabbis who signed the letter are from a diverse spectrum of congregations, from reform to orthodox. They include liberals and conservatives and they have no organizational affiliation other than their common faith and a shared disgust for those who tarnish the memory of their families and heritage. But Cheatwood insults them by accusing them of being publicity seekers. And worse, he asserts that they are but minions of the “puppet master,” as Glenn Beck dubbed George Soros, thus recycling the same sort of vilification that Jews were subjected to in Hitler’s Germany.

There is simply no excuse for this overt hostility and insensitivity. This is no longer confined to the brutish ignorance of a few television hosts. It extends to the network management from Cheatwood, to Ailes, and all the way up to Rupert Murdoch himself. These people have no respect for others who have suffered under the most horrendous circumstances. They are only concerned with their own obsession for spreading hate and division. Ironically, Glenn Beck spoke of this on his program today:

“We can’t treat everyone as an enemy. We need to stop focusing on the things that divide us, but the things that unite us. […] Do you know why you can shoot a cop or beat somebody at Wendy’s; why you can call neighbors – neighbors – enemies because they voted for a different person? Because we no longer see people as human beings.”

If that wasn’t so sick coming from someone who spends every waking hour demonizing his ideological foes, it would be a laugh riot. Beck is the man that has likened progressives to cancer and warned that they can only be dealt with by shooting them in the head. And now he wants to deliver sermons on unity and respect for fellow Americans?

Glenn Beck has spoken more about the Nazi affiliations of Democrats and liberals than anyone on radio or television. It is an obsession with him. Hardly a day goes by that he doesn’t make some comment about the Holocaust. Which is interesting because today was one of those rare days when he never brought it up at all. He completely ignored the subject of the Holocaust today – the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On this day Beck remains silent on the subject. A silence that speaks volumes.

No Wonder Glenn Beck Is So Stupid. He Hates Teachers

Posted by on January 26, 2011 at 12:06 pm. 6 Comments :

This morning Glenn Beck took to the radio to bash President Obama’s State of the Union speech. As usual, his rambling screed was littered with lies. But it wasn’t enough to merely hurl baseless insults at the president, for some reason he felt compelled to disparage teachers and come out in favor of America producing offspring who are as intellectually vacant as he is.

Glenn Beck

The President spoke at some length about the need to focus on education and the value of teachers. Beck’s response to this was to shriek “Don’t talk to me about a teacher sir. That’s indoctrination, Talk to me about parents.” He continued…

Beck: “Last night, I don’t know how many people picked it up, he said the solution came from China. They have their kids in school much longer for the year, and they also keep them in school a much longer day. And teachers are known as nation builders. And I wish we could just give them the respect they deserve.”

Where to begin. Let’s set aside Beck’s bizarre opinion that teaching is synonymous with indoctrination. Obama never said that “the solution came from China.” He merely noted that nations like China and India were devoting more resources to education than we are, which happens to be true. This is what the President actually said:

Obama: “Meanwhile, nations like China and India realized that with some changes of their own, they could compete in this new world. And so they started educating their children earlier and longer, with greater emphasis on math and science. […] Over the next 10 years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education that goes beyond a high school education. And yet, as many as a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school. The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to ninth in the proportion of young people with a college degree.”

But don’t bother Beck with facts or aspirations to improve ourselves in a competitive world. Beck also erred when he said that it is communist China where teachers are know as “nation builders.” As was stated clearly in the President’s speech, it is actually our democratic ally, South Korea. Beck has as little regard for truth as he does for teachers, whom he seems reluctant to show any respect. But it just gets worse from there.

Beck: “I don’t know anybody that talks down about a teacher, I really don’t. I’ve never heard a teacher introduce himself and say ‘I’m just a teacher.’ I’ve never heard that. I have heard ‘Well, I’m just a mother.’ The greatest teachers are our mothers and our fathers, period.”

