Sean Hannity

Sean Hannity Decides Who The Real Conservatives Are

Posted by on November 15, 2011 at 3:14 am. 4 Comments :

In a conversation with Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity of Fox News appointed himself the official source for conservative credentials. He was reciting some of the criticism Gingrich has earned from a broad spectrum of analysts, and as a means of dismissing it, Hannity simply de-certified the source:

Hannity: You have Kathleen Parker, a CNN conservative, which isn’t a real conservative, accusing you now of hating mankind. Can’t get any worse than that I guess, if you hate all mankind.

Gingrich: Wait a minute. How could she possibly come up with something that goofy?

Hannity: I don’t know. I mean I don’t speak for these liberal conservatives that are hired by these other news networks cause they’re not conservatives.

First of all, let’s be clear about what Hannity is referencing. Parker was not on CNN when she made the remarks that riled up Hannity. CNN fired her months ago. She was on CBS’s Face the Nation and was commenting on what others have said about Gingrich:

Parker: He’s not very much of a campaigner. In fact, he’s been described as sort of a misanthrope.

Of course, Fox News has to provide a definition of misanthrope for their viewers because the word has more than two syllables. But more to the point, we now know that it is Sean Hannity who decides who is, or is not, a conservative. And first among those who fail his test are conservatives on CNN. By that he must mean RedState’s Erick Erickson, Andrew Breitbart’s editor-in-chief Dana Loesch, Glenn Beck contributor Will Cain, and even Glenn Beck himself who used to have a program on CNN’s Headline News. I suppose Hannity would also include MSNBC’s resident racist Pat Buchanan, former GOP chairman Michael Steele, and McCain/Palin strategist Steve Schmidt. Surely none of them are conservatives.

The irony is that Fox News has a penchant for presenting conservatives that they misrepresent as Democrats. People like Pat Caddell, Doug Schoen, and Dick Morris, who have not had anything to do with Democrats for years (and whom Democrats would have nothing to do with). Their sole purpose is to collect a paycheck from Fox while bashing their former party and any liberal initiative. Fox regularly scours the news wires to find any incident wherein a Democrat is critical of other Democrats. That’s the fastest way for a Democrat to get invited to appear on Fox.

We ought to be grateful to Hannity for clearing up the confusion as to who the real conservatives are. At least now we have an ideological benchmark from a bona fide expert to keep us from making a terrible mistake. We might otherwise have gotten the misimpression that Mary Matalin or Bill Bennett were conservatives.

May Cable News Ratings: Fox News Gets Stomped

Posted by on June 1, 2011 at 8:29 pm. 33 Comments :

Ratings for cable news for the month of May 2011, bring bad news for Fox News. In the key demographic group of 25-54 year-olds, Fox was alone in declining during the primetime hours.


This was a really bad month for Fox News which lost viewers in the demo for every primetime show. Bill O’Reilly dropped 9%, Sean Hannity dropped 6%, and Greta Van Susteren dropped 12%. These declines occurred while almost every primetime program for both CNN and MSNBC gained by double digits. The only good news for Fox is that Glenn Beck, which sunk 17% in the demo, has already been canceled so he can’t do too much more harm.

An interesting wrinkle in this book is that MSNBC was also the number one cable news network among 18-34 year-olds in primetime, with a 7% advantage over CNN and a 14% lead over Fox News. That is not a demo that gets much attention from an advertising point of view, but it signals an opportunity for future growth that the network can exploit. It also affirms the weakness of Fox among young viewers. That explains why Beck is so openly hostile to young people.

Lessons In Right-Wing Media Relations

Posted by on May 19, 2011 at 1:55 am. 4 Comments :

If you were paying attention to conservatives in the press today you would have received an advanced course their trademark obfuscation and flim flam.

Let’s begin with Newt Gingrich’s masterful recovery from an embarrassing fumble. After dissing fellow Republican Paul Ryan’s budget proposal as “radical, right-wing, social engineering,” Gingrich attempted to blame the media for quoting him correctly. When that fell flat he pivoted to a full mea culpa, apologizing publicly and personally to Ryan. But the piece de resistance was his declaration to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News that “any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.”

Bravo. Gingrich has just invented the “if you quote me you’re lying” defense. It is so brilliant that even after he is ridiculed for it he can use it again to warn the media not to quote what he told Susteren either. This is a groundbreaking achievement in PR spin that even surpasses Jon Kyl’s infamous “not intended to be a factual statement.”

