Fox News Weighs in with a Typically Tunnel-Blind Take on the Firing of CNN Boss Chris Licht

Posted by Mark NC on June 7, 2023 at 12:58 pm. 1 Comments :

The head of Warner Bros. Discovery, David Zaslav, dropped a highly anticipated bomb on the media world Wednesday morning with the announcement that the troubled CNN boss, Chris Licht, had been terminated effective immediately. Zaslav informed his staff and the company via an internal memo that was mostly complimentary toward Licht, but conceded the obvious that “It didn’t work out.”

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Licht appeared to make the wrong moves at every juncture of his brief tenure. He began by promising to make CNN “more Republican friendly,” as if that were an appropriate journalistic goal. He sought to “balance” the truth with blatant lies and conspiracy theories. He clearly envied the ratings of Fox News and delusionally believed that he could emulate them. But why would any Fox viewer tune into CNN, the network they were indoctrinated to hate, when they still have Fox?

Licht’s changes only served to prove how poorly he understood the news business. He canceled the popular program, Reliable Sources, one of the only regularly scheduled media analysis programs on television news. And he fired its host, Brian Stelter. Then he moved Don Lemon to a morning show with Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. Shortly thereafter he fired Lemon.

Perhaps the most brain-dead move by Licht was to tap Donald Trump for a town hall, moderated by Collins, that allowed Trump to lie almost uninterrupted for an hour and a half. Licht packed the audience with Trump supporters, and prohibited any displays of disapproval. It was so badly planned and executed that even CNN insiders were openly appalled.

SEE THIS: How Horrible Was CNN’s Lie-Riddled Trump Town Hall? Let’s See What CNN Has to Say About It

Following the Trump debacle, Licht promoted Collins, a former correspondent for Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, to a primetime spot. And through all of this Licht also managed to alienate CNN personnel in front of, and behind, the camera. An extensive article documenting his failures was published with his cooperation by The Atlantic.

Several of Licht’s hand-picked lieutenants were also pink-slipped. But don’t expect much to change at CNN with Licht’s departure. Zaslav is still the corporate head, and right-wingers like John Malone are packed on the company’s board of directors. However, now that Licht is officially gone, his transient reign is being scrutinized by his former colleagues across the mediaverse. And not to be left out, Fox News weighed in with a gleeful obituary that was astonishing for its utter absence of self-awareness. Fox’s media hack, Joe Concha, celebrated the suffering of their competitor saying that…

“It was an internal coup led by on-air talent at the network, even its own media team, that ultimately brought him down. And why? Because many could not accept that Licht was attempting to move the network from being seen by conservatives and many independents as an activist news network, a resistance news network aimed at disparaging, through provocative and personal opinion, those right or right of center and thereby destroying the decent credibility it once had. And remember, he had inherited a network that lost 75% of its audience when you’re comparing early 2021 with the spring of 2022 when he came in. And new leadership there gave him marching orders saying basically, move this network back to the center.”

So Concha believes that Licht was fired because others at CNN “could not accept” his determination to turn CNN into “Fox Lite.” While there were surely those who opposed that boneheaded editorial detour, Licht’s fall from grace was more the result of his failure to advance CNN’s place in the cable news race. CNN’s already declining ratings just got worse as Licht implemented his plans.

Concha correctly noted that CNN’s ratings were awful. However, what he missed was that nearly every criticism he lobbed at CNN could have been aimed at Fox News itself. Concha specifically referred to what he thought CNN needed: “Less provocative reporting. More solid reporting. More Republicans on the air.” That’s coming from the media analyst at Fox News where they have virtually nothing but provocative “reporting” and Republicans on the air. He went on to note what he called “the audacity of hosting Donald Trump.” Which, by the way, Fox News is doing a week from Monday.

Concha also missed that Fox News has suffered a ratings collapse similar to that of CNN’s. It has lost fully 50% of its audience since they fired Tucker Carlson. And that’s on top of a 34% drop going back in 2021.