So Beck thinks that teachers in this society are treated with equal esteem as say, architects, or doctors, or pop stars? And he also thinks that motherhood is frowned upon? I really have to wonder what country Beck is living in. And while parents are obviously an important part of the life of any child, to say that they are our “greatest teachers” is missing the point. Of course our parents teach us values and shape our character, but how many of us learn astrophysics, or mechanical engineering, or medieval literature, or neurosurgery from our parents? That’s what the dialogue on education is about, and anyone with any sense knows that.

Finally, Beck demonstrated his own sorely deficient comprehension skills. This may explain why he is such a bad student and so ill-informed on so many subjects.

Beck: “He said last night the teacher, the one in front of the classroom, is the one that affects the child the most. Well, there’s your problem, President Obama.”

No, it’s your problem, Glenn, because he distinctly did not say that. Here is what he did say:

Obama: “That responsibility begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities. It’s family that first instills the love of learning in a child. Only parents can make sure the TV is turned off and homework gets done. We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair. […] Let’s also remember that after parents, the biggest impact on a child’s success comes from the man or woman at the front of the classroom.”

Glenn Beck gets the simplest things so perversely wrong that you almost feel sorry for him. He is obviously suffering from a severe learning disability. He would have benefited immensely from the sort of teaching he now belittles. But the people for whom I feel most sorry are his listeners. They are being barraged on a daily basis by untruths and delusional analyses. And the damage that does to our society is tangible and dangerous. He is creating a congregation of frightened, hostile, idiots. That can’t end well.

[Addendum] On his TV show today Beck reprised his attack on the State of the Union speech. In doing so he provided another example of his pathological dishonesty:

What Beck Said: I actually feel bad for teachers. I mean the good ones. We should fire the bad ones. Which he wouldn’t say last night.
What Obama Said: We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones.

And there was also this charming thought:

“Last night was all about unity. I didn’t get my little ribbon, but it was all about unity.”

That little ribbon was worn in honor of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of the Tucson shootings. How nice of Beck to mock that tribute and laugh at the the suffering of others.

CNN Sinks Lower Into The Tea Party Swamp

Posted by on January 25, 2011 at 6:15 pm. 3 Comments :

CNN Tea PartyAfter the State of the Union speech by President Obama, every network will broadcast the official Republican response that will be delivered by Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan.

CNN, however, will also broadcast a response by the chair of the House Tea Party Caucus, Michelle Bachmann. So Democrats will have one speech on the air and Republicans will have two rebuttals. This is CNN’s idea of fair and balanced. Ironically, Fox will not be airing Bachmann’s response.

So why would CNN go out on limb to give the farthest right element of the GOP an additional platform to bash the president and his policies? One word: RATINGS!

CNN is wearing their desperation of their sleeve as they seek to manufacture controversy that they hope will result in drawing in curious viewers. This is the modus operandi of the current network leadership. This one fact goes a long way toward explaining this bonehead move on the part of CNN:

CNN’s new president, Ken Jautz, is the man who gave Glenn Beck his first job in television!

That needs to be repeated relentlessly and shared with the world. Jautz is an unrepentant sensationalist who cares more about ratings than ethical journalism. He knows that the Tea Party is not a serious political player, but he believes the drama they generate will produce viewers.

Jautz is also responsible for CNN’s recent partnership with Tea Party Express, a racist and disreputable enterprise that was expelled from the Tea Party Federation. That’s the organization that Jautz thought would be a good partner to host an upcoming Republican presidential primary debate.

After taking criticism from all sides on this decision to fluff Bachmann and her Tea Bagger Brigades, CNN issued this defense of their move:

“The Tea Party has become a major force in American politics and within the Republican Party. Hearing the Tea Party’s perspective on the State of the Union is something we believe CNN’s viewers will be interested in hearing and we are happy to include this perspective as one of many in tonight’s coverage.”

That mirrors their lame defense of the Tea Party Express deal. And it still doesn’t make any sense. Poll after poll shows that the Tea Party is an insignificant segment of the population and that their views are wildly out of touch with the American mainstream and even the Republican Party. There is no justification for giving them this free promotional airtime. And it is notable also that CNN has not offered to give the Democrat’s Progressive Caucus equal time.

