John Moody

Offensive Article By FOX Exec Deleted Because it ‘Does Not Reflect the Values of FOX News’

Posted by on February 9, 2018 at 1:22 pm. 2 Comments :

On Wednesday Fox News published an article about the United States Olympic team that took a surprisingly negative tone. And the author was no back-bencher on Fox’s roster. It was John Moody, the Executive Vice President and Executive Editor for Fox News. Apparently he was upset by reports that the U.S. athletes represented a broader scope of diversity than in the past.

Fox News Moody

Moody’s column was a thinly veiled defense of bigotry and unapologetically titled, “In Olympics, let’s focus on the winner of the race — not the race of the winner. The message he was putting forth was that because of the diversity, there must have been some unsavory manipulation to favor athletes who were not straight and white. That allegation, of course, was never supported by any facts in the article. It was simply Moody’s suspicion based on remarks by an Olympic Committee official praising this year’s team. The article began with an uninhibited display of prejudice:

“Unless it’s changed overnight, the motto of the Olympics, since 1894, has been ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger.’ It appears the U.S. Olympic Committee would like to change that to ‘Darker, Gayer, Different.’ If your goal is to win medals, that won’t work.

“A USOC official was quoted this week expressing pride (what else?) about taking the most diverse U.S. squad ever to the Winter Olympics. That was followed by a, frankly, embarrassing laundry list of how many African-Americans, Asians and openly gay athletes are on this year’s U.S. team. No sport that we are aware of awards points – or medals – for skin color or sexual orientation.”

Not only was Moody flaunting his noxious hatefulness with the disparaging reference to being “Darker, Gayer, [and] Different,” he whined about the USOC official being proud of America’s team. And nowhere in the official’s comments did he suggest that anything but skill and talent would result in the award of medals. The entirety of Moody’s complaint was wrapped up in his personal biases.

After the article was published, it drew an onslaught of well-deserved criticism from the public and many of the organizations that represent the groups that Moody was insulting. So yesterday Fox News deleted the article. They left no explanation or apology in its place. It was simply gone. Well, except for the fact that nothing is ever really “gone” on the Internet, and the article can still be found here thanks to the Web Archive. And Fox News was later forced to comment when the Hollywood Reporter contacted them to find out what happened. A Fox News spokesperson said that “John Moody’s column does not reflect the views or values of FOX News and has been removed.”

Really? The opinions of the Executive Vice President and Executive Editor for Fox News don’t reflect the views and values of the network? If Moody doesn’t reflect those values, than who does? He is literally the person who decides which views are aired on Fox News, and which aren’t. He tells his producers and hosts what to cover each day and how to frame the coverage. And if there is one thing that is unmistakable, it’s that his views in this matter are identical to everything you see on Fox News regarding American diversity. Just watch a few minutes of Tucker Carlson, or Sean Hannity, or Laura Ingraham, or Fox and Friends (if you can stomach it).

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

For some background on Moody, last year he penned a column praising French presidential candidate, and leader of France’s neo-Nazis, Marine Le Pen. Moody even favorably associated Le Pen with Donald Trump. He called her “France’s Trump” and “the candidate closest to Trump in ideology.” And make no mistake, he considered that a compliment to both. So it’s impossible to separate him from the disgusting hate speech that he disgorged in his latest column. Even if Fox News deletes it. Moody is unalterably the personification of the network’s views and values, no matter how badly they might want to distance themselves from this.

Fox News Links French Nazi Presidential Candidate Favorably With Trump

Posted by on April 12, 2017 at 7:52 pm. 2 Comments :

John Moody, Executive Vice President and Executive Editor for Fox News, is boldly defending France’s Marine Le Pen. She’s a French candidate for president who represents a political party that has openly identified with Germany’s Nazis. What’s more, Moody is favorably associating Le Pen with Donald Trump. He calls her “France’s Trump” and “the candidate closest to Trump in ideology.” It’s unclear why he regards this as positive linkage. But he not only applauds their similarities, he laments their common “mistreatment” by the press when they do or say offensive things.

Donald Trump Marine Le Pen

For example, Le Pen was recently taken to task for her painfully insensitive comments about France’s behavior during World War II. The nation was under German occupation, but its government, and many of its citizens, collaborated with their occupiers. Moody described it this way:

“Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate of the National Front, touched an old but still open wound among Frenchmen this week, when she said her countrymen should stop feeling guilty about rounding up French Jews who were sent to their deaths during World War II, when France was under Nazi occupation.”