Consequently, if Concha’s analysis were to be taken seriously, Fox News should fire their brass, Suzanne Scott and/or Lachlan Murdoch. But don’t hold your breath waiting for that. While Concha thinks that CNN was failing because they had not moved “back to the center,” he’s perfectly happy to see Fox News stuck at the far right. Never mind that Fox News is languishing at lows it hasn’t seen in years. It’s losing to MSNBC. And its prospects for the future don’t look any better. But sure, focus on CNN’s problems instead of acknowledging how horrible things are at Fox, Joe.

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Fox News Unleashes Lie-Riddled Attack on AOC for Criticizing Right-Wing Jesus’ Super Bowl Ad

Posted by Mark NC on February 13, 2023 at 12:16 pm. NO Comments :

The Republican Party’s obsession with whatever the heck they think “wokeness” is has proven that nothing in American society will be exempt from that focus group contrived crackpottery. And just to drive the point home, Super Bowl Sunday was their latest example of the pandemic spread of the woke virus.

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It was impossible to watch ten minutes of any right-wing media without encountering some version of this demented mindset. It infected their perception of the national anthem, that was paired with an honorary performance of what’s known as the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” It also infected reviews of Rihanna’s halftime show that some wingnuts described as “Satanic.” It also infected their analysis of the teams, whose quarterbacks, for some reason, had to be identified as Christians. While it has nothing to do with football, it is integral to the right’s perspective on pretty much everything. So long as it serves their political purpose, until it doesn’t.

On Monday morning the Fox News quarterbacking began when Fox’s media correspondent, Joe Concha, was interviewed by Sandra Smith. The segment was introduced by Smith highlighting a tweet posted by Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

“The progressive lawmaker tweeted ‘Something tells me Jesus would ‘not’ spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.’ Some Twitter users baffled by the comment, one asking ‘Are you serious,’ and another saying ‘It’s a unifying message so I’m not surprised you don’t approve.’ A final thought from you on that, Joe.”

Before we get to Concha’s reply, let’s observe that AOC is actually correct. Jesus was not an advocate of massive PR campaigns to promote his philosophy. To the contrary, he worked with small groups (of 12) and discouraged uprisings on the part of his followers. Furthermore, the “baffled” Twitter user who questioned AOC’s seriousness, Eric Owens, was actually a former writer for Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller. So in response to that introduction, Concha said…

“So the congresswoman who has been in Congress for two terms that has yet to see one piece of sponsored or co-sponsored legislation passed, or even remotely taken seriously, the perpetually outraged Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is outraged over this ad? Wow! Shut the front door. Of course she is.

“If she isn’t complaining about something, then it isn’t a day ending in “y.” And for her, again, to invoke fascism, she has no idea what fascism means. And the good news is that the “He Gets Us” campaign was launched in March of last year. It plans to spend $2 billion over the next several years. So get used to seeing these ads. They certainly have the money to get the word out again.”

"The perpetually outraged Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is outraged over this ad? Wow! Shut the front door, of course she is!" Fox News contributor Joe Concha says during a segment where he expresses outrage over AOC's latest tweet. pic.twitter.com/oNSSM37NlS

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 13, 2023

For starters, Concha is predictably wrong about AOC’s legislative record. The truth is that she was a co-sponsor of 31 bills that were passed into law. Given his inability to offer accurate analyses, it’s Concha who should never be taken seriously. Nor should his immature insults aimed at AOC’s knowledge of fascism, or anything else, be regarded as reliable commentary.

Concha went on to gush about the “good news” that the Jesus ad campaign is well financed, because we all know how much Jesus loved money (see “root of all evil”) and it’s handlers (aka “changers”. What he failed to mention was the the financiers were notorious proponents of right-wing orthodoxy. They include the ultra-rightist Hobby Lobby CEO, Danny Green, and the virulently anti-LGBTQ, Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group. According to the SPLC the Alliance “claims that a “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society.” And that’s the “good news”?

Nevertheless, Fox News can be expected to advance their Christianist bias at every opportunity. Even when it is connected to something as unrelated to religion as the Super Bowl. And if, in the process, they can malign a Democrat who is exercising free speech, all the better.

