Hume's prediction of bias coverage comes true - Page 6 - Political Fever

TheStripey1 · #51 (**permalink**) 07-24-2008, 09:43 PM

Like I said, just because Fox says something is true, doesn't make it so...

obtw, all the dates below were 2003...

Quote:

Fibbing It Up at Fox
by Dale Steinreich

Since the Iraq conflict began on March 20, Fox News has been on a mission to legitimize it. One problem for Fox's protracted apologia is that despite promises of evidence of current weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by the Bush Administration, the evidence has been ambiguous at best. Unfortunately for the network, I’ve been keeping a scratch diary of their reports since the war began.

Keep in mind that in the first three weeks of March, before the bombs started officially dropping, Fox was spreading all sorts of Pentagon propaganda. Iraq had "drones" that it could quickly dispatch to major U.S. metropolitan areas to spread biological agents. Saddam was handing out chemical weapons to the Republican guard to use against coalition troops in a last-ditch red-zone ring around Baghdad. Given what we now know about Iraq, these reports seem to be laughable fantasies, but they were effective in securing public backing for the war. The following is a short chronicle of lies, propagation of lies, exaggerations, distortions, spin, and conjecture presented as fact.

March 14: On The Fox Report anchor Shepard Smith reports that Saddam is planning to use flood water as a weapon by blowing up dams and causing severe flood damage.

..snip

March 23: The network begins 2 days of unequivocal assertions that a 100-acre facility discovered by coalition forces at An Najaf is a chemical weapons plant. Much is made about the fact that it was booby trapped. A former UN weapons inspector interviewed on camera over the phone downplays the WMD allegations and says that booby-trapping is common. His points are ignored as unequivocal charges of a chemical weapons facility are made on Fox for yet another day (March 24). Only weeks later is it briefly conceded that the chemicals definitively detected at the facility were pesticides.

..snip

March 28: Repeated assertions by Fox News anchors of a red ring around Baghdad in which Republican Guard forces were planning to use chemical weapons on coalition forces. A Fox "Breaking News" flash reports that Iraqi soldiers were seen by coalition forces moving 55-gallon drums almost certainly containing chemical agents.

April 7: Fox, echoing NPR, reports that U.S. forces near Baghdad have discovered a weapons cache of 20 medium-range missiles containing sarin and mustard gas. Initial tests show that the deadly chemicals are not "trace elements."

[In the coming weeks, this embarrassing non-discovery is quickly stomped down the Memory Hole. The missiles were never mentioned again.]

...snip

April 10: Fox "Breaking News" report of weapons-grade plutonium found at Al Tuwaitha. [In the coming weeks this "discovery" was expeditiously shoved down the Memory Hole as well.]

...snip

April 10: To show that France is in bed with Saddam Hussein, Fox begins running old footage of Saddam Hussein's September 1975 trip to Paris to meet with Jacques Chirac and tour a nuclear power plant. [Because Fox strives so hard to be "Fair and Balanced," it's all the more curious how it fails to inform its audience about another trip four years later, this one to Baghdad on December 19, 1983 made by Reagan envoy and then former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld (see pic below). The network again, because it's so very "Fair and Balanced," also inexplicably forgot to tell its audience about another trip by Rummy to Baghdad, this time on March 24, 1984, the very same day that a U.N. team found that Iraqi forces had used mustard gas laced with a nerve agent on Iranian soldiers. Rummy obviously wasn't too concerned about the charges of gassing, as in 1986 when he was considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination of 1988, he listed his restoration of diplomatic relations with WMD-using Iraq as one of his proudest achievements.

...snip

April 16: Fred Barnes on Special Report with Brit Hume blames the looting of the Iraqi National Museum on the museum staff.

...snip

May 11: On The Fox Report with Rick Folbaum it is conceded that the nefarious captured trailer contains not a shred of evidence of WMDs, but Folbaum hints that what’s important is that the trailer could have been used to make them.

...snip

TheStripey1 · #52 (**permalink**) 07-24-2008, 09:54 PM

fair and balanced... uh huh... in order to be fair and balanced, wouldn't you first have to have an equal number of both sides?

Quote:

July/August 2001

The Most Biased Name in News
Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt

By Seth Ackerman

"I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel."--Rupert Murdoch (Salon, 3/1/01)

Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives' frequent denunciations of "liberal bias" in the media were part of "a strategy" (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: "If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time."

But when Fox News Channel, Rupert Murdoch's 24-hour cable network, debuted in 1996, a curious thing happened: Instead of denouncing it, conservative politicians and activists lavished praise on the network. "If it hadn't been for Fox, I don't know what I'd have done for the news," Trent Lott gushed after the Florida election recount (Washington Post, 2/5/01). George W. Bush extolled Fox News Channel anchor Tony Snow--a former speechwriter for Bush's father--and his "impressive transition to journalism" in a specially taped April 2001 tribute to Snow's Sunday-morning show on its five-year anniversary (Washington Post, 5/7/01). The right-wing Heritage Foundation had to warn its staffers not to watch so much Fox News on their computers, because it was causing the think tank's system to crash.