Well, that’s thoughtful of her. Le Pen doesn’t want the long suffering people of France to feel guilty. After all, it was their grandparents who shamefully capitulated to the Nazis and handed over innocent Jews to their murderers. And that was a long time ago, so let’s just forget about it already.

For the record, what Le Pen said – and what Moody thinks was just an off-hand remark – is that “generally speaking if there are people responsible, it’s those who were in power at the time. It’s not France.” That’s like saying that the United States wasn’t responsible for the internment of the Japanese. It was just those who were in power at the time.

What both Le Pen and Moody are missing is that no one is asking the French to feel guilty. However, they are expected to take responsibility for the atrocities committed at the time and to never forget what happened. That’s the only sure way to keep it from happening again. It has long been a goal of neo-Nazi groups to persuade people that the crimes of the past were either fake or not serious enough to memorialize. And that also appears to be the goal of Le Pen and Fox News.

Moody makes that very point later in his commentary. He starts by acknowledging that Le Pen’s “National Front” began with her father’s overtly anti-Semitic agenda of Holocaust denial, Moody buys into the lie that it’s not the same party today. He says that:

“The National Front’s founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen – Marine’s father – was an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier. But since Marine took over leadership of the party, she has successfully softened its image, while still calling for stronger borders, fewer immigrants and a hard look at France’s participation in the European Union.”

See? Everything’s fine now. The rough edges of Nazism have been smoothed over by the daughter of the party’s bigoted founder. And even though the party’s agenda is unchanged, all should be forgiven and forgotten. Moody argues that a new generation of French patriots have a completely different point of view. Well, actually he argues that they have an ignorant point of view:

“But what they, and the French political establishment are forgetting is this. Not many Frenchmen living right now were born during World War II. And the youngest French voters – in their late teens and 20s – have no connection to the Holocaust except what they have read or been told.”

And there you have it. Since the young folks in France don’t know anything about World War II, none of it matters anymore. Why hold them accountable for maintaining a future of tolerance and peace when they don’t even know about their nation’s genocidal past? We certainly wouldn’t want to educate them. That might be make them sad. Or worse, produce a sense of commitment to avoiding the same mistakes of their forefathers.

Moody closed by continuing to trivialize the past and Le Pen’s characterization of it. He called Le Pen’s repulsive remarks about the Holocaust “inelegant,” and complained that they “stirred up the usual outrage.” And you wouldn’t want anyone outraged by a candidate soft-pedaling genocide. Then Moody sought to put the past in its place as merely historical details that have little significance to modern folks.

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

As Executive Vice President and Executive Editor for Fox News, Moody’s opinion can be said to represent the network. It is surely aligned with that of most of its right-wing hosts and commentators. And if there is one thing he got right it’s that Le Pen and Trump are ideological partners. Le Pen gushed at Trump’s election saying that it gave her “reason to rejoice.” We’ll see. The first round of the French presidential election is April 23.

Pope TV: The Fox News Connection To The Vatican

Posted by on February 11, 2013 at 10:27 am. 2 Comments :

Well, here we go again. There’s gonna be another new Pope and for some reason American television is going to be plastered with wall-to-wall coverage of a religious enterprise’s loss of its CEO and their search for a new leader.

Pope TV

With the announcement that Pope Benedict will resign at the end of this month, it also seems like a good time to reprise this article about how a Fox News reporter became the PR man at the Vatican:

Awash In Scandal, Vatican Turns To The Pros At Fox News For Help
[June 24, 2012] It was announced yesterday that Greg Burke, the Fox News correspondent in Rome, has accepted the position of senior communications adviser in the Vatican’s secretariat of state. The article in the Associated Press notes that the Vatican has been having a number of problems such as “a scandal over Vatican documents that were leaked to Italian journalists,” […] “Benedict’s now-infamous speech about Muslims and violence, his 2009 decision to rehabilitate a schismatic bishop who denied the Holocaust, and the Vatican’s response to the 2010 explosion of the sex abuse scandal.”

