Rupert Murdoch’s Anti-Competitive Internet News Cartel

Posted by on August 21, 2009 at 11:54 am. 1 Comments :

The newspaper industry’s woes are nothing new. They have been suffering declining revenues in both subscriptions and advertising for a couple of years. Some portion of that decline is attributable to the economy, but there is no question that the Internet has had an impact as well.

Rupert Murdoch, Chairman of news behemoth News Corporation, has been grumbling about what he regards as theft of his content for some time. Earlier this month he addressed a shareholder’s meeting and announced that News Corp would soon be charging for all of its Internet news properties. That, in my opinion, would fail to produce the results Murdoch desires. There is an abundance of news available online for free and there is little evidence that people would pay for access to Fox News or the New York Post.

Nevertheless, the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Murdoch is seeking to assemble the most powerful families in the news business to create a syndicate that would extort money from the news consuming public:

“As newspapers across the country struggle with declining readership and advertising revenue, News Corp. executives have been meeting in recent weeks with publishers about forming a consortium that would charge for news distributed online and on portable devices — and potentially stem the rising tide of red ink.”

The participating companies include the New York Times, Washington Post, Hearst Corp. and Tribune Co. With a roster like that it is difficult to imagine that they could get very far without being questioned by the Justice Department. The appearance of collusion and anti-trust activity could not be more conspicuous. There is no plausible justification for these enterprises to collectively plot a pay scheme for their individual services. It is blatantly anti-competitive and disadvantageous to consumers.

In the end, Murdoch’s proposals would not even resolve the problems the industry is facing. Any revenue that would be generated in this fashion would be a tiny percentage of the earnings these companies produce. And if they are presently losing customers who are willing to pay for subscriptions, what makes them think that these same customers would pay for the same product online?

The prospective members of Murdoch’s cartel should think long and hard about whether his counsel has any value. His own business just reported a loss of $3.4 billion. He personally was forced to take a 28% pay cut. His stewardship of MySpace is notable for his having turned it into a has-been, anti-social network that has been eclipsed by Facebook and Twitter. The New York Post has lost about $50 million annually for the past ten years. His track record on the Internet is abysmal. He is yesterday’s baron of dead-tree media whose only success has been with a cable “news” network that traffics in sensationalism and propaganda. Is this really someone whose advice should be taken seriously?

To sum up, Murdoch has a record of incompetence with regard to new media. The online pay model has failed spectacularly in all but a few non-representative cases. There is little money to be made by charging online news consumers. The availability of free news online is not only not receding, it is advancing. When the residue of the old world media is cleared from the landscape, and the economy regains some stability and vibrancy, then advertising will resume its customary place for funding news services online just like it has on every other platform it has ever employed.

The last thing the industry needs is to listen to a washed up, ink stained, relic who advocates strong-arming newspapers and consumers into an unlawful strategy that is bound to fail.

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Fox Nation’s Racist Attack On McDonalds “Black” Web Site

Posted by on August 20, 2009 at 2:50 pm. 8 Comments :

In response to an announcement from McDonald’s that they are launching a new web site to serve the African American community, Fox Nation members donned their white sheets and expressed how they truly feel. The spark that fueled this barrage of hate was 365Black.com, a site about which McDonalds says:

At McDonald’s, we believe that African-American culture and achievement should be celebrated 365 days a year – not just during Black History Month. That’s the idea behind 365Black.com. It’s a place where you can learn more about education, employment, career advancement and entrepreneurship opportunities, and meet real people whose lives have been touched by McDonald’s.

That is the outrageous affront to morality that produced these comments at Fox Nation:

Navy(Retired): What do you expect, that’s all that works there
Annabell: Most of the time..they can’t even count the change. It’s sad too.

Lone Star: Next thing you know Ronald will have a doooo rag on and a large watch around his neck on a big gold blingy chain

Out of the Blue: can you get waffles and a 40 oz with a chicken sandwich now?
You can get a nappy meal to.

Paul: Maybe McDonalds could next open an illegal Mexican branch so they would all feel at home since they act like it’s theirs anyway.

noblinkster: Hey, maybe they will have watermelon on their summer menu!!
Mike S: Crack pipes in Happy meals for the black kids

Kenyan Chronicles: Check out their CEO–(black)—– He gave $30,000 to odumbo’s election —-How much of that came from YOUR wallet?………Enjoy those big-macs!

