Fox Business Network

GOP Debate On FBN To Be Moderated By The Glenn Beck Of Business News

Posted by on November 9, 2015 at 3:34 pm. 5 Comments :

The Republican candidates for president are preparing for their next televised debate tomorrow on the Fox Business Network. It is rather peculiar that FBN was selected as a debate host considering that their program ratings are so low that Nielsen doesn’t even publish them. This debate was a gift from the Republican National Committee to their benefactor and overlord, Rupert Murdoch, who is desperate for anything that might goose the numbers.

Neil Cavuto

In the wake of the last GOP debate on CNBC, FBN is facing certain challenges to their production. The candidates were so outraged at what they regarded as unfair treatment that they banded together in a show of unity to force all the subsequent debate hosts to bend to their will. Embarrassingly, they couldn’t even manage that protest and eventually dropped their demands.

Still, there will be competing pressures on FBN and their moderators, Neil Cavuto and Maria Bartiromo. Candidates will watching to see if they are hammered with “gotcha” questions (which to Republicans are any questions they can’t answer). But if the moderators go soft they will be pilloried as stooges for the GOP who didn’t have the cojones to address serious issues or differences between the candidates. It will be interesting to see how they walk that tightrope.

There may be some surprises, but for the most part this debate will shun controversy. What can be assumed with some confidence is that the moderators will avoid anything that might reflect badly on the candidates. They will skew closely to the Fox News bias in favor of electing Republicans. Questions will framed as how the GOP will differ from the commies in the other party. And leading that parade will be Neil Cavuto, the Glenn Beck of business news.

Cavuto’s presence on Fox News and Fox Business (where he is the Senior VP and Managing Editor) is a relentless barrage of hyper-partisanship and crackpot conservatism. His commentaries are boorish assaults on Democrats and liberals. He is a serial interrupter of anyone who holds a different opinion than his. And his analysis always manages to put progressive policies and achievements in a negative light. For instance, he was fond of calling the historic market gains that occurred in Obama’s first term as a “bear market rally.” And that was when he wasn’t calling it the “Bush recovery.”

For your entertainment pleasure, the list below demonstrates some of his more outlandish pronouncements:

  • On the Iran nuclear deal Cavuto said that “We are helping the very folks that may have had a hand in 9/11.” But there is no evidence that Iran had any role in the Al Qaeda attack.
  • Cavuto opined that if Benghazi had happened on George W. Bush’s watch he would have been impeached. However, there were thirteen deadly attacks on diplomatic facilities during Bush’s presidency, but no impeachment, no hearings, not even any notable criticism.
  • Cavuto demeaned people who received government aid as lazy moochers who believe that “as long as Uncle Sam’s got my back I can lay back.”
  • Cavuto slammed efforts to raise the minumum wage because when he worked at a fast food restaurant in his youth he considered it a great learning and growth opportunity. But when adjusted for inflation, he was earning $2.22 more than the current minimum wage.
  • In one of his tirades against Climate Change he railed that “it is freezing across the entire globe.” Of course, only an idiot would say such a thing, particularly when almost every year for the past decade ranks as among the hottest ever.
  • His report on ObamaCare featured high grade fear mongering and a title warning about “National Healthcare: Breeding Ground For Terror?” That’s right. In Cavuto’s world health care equals terror.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

This is the sort of fringe crackpottery that is right at home on Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze or Alex Jones’ InfoWars. But Cavuto practices it on both his Fox News and Fox Business shows. He invites guests to appear with equally outlandish conspiracy theories with which he generally agrees. He engages in non-stop, brazenly partisan, propagandizing on behalf of the conservative agenda of his network bosses, Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Cavuto is a Tea Party boosting, climate science denying, harbinger of economic Armageddon. And tomorrow night he will moderating a Republican primary debate. Should be fun.

Fox Business Network Debunks Fox News/Koch Brothers ObamaScare Story

Posted by on February 17, 2014 at 1:58 pm. NO Comments :

From the very first days of the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare) Fox News and other right-wing media have work their butts off trying to frighten people away from it. Their ultimate goal is to sabotage the program by suppressing participation. But with more than three million enrollments, and millions more covered by Medicaid or parental plans, the Fox strategy appears to be failing miserably.

That, however, has not dampened their resolve to do damage to the program and the millions of Americans who are already benefiting from it. Recently an ad that was produced by the Koch brothers-financed Americans for Prosperity, featured a Tennessee woman who suffers from Lupus. In the ad Emilie Lamb claims that she was forced from a state-sponsored insurance plan (which conservatives usually oppose) that cost her $57.00 a month, to an ObamaCare plan that cost $373.00. On the surface that sounds pretty awful. But as usual, there is much going on just below the surface.