When an institution as prominent as the Vatican requires professional guidance through a maze of public relations challenges as steep as these, it only makes sense that they reach out to experts in the propaganda arts. Conveniently, Burke was at hand in Rome and, as a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic prelature, Opus Dei, his accordance with Church dogma is not in doubt.

Presumably the Vatican is confidant that Burke will bring some measure of expertise to his new duties whitewashing the Vatican’s malfeasance. However, Fox News is better known for their prowess in inventing scandals that never occurred (i.e. Birthers, voter fraud, war on Christmas, fast and furious, etc.), rather than in quelling actual scandals. Nevertheless, Burke’s first statements after the hiring suggest that he is precisely what the Vatican is looking for:

Burke: You’re shaping the message, you’re molding the message, and you’re trying to make sure everyone remains on-message.

In other words, Burke will be doing for the church exactly what Fox News has been doing for the Republican Party for years. Which raises a question far more interesting than the one about a Fox News correspondent going to work for the Vatican: What was a member of Opus Dei doing covering the Vatican for an alleged “news” organization for the past ten years? That would be indisputably unethical. It would be fine if he were assigned to farm subsidies or Wall Street, but not the church with which he is so closely associated. That would be like having a top Republican strategist working as a political analyst at a news network.

Oh wait…Karl Rove is already doing that at Fox News. And Fox also employed four prospective GOP presidential candidates in the past year. And they also employ executives who were caught instructing their news staff to slant their reporting to favor Republicans. And they invite Republican politicians and advocates to appear on the air far more often than Democrats or liberals. Mitt Romney alone as appeared on Fox & Friends 21 times in the last year, while appearing only once on any Sunday network news program.

It may be be indisputably unethical, but it’s also the Fox News business model. Whether or not it works at the Vatican remains to be seen. However, the Republican Party and the Vatican have much in common. They are both trying to sell stories on faith to ill-informed people who are motivated by fear.

So get ready for the onslaught of PopeMania that is bound to persist at least until a new Pope is crowned sometime between now and the end of March. Mr. Burke is already on the story and has secured a high profile Op-Ed on Fox News written by John Moody, Executive Vice President and Executive Editor at Fox News, as well as a Pope John Paul II biographer. Moody’s article, not surprisingly, concludes by praising Benedict as “brave” and reminding the Fox Flock that “the promise of heaven [is] lasting and infinite.” You know…..journalism in the proud tradition of “We preach, you deify.”

Progressive Media In The Obama Era

Posted by on November 11, 2008 at 5:20 pm. 1 Comments :

With the election over, prognostications about the new administration of Barack Obama, and the fate of the losers, began in earnest. Almost simultaneously, speculation arose concerning the direction and prospects for the media in general, and the cable news networks in particular. The conventional wisdom (always conventional, rarely wise) is that Fox News will thrive in the role of a voice for the opposition and MSNBC will struggle for lack of drama. This analysis presumes that audiences respond only to conflict and that the Obama victory will put conservatives on edge and liberals to sleep.

There is some merit to this theory, but, us usual, it is too narrowly drawn to be enlightening. If contrarian politics were paramount then Fox would not have flourished during its early years of the Clinton administration, which it opposed, as well as the Bush years that followed, which it embraced. A common misconception about the success of Fox News is that it was driven by its conservative point of view. The only role ideology played was that it funneled all of the right-leaning viewers to one channel, allowing Fox to score higher in Nielsen ratings. The larger truth is that it transformed stodgy news delivery into thrill-inducing combat and soap opera. They created an us-vs-them, hero narrative that feeds on the same zealotry as a religious cult.

The race for president provided ample opportunity for the sort of melodrama upon which the new generation of cable news networks thrive. Fox took full advantage of this promoting, and even creating, friction where it otherwise would not have existed. Who can forget (despite how desperately we try):

  • William Ayers
  • Rev. Jeremiah Wright
  • Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher (the Plumber)
  • ACORN
  • Drill, baby drill
  • Elitists
  • Flag pins
  • Muslim Madrassas

The irrelevance of these phony issues is confirmed by how quickly they have vanished from the news scene. The campaign season stirred the pot, but the conclusion of the campaign is not the end of controversy. We are still mired in war, a collapsing economy, a climate crisis, and a multitude of other critical affairs that will define the next four years.

