Dan Gainor

Fox News: The Most Powerful Propagandist Since Goebbels

Posted by on January 1, 2012 at 10:33 am. 9 Comments :

Fox News waited until the last day of 2011 to publish the most absurdly hyperbolic piece of journalistic comedy/trash of the year. And that’s a high bar for Fox.

Dan Gainor is a VP for the Media Research Center, an ultra-conservative operation that exists to bash Democrats and advance the myth that the media is liberal. In an op-ed for Fox, Gainor breaks all records for overstatement and ironic tunnel-blindness. He begins the unintentionally hilarious article by declaring that the…

“Huffington Post, HuffPo, as it is sometimes called, has evolved from a simple news aggregator into one of the most sophisticated propaganda operations the world has ever seen. […and that Arianna Huffington is…] the most powerful propagandist since a guy named Goebbels.”

That’s the kickoff to Gainor’s Fox News article that castigates Arianna Huffington and the Huffingtong Post as left-wing missionaries of fascism. [This just in: The CEO of Huffington Post/AOL, Tim Armstrong, has contributed the maximum donation this year to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney.]

It doesn’t get much better after that. Gainor carelessly contradicts one of the primary edicts of conservative free marketing: that Fox News and talk radio are so abundantly successful because the media consuming public prefers the conservative message. He says of Huffington that…

“The site was started by political chameleon Arianna Huffington, who used to be conservative before she discovered it was far more lucrative to be liberal.”

There you have it. Apparently the people do want liberal media. From there Gainor goes into a diatribe against HuffPo that would make a much better tirade were it directed at Fox’s own Fox Nation. It’s astonishing how oblivious he is to the twisted irony of his words. For instance, he wonders aghast that “Everywhere you look on the site, Republicans and conservatives are doing something bad.” Replace “Republicans and conservatives” with “Democrats and liberals” and you have a perfect description of Fox Nation. Then he continues his HuffPo rant…

“The few stories that mention Democrats at all are such puff pieces that most journalists would be embarrassed to be associated with them. One shows a baby putting his hand in Obama’s mouth: ‘Obama Gets A Mouthful,’ readers are told in this thoroughly silly story.”

Fox Nation - Obama Eats Baby HandIndeed. A thoroughly silly story that most journalists would be embarrassed to be associated with. Which must be why Fox Nation featured it for six days running as their “Pic of the Day.” And their version was adorned by a mocking headline that evokes child abuse and cannibalism. Would they have chosen that imagery for a white president?

But Gainor is clearly unaware that he is insulting the journalistic integrity of his pals at Fox. Just as he is unaware of the similarity of the following invective aimed at HuffPo to the Fox Nation business model:

“Of course, they don’t write it all themselves. The HuffPo staff is masterful at combing the internet for stories and digging through them for one nugget that makes their point. They write a couple graphs about the nugget, package it with a sometimes huge headline and a stock photo and, voila, their work is done.”

That’s Fox Nation in a wing-nutshell. Except that they write none of it themselves. Every single article on Fox Nation is merely a reference and a link to some other (usually brazenly biased) source. And often its presentation is overtly dishonest as demonstrated here. And Gainor isn’t through yet.

“But the site doesn’t work if it doesn’t generate traffic. After all, Americans aren’t forced to read Arianna’s propaganda. So it’s filled with sex, more sex, comedy and enough other trash to keep people visiting.”

You mean like this? I took a look at Fox Nation’s “Pic of the Day” for just this year and found an abundance of evidence that they are obsessed with naked women, particularly their breasts.

Fox Nation - Sex

And being a young blonde in a short skirt appears to be a prerequisite to be a female reporter on Fox News. Just ask Megyn Kelly, Martha MacCallum, Shannon Bream, Gretchen Carlson, Monica Crowley, Ainsley Earhardt, Courtney Friel, Alisyn Camerota, Molly Line, Molly Henneberg, Julie Banderas, and Steve Doocy. [Oops. I have to scratch one of those. Julie Banderas is not a blonde].

For Gainor to use an editorial on Fox News as a platform to gripe about the Huffington Post being a liberally-slanted web site is an Olympian feat of hypocrisy. But for him to venture off into Nazi references is offensive in the extreme. Arianna Huffington is not responsible for the slaughter of millions of innocents and the comparison to Hitler’s regime trivializes the horror that was the Holocaust. Furthermore, his assessment of HuffPo as biased is an affirmation of acute self-delusion. He is so altogether unaware of his perversion of reality that he can utter this phrase about HuffPo without meaning it sarcastically: “It’s also unmatched on the right.”

Unmatched on the right? Certainly Gainor has read Fox Nation. He is also presumably aware of The Daily Caller, The Blaze, BigGovernment, Townhall, National Review, Weekly Standard, Drudge Report, RedState, WorldNetDaily, Washington Times, NewsMax, and many more.