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Fox News CRUSHED that the Media is ‘Moving On From Afghanistan’ to Cover Actual News

Posted by Mark NC on September 4, 2021 at 5:50 pm. 4 Comments :

The past week has been one of profoundly significant world events. The United States finally ended a twenty year long war in Afghanistan. The COVID pandemic surged to record levels due to the Delta variant. The Supreme Court declined to block a draconian abortion rights law in the state of Texas. And a hurricane ravaged many parts of country from the Gulf Coast to New England.

Each of those stories are important to the American people and deserve coverage by the media. Unless you’re Fox News where the only stories that warrant being told are those that reflect poorly on President Biden or Democrats in general.

Which explains why Fox News posted a story on their website giddily proclaiming that “Liberal media blasted for moving on from Afghanistan crisis.” Yes, Fox News couldn’t have been happier about this criticism of what they regard as the “mainstream media.” The article griped that…

“The liberal media seems to be moving on from President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, skipping key details and largely ignoring a bombshell report of a leaked July phone call between President Biden and then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. […] Hurricane Ida, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the Texas abortion law have seemingly pushed Afghanistan aside.”

That’s right. Fox News is appalled and saddened that the media is covering actual news. To Fox News Afghanistan should be still be the dominant story, despite the fact that there hasn’t been any breaking news from there in a week. The press was all over Afghanistan a week ago when thirteen service members, and an estimated 150 Afghans, were tragically killed in a terrorist bombing. And the press was there when the last of the American troops were evacuated from the country, along with 120,000 Afghan allies, in an unprecedented and successful airlift.

However, in the past week there have been other events that warranted coverage. The COVID pandemic was taking the lives of more than 1,000 Americans every day. The Supreme Court handed down a ruling that effectively overturned the fifty year old Roe v Wade precedent on reproductive rights. And Hurricane Ida tore a path across the Eastern United States that resulted in more than 60 American deaths (nearly five times those in Afghanistan) reported so far. But to Fox News, those are mere distractions from Afghanistan.

The reason that Fox is so obsessed with Afghanistan is that it is a “crisis” that they think they can blame on Biden. Surely Biden isn’t responsible for a hurricane, the surging pandemic that is largely due to unvaccinated Fox News viewers, or the laws coming out of Texas. Consequently, those other stories need to be set aside in favor of finding more ways to attack the President.

With that in mind, Fox set about to contrive tales to tell that would cast mud on Biden. But the only ones that they could find were stories about the few Americans still in Afghanistan, and an utterly unnoteworthy phone call between Biden and Afghan President Ghani.

Undeterred, Fox news devoted most of the article to the “blasting” they claimed that the “liberal” media was taking. However, the article quoted only five alleged blasters, all of whom were staunchly right-wing propagandists. For instance…

Fox News contributor Joe Concha who wrote about the media “serving at the pleasure of the White House communications team.”
Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor whining that “Their bias is disgusting.”
Former Daily Caller columnist, Jackson Richman who prefaced his comments with “The Biden-friendly mainstream media…”
Federalist columnist Eddie Scarry lamenting because “The media will wound [Biden] but they will not kill him.”
White House press secretary-turned Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany bragging that “You can guarantee at Fox News we’ll cover when an American president tells a foreign leader to change the perception.”

Poor Fox News is very upset that the story they want to hype because they can use it to bash Biden has been overshadowed by other more urgent and current stories. They think that a week old story – while still important and still being covered – should take precedence over a national weather emergency that killed dozens of people and is still posing extreme hardships for millions of Americans who are displaced from their homes and without power, water, or food.

What’s more, Fox News was so disinterested in the Texas abortion law story that they hardly covered it all in the first few hours. And consistent with their reporting for the past year and a half, the coronavirus barely merited a mention, unless it was to applaud Republicans like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for making his state the national Hot Zone for the pandemic.

We can expect this sort of biased coverage to continue at Fox News. They have never been interested in journalism. Their foundational mission was to manufacture “news” to boost their right-wing agenda. And nothing illustrates that better than how they are covering current events this week.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
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U.S. Finishes Dead Last for Media Trust Among 46 Countries, and Fox News Lies About It

Posted by Mark NC on June 30, 2021 at 12:36 pm. 1 Comments :

The state of the media suffered “bigly” during the years that Donald Trump occupied the White House. He hated the concept of free press, repeatedly calling it “the enemy of the people,” and berating and insulting reporters. It was his mission to sow discord. And it was one of the few things that he was good at. At least with regard to his worshipful cult followers.