When it comes to Fox News Channel, conservatives don't feel the need to "work the ref." The ref is already on their side. Since its 1996 launch, Fox has become a central hub of the conservative movement's well-oiled media machine. Together with the GOP organization and its satellite think tanks and advocacy groups, this network of fiercely partisan outlets--such as the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and conservative talk-radio shows like Rush Limbaugh's--forms a highly effective right-wing echo chamber where GOP-friendly news stories can be promoted, repeated and amplified. Fox knows how to play this game better than anyone.

...snip

Fox daytime anchor David Asman is formerly of the right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial page and the conservative Manhattan Institute. The host of Fox News Sunday is Tony Snow, a conservative columnist and former chief speechwriter for the first Bush administration. Eric Breindel, previously the editorial-page editor of the right-wing New York Post, was senior vice president of Fox's parent company, News Corporation, until his death in 1998; Fox News Channel's senior vice president is John Moody, a long-time journalist known for his staunch conservative views.

Fox's managing editor is Brit Hume, a veteran TV journalist and contributor to the conservative American Spectator and Weekly Standard magazines. Its top-rated talkshow is hosted by Bill O'Reilly, a columnist for the conservative WorldNetDaily.com and a registered Republican.

...snip

Catherine Crier, who was perceived as one of Fox's most prestigious and credible early hires, was an elected Republican judge before starting a career in journalism. (Crier has since moved on to Court TV.) Pundit Mara Liasson--who is touted as an on-air "liberal" by Fox executives--sits on the board of the conservative human-rights group Freedom House; New York magazine (11/17/97) cited a Fox insider as saying that Liasson assured president Roger Ailes before being hired that she was a Republican.

..snip

TheStripey1 · #53 (**permalink**) 07-24-2008, 09:58 PM

and now, a little something about the founder of Fox News...

Quote:

TV watchdog checks claims of bias on Murdoch channel

Matt Wells, media correspondent
May 8, 2003

The Murdoch-owned Fox News Channel, whose determinedly patriotic stance during the Iraq conflict brought it critical notoriety but commercial success, is under investigation by television regulators in Britain for alleged bias.

The independent television commission is investigating nine complaints by viewers of the channel, broadcast on Sky Digital satellite, also controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

If the network is found to have breached the ITC's "due impartiality" rules, it could be forced out.

...snip

Julian Petley, chairman of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, called on the ITC to act against Fox News: "I'm not in favour of censorship, but Murdoch would like to do with British television news what he has done with newspapers, which is to force people to compete on his own terms.

"So if we allow into Britain the kind of journalism represented by Fox, that would bring about a form of censorship ."

TheStripey1 · #54 (**permalink**) 07-24-2008, 10:03 PM

and here we have an Op Ed piece discussing what Fox viewers knew... or didn't know as the case now obviously is...

Quote:

The Murdoch Factor
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 29, 2007

In October 2003, the nonpartisan Program on International Policy Attitudes published a study titled ''Misperceptions, the media and the Iraq war.'' It found that 60 percent of Americans believed at least one of the following: clear evidence had been found of links between Iraq and Al Qaeda; W.M.D. had been found in Iraq; world public opinion favored the U.S. going to war with Iraq.
The prevalence of these misperceptions, however, depended crucially on where people got their news. Only 23 percent of those who got their information mainly from PBS or NPR believed any of these untrue things, but the number was 80 percent among those relying primarily on Fox News. In particular, two-thirds of Fox devotees believed that the U.S. had ''found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the Al Qaeda terrorist organization.''
...snip

Jojo · #55 (**permalink**) 07-24-2008, 10:46 PM

I'd green you if I could, Stripey!!

Zephyr · #56 (**permalink**) 07-24-2008, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Saying it doesn't make it so... saying it and then providing links to verify it, does...

got any?

We know that he is saying that everyone should keep bias out of their professionalism, or whatever, but obviously he does not keep bias from his broadcasting.

This makes him a liar, for saying that he does keep out bias, and a hypocrite because he condemned biased people when he is biased himself.

I don't need a link at all.

"Dirty..." you got me there. He could be a clean lying hypocrite, I suppose.

GeneCosta · #57 (**permalink**) 07-25-2008, 02:00 AM

Hume ranting about bias coverage is hilarious enough.

http://www.newscorpse.com/Pix/libby_verdict.jpg

sleuth · #58 (**permalink**) 07-25-2008, 02:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Southern Man

You can disagree with two independent researchers all you want, but until you express a logical reason why your opinion is entirely without weight.

Same thing with your "clear" conclusion.

have bs, will travel

Southern Man · #59 (**permalink**) 07-25-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheStripey1

and here we have an Op Ed piece [Paul Krugman] discussing what Fox viewers knew... or didn't know as the case now obviously is...

I saw Krugman debate O'Reilly once. It looked like poor little Paul was about to cry....

Michael · #60 (**permalink**) 07-25-2008, 10:10 AM

Sounds like someone on the right wing complaining about the liberal news media. It is ironic that many of these people will do an about face and listen to Fox News, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly etc... as if their own news sources aren't bias.

O'Reilly has more hot air than the Goodyear Blimp. The last straw for me was his show where he said there are no homeless vets in America. And this was an interview with an expert on the homeless. O'Reilly is an extremely poor quality commentator who cannot even research the topics of the shows he presenting.

However, I would love to see an O'Reilly v Al Franken debate. Al has previously debated Coulter and Limbaugh and did extremely well.

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