As the Media Swarms and Pounces on Murdoch, Time To Defend Fox News
Written by David Greenwald Monday, 25 July 2011 07:03
The events of the last few weeks with the scandal in the British tabloids have focused renewed attention on Fox News. While the phone hacking scandal that has ensnared Mr. Murdoch is salacious, it is the type of story news people live for, particularly since it is happening to Fox News, who has become the voice of the anti-media.
As Sacramento Bee columnist Leonard Pitts writes this week, "Fox says it is, as the name would suggest, a news network. Its critics say it is actually the propaganda arm of the Republican Party and that its highest loyalty is not to accuracy, fairness or other journalistic values but to the furtherance of the party line."
So, are they fair and balanced? No they are not and they are not supposed to be. They are a creation of Roger Ailes, who is frankly one of my anti-heroes, in that I admire his brilliance and his innovation.
One of the best articles in order to understand Fox News is a lengthy expose by Rolling Stone Magazine from June of this year in which it chronicles the history of Roger Ailes.
The article writes, "The key to decoding Fox News isn't Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity. It isn't even News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch. To understand what drives Fox News, and what its true purpose is, you must first understand Chairman Ailes. "He is Fox News," says Jane Hall, a decade-long Fox commentator who defected, over Ailes' embracing of the fear-mongering Glenn Beck. "It's his vision. It's a reflection of him.""
And it chronicles the remarkable career of Mr. Ailes from his days of helping to revolutionize political campaigns by totally remaking the image of Richard Nixon, to his painting Michael Dukakis as a cold and unfeeling ACLU liberal, to his most recent endeavor of directing Fox News.
Fox News is not about Rupert Murdoch, it is about Roger Ailes.
"Murdoch has almost no involvement with it at all," says Michael Wolff, who spent nine months embedded at News Corp. researching a biography of the Australian media giant, as Rolling Stone reports. "People are afraid of Roger. Murdoch is, himself, afraid of Roger. He has amassed enormous power within the company - and within the country - from the success of Fox News."
Writes Rolling Stone, "But an examination of his career reveals that Ailes has used Fox News to pioneer a new form of political campaign - one that enables the GOP to bypass skeptical reporters and wage an around-the-clock, partisan assault on public opinion. The network, at its core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism."
They continue, "The result is one of the most powerful political machines in American history. One that plays a leading role in defining Republican talking points and advancing the agenda of the far right."
Roger Ailes has successfully been able to punch mainstream media in the mouths. Conservatives for some reason believe they are the only ones who hate the mainstream media. They argue that there is a liberal bias in the media.
Liberals, on the other hand, recognize media for what it is - a product of corporate interests. Corporate interests are more libertarian in bent than anything else. They are conservative in their opposition to government regulation of business, but they tend to be more socially liberal and they are mixed in terms of their support for the environment, depending on whether you are talking about the oil industry or some of the more environmentally-conscious industries.
The other problem as liberal media critics point out, is that media is reliant on government and other official sources for their news. That means they are reluctant, at times, to take on those in power.
However, there is also a pack mentality, when they smell blood or weakness, they go after it.
What has emerged in the internet, cable and satellite age is a more decentralized media. No longer does ABC, NBC, and CBS have a monopoly on news. CNN, once the innovator in cable news, is on its heels taking a backseat to Fox, and more recently MSNBC, which to some extent provides a liberal counterbalance to Fox.
In short, what we see is the reemergence of partisan media sources as people's primary source of information. Some lament this fact, as they argue that an independent media is vital to a democracy.
To me, that simply ignores the root of this government and democracy, which was based primarily on competing partisan news services. It has only been in the last hundred years or so that independent and impartial news has become the norm.
My problem is that was always a façade. The reality is that we have never had an impartial and unbiased news. It was never biased just toward liberals, as Fox and its adherents on the right would allege, but it has always been biased.
