Neil Cavuto

Fox Business Network Ad Deliberately Dishonest

Posted by on March 24, 2008 at 3:16 am. NO Comments :

A couple of weeks ago, CNBC’s Jim Cramer was asked by an emailer if he should liquidate his account at Bear Stearns. Cramer said:

“No! No! No! Bear Stearns is not in trouble. If anything, they’re more likely to be taken over. Don’t move your money from Bear.”

Shortly thereafter, Bear Stearns stock collapsed and the company was taken over by JP Morgan Chase. Cramer himself has been castigated and ridiculed for his response from many quarters, and now the Fox Business Network is piling on with a new ad:

The only problem with the ad and other criticism is that Cramer was right. The critics are either being deliberately dishonest or they have a severe case of attention deficit disorder. The emailer was asking specifically about Bear Stearns’ liquidity and whether he should close his deposit account. He was not asking about the company’s stock value and Cramer’s response had nothing to do with that. Cramer correctly pointed out that the company’s depositors would be fine because the Federal Reserve guaranteed those funds and that the worst that would happen is that another firm would acquire them. That’s exactly what did happen.

But that hasn’t stopped Fox from publishing a deceitful ad that misrepresents Cramer’s advice. It’s actually kind of funny that the ad’s tagline is “Turbulent Times Call For A Credible Network.” Credible? You mean like a network that doesn’t lie in their advertisements? I think this would be a more appropriate ad:

I’m no apologist for Jim Cramer. He has a pretty lousy track record on stock recommendations. And for a TV personality who behaves like a clown, he violates the most important rule for a clown – be funny! However, when he’s right he shouldn’t have to take heat from the likes of Fox – the network that, on their first day of broadcast, featured the “Naked Cowboy“ offering financial guidance.

For the Record: On July 13, 2007, FBN’s current Managing Editor, Neil Cavuto disputed reports of the economy’s weakness saying that he “[didn’t] believe a word of it.” Since then the Dow has dropped 1,469 points (10.6%), the mortgage market has thrown thousands into foreclosure, and now a financial powerhouse has been reduced to rubble. That’s the sort of credibility you can expect from FBN which calls itself: The Network You Can’t Afford To Miss. More like: The Network You Can’t Afford To Watch.

It’s Best When Everybody Thinks Alike

Posted by on December 14, 2007 at 3:20 pm. NO Comments :

In this administration, as in the halls of Fox News, it’s best when everybody thinks alike – No matter how much they pretend otherwise.


The White House held it’s annual “Holiday” (that’s right, holiday) Party for the media last night and the guest list was, to no one’s surprise, heavily weighted to the right-wing regurgitators of whom the President is so fond.

This morning Dana Perino, the President’s press secretary, visited with a regurgitator on Fox News and had the following exchange:

Steve Doocy: [H]ow weird is it to have, Dana, people who appear on other channels, who bash the president all the time, and then, one night a year, they come into the White House, they bring their kids, and they say, Hi, how are you, as if they haven’t been bashing the president all year long?

Dana Perino: It’s a little awkward. And it was amazing to me, being in charge of taking the requests for invitations this year, how audacious some people are to call and ask to be invited to the president’s Christmas party.

It was nice of Doocy to so openly reveal that it is the “other channels” who bash the President, and not Fox, the President’s Cheerleading Squad. That sort of honesty has been more in view since Rupert Murdoch admitted that he tried to shape the agenda on Iraq. And Perino’s discomfort with reporters who are critical of the President says something about her lack of professionalism and her immaturity in the role of press secretary.

And speaking of lack of professionalism, another Fox regurgitator, Neil Cavuto, interviewed his boss Rupert Murdoch yesterday. The conversation covered Murdoch’s acquisition of Dow Jones (and the Wall Street Journal) and the launch of the Fox Business Network, for which Cavuto is the Sr. VP. Have they really sunk this low? A senior Fox News executive interviewing his boss on air. That would be like Dana Perino interviewing the President for broadcast (maybe I shouldn’t give them any ideas). What exactly would we expect to learn from that?

I guess we’ll just have to get used to Fox News employees interviewing other Fox News employees. And we’ll have to accept that the White House is no longer the people’s house, but an office for partisan business and gatherings.

The Fox Frame: Distorting Reality

Posted by on October 5, 2007 at 4:06 pm. 4 Comments :

For lack of a better hobby, I collect Fox News screen grabs that demonstrate their unfaltering commitment to obfuscation, misrepresentation, propaganda, and plain old garden variety lies. These were all snagged last week from “Your World” with Neil Cavuto. Cavuto has been tapped to be the managing editor of the new Fox Business channel which debuts October 15. This should give you all a pretty good idea of what to expect from the new network which claims that it “Means Business.”

In a discussion of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007, Neil Cavuto and company described the bill as shielding “leakers” rather than reporters.