Fox News

Consumer Reports health care expert Nancy Metcalf, writing for the Fox Business Network, added some necessary context to this story. Her article titled “Don’t be fooled by another ‘Obamacare horror story,'” spells out why Lamb’s claim that her previous policy satisfied her needs may not have been entirely true. For instance, Lamb’s CoverTN plan had a cap of $25,000, but Metcalf notes that most Lupus patients spend far more than that each year for routine medication and doctors visits. If she has a flare up or requires treatment for more severe symptoms, Lamb’s medical expenses could easily exceed six figures. Metcalf writes that…

“Under her old plan, they would not have been covered. Under her new plan, they will be. I used HealthCare.gov’s window-shopping feature to identify what she purchased: a Platinum plan with a $1,500 out-of-pocket limit. There is no deductible, 25 percent coinsurance for pretty much all services, and, most critically, no upper limit on what the plan will pay out for medical care. So if she ever has a complication of her disease, or needs one of those expensive drugs, the most she’ll have to pay out of pocket in a year is $1,500. The insurance company will pick up the rest of the tab, no matter how costly.”

One of the incentives for implementing health insurance reform was the number of bankruptcies filed by working Americans whose insurance failed to cover them after they had the audacity to get sick. While Ms. Lamb is understandably disturbed by the higher premiums she is facing now, it is preferable to a financial (and health) disaster should her disease take a turn for the worse. In addition, the evidence actually suggests that Lamb’s costs will be lower under ObamaCare due the $1,500 annual out of pocket maximum, and the absence of any lifetime cap. Under her previous policy she would be responsible for much more over time.

The Koch brothers and Fox News have been relentlessly hyping this story as proof that ObamaCare has not served patients like Lamb. They have featured it on the air with reports that provide no opinion counter to that of the Fox angle. They have posted it on their lie-riddled community website, Fox Nation. They published an op-ed by Lamb in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. So it is somewhat curious that they permitted their hype to be debunked on their little-viewed Fox Business Network website.

This may be their way of buying a little insurance of their own. When the bottom falls out of their propaganda machine, they can claim that they were “fair and balanced” after all. Even though their blurb on the FBN blog can never match the magnitude of their attacks on ObamaCare throughout the rest of their media empire. And don’t expect to see Nancy Metcalf providing Fox News viewers with her analysis anytime soon. She’s not likely to be invited onto the O’Reilly Factor given the factual nature of her reporting.

To Fox, it’s best to keep people like Metcalf segregated to the FBN web ghetto so the Foxbots aren’t exposed to the sort of truthful information that contradicts conservative spin and rattles right-wing media.

For God’s Sake, Do Not Take Financial Advice From Fox News

Posted by on June 19, 2013 at 1:21 pm. 7 Comments :

It has already been well established that Fox News is a round-the-clock lie factory (see Fox Nation vs. Reality), but in case anyone was ever curious about whether that distinction extended to their business channel, the Fox Business Network, you no longer need to wonder. This morning’s interview of FBN reporter Lauren Simonetti on Fox & Friends First has summarily resolved this question.

Fox News

The segment raised the issue of golfer Phil Mickleson’s recent showing at the U.S. Open where he came in second. It was the sixth time Mickleson fell just shy of victory at the event he has never managed to win. As a consolation, Fox News crunched some numbers and concluded that Mickleson was better off placing second because, according to their math, he would be poorer had he won. Here is Simonetti’s brilliant analysis (video):

“Sometimes coming in second pays off in the end. […] We broke down the numbers with the help of some tax gurus, for how much he could save, and the answer is $400,000 on taxes. […] So all in all, he’s $400,000 richer, I guess.”

Guess again. Simonetti’s logic revolved around the fact that had Mickleson won he would have earned an additional $3 million in prize money and bonuses on his sponsorships. The tax bill for that would have been about $400,000. Of course, that would still mean that after taxes Mickleson would be ahead by $2,600,000. But in the Fox universe, being able to avoid a $400k tax bite makes you $400k richer even though in the real world that the rest of us inhabit, you are actually $2.6 million poorer.

I really have to sympathize with the losers who have been duped by Fox into thinking that their business network is a reputable place to get information and advice. The irony is that Fox’s counsel is creating more financially deprived people who will necessarily have to rely on the government services that Fox so viscerally hate.

On the bright side (as Fox would say) is the fact that hardly anyone watches the network. After six years they are still a distant competitor to the business leader CNBC. That should mitigate the effect of the bad financial advice they disseminate along with their climate change denial, tax cut obsession, anti-ObamaCare hype, and general ultra-rightist propaganda. And remember, FBN was launched with a promise by its CEO, Rupert Murdoch, that it would be openly biased in favor of the corporatists 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.”