Trump actually admitted to Leslie Stahl that he purposefully foments distrust of the media. She asked him why he attacks the press. “You know why I do it?” he replied. “I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”

In 2018 Lesley Stahl told the story of when she asked Trump why he keeps attacking the press.

"And he said 'You know why I do it? I do it to discredit 'you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.'"pic.twitter.com/OUqZFqzXTe

— News Corpse (@NewsCorpse) April 4, 2023

Mission accomplished! A new report by the Reuters Institute ranked media trust among 46 countries. The United States came in dead last:

“The United States ranks last in media trust — at 29% — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries. […] One explanation, though not necessarily the only one, is the extreme political polarization in the U.S. This study, like many others, found extremely high levels of distrust — 75% of those who identify as being on the right thought coverage of their views is unfair.”

So it was the deliberate slander of the press by Trump and his conservative mouthpieces at Fox News and elsewhere that produced this humiliating result for the U.S. And no one should be surprised to learn that it’s still going on. Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote an op-ed for The Hill that brazenly misrepresented the Reuters study:

“The U.S. media is the least trustworthy in the world, according to a comprehensive new Reuters Institute survey encompassing 46 countries. Yes, you read that right. The country with among the most resources in this arena – human, technical and otherwise – finished dead last. Finland ranked the highest, with a 65 percent trust rating. In Kenya, the trust rating clocked in at 61 percent. But here in the U.S.A., the home of global media giants including the New York Times, Washington Post and CNN, we’re trusted by a whopping 29 percent of those reading and watching.’

Notice what Concha left out? The primary cause of distrust in the media, his employer Fox News. Concha’s article went on to cite stories about Trump’s collusion with Russia an example of why the media isn’t trusted. He falsely claimed that “the Mueller Report didn’t find proof” when it actually did. Concha also maligned CNN and MSNBC reporters, saying that “they’re patently partisan opinion hosts” who “share their feelings, their opinions” and that they “pass it off as objective news reporting.” Which, of course, is what Fox News does 24/7, and what Concha is doing in this op-ed.

Digging deeper into the Reuters study confirms that Fox News is the main offender. When the survey results were broken down by media brand, Fox News had the distinction of being the most distrusted at 46% and only 35% trusted. That coincides with Trump’s most zealous base of support. Meanwhile, the most frequent media targets of Trump’s animus (NBC/MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post) all placed higher than Fox by 8 to 11 points.

The fact that Fox News would so flagrantly misrepresent this information is typical of their dishonesty and bias. This week Fox also misrepresented the ratings for cable news networks. They reported on the ratings decline of CNN and MSNBC, attributing it, without evidence, to a “credibility problem.” But for some reason Fox’s article never mentioned Fox News ratings at all, or the fact that they had declines that were just as bad and, more often than not, worse.

So in less than a week Fox News blatantly lied twice (at least) about how they are received in the media marketplace. And they are doing it deliberately with the intention to deceive. Which is no less than what should be expected of a “news” network that lies about everything else all day, every day. That’s just how Fox News rolls.

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

Fox News Hack Defends Trump for Making 2019 the ‘Darkest Year Yet for Journalists’

Posted by Mark NC on January 2, 2020 at 3:53 pm. 11 Comments :

After three years of bootlicking fealty to Donald Trump, there are very few people who would dispute that Fox News is serving as the Ministry of Propaganda for the Trump regime. There has never been a “news” organization more tightly aligned with a political leader and party than Fox News. They even regularly exchange personnel who seamlessly work for both the network and the White House. Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and others are card-carrying members of Trump’s “Shadow Cabinet.”

