Yesterday Republicans forced the nation into shutting down hundreds of government services and putting nearly 800,000 Americans out of work. The impetus for this tantrum was the GOP’s tiny Tea Party faction’s obsession with crippling ObamaCare, a goal they cannot conceivably accomplish.
The effect of this shutdown will be devastating to many citizens, particularly those who are seeking home loans, attempting to pay taxes, traveling abroad, operating businesses in or around national parks, relying on food safety inspections, and victims of natural disasters and workplace discrimination. The shutdown is estimated to cost taxpayers $300 million per day.
Nevertheless, Fox News is editorializing their reporting with a distinctly unfair and unbalanced misrepresentation of the crisis. They have taken to calling the shutdown a “slimdown,” as if it were part of a beneficial dietary program, rather than an expensive, destructive, and painful disruption of the people’s government.
This is like calling a hurricane a gentle breeze. And this is not merely the product of an off-hand op-ed, it is a policy that has spread across multiple stories. For instance:
- Why the Government ‘Shutdown’ Is More Like a ‘Slimdown’
- The government slimdown’s effect on Hollywood
- Obama shortens Asia trip due to government slimdown
- Government slimdown leaves travelers in a state of flux
- D-Day cemetery among the victims of government slimdown
- Government slimdown blocks some seeking NIH research treatment
- What are next steps in resolving government slimdown?
- Americans turn to social media to air feelings on slimdown
- Obama just as responsible for government ‘slimdown’ as Republicans
- House to try again to pass 3 emergency funding bills amid government slimdown
- Lawmakers, World War II vets rise up against government slimdown at war memorial
- ObamaCare takes center stage in gov’t slimdown
- Heated rhetoric in blame game over government slimdown
- Hume: WH eager to see people ‘feel’ the gov’t slimdown
- Welcome to ObamaCare activation and government slimdown week
- Rep. Rigell calls for clean bill to end gov’t slimdown
- Congressional stalemate rings in government slimdown
- Government slimdown will weaken ability to track disease, flu outbreaks
- Slimdown Showdown: Are Dems, Obama seeking political coverage by making it hurt?
That’s twenty instances of this erroneous affectation in just one day that cut across the Fox empire including the news network, the business network, the web site, and the lie-riddled Fox Nation. This is a blatant attempt to deceitfully manipulate public opinion by inserting prejudicial language into what should be straight-forward reporting. Fox News is deploying the term they coined in stories where the actual content uses the correct term, shutdown. They even plaster their invented term, via headlines, over stories from other news sources (e.g. Associated Press) who never use the term themselves.
This is not really anything new for Fox News who have engaged in this propaganda tactic before. They call undocumented residents “illegals” even if they never broke any laws, including immigration laws for those who were brought into the country as children. Fox invented the term “homicide bomber” to use in place of the more accurate phrase “suicide bomber.” All terrorist bombings with fatalities involve homicide, but they were not all conducted by perpetrators who killed themselves. Fox adopted the phrase “government-run health care” to replace the “public option” after focus groups expressed a more positive response to the latter. In keeping with their opposition to reform, Fox chose to use the phrase that would generate the most unfavorable reaction. And Fox repeatedly made references to “job creators,” which they used to avoid talking about the ultra-rich, corporate exploiters of America’s workforce.
Clearly Fox has abandoned any pretense of objectivity with regard to the budget debate. They have ceased to apply ethical journalistic standards to their reporting, instead assuming an activist role on behalf of the Tea-publican extremists in congress. And their insensitive adoption of the artificially weakened “slimdown” rhetoric to describe something that is having such a harsh impact on the lives of citizens who are not responsible for this crisis, illustrates the depth of the callousness to which Fox will sink in order to advance an agenda that benefits the wealthy and corporations at the expense of ordinary Americans.