Liberal publications, like Project Censored, used to highlight stories that were kept out of the mainstream media. Now, with the advent of alternative and independent media, Project Censored has become almost obsolete.
I think as long as people are willing to acknowledge Fox for what is - a partisan news source that serves the express purposes of Roger Ailes - then there is no problem with stations like Fox.
Traditional journalists have a problem with new media, however. They argue that the journalistic standards for news media are torn down. They argue that there is no quality control. There is no check, no assurance of accuracy.
I have run the Vanguard for five years and I disagree. When I make a mistake, my readers will always catch it. And if I report on something and they do not buy it, they argue against it, sometimes vehemently.
In fact, I would argue that I have a lot more accountability than a traditional newspaper. In a newspaper, you might be lucky to get a small retraction notice from the paper after a large story. And if you disagree, you can write a space-limited letter to the editor that gets put toward the back of the paper.
On the other hand, as I have argued, sometimes fair and balanced is actually less accurate. Newspapers often cover both sides of a story out of a sense of duty. But sometimes, one side is demonstrably right and the other side is wrong. By failing to take sides out of the notion of impartiality, traditional media approaches, in fact, become inaccurate. By way of being inaccurate, they become the thing they have attempted to avoid, partiality.
Nothing is perfect and so if we have to endure a scandal like the hacking scandal of Murdoch's paper in order to have more access to more news services, that is the price that we pay. If it means we have a Fox News, then that means that opponents of Fox and their points of view have work to do to create the alternative.
That is what the free market of ideas is about. And while people can argue that Mr. Murdoch's fortune has helped give Roger Ailes his platform, there are some equally wealthy liberals out there who could do the same.
The key for me is open information. As long as we understand that we are reading propaganda, we are better off without the illusions of impartiality and phony balance.
---David M. Greenwald reporting
I wish I'd been on earlier today. I could have invoked Godwin's Lawhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law at 09:57.
Godwin's law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies)[1][2] is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990[2] which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 (100%)."[3][2] In other words, Godwin put forth the hyperbolic observation that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis.
Here is a brief discussion. on Godwin's law. And it usually holds true. It didn't take long today.
I will help with the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law
It is silly, but the general point seems valid.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07...p=4&sq=joe Nocera Murdoch&st=cse
David you should have read this before becoming a fox news apologist
JB: Godwin's law will be eventually be replaced by another that predicts the use of Osama Bin Laden and Radical Islam. It isn't every day in history that we have such profound examples of evil to use to demonstrate extremes.
IMO, it works as well in reference to Stalin, Chairman Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot, or whatever one's prefered villain is for the sake of absurd comparison in arguments.
JB: Regarding your article citation on Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, 2004/2005, both of those authors have well-documented conservative leanings, and as such have a stake in seeing this kind of result. But there are some problems with their study that I will have to discuss later.
wdf1: "Regarding your article citation on Tim Groseclose and Jeff Milyo, 2004/2005, both of those authors have well-documented conservative leanings, and as such have a stake in seeing this kind of result."
David: "I've discussed Tim Groseclose before with Jeff. I saw his paper at a political science conference back in the day. It was an interesting idea, but ultimately flawed."
wdf1, So their political leanings disqualify them from the research? Ignoring the fact that there is dissagreement with your "well-documented conservative leanings" suggestion, it is interesting to me that you chose to ignore the data from this academic, peer-reviewed study, and instead look for a way out of acceptance.
David, I would be interested to read what you can cite to back your point that this study is flawed. At the same time, I would like to see references to other studies that show a different conclusion.
Here are some current examples of liberal media bias. I have plenty more:
ABC on Monday and Tuesday ignored its own poll's finding that 37 percent of Americans now believe that Barack Obama's policies are hurting the economy. No mention was made of the results on Monday's World News or Nightline.
On Tuesday, Good Morning America news anchor Josh Elliott vaguely explained, "And a new ABC News poll finds Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the future. 68 percent who suffered a layoff in their household say jobs remain very hard to find in their area."