Other than Fox News, Trump has been relentlessly hostile to the press from the beginning of his presidency. He routinely refers to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people,” and dismisses any less than adoring coverage as “fake news.” Michael M. Grynbaum of the New York times took note of this in a year-end column that accurately described 2019 as the “darkest year yet for journalists“ He elaborated…

“On Twitter, President Trump deployed the phrase ‘fake news’ 273 times this year — 50 percent more often than he did in 2018. He demanded ‘retribution’ over a ‘Saturday Night Live’ sketch, declared that Washington Post reporters ‘shouldn’t even be allowed on the grounds of the White House,’ and accused The New York Times of ‘Treason.’ […]

Mr. Trump’s vilification of the news media is a hallmark of his tenure and a jagged break from the norms of his predecessors: Once a global champion of the free press, the presidency has become an inspiration to autocrats and dictators who ape Mr. Trump’s cry of ‘fake news.'”

Trump has terminated the daily press briefings that were a decades-long part of White House operations. He replaced them with his “Chopper Talk” harangues on the lawn of the White House where he’ll berate reporters and lie unashamedly while dodging their questions. And his constant assaults on the press creates an environment of imminent risk to the lives of reporters. Trump even whined to Vladimir Putin that he would like to “get rid of them,” expressing his envy of Putin’s ability to assassinate journalists who offend him. That’s the sort of loathsome rhetoric that caused the Committee to Protect Journalists to issue a long and detailed condemnation of Trump as “an unprecedented threat,” and went on to say…

“Donald Trump, through his words and actions as a candidate for president of the United States, has consistently betrayed First Amendment values. […] A Trump presidency would represent a threat to press freedom in the United States.”

In response to the article in the New York Times (a frequent victim of Trump’s attacks), right-wing media hack Joe Concha appeared on Fox News to defend Trump’s malicious behavior (video below). However, he proffered a badly mangled argument that Trump was justified in criticizing the press because they were so critical of him. The problem with that is that no one was suggesting that Trump couldn’t offer his own criticisms. But there is a difference between pointing out what he believes are inaccuracies, and accusing reporters of treason.

Likewise, Concha argued that Trump couldn’t be considered a threat to journalists because he speaks to them directly from time to time. Once again, that doesn’t excuse what he’s actually saying in those encounters. If you threaten reporters with cancellation of their credentials, or with prosecution and imprisonment, you cannot simultaneously claim you’re not a threat because you spoke to them.

Fox and Friends co-host Steve Doocy eagerly agreed with Concha’s premise, saying that Trump often approaches reporters at Mar-A-Lago and takes questions. What Doocy didn’t acknowledge is that those avails are always designed to give Trump the advantage. He takes only the questions he wants, and pretends he didn’t hear the others. And if his answers are insufficient, or totally irrelevant, he refuses follow-ups or any effort to clarify.

The problem with what Concha and Doocy are saying is that they regard Trump’s insults and threats as legitimate critiques of the media. They ignore Trump’s menacing outbursts that cast journalists as criminals and traitors. And they don’t seem to comprehend that labeling everything you disagree agree with as “Fake” isn’t a coherent rebuttal. It’s a flagrant attempt to demean an honorable profession, and the only one protected by the Constitution.

Trump’s purpose is to destroy the public’s confidence in the only institution they can rely on to keep them informed and hold the powerful accountable. In this way Trump hopes to get away with his criminal, amoral, and disloyal, activities. And Joe Concha and Fox News are right there to back him up.

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

State TV (aka Fox News) Whines that US Media Isn’t Doing Enough Trump Fluffing

Posted by Mark NC on June 5, 2019 at 12:50 pm. 5 Comments :

For the past week Donald Trump has been reaffirming his role as America’s Ambassador of International Embarrassment. On this brief junket he has managed to insult the Duchess of Sussex (Meghan Markle), feud with the Mayor of London, call for a boycott of an American company in order to punish CNN (an unconstitutional, impeachable offense), Breach diplomatic protocol by attacking Joe Biden from foreign soil, and send orders back home to a former staffer (and current Fox News executive) to unlawfully defy a congressional subpoena.