And Mr. Murdoch knows a thing or two about leaping on every scandal (i.e. Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, NSA, birth certificate, ACORN, etc.). Murdoch’s Fox News leaps on scandals like a horny teenager at whorehouse.

Fox Business Network Cancels Entire Primetime Lineup

Posted by on February 10, 2012 at 2:53 am. 3 Comments :

Fox Business NetworkThe day after News Corp released their latest quarterly earnings report, they made another announcement that somehow was left out of the earnings conference call.

The struggling Fox Business Network (FBN) has, in one fell swoop, canceled their entire primetime lineup. Wiped from the schedule are “Freedom Watch” with Andrew Napolitano, “Power & Money” with David Asman, and “Follow the Money” with Eric Bolling. All three programs had little business running on a business network in the first place. They were brazenly political vehicles for sharply partisan, right-wing gasbags.

Andrew Napolitano is a notorious 9/11 truther who believes that the attack on the World Trade Center towers was an inside job. He also lamented the killing of Osama Bin Laden whom he characterized as a victim of assassination, “killed on the illegal whim of the President.”

David Asman has said that we should all be celebrating the 1%. He is an advocate of shutting down the government and believes that its size must be cut “before it kills us all.” He called Obama “Hugo Chavez on the Potomac.” And he believes that Social Security is “one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated.”

Eric Bolling is perhaps the most deserving of the Glenn Beck Memorial Wingnut Award for Delusional Hyperbole. He has accused President Obama of engaging in class warfare that was “forged in Marxist Germany.” He embraces every conspiracy theory that comes along including that Sesame Street was demonizing the Tea Party. He even accused the American hikers who were held in an Iranian prison of being spies and said that Iran should have kept them.

The demise of these programs signals the dismal shape that FBN is in. The decision to swing the axe was not prompted by the development of new programs to take their place. FBN will fill the holes with repeats of programs that air earlier in the day. It is clearly a desperation move by a network that needs to cut the dead weight and run leaner and cheaper.

FBN’s primetime lineup never drew more than about 25,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 year old demographic. Their ratings have been pathetic from the start, when they proposed to launch a new business channel that would appeal to “Main Street.” That was a direct contradiction of News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch who said that “a Fox channel would be ‘more business-friendly than CNBC.'” Of course, a business network is not supposed to be “friendly” toward the businesses it is covering.

In an ironic twist, FBN’s Vice-President, Kevin Magee, recently distributed a memo to his staff admonishing them for being too much like their sister network, Fox News.

Magee: “I’ve been asked to remind you all again that they are separate channels and the more we make FBN look like FNC the more of a disservice we do to ourselves. I understand the temptation to imitate our sibling network in hopes of imitating its success, but we cannot. If we give the audience a choice between FNC and the almost-FNC, they will choose FNC every time.”

That’s excellent advice. CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC should pay attention. However, it apparently came too late to save the most Foxish programs on the network. Now Magee has lopped off the worst offenders in the hopes of rescuing the floundering enterprise. Though the losers will still be around as Magee notes that “We look forward to Judge Napolitano, David and Eric continuing to make significant contributions to both FOX Business and FOX News.” Yeah right.

The only purpose Fox Business ever had was to extend the rightist propaganda already blaring from Fox News. They loaded up the network with conservative extremist pundits and vacant ratings whores like Don Imus. That approach has proven to be another failure for Murdoch, whose MySpace investment quickly went down the tubes; whose New York Post has lost millions for as long as he has owned it; for his international newspaper syndicate that is still reeling from the discovery of rampant criminal activity, phone hacking, and the the shuttering of his biggest paper in the UK, the News of the World.

Another item of information that was disclosed with the News Corp earnings release is that their cable television assets represent 60% of their revenue. That’s a pretty heavy reliance on one business segment of a conglomerate that includes international publishing and film operations. Now that FBN is slipping away, all that Murdoch needs is to have his Fox News falter. That is the last remaining support for his crumbling empire. And for the benefit of honest journalism, the nation, and the world, it can’t come too soon.

Memo From Fox Business To Staff – Don’t Copy Fox News

Posted by on October 18, 2011 at 2:19 am. 4 Comments :

Reuters is reporting that the Vice-President of the Fox Business Network, Kevin Magee, has distributed a memo to his staff admonishing them for being too much like their sister network, Fox News.

Magee: “I’ve been asked to remind you all again that they are separate channels and the more we make FBN look like FNC the more of a disservice we do to ourselves. I understand the temptation to imitate our sibling network in hopes of imitating its success, but we cannot. If we give the audience a choice between FNC and the almost-FNC, they will choose FNC every time.”