Jerome CorsiNow let’s move on to Jerome Corsi, author of a book with the world’s worst release timing: “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case that Barack Obama is Not Eligible to be President” This insightful work of political intrigue just happened to come out shortly after the titular certificate of birth (not that the question hadn’t been answered years ago anyway). But to make matters worse, Corsi was bumped from the Sean Hannity show reportedly because the “issue is no longer in the news cycle.” That’s right-wing talk for “we can’t sell this bullshit anymore.” Watch your head, Corsi, because when you’ve lost Hannity, the next stop in that barrel is the bottom.

Finally we have the queen of media whimpering, Sarah Palin. Despite having sworn off of criticizing the press weeks ago, her bashing continues unabated. In an interview with Sean Hannity (who apparently thinks that she is still in the news cycle) she attempts to defend Gingrich and advises her conservative comrades to steer clear of the “lame-stream media.”

“Candidates need to get their message out through the new social media. Don’t even participate in that goofy game that’s been played for too many years with the leftist lame-stream media.”

I couldn’t agree more. Republicans and other conservatives should sequester themselves in the realm of social media, talk radio, and Fox News. No more pandering to Meet the Press or the Washington Post. Just update your Facebook status with a policy paper on national security. Then Tweet your positions on the economy and health care. I’m sure any respectable Republican could do that in 140 characters or less given that they don’t have to worry about using facts or reason.

In order for this to work, however, the media has to reciprocate. For as long as Palin and other right-wingers confine themselves to conservative media and Internet platforms they control, the rest of the press must ignore them right back. That means no coverage of their Tweets or Facebook posts or interviews with Rush Limbaugh or Steve Doocy. Although exceptions may be granted for mocking the inevitable gaffes and malaprops they will generously provide.

If the right would actually follow through with this threat, and the “lame-streamers” could resist the temptation to hype every belch some celebrity politician emits, watching TV and reading newspapers could become a lot more enjoyable and educational.

Rachel Maddow Beats Hannity’s Media Bias Special

Posted by on April 25, 2011 at 11:33 pm. 5 Comments :

It’s time for the folks at Britannica to replace whatever picture they’ve been using to illustrate “poetic justice” and insert Rachel Maddow’s picture in its place.

Last Friday, Fox News broadcast a special episode of the Sean Hannity program that promised to get “Behind the Bias,” of what he called the liberal, Obama-mania media. What was truly special about the show is that it came in second place to Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC. Maddow beat Hannity in the key advertising demographic of 25-54 year olds. How fitting for Hannity to lose to a liberal on the night he thought he would be exposing them.

Hannity began the program by saying…

“Now, it is common knowledge that the mainstream media, from the major television networks to the country’s most influential newspapers, are biased against the GOP.”

Common knowledge? Sure it is. It is common in that it is unexceptional or of inferior quality. And it is knowledge in the same way that lemmings “know” to follow their fellow lemmings off the cliff.

Hannity provided nothing in the hour-long program to support his opening assertion of bias against the GOP. He certainly didn’t address the fact that the top Sunday news broadcasts have featured far more Republicans than Democrats. And he failed to note that all three broadcast networks are owned by giant, multinational corporations with predictably conservative leanings. And there was no mention that even newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post advance conservative themes like support for Wall Street and foreign wars. And, of course, he didn’t discuss the role of Fox News itself as the preeminent organ of institutional bias and its being a part of a conservative empire that includes the Wall Street Journal, 27 television stations, dozens of newspapers, Internet sites, and satellite broadcasting.

The show was mainly a collection of incidents that Hannity regarded as bias. However, that does not actually prove bias. It only catalogs it. And since Hannity makes no effort to catalog all incidents of bias, including those on the right, he proves nothing. Furthermore, there is a difference between cataloging random, subjective soundbites by individuals, and conducting an objective content analysis that looks at the whole institution of the media. Hannity doesn’t come anywhere near that sort of examination.

In short, Hannity’s program on bias was blatantly biased. It would be easy to collect twice as many examples of right-wing media disparaging the left as Hannity presented directed at Republicans. But what is even worse is that Hannity had to manufacture some of his evidence of bias.

