Day: 10/20/2013

Murdoch’s World: Book Reveals Fox News Used Fake Blog IDs To Bash Critics

Posted by on October 20, 2013 at 8:21 pm. 8 Comments :

A new book has exposed another nefarious and unethical activity by Fox News. NPR Media reporter David Folkenflik’s “Murdoch’s World” has exposed that Fox has deployed hundreds of fake blog accounts in order to rebut critics on the Internet. This may seem like small game for a news enterprise that has admitted to hacking into thousands of cell phones, emails, and computers, including the phone a murdered schoolgirl, but it is characteristic of the sort of unscrupulous tactics engaged in by the Fox gang of thugs and slanderers.

Murdochalypse
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This passage from the book tells the story of Fox’s shameless behavior:

“On the blogs, the fight was particularly fierce. Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account. Another used an AOL dial-up connection, even in the age of widespread broadband access, on the rationale it would be harder to pinpoint its origins. Old laptops were distributed for these cyber operations. Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked.”

This was apparently a sophisticated and complex operation that involved numerous people and endured over time. In fact, there is nothing to indicate that they are not still doing it. However, the part that stands out to me is the bit at the end that says “Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked.”

Might that include News Corpse? This website has made its reputation as a dedicated and effective critic of Fox News. The articles are studiously researched and documented. And it has had its share of arrogant and aggressive commenters over the years. Under the circumstances, it would not be surprising if some of them were Fox News sockpuppets sent to harass, distract, and distort the messages presented here.

Folkenflik’s book specifically mentions the Fox News communications executives who would have overseen this venture. Irena Briganti is a notorious bully who has earned the disrespect of her colleagues. Her boss, Brian Lewis, was just terminated and escorted out of Fox’s headquarters by security. That story is still unfolding. One thing that we can rest assured of is that Fox will come out swinging when they get a whiff of this news. It’s the Fox way.

To Fox News Lying Is Just “Providing Balance To The Rest Of The Mainstream Media”

Posted by on October 20, 2013 at 3:32 pm. 4 Comments :

Last week a major story broke about Sean Hannity interviewing three couples who claimed to have been harmed by the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare). However, an aide to the former governor of Montana contacted these alleged victims and published his account on Salon.com. What he discovered was that not a single one of them had even bothered to look at the insurance exchange to ascertain whether or not they would be helped or harmed. The entire episode of Hannity’s program was a lie.

So this week the Fox News MediaBuzz program, hosted by Howard Kurtz, spent less than a minute on Hannity’s blatantly dishonest broadcast, but took an interesting perspective. Kurtz trivialized the deliberately false segment by asking whether “Fox News is providing balance to the rest of the mainstream media.” Of course. Bringing in six allegedly neutral Americans to lie through their teeth about a health insurance program they didn’t even bother to explore is merely an attempt to “balance” the news coverage of the plan. At least according to the ethics (or lack thereof) of Fox News.

Howard Kurtz

Kurtz introduced his segment by noting the falsehoods proffered by Hannity and his lying guests. But he ended the same introduction by asking “Could it be said that various news outlets were pushing their own agenda?” This implication that overt dishonesty is equivalent to simply advocating for an agenda reveals the crass interpretation that Kurtz and Fox have of journalistic ethics. And his insertion of blame attributed to unnamed “various news outlets” is just his way of pretending that everybody does it. Forty-five seconds later the segment was over without anyone mentioning Hannity’s name again.

For contrast, CNN’s Reliable Sources covered the same story. They spent four and half minutes on it, complete with clips from Hannity’s show and an interview of the Salon author, Eric Stern. Of course, CNN has a competitive motivation to more thoroughly examine an embarrassing episode for Fox, but the differences between these reports are still significant. CNN did what journalists do. Fox swept their dirt under the carpet.

When Howard Kurtz announced that he was leaving CNN to become a media analyst at Fox News, he said that “Fox wouldn’t have hired me if it wasn’t interested in my independent brand of media criticism.” However, Fox never hires anyone for their independence or accuracy. In fact, the further you stray from reality, the better your employment opportunities at Fox. And this segment that leaves Hannity unscathed and quickly shifts to another subject (how the media unfairly beat up on Republicans after their humiliating defeat over the government shutdown), is evidence that Kurtz has no intention of being independent.