Gainor’s editorial is typical of the ignorance-inducing disinformation that is the hallmark of Fox News and his own Media Research Center (publisher of the reprehensible net newsrag, NewsBusters). He launches odious insults, accuses his targets of improprieties that he engages in himself, and ignores obvious information if it contradicts his predetermined conclusions. And all of this intellectual mendacity comes together at the start of a new year as if to christen 2012 for a journey to new and more loathsome states of dishonesty and thought control.

Happy New Year, America.

News Corpse Part Of Soros-Funded Echo Chamber?

Posted by on June 6, 2011 at 4:27 am. 2 Comments :

The ultra-rightist Media Research Center has just completed its four part series purporting to reveal the truth about the George Soros domination of the media. The series was authored by the MRC’s Boone Pickens Fellow, Dan Gainor. The first three parts of Gainor’s project were laughably muddled dissertations on an imagined world ruled by the omnipotent Soros.

The allegations submitted thus far put Soros at the helm of a network of dozens of “major media organizations” with a reach of over 300 million people worldwide. The only problem with Gainor’s theory is that he never proves any it. The entire series is based on phony assumptions, ludicrous extrapolations and tangential associations. For instance, Gainor’s idea of a major media organization is the Center for Investigative Reporting, which is not exactly the New York Times or CNN. What’s more, it is also supported by Rupert Murdoch, whose Times of London is a CIR affiliate. Gainor also lists NPR as beholden to Soros despite the fact that his total contribution to the radio network amounted to a mere fraction of 1% of NPR’s receipts.

The fourth chapter of this faulty thesis runs farther off the rails than the three that preceded it. It focuses almost entirely on Fox News as a victim of leftist hostility. The opening paragraph attempts to belittle criticism of Fox News but actually defines it pretty well.

“To hear the left tell it, Fox News has a ‘history of inciting Islamophobia and racial and ethic animosity’ and tries to ‘race bait its viewers.’ One staffer is called a ‘hit man,’ while his network is accused of ‘attack politics.’ A highly questionable study is hyped by numerous outlets claiming that it ‘confirms that Fox News makes you stupid.’ Fox is called simply: ‘The Liars’ Network.'”

That’s all pretty much true. Fox does have a history of lying, inciting racism, and engaging in attack politics. But one of the items enumerated above hits close to home here at News Corpse. Gainor’s reference to the study that “Fox News makes you stupid” was linked to an article I wrote that was re-published by Alternet. It reported the results of a University of Maryland survey that showed that Fox viewers were significantly more misinformed than consumers of other news sources.

Consequently, Gainor is now alleging that I am part of the Soros-Funded Echo Chamber. To that accusation I would just like to say: “I Wish!”

As usual, Gainor’s logic is riddled with nonsense. His attempt to tie me to this supposed Soros plot demonstrates how far he has strayed from reality. And because he cannot produce an actual link between me and Soros (because there are none), he settles for the connection to Alternet. Then he attaches Alternet to the Soros empire by virtue of their membership in The Media Consortium, which has received donations from Soros. However, the Consortium is a trade association whose members are not beneficiaries of Soros. To the contrary, they pay to belong. Gainor’s argument against my article is summed up in a “disclaimer” he extracted, minus the context, from the study:

“This suggests that misinformation cannot simply be attributed to news sources, but are part of the larger information environment that includes statements by candidates, political ads and so on.”

That statement affirms the integrity of the study that Gainor, nevertheless, disputes. However, the study’s researchers did not insert it to refute their own findings. Whatever effect the statements of candidates and political ads had on viewers, that effect would have been produced across the board, not just at Fox. Yet the study’s results unequivocally show Fox viewers as being the most misinformed even considering the “larger information environment”.

Gainor cites as further evidence of the Soros-left’s assault on Fox News that the blog ThinkProgress “slammed Fox more than 30 times in six months.” No, really? When you calculate that down it comes to one slam per week. If you ask me, that’s a fairly restrained schedule of slamming because Fox broadcasts dishonest, partisan attacks on Democrats and progressives numerous times every day. If ThinkProgress reported on Fox smears only once a day that would come to 180 times in six months. How on earth did they keep it down to 30? I’m gonna have to call them on the Soros Hot Line we’ve all been issued and ask them why they’ve been slacking off.

There is a sublime irony in the primary objective of Gainor’s poorly reasoned treatise. While harboring a compulsive obsession with Soros as a left-wing financier of partisan media (which he never proves), he exhibits a severe blindness to his own rabid partisanship. The media analysis organization for whom he produced this paper is itself funded by right-wing media barons like Richard Mellon Scaife and the Koch brothers (through their Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation). His articles were dutifully re-published by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and Fox Nation. And his position at the MRC was endowed by oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens.And let’s not forget that it was Murdoch who donated a million dollars to the Republican Governor’s Association and another million to right-wing Chamber of Commerce.