For instance, he played a clip of Katie Couric saying “Good morning. The Gipper was an airhead.” Hannity left that sentence fragment hanging with the implication that it was Couric expressing her own opinion. Had he played the clip for a few seconds longer, his audience would have heard her say “The Gipper was an airhead. That’s one of the conclusions of a new biography of Ronald Reagan that’s drawing a tremendous amount of interest and fire today.” She went on to say that the book’s conclusions were “startling” and that the author still thought Reagan was “a great president.” But Hannity chose to misrepresent a tiny slice of the comment in order to advance his phony premise.

It is heartening to know that Hannity’s hour of deceit was so poorly received. It is even more gratifying that he was beaten in the ratings by someone as conscientious and committed to honest discourse as Rachel Maddow.

10 Reasons Why Fox News After Glenn Beck Will Still Suck

Posted by on April 13, 2011 at 10:38 am. 10 Comments :

“If I were lying I’d be off the air.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Jan 4, 2010.
“I’m going to be leaving this program later this year.”
  ~ Glenn Beck, Apr 6, 2011.

There has already been a barrage of media analysis and discussion of Glenn Beck’s not-so-surprising separation from Fox News. For the most part that discussion has been focused on speculation as to the cause of the break up and on what will become of Beck. But any suggestion that Beck’s departure polishes Fox’s reputation is pure folly. The worst of Beck’s haunted imagination is securely woven into the Fox News dis-comforter. The trademark Fox invective, sophistry, and bias predate Beck and will outlive him.


Many in the press, however, are more interested in prattling on about the alleged animosity for Beck amongst “serious” conservatives and his colleagues at Fox who think that his doomsday rhetoric and conspiracy theories give the “news” network a bad name. The purveyors of conventional wisdom are very concerned about Fox’s teetering credibility and are scrambling to defend it:

Howard Kurtz, CNN, The Daily Beast: …many senior Fox executives are relieved to be rid of Beck. [and] …some journalists and executives at the network privately expressed concern that Beck was becoming the face of the network.

George Will, ABC News Washington Post: I think that Glenn Beck and his drift into more bizarre and extreme positions was threatening the Fox brand. So I wish Glenn Beck health and happiness but I think the health and happiness of Fox is served by his departure.

Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine: You can’t be a rodeo clown and maintain credibility,

Matt Lewis, The Daily Caller: My take is that while Beck’s show was individually a ratings hit, he also risked tarnishing the overall Fox News “brand”.

Jeffrey McCall, professor of media studies, DePauw University: Beck was no longer just a personality with a show on FNC. He became an easy target for Fox News critics to characterize him as representative of the entire channel.

These august observers have frightfully short memories. The truth is that Fox earned its nefarious reputation long before Beck arrived and there is every indication that they will preserve it after he’s gone. In fact, it’s that reputation that made Beck such a good fit to begin with and lured him to the network despite his admitted reluctance when first approached. The pundits who are advancing the premise that by losing Beck, Fox can be redeemed are, to put it kindly, mistaken. Here is why Fox News without Glenn Beck will be just as bad as Fox News with Glenn Beck:

1) Bill O’Reilly: Before Beck called President Obama a racist, Bill O’Reilly ventured to Sylvia’s in Harlem and expressed his surprise that the mostly African-American patrons weren’t acting like primitives. And when the First Lady was criticized for expressing her pride that America had evolved to the point where they would elect an African-American president O’Reilly considerately declared that “I don’t want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there’s evidence.” Nice choice of words.

2) Sean Hannity: While Beck may suffer from an acute case of Nazi-Tourettes Syndrome (Louis Black™), Sean Hannity is a personal friend of the notorious neo-Nazi schlock-jock, Hal Turner, and graciously hosted him on his program. Turner won’t be be revisiting Hannity for a while because he is presently in prison serving 33 months for threatening judges.

3) Megyn Kelly: No one can spin a conspiracy theory quite like Beck, but Megyn Kelly comes pretty close. For months she’s been peddling a pseudo-scandal that alleges that the Department of Justice deliberately dismisses all charges of civil rights violations when the plaintiff is white. This has been debunked by the House Judiciary Committee’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Kelly also fronted phony investigations into the alleged terrorist ties of funders of the Park51 mosque in Manhattan. Somehow she left out the fact that one of those funders was Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the second largest shareholder of News Corp outside of the Murdoch family. Kelly has a permanently affixed expression of indignation and a vocal delivery that makes every story appear to be shocking. She is the human manifestation of Fox’s ever-present “FOX ALERT!”