Everyone who who cares about ethical media and fair elections should let CNN know that this is inappropriate and unprofessional. You can use this form on CNN’s web site to tell them that they should not be partnering with Tea Party Express or any right-wing wing PAC (or left-wing for that matter). You can also Tweet them at http://twitter.com/cnn. Use the hashtag #NoCNNTP.

[Update] Bachmann’s address was surreal. She never looked into the camera. It was like she was talking to an invisible person to her right (as if that’s possible) the whole time. She also brought up the debunked (and hilarious) assertion that the IRS is hiring thousands of agents to “enforce” ObamaCare. What’s more, the Minneapolis Tea Party (from her home state) is protesting that Bachmann does not speak for them. Even her GOP colleagues are criticizing her speech. All in all, a massive fail.

Banksy Nominated For Best Documentary Oscar

Posted by on January 25, 2011 at 12:08 pm. NO Comments :

Guerrilla artist and conceptual gadfly, Banksy, has been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for his “Exit Through the Gift Shop.”

I don’t care if it’s the best documentary or not. I just want to see this:

By the way, it is an outstanding documentary and worthy of its nomination. Congratulations Banksy, Jaimie, et al.

Colin Powell Gets It (almost) Right

Posted by on January 24, 2011 at 12:56 pm. 2 Comments :

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday and addressed the “nastiness” in our public dialogue:

“There has crept in our society and our public dialogue, a coarseness, a nastiness, an attack of people who don’t share the same views as you do,” he said. “All sorts of nastiness. And it is not just politicians who are doing this to each other, and, frankly, politics has always been a contact sport in this country, but with all of the cable channels and talk radio and blogs, especially blogs, where people can be anonymous with their nastiness, I think has caused a level of coarseness in our society that we’ve all got to think about.”

Especially blogs? That was a gratuitous dig that doesn’t really advance the point he was making. Blogs don’t have nearly the influence that politicians and national television and radio commentators have. Their contribution to the coarseness in public dialogue is tiny by comparison.

I’m glad to hear that Powell agrees that violent rhetoric directed toward political adversaries has escalated beyond reason and can result in potential harm, but did he really have to shift the responsibility from the media to anonymous commenters on blogs? That just diminishes the message and lets characters with millions of followers, like Glenn “Shoot them in the head” Beck, and Rush “Don’t kill all the liberals” Limbaugh, off the hook.

Glenn Beck Guns For More Money

Posted by on January 23, 2011 at 12:33 pm. 10 Comments :

If there is one thing you can say about Glenn Beck it’s that he is the consummate capitalist, practiced in the arts of Snake Oil salesmanship and Apocalypse Marketing. He has parlayed those skills into a commercial exploitation empire that spans television, radio, Internet, publishing, theater, merchandising, and of course, advertising.

As the survivors and victims of the Tucson massacre are still mourning and healing, Beck has reached out to new clientele in the pursuit of higher profits:

Note that this is not an advertisement for sporting gear or self defense. It is an ad selling “revolution.” As any marketing professional will tell you, the words and images in ads are deliberately chosen and tested to produce a desired response from their target audience. It is plain that Beck is seizing upon the recent tragedy to fatten his wallet. At the same time he is advancing his mission to arm his congregation for the approaching battle.

This new sponsor fits in well with the Apocalypse Marketing strategy Beck has forged. After acquiring your Food Insurance, stashing your valuables in Liberty Safes, and hoarding coins from Goldline, don’t forget to stock your armory.

It would be naive to assume that the timing of this is coincidental. Beck and his sponsor are taking advantage of current events to commence, not an ad campaign, but, as the ad says, a new revolution. In fact, Beck has already declared explicitly that…

“The revolution has begun – I never thought I would say those words, but I understand that it has today. […] You must understand, you are in a revolution, a global revolution whether you like it or not and the rules of the games have changed.”

This is the same man who recently said that the only way to stop the progressives in Washington is to “shoot them in the head.” This man is an imminent danger to society. It is the pinnacle of irresponsibility for Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes to continue to allow him this platform that he uses to foment hate and violence. And it only makes it worse when they brazenly profit from this madness.