Despite all of this evidence of his foreign fiasco, the fact that Trump has once again proven to be an incompetent, self-absorbed, loudmouth who is allergic to telling the truth, hasn’t stalled the devotional bootlicking of Fox News. On Wednesday morning the “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends were primed to report on Trump’s “triumphant” mission to the United Kingdom. So in pursuit of that goal they invited their ultra-rightist media shill, Joe Concha, to opine on how Trump was maligned at the hands of the U.S. press corps. The premise that Fox tried vainly to peddle was that, while Trump was hammered here at home, he was beloved in the U.K. That phony propaganda resulted in this absurd exchange (video below):

Co-host Brian Kilmeade: “This state visit to the U.K. earning glowing reviews – get this – in Britain. But back here in the U.S. – or whatever planet we’re on – the American media is telling a whole different story.”
Concha: (on the British press): “They’re on the ground. They know how London works. They know the people. And they’re portraying this thing a lot more positively, as you just showed, than the U.S. media who’s concentrating almost solely on these protests. […] That’s the problem. We’re getting way too many opinions based solely on speculation and how people perceive things instead of what people see on their screens.”

Kilmeade’s assertion that the British press was unanimously “glowing” was based on a few headlines that he featured in a graphic. The only problem is that not one of them actually praise Trump. In fact, they were merely Trump paying tribute to the Queen:

Donald Trump praises ‘eternal friendship’ at state banquet (BBC)
Trump hails ‘common values’ uniting UK and US (Financial Times)
Donald Trump state banquet speech: US President says Queen embodies ‘patriotism that beats proudly in every British heart’ (Evening Standard)
‘Treasured Friendship’ Trump in tribute to ‘great, great’ Queen who inspired UK to win WW2 (The Sun)

Meanwhile, those same news sources also ran with these headlines that Fox News ignored:

Anti-Trump protesters mix humour with expletives {BBC)
Trump sends mixed messages on US-UK trade deal (Financial Times)
Protesters cry ‘Nazi’ as Donald Trump attends D-Day event (Evening Standard)
Donald Trump sparks massive NHS row as he says health service must be on the table (The Sun)

So Fox News is blatantly disinforming their viewers about the coverage of Trump by the British media. It is, in fact, nearly identical to the coverage in the U.S. And if it’s negative, that’s only because he’s such a predictable screw-up.

But what’s truly bizarre is Concha’s complaint that there are “way too many opinions” in the U.S. press. And he’s saying that, unironically, on Fox News. What’s more, his criticism that coverage is “based solely on speculation and how people perceive things” is downright laughable considering he’s saying it to Kilmeade who, just the day before, told viewers that “boos” from the crowd when Ivanka Trump and John Bolton walked by were for Bolton. How Kilmeade divined that was unexplained.

This is the sort of feverishly pro-Trump hackery that is the hallmark of Fox News. They are so determined to exalt Dear Leader at every opportunity that they utterly abandon reason and reality. And above all, they continue to push the notion that the media would be so much better if only it slobbered over Trump the way they do. Yet somehow they they still believe that they should be taken seriously as a news network.

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

Glenn Beck’s Failing Health And Wealth Gets Treated By Fox News Spin Doctors

Posted by Mark NC on November 19, 2014 at 3:08 pm. 4 Comments :

When Glenn Beck lost his perch on Fox News three years ago, his public profile shrunk considerably. He was no longer seen by a million addled viewers every day who clung worshipfully to his every utterance of apocalyptic doom. Yet he soldiered on promising to become “a thousand times more powerful” in whatever new venture he undertook. That was a promise he has not been able to keep.

As a result, he has resorted to literally begging his audience to subscribe to his Internet webcast, reaching out to investors he once swore off as limiting his free expression, and prostrating himself to the television gods hoping to regain access to their domain. It gives the title of his 2010 book a whole new meaning as to whether Beck himself is going broke.

Beck’s recent confessional regarding his health problems has stirred a great deal of controversy from skeptics who regard the performance as a cynical ploy for attention and revenue enhancement. News Corpse addressed that skepticism with the observation that Beck had conveniently healed himself at the same time he announced the mystery malady. However, he also confirmed that throughout much of the time he was accused of saying crazy things he actually was (is?) crazy.

