The Fox Frame: October Surprise

It is obvious to most honest observers that this is going to be a harsh year for Republicans. At the top of the list of victims, of course, is John McCain. His floundering campaign just gets more off track everyday. His aides are sending out resumes and looking to assign blame for their failure. Some have resorted to targeting Sarah Palin, who they have called a “diva” and a “whack job.”

But now they have adopted a more insidious strategic path that amounts to an “If you can’t beat ’em join ’em.” tactic. Talk about an October Surprise! With the help of Fox News, the McCain camp is now attempting to pass off their loser as a Democrat. They must believe that they can squeeze out a few extra votes by associating themselves with the party that is poised to sweep this year’s electoral contests.

It’s not really that surprising that McCain wants to realign himself with the Kool Kidz. From the beginning his campaign seemed jinxed. In the primary, he ran out of money and had to continue with a skeleton staff that worked for free. Then the Republican convention in St. Paul was delayed due to Hurricane Gustav. Then he announces Caribou Barbie as his running mate. Then he is blind-sided by an economic crisis after admitting that he doesn’t understand economics. Then he says he’ll suspend his campaign (which he doesn’t really do) to work on a resolution to the crisis (which he doesn’t resolve) and won’t participate in a debate with Barack Obama until the crisis is over (but he debates anyway).

Every issue with which McCain sought to identify fell flat. In the beginning it was his vaunted national security and foreign policy experience that would propel him to victory, but that never took hold. Then it was energy independence. This was anchored by a proposal for a gas tax holiday and the ubiquitous and ignorant chant of “Drill, baby drill.” But oil and gas prices have come down on their own, without his phony initiatives. Now he is desperately ranting about Bill Ayers, Joe the Plumber, false allegations of voter fraud, and Socialism – even Marxism!

These are the wails of an expiring beast in the wilderness. It’s almost sad. At least we all have the prospect of Obama’s victory next week to cheer us up.

The Fox Frame: Propaganda Is Job One

Readers of News Corpse know that I work tirelessly to persuade Democrats and progressives to decline to appear on Fox News. See Starve The Beast for a detailed analysis of why such appearances are not only pointless, but are in fact detrimental. See below for what you can expect if you do appear.

Former Democratic representative Harold Ford is now a Fox News Contributor. This allows Fox to have a face on screen with a “D” after his name and a derogatory swipe at a leading Democratic presidential candidate in the text below him. “Burgler” is Fox’s pet name for Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor.
Ford also has the privilege of gracing the screen on the day Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. Fox takes this opportunity to slam Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” with a headline about a British court ruling that the documentary contains some inaccuracies. That ruling, by the way, was widely misinterpreted and does nothing to discredit the film’s overall conclusions.

I wonder if Ford knows how Fox decorated the screen during his broadcast. These examples vividly illustrate why Fox News should be shunned by serious people who don’t want to be taken advantage of by this disreputable purveyor of disinformation. This particular tactic reeks of recess in elementary school when a goofy friend stands behind you making faces. Ford should be ashamed for allowing himself to be used in this manner.

The Fox Frame: Distorting Reality

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.

The Fox Frame: Truth In Labeling

FoxNews.com’s home page is again displaying their unique world view as well as their journalistic bias. Take this example of their editorial treatment of Senator Larry Craig and political donor Norman Hsu.


The story this screen grab plainly tells us, in both words and images, is that Fox considers revelations about a corrupt campaign contributer (who represents no one) to be more important than a lascivious United States Senator. And as a bonus, they make it look like the contributer is the pervert.

The Fox Frame: Hannity Vision

Sean Hannity conducted an interview with a Christian televangelist named Bill Keller. Keller has a reputation for engaging in hate speech against Muslims.

Unfortunately, the picture over Hannity’s shoulder is that of Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, whom I’m sure Hannity thinks is a purveyor of hate speech as well. But really…

The Fox Frame: Terrorist Doctors Edition

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.

The Power of the Media

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.