Excellent advice. CNN, which has been trying hard to emulate Fox News, should take this advice to heart.

The Reuters article implies that it was Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News, who asked Magee to issue this reminder. FBN has been floundering in the ratings despite optimistic predictions by Rupert Murdoch and others that it would be trouncing CNBC by now. Not only have they not reached that goal, CNBC is pulling in about three times as many viewers.

The curious part of this memo is that it comes in the form of a reminder, as if the network were attempting to focus on business news all along and simply got distracted. That can hardly be asserted when the network’s programming consists of fare that was obviously never intended to be anything but political. They start their day with three hours of Don Imus. That segues in to the overt partisanship of Stuart Varney. In the afternoon they feature right-wing blowhard Neil Cavuto, Libertarian wacko and 9/11 Truther Andrew Napolitano, and immigrant basher Lou Dobbs. The primetime lineup is capped by Glenn Beck wannabe, Eric Bolling. Reminding these conservative evangelists to be less political is like asking a skunk not to stink.

Illustrating their new-found commitment to business journalism, FBN carried the Reuters story about Magee’s memo briefly, but later scrubbed it without explanation leaving a broken link (here is the cached version). Apparently an article reporting that Fox News ought not to be the model for a network ostensibly about business and finance was too much for FBN. And they probably weren’t thrilled about reporting the dismal ratings data either.

What an adorable irony that FBN, after being scolded by their own management for being to Fox Newsy, behaved identically to Fox by censoring the article. Now, do you really think that their lineup of uber-rightist anchors and pundits is going to stick strictly to business in the future? Don’t bet on it.

Neil Cavuto Romances Rupert Mudoch, Investors Get Screwed

Posted by on May 5, 2010 at 10:13 am. 3 Comments :

The News Corporation released their quarterly earnings yesterday after the market closed. On the surface there was good news as News Corp beat the estimates of analysts. So Rupert Murdoch visited his own studio to be interviewed by his employee, Neil Cavuto.

Cavuto introduced the segment with a bootlicking recitation of the financial powerhouse that is News Corp. It was a gloating exercise that portrayed News Corp as the savior of the economy and even attempted to recruit viewers to some sort of News Corp pep squad, suggesting that they…

“…count yourself maybe a News Corp booster. The parent company of this fine network, 20th Century Fox, HarperCollins, and on and on, reporting much, much, much, better than expected earnings in the latest period that dwarf well past some of the estimates in there.”

The problem is that, in this eleven minute interview (25% of his program), Cavuto and Murdoch glossed over the most important part of the earnings announcement, so far as investors are concerned – the outlook going forward. As it turns out, News Corp actually issued a warning that they would fail to meet earnings expectations in the next quarter. This information was divulged in the conference call with analysts, but Fox News viewers wouldn’t hear it. Consequently, if you were relying Fox for accurate reporting on the News Corp earnings, you would have lost a pile of money this morning as their stock plummeted six percent.

Watching this spectacle of Cavuto and Murdoch grinning and lying to viewers about the prospects for News Corp’s stock you can’t help but wonder if they crossed a line into deliberately misleading shareholders. Why wouldn’t they? Misleading their viewers is their core competency. If it isn’t weapons of mass destruction or death panels, it’s their stock performance. And when Cavuto got around to asking Murdoch what was driving the company’s unparalleled “success,” Murdoch detoured entirely away from economics to his political obsession:

“Well, as far as Fox News goes it’s very simple. It’s very powerful, it’s very good, and it’s very balanced. And everybody else, every newspaper other than ours, it may be an over-generalization, but by far the most newspapers, and certainly the other television networks, are sort of all on one side, the liberal side of anything. I think the population of this country is pretty worried about its direction and, you know, they turn to Fox News.”

See that? News Corp is successful because of the liberal media. Not because they gouged cable operators for higher subscriber fees and favorable channel placement. Not because of the one-time phenomenon of a little movie called Avatar. Not because of the monopolistic domination they enforce in media markets around the world. But I will agree with Murdoch on his last point, that the population of this country is pretty worried. However, that isn’t why they turn to Fox News, it’s BECAUSE they turned to Fox News. Anyone who watches Fox, and is foolish enough to believe what the see, is a prime candidate for an anxiety attack or an aneurysm.

It is also interesting that Murdoch conducted his interview with Cavuto on the Fox News Channel. Cavuto is also the anchor and Senior VP for Murdoch’s struggling Fox Business Network. But when Murdoch decided to make a television appearance to discuss his company’s earnings, he chose not to visit his own financial news network. Cavuto was reduced to playing the FNC tape on his FBN show. Does that say something about Murdoch’s commitment to FBN?