Enter Fox News to clean up the mess Beck created and put it all in a glowing light of blessed prosperity. Fox’s whoring media analyst, Howard Kurtz, brought in conservative shill Joe Concha to polish the story. Concha began by lionizing the woefully ailing Beck as a brave figure who is leading the “the humanization of opinion journalism” (whatever that means). He added that…

“Guys like [Mark] Levin, and [Rush] Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck – they’re humanizing this whole process as well. Think about what Glenn said when he made that statement. He said ‘You know what? This isn’t meant for the press. This is between you and me.'”

Note to Joe Concha: When someone posts a two hour video monologue, seated next to a long-suffering wife, while sobbing and praising God for a miraculous healing, that is not a personal message to a private audience. And if you think that Beck was not aware of the interest in this campy melodrama among members of the tabloid press, you really should get out of the media business.

Concha continued his defense of Beck by taking a cowardly swipe at Cenk Uygur, who he called “a former MSNBC host screaming to be relevant again,” but whose name he could not utter. Ironically, if anyone is screaming to be relevant again it’s Beck, but that was beyond Concha’s ability to comprehend. Instead, he criticized Uygur’s assertion that Beck was hyping a dubious illness in order to get back on television and make more money. Then Concha rattled off a list of mostly unverified accounts of Beck’s wealth. He sought to belittle Beck’s critics by smugly declaring that “Anybody who says he’s going bankrupt and he made up this whole thing because he doesn’t have a couple of dollars in his pocket doesn’t live in a reality that has Google, a calculator, and basic logic.” To which an obviously enchanted Kurtz responded “Alright, you’ve settled that question,” which, of course, he had not done.

To the contrary, it is Concha who has abandoned both logic and any understanding of basic economics. What’s missing from his Beck-fluffing analysis is that income is not the sole determinative component of net worth. You also need to factor in spending and debt. And by Beck’s own account he was bleeding money and needed to be rescued by either his loyal disciples, outside investors, or a return to television.

Beck has wailed plaintively in the recent past that “Already I’ve lost quite a tidy sum.” As a result he was forced to beg his disciples to increase his subscription base because “I thought I had time. I need your help.” That doesn’t sound like a healthy business enterprise. To be sure, he has spent heavily on a new television studio in the suburbs of Dallas. And he is allegedly bankrolling a film studio modeled after the Walt Disney organization, complete with high tech animation and effects facilities. He is also running retail businesses and stage presentations and publishing imprints. All of these activities have costs associated with them.

Beck does not disclose financial statements for himself or his businesses, so there is no way of knowing whether the mega-bucks he is reported to be pulling in cover his expenses. However, the debt he is compiling may be what led to his filing with the SEC seeking $40 million in funding for TheBlaze (As of 7/1/2014 he had only $6.4 million). This comes after he previously vowed to abstain from outside investors saying that…

“I do not want outside investors. We have talked about it. We have had outside investors come to us. We have had hedge funds come to us. People want to invest in my business because we are creating jobs and creating wealth. I do not want outside investors because I do not want to have to answer to anyone else.”

Apparently he wants them now. He also wants back on TV. He has been working furiously to get cable operators to carry his video blog. That in itself is an admission that the web business is failing. If he does get the cable carriage he longs for, that programming will be available for free to all of the current cable subscribers on the system. So why would anyone pay for the web programming? If the Internet subscription model was working for him, Beck wouldn’t risk cannibalizing his online customers by offering the same content for free on cable.

It’s clear that the hacks on Fox News haven’t taken these factors into consideration. Consequently, they mouth off on subjects about which they are totally ignorant. But then that’s how they got their jobs at Fox in the first place. Being ignorant, or at least willing to lie with a straight face, is a prerequisite for employment at Fox News. What else could explain Sean Hannity, Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, Keith Ablow, and, of course, Joe Concha and Howard Kurtz?

Racist Guest On Fox News Is Offended That He Might Be Viewed As Racist

Posted by Mark NC on August 18, 2014 at 11:40 am. 5 Comments :

This weekend’s episode of MediaBuzz on Fox News featured a segment about the press coverage of the shooting death of Michael Brown, an unarmed teenager, by a Ferguson, MO police officer. Host Howard Kurtz booked Joe Concha, a conservative from Mediaite, and Keli Goff, a liberal from The Root, to debate the media’s performance during the aftermath of the shooting (video below).