Fox News Contributor Defends Statement That ObamaCare Is “The Worst Thing Since Slavery”

Posted by on October 20, 2013 at 2:23 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week when Fox News contributor, Dr. Ben Carson, told the ultra-conservative crowd at the Values Voter Summit that the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is “the worst thing since slavery,” he was subjected to well deserved criticism from the ranks of decent Americans who were repulsed by his nauseating remarks. Unfortunately, this egomaniacal demagogue learned nothing from his critics and decided to go on Roland Martin’s radio show to defend himself. Not surprisingly, he made things much worse.

Ben Carson
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When asked by Martin whether ObamaCare was really worse than things like the Jim Crow laws, Carson responded “Yes, absolutely.” Then he went into a nearly incoherent rant that barely touched on the comparison between ObamaCare and slavery.

Carson: I’ll tell you why I think that. This nation was founded on the principle that it would be a new type of nation that was for, of, and by the people. A constitution was put in place that would assure that the people remained at the pinnacle of power and that the central government would never reach the point where it had control of the people. This fundamentally changes the relationship.

It is rather appalling that Carson’s defense would include a reference to the Constitution’s original language that permitted slavery. In this context his argument, that appears to be focused on the primacy of the people in a democratic republic, makes no sense whatsoever. Most Americans do not concur with the founding principle that allows ownership of human beings, but Carson is celebrating it. Furthermore, he never clarifies why ObamaCare changes the relationship between the government and the people. But he does attempt to invent some sort of intervention by the government into medical care.

Carson: What do you need for good healthcare? You need a patient and you need a healthcare provider. Along has come a middleman to facilitate the relationship. Now it has become the primary entity with the patient and the healthcare provider at its beckon call. Completely turns the situation upside-down.

The middleman to whom Carson is referring is not the government, it is the insurance company. And that’s the way things have been for decades prior to ObamaCare. However, in the past the insurance companies had even more control over the patient’s welfare financially and medically. They could deny coverage at will and put so many exceptions into their contracts that even conditions for which patients thought they were covered, they were held responsible and often driven into bankruptcy. If the situation was turned upside-down, it is with respect to the insurance company losing that sort of incontestable dominance.

Carson continues blathering nonsensically about insurance companies, who will now have more people buying in than ever before, will go out of business. Apparently he thinks that booming consumption is harmful to their bottom line. He then concludes that this failure will lead to a single-payer system. If only. That would be a great outcome, but nothing in his logic predicts it. Then he drops the most absurd part of an already epically absurd analysis.

Carson: And that will give the government the kind of control that it needs. And, you know, all you have to do is look back through history – and this is something that most people don’t, they don’t know very much about history, even in this country.

Huh? It will give the government the kind of control that it needs? To do what? Harvest organs for billionaires? Build replicants to work in extraterrestrial mining camps? Withhold dialysis from people who vote for Republicans? Carson doesn’t say. Neither does he say what historical lessons are being ignored with regard to health insurance reform.

The one thing that Carson has said affirmatively was that ObamaCare is the worst thing since slavery. His defense of that statement is unintelligible. But the falsity of it is obvious to anyone with a functioning cerebellum. Does he really think that making health care available to millions of Americans who never had it before is worse than anything since slavery? Is it worse than the civil war? The Great Depression? The incarceration of Japanese-American citizens during World War II? Forced segregation in the South? The Vietnam War? The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001?

If this is the depth of Dr. Carson’s intellect, it is hard to see how he got through medical school, much less became a renowned neurosurgeon. Perhaps his blind fealty to right-wing polemics and Christianist dogma have clouded his thinking. It’s understandable that Fox News viewers would buy into this shallow foolishness if it were coming from a flake like Sarah Palin. But Carson is a real doctor with respectable credentials and, in that sense, it makes it even more pathetic.