But, no one on the program highlighted respondents' negative feelings towards the President. The 37 percent number is a six point jump since October.
In an interview, MSNBC president Phil Griffin made some rather strange characterizations of his network, insisting that it "comes from a progressive stance" while it is simultaneously "not ideologically driven."
Those two concepts would seem contradictory in the minds of most people--but not to Griffin, who seems to believe that his staff of "smart people" who "do their research" is up to the task.
Quoting a British politician who claimed "right-wing nutters" pose the most serious threat to the international financial system, MSNBC's Martin Bashir asked his conservative guest on Monday: "He's right, isn't he?"
The MSNBC anchor posed this question at the end of a contentious interview with Tea Party Nation Founder Judson Phillips, after asking Phillips four times whether he wanted the U.S. to default on its debts.
Frank Schaeffer - the embittered liberal progeny of the late evangelical Christian scholar Francis Schaeffer -- appeared on MSNBC's "Martin Bashir" program this afternoon where he availed himself the opportunity to spew forth more venom against American evangelicals, who tend to vote for conservative Republicans.
Schaeffer was ostensibly brought on to react to new polling data that show 56 percent of Americans believe it's important for presidential candidates to have strong religious beliefs, even if those beliefs don't square with the voter's personal views.
In the process of the interview, Schaeffer indirectly compared evangelical Christians to the Taliban as he slammed "faith-based politics"
Once again, Tea Party-critic John Avlon took aim at "hyper-partisanship" in Congress but focused the blame squarely on House Republicans while saving a tiny bit of blame for Democrats. In a July 25 op-ed for CNN.com, he hit Republicans for walking away from a generous deal by President Obama to settle the debt ceiling debate.
We are learning that activists and ideologues pushing anti-tax pledges have nothing to do with the responsibility of governing," Avlon berated Tea Party members of Congress, while accusing them of opposing the bipartisan plan set forth by the "Gang of Six" simply because Obama approved of it."
The New York Times does not edit quotes to say the exact opposite of their intended meaning. FOX News does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y43LTuGlVaI
Seems to me I remember a NYT reporter who was fired bc he got caught making up stories out of thin air. The NYT is just as guilty of putting out garbage as the rest of the news media...
As for Dan Rather - after the Memogate debacle, Rather has no credibility...
From Wikipedia:
The Killian documents controversy (also referred to as Memogate, Rathergate or Rathergate[1]) involved six documents critical of President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard in 1972–73. Four of these documents[2] were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes Wednesday broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 Presidential Election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents.[3][4][5] Subsequently, several typewriter and typography experts concluded the documents are forgeries,[6][7] as have some media sources. No forensic document examiners or typography experts have authenticated the documents, and this may not be technically possible without original documents.[8] The provider of the documents, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, claims to have burned the originals after faxing copies to CBS.[9]
CBS News producer Mary Mapes obtained the copied documents from Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard, while pursuing a story about the George W. Bush military service controversy. The papers, purportedly made by Bush's commander, the late Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, included criticisms of Bush's service in the Guard during the 1970s. In the 60 Minutes segment, anchor Dan Rather stated: "We are told [the documents] were taken from Lieutenant Colonel Killian’s personal files"[10] and incorrectly asserted that "the material" had been authenticated by experts retained by CBS.[11]
The authenticity of the documents was challenged within hours on Internet forums and blogs, with questions initially focused on alleged anachronisms in the documents' typography and content soon spreading to the mass media.[12] Although CBS and Rather defended the authenticity and usage of the documents for a two-week period, continued scrutiny from other news organizations and independent analysis of the documents obtained by USA Today and CBS raised questions about their validity and led to a public repudiation on September 20, 2004. Rather stated, "if I knew then what I know now – I would not have gone ahead with the story as it was aired, and I certainly would not have used the documents in question,"[13] and CBS News President Andrew Heyward said, "Based on what we now know, CBS News cannot prove that the documents are authentic, which is the only acceptable journalistic standard to justify using them in the report. We should not have used them. That was a mistake, which we deeply regret."[13][14]
Several months later, a CBS-appointed panel led by Dick Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi criticized both the initial CBS news segment and CBS' "strident defense" during the aftermath.[15] CBS fired producer Mary Mapes, several senior news executives were asked to resign, and CBS apologized to viewers. The panel did not specifically consider whether the documents were forgeries but concluded that the producers had failed to authenticate them and cited "substantial questions regarding the authenticity of the Killian documents."