CBS News: The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced a bill to shield reporters from being forced to reveal their sources in federal court.

The Cavuto Crew implies that a Hillary Clinton presidency should scare Wall Street. They apparently don’t know that Wall Street traditionally performs better during Democratic administrations.

“…the Dow Jones industrial average has returned an average of 6.4% under Republican presidents and 9.1% under Democrats since 1901.”

Are Democrats using kids as props? Gee, I Don’t know. Let’s ask President Bush who has made a habit of it throughout his presidency.

Whitehouse.gov:

And Fox wants people to take them seriously as a news network? How many viewers will take this sort of twisted proselytizing seriously. For rightwingers who so often complain about activist judges, they obviously aren’t too concerned about activist journalists.

Fox Business News Hues: Rosy Futures

Posted by on August 16, 2007 at 4:21 pm. NO Comments :

Neil Cavuto, the long-standing captain of the Fox Cheer Leading Squad for America’s corporatist economy, is charitably contributing to a detailed portrait of the quality of the financial news that the Fox Business Network will start broadcasting in October. And it IS a pretty picture. A picture filled with rainbows and bluebirds and silk PJs for all.


Fox Business Analyst, Kurt Loder?

In the days leading up to the Dow topping 14,000, Cavuto and Co. were uncontrollably giddy with praise for free markets, capital gains tax cuts, and President Bush’s economic policies. It was as if the only thing that constituted business news was the happy-talk that he himself was manufacturing by the truckload. At the same time, he would condemn those who dared to report the bumps in the road. For example:

In Misery Sells, Smiles Do Not (July 27, 2007), Cavuto takes on what he perceives as the unnecessary attention the press gives to market declines:
“Man, I saw this one coming. The Dow plunges more than 300 points, and it’s front page news. Down to the dude covering his face in anguish in The Washington Post. And the gloomy top banner story in The New York Times bemoaning a global stock market tumble.”

In The Economy Stinks? Says Who? (July 13, 2007), Cavuto dismisses the public’s pessimism about a market awash in volatility:
“So six out of 10 of us say the economy stinks. Must be so because USA Today says it’s so. Me? I don’t believe it. Not a word of it.”

In The ‘Real’ Reason Markets Are Nervous (August 01, 2007), Cavuto blames another downturn on John Edwards who, despite running third in his party’s primary, has infinite power over Wall Street:
“Taxes are going up. Stocks have been going down. I don’t think it’s just a coincidence […] this isn’t about hedge funds. It’s about capital gains taxes and John Edwards saying he wants to raise them.”

In When Is a ‘Meltdown’ Not a Meltdown? (August 07, 2007), Cavuto downplays the significance of the credit crunch, with implications that there really isn’t any problem at all.
“This “meltdown” affects roughly 4 percent of all mortgages out there. So, that means 96 percent of mortgages are being paid on time.”

Now, none of this should come as a surprise to those familiar with Fox News, its editors or its management. Rupert Murdoch, after all, has admitted that he intends to color his business reporting with a rosy hue, saying that…

“…a Fox channel would be ‘more business-friendly than CNBC.’ That channel ‘leap[s] on every scandal, or what they think is a scandal.”

Now that the Dow has dropped below 13,000, just 27 days after its peak, do you suppose that Fox and Cavuto will suddenly deliver a more honest account of these roiling markets? That seems doubtful considering that on this day, when the Dow swung negative over 300 points before closing down just 15, the headline guest on Fox’s post-bell market wrap was the world renowned economist and health care expert, MTV’s Kurt Loder.

To be fair, Loder repeated several times that he was not an expert on economics or health care, but that didn’t stop him from shoveling his uninformed views down the throats of Fox’s intellectually fragile audience. The bigger question is why Fox News invited this dinosaur to lecture us on issues he concedes he is unqualified to discuss in the first place. Most likely it has something to do with his having been the author of a fiercely partisan and factually vacant essay on Michael Moore’s documentary, Sicko, wherein he called Moore a brazen con man who cherry-picked facts and manipulated interviews, and labeled him “a proud socialist.”

Cavuto’s program has a history of booking some “colorful” guests, including porn star Mary Carey and comedian Tommy Chong (who actually knocked Cavuto down a couple of pegs. See the video here).

As it turns out, there is a serious problem in the credit markets with skyrocketing foreclosures and constricted liquidity. But news consumers who are exposed to Fox’s representation of these events are certain to end up both dangerously ill-informed and decidedly broke. And what’s even more frightening is what the future holds for financial reporting. With the coming launch of the Fox Business Network and Murdoch’s digestion of the Wall Street Journal, there is going to be a lot of bad advice floating around – and a lot of people are going to get hurt.