What Gainor imagines to be a leftist cabal determined to bring down Fox News and advocate on behalf of progressive ideology is nothing more than like-minded authors and activists pursuing an agenda in which they believe. The left doesn’t need Soros to slam Fox. We are fully capable of recognizing unethical journalism on our own and taking action independently.

Much of the rest of America is starting to take action as well. The results of the latest Nielsen ratings book for May 2011, show that viewers are turning off Fox News in growing numbers. That isn’t Soros’ fault – or mine either (though I like to think I played a role). It is the result of Fox’s repeated deceptions and overt advocacy of GOP doctrine. Their decision to flaunt an editorial bias rather than engage in honest journalism is the cause of their problems in the ratings and amongst critics.

So despite Gainor’s delusional paranoia, there is no Soros-funded echo chamber. We are not a zombie horde prowling the conservative mediasphere. Nothing like that exists. You can’t prove it. We are a figment of your demented imagination. However, we are coming to get you, Dan. And your little Fox News too. Be afraid.

George Soros Triggers Rightist OCD

Posted by on May 26, 2011 at 2:53 pm. 9 Comments :

The uber-conservative Media Research Center has been fixated lately on a pathetic “study” of the media reach of George Soros. The author, Dan Gainor, may be one of the most ineffectual researchers to ever publish on the InterTubes. The product of his research seems more like a symptom of the debilitating syndrome that hobbles many of his ilk, OCD: Obsessive Conservative Disorder. The latest chapter is the third of a four-part series. Let’s re-cap:

In Part One, Gainor introduced his premise that George Soros “has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets.” He never documented any ties other than some donations to charitable organizations, none of which were major news outlets. There were some non-profit institutions that focus on journalism, but even in those examples Gainor didn’t explain how Soros’ donations would have given him any control over them. Neither did he cite any evidence that the organizations were influenced by Soros’ donations.

In Part Two, Gainor claimed to expose millions of dollars of influence peddling by Soros to media enterprises. For the most part it was a rehashing of Part One. The new information turned out to reveal that the organizations Gainor disparaged for their connection to Soros were also connected to right-wing billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and T. Boone Pickens. Gainor himself is the Boone Pickens Fellow at the Media Research Center.

Now, in Part Three, Gainor asserts that Soros-funded media “reach more than 330 million people around the globe.” Again, he never reveals how he arrived at that calculation. He merely cites a few examples that figure into the total without actually adding it up. And his examples are hysterically misconstrued. For instance, Gainor cites a $1.8 million contribution to NPR. That would represent a fraction of 1% of NPR’s funding, not exactly enough to wield much influence. And then Gainor frantically reports that…

“Soros funds nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States. Forty-five of those are financed through his support of the Media Consortium. That organization ‘is a network of the country’s leading, progressive, independent media outlets.'”

Did you get that? Nearly every major left-wing media source in the United States! Really? The forty-five that Gainor mentions as receiving funding via their membership in the Media Consortium actually receive nothing for their membership. In fact, they pay the Consortium to belong.

However, I think I discovered the real reason Gainor has been hammering on this. The Media Research Center is now featuring an ad that asks “Help us expose George Soros.”

“Left-wing billionaire George Soros has undertaken a war on conservative media to make it easier to spread his anti-American views, and the liberal media are his willing accomplices.”

The MRC says that if you make a donation today your donation will be matched dollar-for-dollar. Will those matching funds come from a right-wing billionaire who has undertaken a war on liberal media? I don’t know. They don’t say where the money will come from. But we do know that the MRC is funded by Pickens and another media billionaire, Richard Mellon Scaife. We also know that they have partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News whose former managing editor, Brit Hume, considered them indispensable.

So perhaps this is just a symptom of another sort of OCD: Obtain Conservative Donations.

Fox News’ George Soros Conspiracy Continues To Crumble

Posted by on May 19, 2011 at 2:23 pm. 5 Comments :

Last week Fox News published an article by Dan Gainor of the ultra-rightist Media Research Center that purported to reveal a web of connections between George Soros and the mainstream media. The article failed completely in its mission. As I wrote last week:

“On the Fox News web site today, Dan Gainor, a VP at the ultra-conservative Media Research Center, wrote an op-ed that asked, ‘Why Don’t We Hear About Soros’ Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?’ The answer, as it turns out, is because there aren’t any such ties. […] Gainor has utterly failed to support his thesis. Not only does Soros have no control over these organizations, but they aren’t even the big media powers Gainor describes them as.”