Nevertheless, cable news is going to have to undergo a post-election makeover. Brit Hume has already left the building. Some reports from Fox News insiders suggest that they will be taking a softer approach toward the President-elect (don’t believe it). Keith Olbermann’s Countdown contains segments like “Bushed” and “McCain in the Membrane” that will need to be retired. Political contests will likely play a smaller role in his program and others, and the void will have to be filled by something else. In the search for new themes, I would like to suggest one that is ever-present and exerts an overdue influence on American politics and culture: the Media.

There will always be political, social, and global controversies. They will erupt between and within party affiliations. The one thing that ties them all together is that they are fodder for interpretation by the media. The characterization of ideas can be instrumental in their acceptance or rejection by the people. Ideally, news organizations would be neutral providers of information and analysis, but those days may be long past. The modern era of television news seems to have irreversibly digressed into partisan advocacy. Even Fox News, the home of the “fair and balanced” fallacy, seems to have abandoned that pretense. Chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes was asked by Broadcasting and Cable Magazine about their post-election prospects:

B & C: [W]ill the news side of Fox News face an apathetic audience, compounded by being on the losing end of a national election?

Ailes: There may be certain elements of our audience that turn away between now and the inauguration. I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama.

Notice that Ailes doesn’t object to the question’s premise that Fox was “on the losing end” of the election. The reality of Fox’s bias is so well established now that he doesn’t even bother to refute it. If Ailes’ response isn’t validation enough, listen to his executive VP, John Moody, from the same article, describing Obama as…

“…a once-in-a-lifetime politician and that means he’s smart enough to know that, despite his prescient 2004 speech, there are red voters and blue voters. And he wants to reach out and get the red ones, too.”

Here we have Moody blithely confessing that Fox is the venue for conservative viewers. This is something that Moody and Ailes would have vehemently denied in the past. Today it is treated as a foregone conclusion. That’s what makes observation of the media such a rich vein for the sort of melodrama that excites cable news programmers and viewers. The presentation of the news is so narrowly focused and poorly produced that it invites criticism, sarcasm, and ridicule.

This is where progressive media can excel. The Rupert Murdochs of the world aren’t interested in self-examination or improvement. They have an agenda to pursue and they won’t let a little thing like truth get in the way. Witness the inveterate lying of folks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, and Sean Hannity. Liberals are generally more predisposed toward ethical oversight and, thus, make better watchdogs. With the decline of political content in the news cycle, this would be an opportune time to jump headlong into media analysis and criticism.

Scrutiny of the press has the added benefit of expanding the audience base because those who are skeptical of the press are a diverse group. An honest appraisal of reporters and pundits will appeal to a broad swath of news consumers. Evidence of this is the popularity of a couple of programs on Comedy Central. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report demonstrate the appeal of programming that takes on the press. Many analysts misconstrue these shows as political satire, but that is not an accurate characterization. They are media satire programs. Everything they do is less a statement on policy than it is a statement on the absurdity and incompetence of the people who bring us the news. It is also noteworthy that conservative attempts at this endeavor have all failed miserably.

Drawing attention to the media is also fertile ground for effective reform. It is potentially the most powerful avenue for political change. Every issue that faces citizens and their representatives has to be disseminated through the media apparatus. So whether it’s healthcare, education, taxes, energy, etc., it is the press that will shape much of the public’s view. The more light that is cast on the press, the more likely they will modify their behavior. So if cable news figures like Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Campbell Brown, and even Fox’s Shepard Smith (who has been known to take swipes at his net’s coverage), step up and challenge their industry, they could have more impact, and do more good, then if they merely assume the posture of another kvetching pundit.

The next few weeks will tell whether the press has learned anything, whether it is interested in self-reflection and reform, and whether it is capable of fulfilling its traditional role as a check on a government that would much prefer to work in secret. This will also be an outstanding time to have media watchers illuminating the stage and exposing the imperfections and deceits of those who purport to inform us. Let’s hope they heed the call. Because, now more than ever, we need an open, honest, and diverse fourth estate to document the progress of what may be the most astonishing political achievement in this nation’s short history.

The Man Who Calls The Elections For Fox News

Posted by on November 3, 2008 at 7:31 pm. 1 Comments :

Tomorrow is election day, children. It is one of the most cherished privileges of being an American citizen, and one of the most solemn responsibilities as well.

