My Countdown diary has received a wonderful endorsement (of a sort)! How was I fortunate enough to get this "endorsement"? Well, a kind generous F.O.O. got this for me at NN08. If this "copy & paste" works, I'll be "outing" my first name, but that's OK with me. So, cross fingers & toes that this will work; the result will be well worth it!
A press conference was held today at offices of Fox News in New York. The purpose of the gathering was to deliver a petition with over 600,000 names to network executives calling for an end to the racist attacks against black Americans including Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle. The petition is the work of Color of Change and MoveOn and asks Fox News CEO Roger Ailes to respond to the allegation that...
"Fox has developed a pattern of airing racially offensive attacks, then apologizing only after controversy erupts. Forced, half-hearted apologies do not demonstrate good faith when the larger pattern of offensive rhetoric continues."
Jesse Jackson is not without his problems, but he's been a Lion of the Civil Rights movement, a pain in the Right's Rear End, and a far more tasteful dresser than Al Sharpton, so I've always liked him. When O'Reilly broke the tape, that didn't change. Instead, what caught my attention was the way Fox News was presenting the material. It was out of context and obviously edited to remove a section tape. Why?
O'Reilly's explanation was that the edited section was immaterial to the discussion of intergenerational conflict within the African-American community. A topic on which he has reported with so much passion in the past. He said:
"We're not out to get Jesse Jackson. We're not out to embarrass him...if we were, we would have used what we have"
[emphasis mine]
It was at that moment that I knew he was out to get Jesse Jackson.
David Carr of the New York Times seems to finally have noticed what has been obvious for years to any objective news analyst. Fox News has a long-standing scorched Earth policy when reacting to other media who dare to report on Fox News.
In his column titled, "When Fox News Is the Story," Carr confesses that just the thought of having to deal with Fox News as a subject in a story makes him and his peers nervous:
"Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged, there will be the calls to my editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and my requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about my intent or who else I am talking to."
The key tactic in Fox's PR strategy is to intimidate reporters and editors, and by Carr's own admission, it's working.
Brought to you by... News Corpse, The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
Just a heads up about an article at the NY Times I haven't seen much about elsewhere yet, but one that paints a rather interesting picture about Fox News. THE MEDIA EQUATION When News Is the Story by David Carr lays out why the rest of the traditional press doesn't come down on Fox for the journalistic atrocities they perpetrate.
Fear. Intimidation. Obstruction.
Like most working journalists, whenever I type seven letters — Fox News — a series of alarms begins to whoop in my head: Danger. Warning. Much mayhem ahead.
Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged, there will be the calls to my editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and my requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about my intent or who else I am talking to.
Down in the bowels of Fox News lurks Ambush Central, the sacred room where the real decisions are made. Here the Fox News brain-trusts gather for their regular 5:30 am meeting. Seated at a large oval table are Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, Brian Kilmeade, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, Bill O’Reilly, Alisyn Camerota, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, James P. Pinkerton, Neil Cavuto, Liz Trotta. Hovering over the table are the Ghosts of Joseph McCarthy, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush (brainless), Karl Rove (heartless), Dick Cheney (soulless), Donald Rumsfeld (gutless), and Christmas Past (joyless). At the head of the table sits Roger Ailes.
A theme in press coverage of Democrats that seems to get a lot of traction is the hypocrite meme. With the "there the elites go again" tenor, the media loves to cover stories, pumped by the GOP, that Democrats aren't practicing what they are preaching. We see this with stories about Barbara Streisand being mean to her staff, Tom Cruise blowing up cars on his sets (a favorite of Limbaugh's), Al Gores use of carbon, and John Edwards being a populist multi-millionaire.
Just how racially divisive can one "news" channel be? After all, back in 2005, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman publicly stated "It's not healthy for the country for our political parties to be so racially polarized,", and went on to apologize for their past political tactic known as the "Southern Strategy".
But then again FoxNews isn't the GOP. Or are they?
The ongoing melodrama featuring MSNBC and Fox News is heating up again and reaffirming Fox's status as the scum suckers of news.
Two weeks ago, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post gave readers an insiders view of the conflict that centers around the blood feud between Keith Olbermann and Bill O'Reilly. The battle lines have extended all the way up to News Corp. executive offices, including Rupert Murdoch's. In the Kurtz column he quoted Fox chief Roger Ailes threatening his counterpart, Jeff Zucker, at NBC:
"Ailes warned that if Olbermann didn’t stop such attacks against Fox, he would unleash O’Reilly against NBC and would use the New York Post as well."
Them's fightin' words, but that was just the first volley.....
Howie Kurtz has an interesting front-page article in today's WaPo detailing BillO's repeated attacks on NBC parent company, GE, and its CEO, Jeffrey Immelt. According to Howie, and not exactly "breaking" news, it's all an orchestrated payback for KO's treatment of "Fox Noise" and the beloved Loofah-man.
The resurrection of Mickey Cantor's controversial comments about Indiana spurred me to watch the documentary The War Room the other night. What struck me was how old and out of date the movie was; it was like looking back in time. It made my heart ache that so much promise had come to naught. Seeing the film did open my eyes though and made me appreciate why Hillary Clinton has such strong support among her rapidly aging generation. Older folks love nostalgia and Hillary's Golden Oldies Reunion Tour is a hot ticket.
I really love The Daily Show, although I admit that I rarely find John Oliver THIS funny. They do an elaborate spoof of a FOX News channel documentary which is inspired by FOX's own chronicling of George W. Bush's last days in office.
They do a great job of juxtaposing clips to expose what every smart American already knows about FOX and even try to raid News Corporation headquarters with a camera. But anyways... I digress. Check it out:
It turns out that Fox News head honcho and former(?) GOP operative Roger Ailes sent out an email to everyone at Fox News today. And apprently things aren't going too well at Dick Cheney's favorite channel these days.
One of the last acts of the utterly desperate is lashing out with impotent threats. Well, many at Fox News have reached that stage of desperation. They have entered an apoplectic orbit as a result of the embargo that some Democrats have engaged in toward Fox.
Yesterday, Bill O'Reilly called in to Fox & Friends for a brief and ego-laden discussion about who will pay their "respects" to him and to Fox News. He topped off the call with this warning: "If you dodge us, it is at your peril."
Brought to you by... News Corpse The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
On Super Bowl Sunday tomorrow, the Fox Network will add its unique brand of right-wing propaganda to the mix of football and ads millions of Americans tune in to see. Before its pre-game show and Super Bowl XLII coverage, Fox stations will first air three hours of Fox News Super Tuesday political "analysis." Since the New York Giants and New England Patriots hail from the bluest of blue states, viewers should expect Fox and friends to wear red-tinted glasses in providing their legendary "fair and balanced" reporting of everything else.
The Big Orange Satan preyed on the souls that were lost and struggling for meaning and truth. He created an underworld where their ideals were painted with orange light across the Blogosphere.
It had to be chopped up into 8 parts when it was uploaded onto you tube, so make sure to watch the other 7 parts (an option to watch the sequential part will show up on the screen at the end of each segment, for those of you not familiar with youtube)
