{"id":9359,"date":"2013-03-25T15:48:15","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T22:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9359"},"modified":"2013-03-26T10:28:22","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T17:28:22","slug":"the-ostrich-effect-fox-news-and-right-wing-media-bury-their-heads-and-truth-in-the-sand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9359","title":{"rendered":"The Ostrich Effect: Fox News And Right-Wing Media Bury Their Heads (And Truth) In The Sand"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s more difficult being a shill for ultra-conservative propaganda than you might think. On the surface it appears to be merely an exercise in fabricating false narratives and phony scandals. Any two-bit, dime-store, novelist can whip up a salacious melodrama in short order and disseminate it to a gullible flock of lemmings.<\/p>\n

However, to be really good at shaping fantastical versions of unreality, you need to be alert and organized to prevent your plot lines from getting away and destroying the illusions you worked so hard to create.<\/p>\n

One of the techniques that Fox News has perfected is to broadcast a slanderous allegation as widely as possible when it is no more than a wispy speculation. Then, after it is discovered that the whole affair was constructed from lies and innuendo, simply neglect to ever bring it up again.<\/p>\n

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This was expertly demonstrated recently when Fox News participated in blowing up a smear job aimed at Democratic Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey. The story sprung from the right-wing Internet rag, The Daily Caller, which happens to be run by Fox News flunky, Tucker Carlson. TheDC purported to have evidence that Menendez hired prostitutes in the Dominican Republic and ran several articles on the subject. Fox News and other right-wing media picked up the story and turned it into a mini-scandal that erupted in the closing days of Menendez’s reelection campaign.<\/p>\n

However, in the past couple of weeks the story has disintegrated<\/a> as the prostitutes were questioned by police and recanted their statements, even going so far as to confess that they were paid to make false statements incriminating Menendez. And last week the deceit escalated as the man on whom TheDC based its story changed his tune and told the Domincan district attorney that he too was paid – by TheDC – to find and coach the prostitutes.<\/p>\n

In the wake of these revelations, Media Matters has scoured Fox News<\/a> for any sign of a retraction, correction, or apology, or even just an acknowledgement of the new disclosures. But for some reason, the network that aired segments of this story twenty times has ignored it completely since it has been debunked.<\/p>\n

This is nothing new for Fox. Here are some additional stories where they heavily hyped questionable reporting that reflected poorly on Democrats or anyone to the left of center, only to scuttle the matter when it backfired on them:<\/p>\n