Captain Obvious: They want separation? Then let them TRY to survive without the “evil” white man!

Nicotinegun: Let McDonalds do what they want. If they want to pander let the ones they pander to pay them for food. Don’t go their. Personally, I would like to see a national boycott on any place that has Spanish on their walls, telephones, products, etc. That would be great.

JPT: Since over 40% of blacks are obese, Micky D’s is trying to capitalize .
teddy69: yeah, and the other 60% are flat worthless!

teddy69: i’m sure our founding fathers never intended our country to get this messed up! you remember the movie “Planet of The Apes”???

FoxNewsAddict: I will be boycotting McD’s until it puts up a WHITE360 website!!!!

SandraR: This is the most racist contrivance I have ever seen in my life. This stupidity needs litigation RASISUM extraordinaire.

kcchiefsfan: I am so pissed off!!! I left them my feedback and ask them when were we going to have a “White McDonalds” website for us white folks too! OMG and leave it to McDonalds!!! I’ve seen everything now! Isn’t that what Popeyes Chicken is for???

Talk about showing your true colors. At least we know where they stand.

Addendum: It just occurred to me that McDonalds is a significant advertiser on Fox News as well as other Murdoch properties. For example: Fox, McDonald’s ink blockbuster deal. Does McDonalds know about the hate speech that their business partner is engaging in against them?

Color of Change, are you listening?


Who’s Still Advertising on Glenn Beck?

Posted by on August 19, 2009 at 12:45 pm. 34 Comments :

Gawker took the plunge and watched Glenn Beck yesterday to see what advertisers remain after more than twenty …um… thirty …er… forty have abandoned the program due to Beck’s offensive rhetoric. It is a list that says much about him and his disciples. Here it is with my own comments attached:

  • Extenze penis-enhancing pills – To make sure that blood isn’t flowing into his viewers brains.
  • Inogen One portable oxygen concentrator – To make sure they stay conscious while being disinformed.
  • Brez anti-snoring nose inserts – In the event his viewers pass out, like his guests do.
  • Egg Genie microwave egg cooker – So they have something to suck on.
  • The Jewelry Exchange – Because watching Fox Business Network has left them destitute.
  • SmartForLife diet cookies – Just look at what they’ve done for Rush Limbaugh.
  • The Mesothelioma Hotline – Those right-wingers are all over tort reform.
  • Jupiter Jack phone device – Note to Beck viewers: No, this does not let you call Jupiter.
  • Rosetta Stone language training – To learn to bash immigrants in their native tongue.
  • The Speed Channel – What Beck’s viewers watch when they can’t get the Meth Channel.
  • Oreck vacuum cleaners – Apply to frontal cortex and set to maximum.
  • FreeScore.com credit report service – This is the scam that Ben Stein was peddling.

That’s a nice group of low-rent advertisers. Contrary to the claims by Fox News flacks that they have not lost revenue due to the advertiser boycott, it is plain that the companies above are not paying the same fees that Procter & Gamble or GEICO did. And their consolation that the show has increased its ratings is rather hollow when higher ratings doesn’t mean more revenue.

Keep the pressure on: Color of Change


The Lies That Fox News Viewers Believe

Posted by on August 19, 2009 at 2:39 am. 10 Comments :

Six years ago the Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study that showed that Fox viewers are far more likely to believe things that are demonstrably false, than are viewers of other networks. It’s still true.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll (pdf) featured on the Rachel Maddow Show (video below) included questions centered on the recent health care debate. What made this poll unique was that four of the questions sought to ascertain whether the respondents believed statements that were known to be untrue. Here are the results broken out by which news sources the respondents favored:

On Health Care Reform, Those Who Believe That It Will… MSNBC/CNN Viewers Fox News Viewers
Give Coverage To Illegal Immigrants: 41% 72%
Lead To A Government Takeover: 39% 79%
Pay For Abortions: 40% 69%
Stop Care To The Elderly: 30% 75%

Let me repeat: These are statements that are known to be untrue, yet Fox News viewers believe them in overwhelming numbers. It’s bad enough that approximately 40% of MSNBC/CNN viewers believe these myths, but clearly Fox is producing an audience of vastly misinformed, cultural illiterates.