Many people take great pleasure from having the ability to help to choose who will lead our great nation, and they believe that by voting they are playing an important role in that choice. However, most are unaware that sometimes this process is not as straight forward as one might think.

After millions of well intentioned consumers citizens have gone to the polls to cast their votes, our friends in the media spend many minutes, and millions of dollars, figuring out who really won the election. They add up numbers given to them from computers and pollsters and other pundits, and when they are certain that they can make a reasonably close guess – BAM! – they announce it on television and America has a new president.

At the nation’s biggest and most dishonest cable TV news network, Fox News, the man in charge of making the final call sits in a busy TV studio with lots of electronic devices and a hotline to Republican campaign operatives. His name is John Moody, and he is also the Executive Vice President of the Fox News Channel. Mr. Moody’s job is so important that he gets to write memos every morning to tell all the news anchors what to talk about on that day (although Mr. Moody downplays this communication making the profound distinction that, “It’s not even called a ‘memo,’ it’s an editorial note.”) In one of these editorial notes that Mr. Moody distributed the day following the elections of 2006, he made some fascinating observations concerning the broad scope of victory enjoyed by the Democratic Party:

  • “The elections and Rumsfeld’s resignation were a major event but not the end of the world.”
  • “…let’s be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.”
  • “The question of the day, and indeed for the rest of Bush’s term, is: ‘What’s the Dem plan for Iraq?’“
  • “In the House, the newly empowered Dems will shed some fraternal blood before settling in.”
  • “Just because Dems won, the war on terror isn’t over.”

As you can see, Mr. Moody has a cheerful and sunny view of the disastrously rotten outcome produced by the majority of voters who all seem to have made the wrong decisions. We should all be grateful that people like Mr. Moody are on the job and looking out for us, even when we don’t know what is in our own best interest.

Good news, kiddies. Mr. Moody will be looking out for us again tomorrow. He will be the executive in charge of making the final call on all of the state presidential elections, and on the national race as well. This job may be easier this year because it appears that Mr. Moody already made the call. In a posting on his blog last week, he wrote about an alleged attack on a volunteer for John McCain’s campaign by an African-American thug who was also a Barack Obama supporter. Mr. Moody concluded the post saying that…

“If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

Well, it was hoax. That would settle the matter for most people, but at Fox News no one is ever accountable for anything they say. So Mr. Moody will take his place in the studio and prepare to make his call on who wins the presidency as if there were really any doubt.

It should be noted, however, that at Fox News there is always doubt. That comes from being able to make up the news as you go along, something the reporters at Fox News take great pride in. So if Mr. Moody wants to declare McCain the winner after Obama receives the majority of electoral votes, he may just do that. There is historical precedent for this. The man who called the election for Fox News in 2000, when George W. Bush was crowned, was John Ellis, Bush’s first cousin. So, as you see, news is whatever you want it to be, if you work for Fox.

Have fun tomorrow, children, and remember to vote. Just because Fox News doesn’t care about honest reporting or elections doesn’t mean you can’t still exercise your Constitutional rights. And be sure to keep an eye out for Mr. Moody’s morning memo on Wednesday to see how Fox will spin the landslide victory of Barack Obama, if they decide to report it at all.

Fox VP: Sen McCain’s Quest For The Presidency Is Over

Posted by on October 25, 2008 at 10:16 am. 4 Comments :

A couple of days ago Ashley Todd, a John McCain campaign worker, reported to the police that she had been beaten and robbed by an African-American supporter of Barack Obama because of her political affiliation. The story was widely disseminated throughout the media with the help of the McCain communications team. There was just one problem with this story – It wasn’t true. Within 24 hours Todd confessed that she had fabricated the entire affair.

Before the truth was revealed, Fox News Executive VP John Moody published this on his blog:

“If Ms. Todd’s allegations are proven accurate, some voters may revisit their support for Senator Obama, not because they are racists (with due respect to Rep. John Murtha), but because they suddenly feel they do not know enough about the Democratic nominee.

If the incident turns out to be a hoax, Senator McCain’s quest for the presidency is over, forever linked to race-baiting.”

Moody doesn’t explain why voters would suddenly feel a lack of knowledge about Obama because a criminal unconnected to him was alleged to have done something horrible. But his remarks do confirm Fox’s obsession with associating Obama with all manner of evil, from radical preachers to domestic terrorists. The only real reason someone would revisit their support for Obama under these circumstances would be the reason Moody explicitly discarded. They are racist.