The Fox Frame: Terrorist Doctors Edition

Posted by on July 6, 2007 at 10:20 am. NO Comments :

Yesterday, the soon-to-be managing editor of the Fox Business Channel, Neil Cavuto, interviewed National Review Online columnist Jerry Bowyer who claimed that national health care systems are breeding grounds for terrorists because they are “bureaucratic.”

How long before Bush invades the DMV?

Today Cavuto expanded on the theme by asking if it’s, “time to restrict Muslim Dr.’s from entering America.”

Guest Mike Gallagher argued that Muslim doctors should be banned entry into the U.S. and Hugh Hewitt advocated investigation of all those who are already here. This was followed by a guest explaining why Muslim doctors will ignore their Hippocratic Oath. She failed to address Christian doctors that also do so when supporting wars of aggression (i.e.Iraq) or presiding over executions.

Will these patriots also support such measures for accountants and engineers and practioners of all the other occupations of terrorists that have been captured to date?

But Neil still wasn’t finished exhibiting the kind of fairness and balance that we can expect from him as head of Fox’ business news division.

The very next segment had another hit piece on Michael Moore’s “Sicko” that accused him of lying about the healthcare system in Canada. But it was the guest who lied by saying that Moore never discussed the waiting periods in Canada. In fact, Moore did state that there are waiting periods in both Canada and the U.S. And no one waits longer than someone who never gets care.

This is what we have to look forward to when Fox launches their business network this fall. And, unless the Bancroft family wises up, it’s what readers of the Wall Street Journal will be faced with as well.

Neil Cavuto Smacked Down By Tommy Chong

Posted by on June 28, 2007 at 2:11 pm. 5 Comments :



 
The soon-to-be managing editor of the Fox Business Channel, Neil Cavuto, just got his ass whipped by this generation’s premiere stoner.

Tommy Chong appeared on Cavuto’s “Your World” to discuss today’s failure of the Immigration bill. Cavuto kept trying to steer Chong into concessions on the economy, but Chong would have none of it.

Download Windows Media Video

The interview began with Cavuto asserting that the nation is being harmed by illegal immigration. Chong refused to buy into that stating that the issue was a deliberate distraction orchestrated by the Bush administration.

Then Cavuto tried to claim that the bill that failed today was sponsored by Chong’s comrade, Ted Kennedy. The only problem is that Chong doesn’t embrace Kennedy, or any politician, as his comrade.

So Cavuto switches back to the problem of 12 million “illegals” and the damage they do to our economy. He asks Chong if it was wrong to let all of these people into the country. Chong had a handy reply: He came to this country illegally from Canada and spent the first five years here without papers.

Cavuto made the obligatory references to narcotics (that I’m sure Chong is used to by now) and asked Chong if had been smoking “anything.” Despite Chong’s reputation, Cavuto seemed surprised when Chong said, “Absolutely!”

At this point Chong begin a sustained assault on the President repeatedly referring to him as a moron. Cavuto shot back that Bush should get some credit for the nation’s strong economy. Chong just rolled his eyes and asked Cavuto if all the people losing their homes think the economy is strong. I would like to have seen Chong also point out Cavuto’s contradiction that the country is being economically savaged by immigrants and is simultaneously an economic powerhouse.

Chong proceeded to expand on his “Bush is a moron” theme by pointing our that we have a moron President who started a moron war and rattled off a few other Bush failures. He also alerted Cavuto to the fact that we didn’t have an illegal problem when Clinton was president. Cavuto misunderstood and asked if people just started pouring across the borders after Bush took office. Chong corrected him by saying that that was just when they started talking about it.

The interviewed ended with a bit of a cliffhanger. Chong asked if he could give Cavuto the solution to the problem. Cavuto declined saying that his time was up. Chong persisted in asking Cavuto for just another moment, but Cavuto would not comply. The segment ended with Chong poignantly saying, as the music and graphics swirled up, that they “just want to talk about problems and not solutions.” It couldn’t have been timed better.

I’m not sure what the most significant part of this interview is. Is it that Fox News books stoned comedians as analysts for immigration and economic policy discussions? Is that that a stoned comedian took apart the Fox anchorman? Is it the multiple inaccuracies that Cavuto offered up as fact? Or is it the fact that this rightist front man is about to head up a major cable business channel?

The Power of the Media

Posted by on March 1, 2006 at 9:56 pm. NO Comments :

This should lay to rest any doubts about the media’s power to manufacture a message.

Fox News asks: Is all-out civil war in Iraq a good thing?


Sure, who wouldn’t enjoy a good civil war every now and again?

Then Fox News asks: Did the media make up the civil war in Iraq?


Of course. And they also made up a bombed-out holy shrine followed by over 200 dead Iraqis.

News Corpse asks: Is it a good thing that Fox News makes up sensationalistic stories that exploit suffering and death to promote their own propaganda?

I don’t know. I’m just preparing to deploy for the War on Easter.