The problem with having a national news organization that is polluting the population with lies about critical public issues is that it makes democracy impossible. And that, of course, may be the goal of Fox and its corporate overseers. Democracy is such a messy affair, what with all the people voting and stuff. If your objective is to manipulate government, you can’t get very far if voters are actually familiar with the issues and are capable of making sound judgments. So Fox News found it necessary to invent a platform of fake agendas to create fear and then purposefully indoctrinate their predominantly Republican and southern viewers to believe in them.

They have enjoyed a fair measure of success in the past couple of weeks as raucous town hall meetings and shrill political disputes have dominated news coverage. There have been episodes of chaos and hostility erupting in what used to be neighborly community gatherings. Television pundits are peddling insane conspiracies that link shadowy cabals to absurd plots with tentacles reaching into evil government agencies. And weirdos with weapons are showing up at presidential events to wander around menacing peaceful demonstrators and anxious Secret Service agents.

It is vitally important that sanity and honesty be restored to public discourse. As people become more aware of truthful representations of the issues, the tide could rapidly turn back to permit a rational debate to take place. The results of this poll could go a long way toward persuading people that they have been the victims of a deliberate con job. That can only occur if this poll is distributed broadly enough to be seen by a substantial portion of the electorate, including those who watch Fox News. Of course, Fox itself would never broadcast these results, so it’s up to us to be the distributors of the truth; to pass this information along; and to expose Fox as the perpetrators of hoaxes that they are.

Fox News viewers are being led around like Ritalin-sodden sheep. There is a case to made that they would be outraged at being so brazenly mislead – if they only knew. Data like this makes it difficult to pretend that Fox News respects its audience. This is the sort of evidence that could cause many FoxPods to revolt and free themselves. We need to help them see the light. Let’s just hope that it isn’t too late.

Update: The Pew Research Center confirms the delusional state of Republicans and Fox News viewers. Their survey reports that a plurality of 47% of Republicans believe in “death panels” compared to 20% of Democrats and 28% of Independents. Likewise, 45% of Fox News viewers believe this myth as opposed to 27% of MSNBC viewers and 26% of CNN’s.


The Idiots Of Fox News: Garrett, Sammon, And O’Reilly Edition

Posted by on August 18, 2009 at 2:25 pm. 1 Comments :

I know, the headline is redundant. What’s more, this list is far from comprehensive. It is just intended to spotlight a few recent examples. I couldn’t possibly keep up with them all.

For the last Week, Major Garrett has been making it abundantly clear that he is a moron. He doesn’t seem to understand how the Internet works and he thinks that emails received by some Fox News viewers is a more important issue than health care or Afghanistan or Iran or anything else on the nation’s agenda.

Now a Fox colleague has joined him and may have surpassed his idiocy. Bill Sammon, VP and Washington managing editor, appeared this morning and was interviewed by anchor Trace Gallagher (who delivers every report as if you are a kindergartner – which may be appropriate for Fox viewers). In his attempt to prolong the manufactured pseudo-scandal over emails, Sammon explained that the White House improperly collected email data (it did not) and that it should not be retained. He then went on to speculate that the administration might destroy the alleged data and that, if they did, they would be in violation of the Presidential Records Act. So Sammon was criticizing the White House for both keeping the data and not keeping the data (he later acknowledged this paradox, but the damage he intended was done). It’s the perfect Fox News perspective. No matter what the President does, it’s wrong.

Perennial Fox News idiot, Bill O’Reilly had this to say yesterday on the President’s health care proposal:

“‘Talking Points’ watched President Obama in Colorado on Saturday, and once again I had no idea what the president was talking about. He went on and on about all kinds of stuff that seemingly only he understands. It’s kind of like a poltergeist. He can see it; nobody else can.”

“So here’s the deal. If President Obama wants more fairness in the health care industry, he has to come up with five bullet points that even I can understand. Five things that clearly tell us what Obamacare would do.”

First of all, isn’t it cute that O’Reilly refers to himself as “Talking Points,” some kind of disembodied concept that watched the President? But more to the point, he admitted that he is an idiot who has “no idea what the president was talking about.” I suppose we should respect his honesty for confessing to his inferior comprehension skills. But he goes on to complain that Obama’s plan isn’t simple enough for him and that it should have five bullet points to make it understandable to someone of his deficient mental capacity. Unfortunately, the White House ignored O’Reilly’s advice and published eight bullet points:

  • Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
  • Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
  • Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
  • Invest in prevention and wellness
  • Improve patient safety and quality of care
  • Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
  • Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
  • End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Those three extra bullet points may be too much for Mr. “Talking Points” to grasp. It was also too difficult for him to even find this list of the President’s objectives (it took me about ten seconds. I searched Google for “White House” and “healthcare” and clicked on the first link). So O’Reilly is essentially asking for an explanation that he can understand, which is already available, but he still can’t understand it. Another perfect Fox News perspective.