This is not the first time that Moody has demonstrated a gift for the ridiculous. He has previously said that terrorists were “thrilled” at Democratic victories in Congress. And there’s more.

Two days have elapsed and Moody has not posted anything to his blog since the article above. Therefore, we must assume that he is standing by his prediction that McCain’s campaign is over and is forever linked to race-baiting. I think the same thing can be said of Fox News, who eagerly promoted the false story when it broke.

Fox News Wants War With Iran

Posted by on June 14, 2008 at 3:00 pm. 2 Comments :

If you wondered where Fox News personalities get license to peddle idiotic notions like “terrorist fist jabs” and jokes about assassinating Democratic presidential candidates, you need look no further than their boss, Fox News Executive VP John Moody. In an article written for his Fox Forum blog, titled “How to Defeat Iran… Without Firing a Shot,” Moody makes an unambiguous declaration of war from the comfort of his Fox office suite. The crux of his plan is to exploit Iran’s dependence on foreign oil refineries to deprive them of consumable petroleum products:

“An effective embargo on the delivery of refined petroleum would shut off the lights across Iran within weeks and turn its population – already chafing under Islamic rule, a creaky economy and unpopular gasoline rationing – murderously rebellious.”

Looking a little deeper at the plot that Moody savors for being both “murderous” and “deliciously satisfying,” it should be noted that such an embargo would not only shut off the lights, but the heat, the air conditioning, the water, the food processors and distributors, the hospitals, and pretty much every other service and facility required for humanitarian sustenance.

Moody acknowledges that the plan would be difficult to implement because Iran’s foreign suppliers of refined petroleum are its allies China, Russia, and Venezuela, who have little incentive to participate. So Moody’s answer is to deploy a naval blockade. This, of course, amounts to an act of war that could easily escalate beyond the region if tankers from Iran’s suppliers are attacked.

How does declaring war on Iran and threatening it’s trading partners bring defeat without firing a shot? Mr. Moody does not elucidate. He just squawks his vulturous stupidity from high on his ivory perch, salivating at the thought of the corpses he’ll soon be able to gnaw on.

It should be noted that this is not the ravings of yet another rightist, war-mongering, Fox News pundit. Moody is an executive near the top of the Fox management structure. Therefore, this is not merely an editorial opinion, but an advisory of corporate policy. Moody has just announced that it is the official policy of News Corporation to declare war on Iran. I wasn’t aware that that was an appropriate role for a media company.

Lest this come as a surprise to anyone, this is the same John Moody who issued a consolation memo to his troops after the Democratic Congressional victories of November 2006. The memo contained advice to the dejected Foxies to help them cope with their loss. For example:

“…let’s be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.”

~~~

“In the House, the newly empowered Dems will shed some fraternal blood before settling in.”

Moody is always looking on the bright side, whether it is recovering from bitter electoral defeats, or advocating for elective World Wars.

Republican Spin? That’s What They’re There For

Posted by on March 17, 2008 at 8:54 pm. NO Comments :

I love it when Fox News honchos confess to their biases. Like when Rupert Murdoch admitted that he tried to shape public opinion on the Iraq war.

Now, Fox News senior vice president, John Moody, has stumbled into honesty. In discussing his hiring of Bush adviser Karl Rove, Moody said:

“Are we getting a Republican spin? Of course. But that’s what he’s there for. There’s no attempt to conceal that.”

Now, if we can only get Moody to admit that with regard to the rest of his network’s hosts. As for Rove, he does appear to be attempting to conceal his spin, describing instead as “insight.”

This isn’t Moody’s first truth eruption. In November of 2006, following the Democratic sweep of Congress, an internal Fox News memo from Moody to his troops was leaked. Amongst the many disclosures of bias contained in the memo were these:

“…let’s be on the lookout for any statements from the Iraqi insurgents, who must be thrilled at the prospect of a Dem-controlled congress.”

~~~

“The elections and Rumsfeld’s resignation were a major event but not the end of the world. The war on terror goes on without interruption.”

See? It’s not the end of the world. We still have our lovely war.