4) Judge Andrew Napolitano: There are conspiratorial paths where even Beck fears to tread. Judge Andrew Napolitano has no such fears. He is a frequent guest of proto-conspiratorialist and Beck inspiration, Alex Jones. He is an avowed 9/11 Truther who says that the World Trade Center attack was an inside job. He believes that the health care bill contains provisions for a civilian military force to suppress domestic insurrection. And he also happens to be Beck’s most frequent fill-in host and a leading candidate to replace him.

5) Bill Sammon: Fox News’ Washington managing editor, Bill Sammon, has espoused a hard-core conservatism that predates Beck and emanates from the executive suites far above him. He came to Fox from the “Moonie” Washington Times and authored several books lionizing George W. Bush and lambasting Democrats. He was also caught authoring memos that directed his reporters to dispense a brazenly partisan point of view. For instance, he told them to refrain from using the term “public option” during the health care debate because focus group testing proved that the term “government-run” produced a more negative response. Even more disturbing, he was recorded admitting to a friendly audience on a conservative cruise that he “mischievously” cast Obama as a socialist even though he didn’t believe it himself. In other words, he lied to defame the President and rile up his gullible viewers. Beck must be so proud to have worked for him.

6) Neil Cavuto: The glorification of ignorance is a staple of Beck’s brand, but Neil Cavuto has been contributing to the collapse of America’s collective IQ far longer than Beck. He proudly hosts such respected policy analysts as Ted Nugent, Joe the Plumber, and any random Tea Bagger to help him unravel our nation’s dilemmas. One of his favorite idiocies is his insistence that Climate Change is a hoax because it gets cold in the winter. But Cavuto really shines when he brings in guests whose only connection to the segment is a juvenile pun. For instance, in a discussion about whether Tea Party support was grassroots or AstroTurf, Cavuto interviewed the CEO of AstroTurf Technologies, whose expertise with synthetic fiber products contributed nothing to the debate on campaign organization. Cavuto is the prop comic of pundits who delights in interrupting and shouting down Democrats who are naive enough to accept his invitations to appear.

7) Fox & Friends: While there will always be only one rodeo clown in the vast right-wing conspira-circus, there is no shortage of stooges, and three of them are featured on Fox & Friends. First we have Steve Doocy, who wondered “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that [Obama] spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father.” Perhaps because Obama actually never knew his father who left the family when he was two years old. Then there’s Brian Kilmeade who fans the racist flames by saying things like “all terrorists are Muslims.” And don’t forget Gretchen Carlson, who called the late Sen. Ted Kennedy a “hostile enemy” of the United States. All of these vile inanities were delivered without any help from Beck. However, it should be noted that when Beck made his infamous remarks about Obama being a racist he did it on Fox & Friends.

8) Fox Nation: Any good 21st century propaganda outfit has to have an Internet component, and for Fox News it is the Fox Nation. This web site’s sole purpose is to disseminate the most despicably dishonest disinformation it can invent. There are way too many examples to itemize, but here are a couple that represent the ridiculous and the repulsive. Last July Fox Nation featured a story that claimed that the Taliban was recruiting monkey mercenaries. This absurdity was sourced to the People’s Daily in China. Fox Nation also ran an item that speculated about Obama’s death. This article brought out the hate in the site’s readers who posted numerous comments indicating how welcome that would be. Many of the stories on Fox Nation percolate up to Fox News for broadcast and they they are no less deranged than the nonsense Beck comes up with.

9) Roger Ailes: The president and CEO of Fox News sets the tone for the network as a whole. Roger Ailes was a long-time media advisor to Republican candidates prior to launching Fox News. He is the network’s spiritual leader. If you ever wondered how Beck could get away with aligning President Obama (and anyone else with whom he disagrees) with Hitler, your curiosity was satisfied when Ailes lashed out at NPR saying that “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism.” Ailes’ remarks prove that the hate speech at Fox goes from the top down. It’s not now, and never has been, unique to Beck.