Fox News Propped Up By Republicans And Southerners

Posted by on August 18, 2009 at 12:35 pm. 6 Comments :

A new poll by Daily Kos/Research 2000 explores some interesting, but not entirely surprising, viewing patterns for the three top cable news networks. The poll’s most revealing results are those that break out party affiliation and regional viewing.

Overall, 25% of respondents watch Fox News at least once a week. That number includes 23% of Democrats and 14% of Independents. The obvious partisan standout is Republicans with 52% watching at least once a week. Similarly, regional viewing is heavily weighted to the south with 39% of southerners tuning in to Fox News. The rest of the nation is far less attracted to the right-wing network who draws significantly fewer viewers from the west (23%), the midwest (21%), and the northeast (13%). Also notable is the dismal performance of Fox amongst young voters (18-29) and minorities, at least 80% of whom report that they never watch Fox News. In fact, more than 50% of all of the groups of viewers (party, region, ethnicity, age) never watch Fox News, except for Republicans (38%).

Republicans and southerners are also the most sharply segmented groups in the survey when queried on viewing of CNN and MSNBC. An examination of the data shows that these two groups almost completely shut out any news source other than Fox News. To be sure, Democrats favor MSNBC and, to a lesser extent CNN, in greater numbers than other demographic breakouts, but the disparity is nowhere near as great as that for Republicans and southerners.

These numbers are essentially repeated when the question turns from viewing habits to perceptions of accuracy. The only significant variance is in the “not sure” column. For those who reported being unsure with regard to accuracy, both CNN and Fox had percentages in the low twenties. MSNBC, however, reported 60% not sure. This number probably reflects the lower distribution of MSNBC on cable outlets nationally.

The bottom line is that Republicans and the south occupy a very different country than the rest of us do. This party and regional divergence could not be more pronounced. It suggests that a case could be made that the Civil War was not a particularly constructive event. The consequence of this discord is that neither the conservative south, nor the more progressive north, west, and east, are being represented very well. Previous studies have shown these same distinctions on policy questions like health care and opinions on whether the President was a natural born U.S. citizen.

This new poll is a useful glimpse into cable news viewing habits, but I would still like to see what a Nielsen survey would show. There is ample evidence that Fox is a predominately regional network whose viewers are clustered in the south. With Nielsen data to confirm this, advertisers might alter the way they allocate their budgets. Also, cable operators might adjust their channel offerings, which could help to resolve the distribution problem that MSNBC has been hampered by.

It is truly a shame that the majority of the country is being held hostage by a minority that is pushing a Dark Ages platform that opposes universal health care, civil rights, tax fairness, and environmental protection. And it compounds the shame that an overtly biased cable news network is artificially elevated in a manner that inflates its clout so that it can further distort the political landscape.

However, one other thing needs to be taken from this survey. The numbers of respondents who say they never watch any of the cable news nets (averaging over 2/3) affirms my long held belief that far too much is made of what these networks do and say. The total viewership in primetime for the whole bunch is less than 2% of the American population. Putting that into perspective should give analysts pause when attributing any significance to what is said on cable news.

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Fox Nation Declares Victory: Health Care Edition

Posted by on August 17, 2009 at 11:35 am. 2 Comments :

This is the fifth time that the Fox Nation has declared a “victory” on their web site that is not attributable to Fox Nation nor even a victory:

Quoting me: Fox Nation has decided to make a habit of these “Mission Accomplished” moments. That stance in and of itself is evidence of Fox’s bias. They have ceased to even pretend to be a neutral news enterprise. They are now openly admitting that they have a stake in the outcomes of political affairs. And when they think their side has won, they won’t hesitate to declare victory and commence a celebration.

In addition to this overt display of bias, Fox News broadcast another episode of its long-running series of chyron “bloopers.” Normally they are satisfied with merely misidentifying the party affiliation of politicians. In almost every case the error reflects badly on Democrats. But on this occasion they have stepped up their game. By mislabeling Joe Sestak as Joke Sestak, Fox News is blatantly insulting a Democratic congressman and candidate for the Senate. I guess the next step will be to attach devil horns to the the top of every Democrat’s head and replace the audio with commie radio broadcasts.