Fox Is Just Misunderstood

Posted by on March 13, 2007 at 4:53 pm. NO Comments :

Noam Cohen, writing for the New York Times business section, is an exceedingly compassionate fellow. In his article recounting the meltdown of the proposed Fox News Democratic debate, he cites unnamed “analysts of the cable news world” who speculate as to the fallout from the Democrats’ impudence:

“On the one hand it feeds the image of Fox News as besieged by mainstream media outlets and political enemies, which plays well to its loyal audience.”

On the one hand, therefore, Fox is reveling in martyrdom. If these analysts are correct, then what would stop Fox from covertly sabotaging the debate or its participants in order to enhance its reputation with its loyal audience (and further its conservative agenda)? Isn’t that exactly why the Democrats stood against the Fox-sponsored event in the first place? And who are these analysts that would describe Fox News as “besieged by mainstream media outlets” as if they didn’t know that Fox News is itself one of the largest mainstream media outlets in the world? But that’s not all:

“Yet, these analysts said, being shut out of a debate denies the channel the ability to be above the fray and be perceived as a mainstream journalistic outlet.”

These analysts must be residents of the Washington Home for the Criminally Obtuse. How is Fox being denied the ability to shape how they are perceived? They have 24 hours a day to demonstrate that they can be above the fray. They have 365 days a year to behave the way a mainstream journalistic outlet is expected to behave. To suggest that all Fox really wants is a chance to prove that they can play well with others is to ignore their past performance on the playground where they unrepentantly engaged in blatant bullying and hostility. Peruse these examples from their Permanent Record:

If Fox can’t be trusted to be fair and/or balanced in the course of their daily pseudo-news gathering and reporting, why should they be rewarded with a high profile event that would convey onto them a respectability that they have not earned and do not deserve?

Nevada Dems Fox Up Debate

Posted by on February 21, 2007 at 12:19 pm. NO Comments :

From the “What Were They Thinking Department:” The Nevada Democratic Party has announced that they will conduct an August primary debate that will air on Fox News. This is the same Fox News:

  • whose chief anchor, Brit Hume, dismissively described Rep. John Murtha as senile.
  • whose VP, John Moody, claims that terrorists are “thrilled” with the Democratic Congress.
  • whose top on-air personality, Bill O’Reilly, accuses Democrats of wanting to lose the war in Iraq.
  • whose #2 program’s host, Sean Hannity, called for assassinating Nancy Pelosi to keep her from becoming speaker.
  • whose recently named head of the upcoming Fox Business Channel, Neil Cavuto, asks if “Democratic leaders who criticize the war in Iraq actually aiding the terrorists?” (and where Nevada’s Republican Senator, John Ensign answers, “You bet they are.”).
  • whose chairman, Rupert Murdoch, admitted that he manipulates the news to shape public opinion.

For the Nevada Democratic party to get in bed with the liars and propagandists at Fox is, at best, naive and, at worst, suicide. They make the claim that it will be helpful to appeal to Fox’ audience, whom they don’t have an opportunity to engage very often. If that argument ever held water (which it doesn’t), it certainly does not for a debate amongst Democratic “primary” candidates. In the general election you might want to reach the broader electorate, but how many Fox viewers are registered Democrats who will be voting in the primary?

Last month, Fox ran some irresponsibly false stories claiming that Barack Obama had attended a radical Muslim Madrassa as a child in Indonesia. They later falsely accused Hillary Clinton’s campaign of leaking the news item. In response, Obama reportedly “froze out” Fox News and declined appearances and comments. That was exactly the right way to deal with a network that can only be expected to sabotage the interests of Democrats. They’ve said as much over and over again.

Obama should be the first candidate to declare that he will not appear in the August debate if Fox remains its host. Nothing has changed at the network. They have neither apologized nor issued a correction, so Obama’s shoulder ought still to be cold. Then Hillary and the rest of the field should follow suit. Not a single one of the Democrats has anything to lose by snubbing the debate, and not a thing to gain by submitting to it. CNN is hosting a Nevada debate in November, so the candidates and the citizens will have ample opportunity to engage one another.

Until Fox has demonstrated that it is not hostile to the party, Democrats should not lend the network any air of legitimacy. More importantly, they should not let themselves be suckered into an event that their hosts will most assuredly use against them if given the chance.

BlogPac is mobilizing an email campaign to Tell Democrats to Freeze Out Fox News.