Concha immediately went into a defensive posture from the comfort of his TV studio. He took the side of law enforcement against the reporters who have been exposing the realities in the field, at great personal risk, where a militarized police department was harassing reporters and tormenting the residents they are sworn to serve.

Concha’s tirade began by condemning Wes Lowery, a Washington Post reporter who was arrested for doing his job. Concha accused Lowery of deliberately provoking the arrest and backed up his assertion by saying that Lowery’s media appearances afterward proved his self-interest.

Concha: “And here’s how you know that this was all about Wes Lowery expanding his television career. Right after he was released from custody, It was all about Tweeting out, calling Maddow Now (whatever that is), going on national television, went on CNN, MSNBC after that, Fox News as well. This was a media tour, Howie, that was only rivaled by Hillary Clinton’s. All in the effort to give Wes Lowery’s byline a microphone, a future career, and nothing more.”

Zing! Concha managed to slip in a slap at Hillary Clinton while defaming a reporter who is actually engaged in the practice of journalism, as opposed to Concha who is engaged in the practice of character assassination. And not even Kurtz would abide Concha’s slander and ignorance of the profession.

Kurtz: Alright, I think that’s unfair. Wes Lowery is a good, solid reporter. He was deluged with requests to appear on TV, including from me. He only did a few of those. I don’t think this was as self-promotional as you do.”

When a reporter is arrested while covering a news story with national prominence, that is in itself newsworthy. It is not proper or ethical for the police to target journalists in an effort to prevent them from gathering and providing information about matters of public interest. Apparently Concha thinks otherwise. Keli Goff eloquently explained why it so important to have reporters on the scene covering everything that occurs, including police misconduct.

Goff: “With all due respect to Joe, I would hate to hear the kind of criticism he would have doled out about fifty or sixty years ago to the reporters who may have been a little slow to pack up their gear when they were covering another crisis, which was known as the civil rights movement.

Goff correctly pointed out that there were a lot of reporters who were assaulted during the civil rights movement and that they risked their lives due to their commitment to keep the people informed. She described Concha’s criticism of Lowery’s efforts to record the police officers as bizarre. And she went further to say that it would be irresponsible to NOT record such activity.

Next Kurtz raised the question of whether the volume of coverage was exacerbating the tensions in Ferguson. Concha quickly agreed that the television networks and the Internet were “fueling the flames” and then focused his criticism on MSNBC’s Al Sharpton, who went to Ferguson to beseech the protesters to remain peaceful. Then Concha began an exchange that reveals much about what is wrong with television news coverage.

Concha: “The bottom line is that it is now a cottage industry when a white cop shoots a black kid. Or, we saw it with Trayvon Marin last year, CNN, HLN quadrupled their ratings because of these sort of events. And ISIS and Gaza is happening somewhere overseas. This is domestic. A cheap and easy narrative. And that’s why we’ve seen the coverage go where it has.”

Goff: You call it a cottage industry, those of us who have African-American men in our family consider it a crisis, Joe. It must be nice to have an experience in this country where you can dismiss it as simply coverage.”

Concha: “You don’t get to do that to me, Keli. You’re calling me a racist on national television?”

Huh? When exactly did Goff call Concha a racist? It is telling that Concha perceived this imaginary insult and used it to flip the whole segment to one where Goff was doing something to him. After belittling the significance of the shooting of Mike Brown, Concha is now the making himself the victim. This is where Kurtz jumped in to tell Concha that Goff had not called him a racist. Concha later apologized for “overreacting” with regard to the charge of racism, but he never apologized for the underlying remarks dismissing the shooting, disparaging the reporters covering it, and referring to coverage as “cheap and easy.”

It’s a good thing that Goff was there to counter the insensitivity and aversion to ethical journalism as represented by Concha. And it’s a good reminder of why it’s necessary to not only have journalists in the field who are devoted to informing the public, but to have them in the studio as well to smackdown jerkwads like Concha.

Shameless self-promotion…
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