Fox News’ Major Garrett Really Doesn’t Understand Email

Posted by on August 14, 2009 at 7:07 pm. 27 Comments :

At yesterday’s White House press briefing, Major Garrett of Fox News embarrassed himself by demonstrating his utter lack of understanding of the Internet and email. Today he is escalating his campaign to make a total ass of himself, and he is doing a magnificent job of it.

Garrett appeared on Fox News today to announce that he is pursuing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs to find out how emails, allegedly sent from the White House, were received by people who never requested them. He has even filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get to the bottom of this raging controversy. There are some rather simple and entirely innocent answers to this mystery, but Garrett can’t be bothered to investigate them. On his blog today he admitted to journalistic negligence that would make a cub reporter cringe.

“…in every instance so far, e-mailers insist the e-mail(s) they received from the White House was/were not forwarded. They are positive the e-mails arrived directly from the White House.”

“Fox cannot independently verify all of these accounts. Fox can only represent what hundreds of e-mailers have represented to me or to the network.”

So Garrett is relying on the accounts of the people who contacted him who said they were “positive” the emails came directly from the White House, but he can’t verify a single one. He is satisfied that these people whom he has never met, never questioned, never vetted, are so reliable that he is under no obligation to confirm their assertions. He produces two examples of aggrieved email recipients, one of whom complains, not of an email, but a pop-up ad containing an email from the White House. Of course, a pop-up ad cannot contain an email. It can contain ad, but Garrett didn’t verify this either and, frankly, I’m skeptical.

Click here to enlarge.
These are the people on whose “positive” assertions he was relying when filing his FOIA request. But Garrett is missing an even bigger piece of this puzzle. Apparently he never bothered to look at his very own Fox News blog on which there is a “SHARE” feature that permits anyone to send an email from that site to any other email address. And – surprise – WhiteHouse.gov has the very same feature. (see image at left)

I don’t know if Garrett is really this clueless about the Internet or if he is deliberately manufacturing a remarkably lame scandal. But before he gets himself in too deep, he may want to get former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens to explain this series of tubes to him.

For a network/party that had no problem with the Bush administration actually monitoring and reading their emails, they are sure making a big stink out of something as innocent as a contact list from which they can unsubscribe with a click.

Update: I’m curious if Garrett’s FOIA request would violate the privacy policy of the White House web site. I know that I wouldn’t want my email, or other info that I gave to WhiteHouse.gov, turned over to Fox News.

Update II: Fox News received a response from the White House regarding the mysterious emails:

“The White House email list is made up of email addresses obtained solely through the White House website. The White House doesn’t purchase, upload or merge from any other list, again, all emails come from the White House website as we have no interest in emailing anyone who does not want to receive an email. If an individual received the email because someone else or a group signed them up or forwarded the email, we hope they were not too inconvenienced. Further, we suggest that they unsubscribe from the list by clicking the link at the bottom of the email or tell whomever forwarded it to them not to forward such information anymore. We are implementing measures to make subscribing to emails clearer, including preventing advocacy organizations from signing people up to our lists without their permission when they deliver petition signatures and other messages on individual’s behalf.”

As it turns out, it was third-party organizations who entered the email addresses into the White House system, not some grand conspiracy by Obama and ACORN and Bill Ayres and the Kenyan Consulate. Who knew? Well, everyone but Major Garrett and the fraternity of Foxpods.


Media Consortium Contemplates Competiton To Nielsen

Posted by on August 14, 2009 at 12:58 pm. NO Comments :

The Financial Times is reporting that some of the top media companies are exploring options for creating an alternative to Nielsen Media’s monopolistic control of the television ratings system.

“Media participants in the consortium – including networks owned by NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp, Viacom, CBS, Discovery and Walt Disney – expect it to be operational by September.”

Neilsen’s service has been the subject of criticism for decades. Its methodology is virtually guaranteed to misrepresent the actual TV audience. Out-of-home viewing isn’t included. This is a significant portion of the marketplace that includes offices, dorms, hotels, bars, etc. Their sampling is skewed by being limited just to those respondents who aren’t creeped out by having a device attached to their TV that records everything they watch. They do not account for cultural viewing habits where certain groups of viewers gather together to view programs. That has a disproportional impact on young and low income viewers, as well as sports fans. And the new media marketplace (i.e. digital viewing) is almost completely ignored.