10) Rupert Murdoch: Speaking of the top – Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman and CEO of News Corp, is as high as you can get. He is the company’s captain and conscience. Every material decision requires his concurrence, including his employment of Glenn Beck. While Beck may be leaving, Murdoch is not (yet). It is, therefore, important to note that when Beck called the President a racist, Murdoch responded by saying that “it was something that, perhaps, shouldn’t have been said about the President, but if you actually assess what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right.”

Murdoch has consistently stood behind Beck for more than two years, defending him at every turn for every scandalous affair and affront. Even as advertisers fled in disgust, Murdoch never conceded an inch. In the television marketplace it is advertisers, not viewers, who are the broadcaster’s clients. Murdoch snubbed his clients in order to allow Beck’s Acute Paranoia Revue and Disinfotainment Revival Hour to continue poisoning minds and influencing elections.

More importantly, Murdoch and Ailes together have fashioned a network whose persona is infested with the same conservative extremist ideology popularized by Beck. The examples above illustrate how ingrained that ideology is into the Fox News schedule in all dayparts. And those programs are augmented by an army of propagandists that include Sarah Palin, Stuart Varney, Eric Bolling, Monica Crowley, Dick Morris, Frank Luntz, and many more.

With this dedicated team of activist anchors and contributors in place, Beck’s departure, though gossip-worthy, will change nothing at Fox News. Beck was not cast off because his message was objectionable, but because he was an ineffective messenger who was alienating the audience. His replacement will surely continue the sordid tradition of which Beck was just a small, irritating part. The Fox mission remains intact and any talk of redemption due merely to having thrown off this defective cog is naive and oblivious to the dark reality that is Fox News.

Sean Hannity’s Fake Interview of Sarah Palin

Posted by on January 18, 2011 at 11:01 am. 13 Comments :

Sarah PalinFox News has been busy promoting Sarah Palin’s first interview since the Tucson Slaughter. It finally took place last night on Sean Hannity’s show.

I’m not going to waste time analyzing her response to Hannity’s obsequious inquiry because it was, for the most part, either incoherent gibberish or self-indulgent whining. But I do want to comment on the absurdity of this being presented as an interview in the context of journalism.

Ethical journalists do not pay subjects for interviews, particularly subjects in the public service arena. However, Palin was being paid for her appearance on the Hannity show. She is a contracted Fox News contributor. So what we witnessed last night was one Fox News employee interviewing another Fox News employee and pretending that it had news value.

This is just another example of why Fox ought not to be considered a legitimate news network. If Palin wanted to appear on Hannity’s program in her role as a Fox contributor, that would be fine and in accordance with her contract. But to pass this off as a newsmaker interview amounts to nothing less than deception and journalistic malpractice.

Expect more of this sort of charade in the months ahead because at least five prospective GOP presidential candidates are presently on the Fox payroll. Anyone who sees these imitation interviews needs to remember that they are bought and paid for. And that includes other media enterprises who report on what they see on Fox.

Sarah Palin Runs Crying For Help To Sean Hannity

Posted by on January 14, 2011 at 12:01 pm. 6 Comments :

Sarah PalinIn the wake of her disastrous video statement Wednesday, Sarah Palin is running to Sean Hannity for a heaping of consolation and damage control.

The video Palin released on the day of the memorial for the victims of the Tucson rampage presented her as the victim and, if that weren’t bad enough, offended millions with her appropriation of the phrase “blood libel” to describe what she was suffering.

It didn’t take long to recognize the depths to which her foot was shoved down her throat. She was lambasted from all sides with even staunch conservatives in shock by her fumble.

So in an effort to redeem herself she has announced that she will appear on national television to take questions about the incident. The only problem is that the questions will be coming from her dear friend and apologist, Sean Hannity. No one is more obsequious than Hannity, who we can rest assured will do his best to rehabilitate Palin’s image.

The one thing that we can take away from this is that Sarah Palin is bent on affirming her manifest cowardice. Just by scheduling this “interview” she is demonstrating a pitiful lack of character. She is conceding that she does not have the intellectual capacity, or the intestinal fortitude, to face her shortcomings or her critics. Does she really think that anyone will conclude from this charade that she has been put to the test and reclaimed her dignity (such as it is)?

Palin is now in full flail mode. Her latest book is #542 on Amazon. Her reality show on TLC is not being renewed after having dropped viewers throughout its short run. Most polls show that even Republicans don’t support her for president in 2012. And her favorable ratings are hovering in the mid-twenties.