Today Fox News published part two of Gainor’s series. Not only did he continue to fire blanks, he actually revealed information that implicates the right in a vast media conspiracy.

Most of part two was a rehashing of part one with even fewer specifics. The threads in the alleged web Gainor is weaving merely tie Soros to some media organizations that are also funded by many other people and groups who seek to advance the state of independent journalism. And while pointing out the connections, Gainor never discloses anything sordid resulting from them. There isn’t even a hint of some effort to slant their reporting or engage in biased coverage. So the only conclusion is that Soros donated money to a number of reputable organizations that have demonstrated their integrity and that Gainor is apparently opposed to that, as are most conservatives. The last thing they want is news that is truly fair and balanced.

One area where he provided some new information was in identifying a few more of the “major” news organizations for whom Soros is supposedly the puppet master. There is just one thing wrong with these revelations. They are also affiliated with news organizations on the right:

  • The Center for Investigative Reporting lists Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London as an affiliate.
  • The Center for Public Integrity is connected to the Associated Press, of which Murdoch is a member of the board of directors.
  • The Lens is affiliated with WVUE-TV in New Orleans, a FOX affiliate.
  • The Texas Tribune’s founding investor was T. Boone Pickens.

That last affiliation is particularly notable because Gainor is the “Boone Pickens Fellow” for the Media Research Center, and that Pickens himself is an MRC trustee. So Gainor’s job at the MRC was endowed by the same man who bankrolled one of the media enterprises connected to Soros and that Gainor says is irredeemably leftist.

Uh oh. That means that Gainor himself is connected to Soros and this whole series of articles must be a plot orchestrated by Pickens, Murdoch, Soros, and probably President Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood. Be afraid.

FOX News Invents Another George Soros Conspiracy

Posted by on May 11, 2011 at 4:29 pm. 3 Comments :

On the Fox News web site today, Dan Gainor, a VP at the ultra-conservative Media Research Center, wrote an op-ed that asked, “Why Don’t We Hear About Soros’ Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?” The answer, as it turns out, is because there aren’t any such ties. In the opening paragraph Gainor writes that Soros…

“…has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets – including The New York Times, Washington Post, the Associated Press, NBC and ABC.”

Then Gainor fails to provide a single piece of evidence that Soros is connected to any of those enterprises. The article is a hodge-podge of guilt-by-association assertions that are held together by the thinnest of threads.

Rather than support his headlined accusation, Gainor offers as examples of Soros’ omnipotent influence the fact that he has donated to a few independent, non-profit institutions that focus on journalism. The organizations he chose to pick on are ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, and the Center for Investigative Reporting. These groups have indeed received donations from Soros, as well as many other donors. Soros has no executive control of any of them. But more to the point, these groups hardly qualify as being “major news organizations.”

Gainor’s problem with these groups, other than that they were beneficiaries of Soros’ generosity, is that they have some working journalists serving as board members or advisors. Perhaps Gainor would prefer that media foundations put more banking and oil executives on their boards. The wild-eyed players that Gainor is so disturbed by include rabid partisans like David Gergen and Christiane Amanpour. And, again, Soros has no influence over these individuals or whether they accept invitations to serve on foundation boards.

Gainor has utterly failed to support his thesis. Not only does Soros have no control over these organizations, but they aren’t even the big media powers Gainor describes them as. However, Gainor’s column appeared on the web site of a bona fide major news organization: Fox News. And the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, also has control over an empire of media enterprises including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Dow Jones NewsWire, and BSkyB, Europe’s biggest satellite television provider. What’s more, Murdoch is also on the board of directors of the Associated Press, another bona fide big media player.

Finally, it should be noted that Gainor’s own employer, the Media Research Center, is funded by foundations run by right-wing media baron Richard Mellon Scaife. It is also closely tied to Murdoch’s Fox News. When former Fox anchor and managing editor, Brit Hume, accepted an award from the MRC, he thanked them…

“…for the tremendous amount of material that the Media Research Center provided me for so many years when I was anchoring Special Report, I don’t know what we would’ve done without them. It was a daily buffet of material to work from, and we certainly made tremendous use of it.”

So, as usual, the allegations levied by the right turn out to be the very same improprieties they are guilty of themselves. Some things never change.

[Update] Media Matters reveals that Dan Gainor is “the Boone Pickens Fellow” for MRC, and that Pickens himself is an MRC trustee. Pickens is also a major player in the natural gas industry, which ProPublica has reported on and exposed for its grim environmental record. Funny that Fox News failed to disclose the conflict of interest in which Gainor is engaging by attacking ProPublica for its coverage of Pickens’ business.

Also, Glenn Beck referenced this article on his television program today and completely misstated its contents. He said that Soros funds ABC, CBS, and the Koch brothers. Not only is that not what the article says, it’s downright insane. Or in other words, typical Beck.