So it is well past time to overhaul this archaic and inaccurate process of measuring TV usage. But don’t get too excited. I have seen at least three of these consortiums come and go. It is a high risk, low probability exercise that is almost doomed to fail before it begins.

Here is how it generally goes. The stakeholders (producers, syndicators, advertisers) come together agreeing that the status quo is untenable and something has to be done. Then they solicit prospective enterprises to fill the gaps that Nielsen is missing. The consortium promises to support the new venture and help them to develop a product that all parties will find useful. The new venture invests millions of dollars and thousands of hours in building their service. At some point they are ready to provide the consortium with sample data. In the instances that I witnessed, the new data was often in conflict with the data from Nielsen, but it was well supported and appeared to differ only because they were more accurate than Nielsen.

This is where the trouble starts. With numbers that differ from Nielsen, some parties will be up while others are down. The parties whose numbers are lower will immediately object to the new service and complain that they are not being represented properly. Then the consortium begins to collapse. As the aggrieved parties back away, the remaining members are faced with greater burdens to support the new venture because the cost is distributed between fewer players. Plus, these higher burdens come as the project is in turmoil, which makes any continued investment even more risky, and thus, less likely.

A peculiarity of the television advertising world is that these folks prefer inaccurate data to accurate data that makes them look bad. Maybe that isn’t really peculiar, just self-serving and dishonest (like that never happens in business). But it bodes ill for any enterprise that seeks to promote themselves by boasting about their accuracy.

As the consortium and the new venture have been wrestling to put together the new service, Nielsen has been busily disparaging the new venture as untested and unreliable. At the same time, they have started to adopt the methods and features of the new venture and slash their own fees to undercut the new competition.

The result is that the new venture eventually loses the necessary support to be sustainable and quietly fades away. Nielsen, after preserving their monopoly, retreats to their previous levels of poor service and unresponsiveness to their clients. And with the threat of competition removed, they inevitably increase their fees to pre-consortium levels.

At this point, there is no reason to presume that this effort will end any differently. Any business that is lured into this space had better be careful and apprise themselves of the history of these projects. I don’t doubt the sincerity of those who are promoting this initiative. But I suspect that they have little historical memory of what they are proposing and they may be a bit naive. Time will tell.


Fox Nation Declares Victory: Death Panels And Hitler Edition

Posted by on August 14, 2009 at 9:55 am. 5 Comments :

This is the fourth time that the Fox Nation has declared a “victory” on their web site that is not attributable to Fox Nation nor even a victory:

Quoting me: Fox Nation has decided to make a habit of these “Mission Accomplished” moments. That stance in and of itself is evidence of Fox’s bias. They have ceased to even pretend to be a neutral news enterprise. They are now openly admitting that they have a stake in the outcomes of political affairs. And when they think their side has won, they won’t hesitate to declare victory and commence a celebration.

However, on this occasion there was an even worse display of the repugnant character of Fox Nation. Accompanying a link to a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll, Fox Nation selected an image that illustrates perfectly the Fox doctrine of division and hatred:

Take a good look at that picture. It is no accident that the Obama as Hitler poster is the first thing that draws the eye. Yet there is no editorial connection to that visual cue. The graphic links to a poll conducted by Fox News with predictably negative results for President Obama. But the revolting context suggested by the image is affirmed in the caption:

“FNC Poll: America Sides With Town Hall Protesters.”

The inescapable conclusion is that town hall protesters regard Obama as equivalent to Hitler and that the rest of America concurs. This is not merely a snapshot of a vile assemblage of ignorant hate mongers, it is confirmation that Fox is amongst those who side with the Hitler-invoking protesters. It was Fox editors who made the decision to publish this photo that was deliberately cropped to deliver a visual message.

What makes this even more repulsive is that Fox persistently denies the allegations that the Tea Baggers who populate these town halls are racist. Yet here they plainly flaunt the transparent loathing that infects these objectionable objectors and furthermore, they exalt them as the essence of American values.

Were this just an example of photojournalism capturing a real moment in the quilt of characters that make up our nation, it would be appropriate and enlightening. But to deploy this image in this context is simply disgusting, but not surprising coming from Fox.