It may be time for her to take a bow and return home to Wasilla. Thank goodness the American people are demonstrating a far greater measure of common sense than Palin ever will.

BUSTED: Fox News Memo Reveals Coordinated Bias

Posted by on December 9, 2010 at 1:27 pm. 2 Comments :

In August of 2009, while the debate over health insurance reform was in full swing, GOP pollster Frank Luntz appeared on Sean Hannity’s program and advised Hannity and other Republican operatives to stop using the term “public option.” As a result of his own polling Luntz discovered that…

“…if you call it a ‘public option,’ the American people are split, [but] if you call it the ‘government option,’ the public is overwhelmingly against it.”

Luntz is a Republican pollster who specializes in language. His web site, The Word Doctors, sports the motto “It’s not what you say. It’s what people hear.” He is responsible for introducing rhetorical distortions such as the “death tax” into the public discourse. He truly does have a gift for doctoring words.

Two months after Luntz’s appearance with Hannity, Bill Sammon, Fox News’ Washington managing editor, issued a memo to Fox producers ordering them cease the use of the term “public option.” Media Matters published the memo today:

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.

This is about as clear a demonstration of institutional bias at Fox News as you’ll ever see. The evidence of their bias has always been apparent on the air, but this shows that it isn’t merely the opinions of the presenters, but that it is a coordinated policy embraced and enforced from Fox News’ executive suites. It is also contrary to an earlier memo Sammon distributed disingenuously asserting that, “We do not cheerlead for one cause or another.” However it is perfectly aligned with Sammon’s ideology as expressed in his books:

Bill Sammon Books

  • The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World
  • At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
  • Strategery: How George W. Bush Is Defeating Terrorists, Outwitting Democrats, and Confounding the Mainstream Media.
  • Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism from Inside the White House
  • Misunderestimated: The President Battles Terrorism, Media Bias and the Bush Haters

In an interview on The Daily Beast. Howard Kurtz got Sammon to respond to the email flap:

“The term public option, he said, ‘is a vague, bland, undescriptive phrase,’ and that after all, ‘who would be against a public park?’ The phrase ‘government-run plan,’ he said, is ‘a more neutral term,’ and was used just last week by a New York Times columnist. I have no idea what the Republicans were pushing or not,’ Sammons says. ‘It’s simply an accurate, fair, objective term.’

If you believe that you’re probably already a loyal Glenn Beck viewer. Sammon’s complaint that “public option” is vague and bland is actually an endorsement of its neutrality and makes it more appropriate for unbiased reporting. Sammon knows full well that “government-run” is a loaded phrase. It certainly would have an impact on the anti-government Tea Party that is the foundation of both his network and the Republican Party.

His claim that he has no idea what Republicans were pushing is utterly implausible. If it were true it would mean that he is an incompetent manager and an uninformed journalist. How could he not know the GOP preference for “government-run” when it was broadcast on the second highest rated Fox News program? Does he expect people to believe that Frank Luntz could conduct polling on the phrases and report the results to Sean Hannity, without him having any knowledge of it? And was he entirely oblivious to the fact that only Republicans ever used the term “government-run”? His defense forces us conclude that he is either a liar or an idiot.

When Sammon objected to accusations that he was biased, Kurtz correctly pointed out a number of incidents that supported the accusations. He also mentioned a couple of Sammon’s books. However, I can’t let this little escape from reality go without comment:

Kurtz: “The significance of the marching orders is that they were issued to the news division, which aims to be fair and balanced and is run separately from the opinion side, populated by the likes of Hannity and Glenn Beck.”

I would like to see Kurtz provide any evidence that the news division at Fox is run separately from the opinion side. Or that they aim to be fair and balanced. The significance of the marching orders is that they were marching orders. An ethical network would not impose such constraints, even on their editorial commentators. The only sort of enterprise that would do so is one that is focused, not on news, but on propaganda; one that has an agenda and seeks to maintain ideological purity in their messaging. In other words: Fox News.

Sarah Palin Like Really Likes Journalism And Stuff

Posted by on November 24, 2010 at 2:44 am. 2 Comments :

Sarah PalinSarah Palin ventured outside of the safety of her Facebook fortress to brave an interview with the pugnacious Sean Hannity on Fox News. The conversation turned to her infamous interview with Katie Couric and the broader subject of journalism. On the latter she offered this critique and her hope to play a role in improving the situation:

“I want to clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism.”

I think it would help if she learned to speak English first. Palin’s glaring ignorance and inarticulate ravings are probably not the best prescription for what’s ailing the media. Nevertheless, she goes on to boast of her credentials:

“And I have a communications degree. I studied journalism. Who, what, when, where and why of reporting.”

First of all, the “who, what, when, where and why of reporting” isn’t exactly college-level journalism studies. I learned that as a freshman in high school. And she earned her communications degree after hopscotching through five different colleges. That was twenty five years ago and she has never worked a single day as a reporter. Yet she has the gall to lecture others on journalism? Indeed she does. And she continues:

“I will speak to reporters who still understand that cornerstone of our democracy, that expectation our country has for truth to be reported, and then we get to decide our own opinion based on the facts reported to us.”

If she actually had any concern for truth in reporting she wouldn’t work for Fox News. And she hasn’t spoken to any reporter in over two years. The person she was saying this to was Sean Hannity. That’s not exactly someone upon whose “facts” you should base your opinions. So it’s ironic that she complains about having to engage with biased reporters:

“So a journalist, a reporter who is so biased and will no doubt spin and gin up whatever it is I have to say to create controversy, I swear to you I will not waste my time with her.”

But she will waste her time with Hannity, who does all of what she just denounced. She was actually referring to the notoriously hardball CBS news anchor, Katie Couric. And the bias and spin to which Palin refers is Couric’s audacity to ask her what newspapers and magazines she reads. That Couric is a real muckraker.

I really can’t comprehend how anyone can take this woman seriously. It is disappointing to know that there are actually Americans who consider her to be credible in any respect, much less qualified to be president. But it is encouraging to know that her fan base is still relatively small and confined to a congregation of Tea Bagging dunces who think Jesus rode a dinosaur.

Fox Nation Affirms Commitment To Fake News

Posted by on August 20, 2010 at 12:04 pm. 5 Comments :

In an affirmation of their opposition to truthful reporting, Fox Nation posted an article to complain that other news providers have the audacity to strive for truthfulness. The headline on Fox Nation said…

AP Orders Staff to Stop Using Phrase ‘Ground Zero Mosque’.

The Fox Nationalists linked to a memo from Tom Kent, AP’s Deputy Managing Editor for Standards and Production, that said in part…

“We should continue to avoid the phrase ‘ground zero mosque’ or ‘mosque at ground zero’ on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s ‘near’ ground zero, or two blocks away.”

Oh my heavens. AP is ordering their staff to publish accurate accounts of news events. What are these totalitarian, lamestream, fascists trying to do? Do they want to infect the media with honesty and factual analysis? Don’t they know that there is no place for facts in the press as envisioned by Fox News? AP is suggesting that reporters instead use far-fetched phrases like “mosque near ground zero.” It’s a travesty!

Fox News is not going to take this laying down. They have made their reputation (and their fortune) on misrepresenting the truth and misleading their readers and viewers. They have worked hard to advance the cause of propaganda and remain committed to their mission of turning as much of the public as possible into ignorant, rightist zombies. And they aren’t about to let a decades old upstart like the AP interfere with their plans to pervert reality and drive Republican talking points.

Fox News will continue to lie about the non-mosque that is not at ground zero, and they will promote this non-story incessantly to the exclusion of irrelevancies like the economy, jobs, Iraq, Afghanistan, Climate Change, health care, etc. In fact, stay tuned for a special edition of Sean Hannity’s program tonight on the “Mosque at Ground Zero,” proving that Fox News isn’t afraid to call it what it isn’t.

Bonus Fox Nation Fakery: Photo-ops, Fundraisers, and Vacations: Is That All This Pres. Does?

Never mind that Fox has repeatedly castigated President Obama for doing too much. They have regaled against him for addressing reforms of health care, Wall Street, and environmental policy. They attack him for his initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan. They complain that he has taken on Gay marriage and civil rights. According to Fox this is the busiest president in generations. That is until he takes a vacation and then that’s all he does. Well, if that’s all he does then I suppose that Fox and their right wing constituents will stop complaining about all the harm being done by the projects that he apparently isn’t working on.