JB: it is interesting to me that you chose to ignore the data from this academic, peer-reviewed study, and instead look for a way out of acceptance.
I would be interested to read what you can cite to back your point that this study is flawed. At the same time, I would like to see references to other studies that show a different conclusion.
First, Jeff, have you read the actual article by Groseclose and Milyo? I'm inferring not, but please correct me if that is wrong. I am in the middle of reading it at the moment, and it is relatively tame in its presentation in contrast to what you interpret its meaning to be. I would like to comment further, but I'd like to finish the article first.
"broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than two months before the 2004 Presidential Election"
This puts the emphasis on media's potential to corrupt the political process. The vision is a frantic news room considering that Bush may win the election... this resulting in blind, emotional, careless euphoria having this story to run.
Imagine yourself in the daily editorial meetings at the NYT and CBS News, and consider how the conversation over George Bush, Sarah Palin or Michele Backmann might go and how this might influence the actions and behaviors of young impressionable employees trying to gain recognition and approval for their work.
Liberal bias is rampant in the minds and views of the majority of the people working in entertainment, media and news. It permeates almost everything they produce (for example, listen to the editorial of Jim Carrey emoting about the effects of global warming in his narration of "IMAX 3D - Under the Sea"). It takes a significant management effort to counter the effects of such imbalance of ideologocal leanings. The same is true for public education. The bias leaks out because the leadership is not setting the correct tone.
I don't hear Fox claiming they are not conservative leaning. However, the liberal media keeps denying they have liberal bias. This fact makes Rathergate that much more worthy of critical response. They deny it and were caught at it... so it proves they are capable of lying at the top levels. This should be alarming because it provides evidence that it is a common practice, and they only got a bit sloppy covering their trails this time.
Media has become the forth branch of government and it has grown more powerful than the other three combined. The First Amendment needs to be revisited. Real "news" and real "journalism" should be held accountable to a code of journalistic ethics. Those tools of politics that use the cover of news and journalism to manipulate public opinion for political gain should be ratted out and disqualified from First Amendment protections.
wdf1: I read the complete study many months ago. I have referred to it many, many times in response to those that deny liberal media bias. I have copies of the article printed to hand to disbelievers.
"Tame" is not a word I would associate with the findings considering the extent of the problem compered to the vitriol leveled at Fox for conservative bias.
Of almost greater interest to me is the denial.
Abstract of the study itself:
http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/...1.abstract
Whew! Good thing I watch the News Hour!
A tongue-in-cheek preview of the study:
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_...cent_s.php
A more detailed analysis:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl...02724.html
David, let me understand your point. Are you saying that Fox is a conservative organization but not conservative biased?
Assuming this is not what you meant, I think you are confirming my point. The point that there are two types of news media bias. One where the bias is admitted and maybe even part of the design of the show/publication... and the other where bias is denied with a "holier than Fox News" position.
Fox is providing a counter balance because there is a market for it. They did not invent the market, but as the rest of the media has drifted left, Fox stepped up to be an alternative for people with a growing desire to throw a beer bottle at the TV or radio... or to only use their daily paper to line a bird cage or kennel. Fox is not a mouthpiece... the talking heads on Fox have demonstrated on copious topics that they will jump on any politician going against what they believe are righteous principles.
The number of people that claim they are conservative is double the number claiming they are liberal… and this divide has remained pretty steady for the last few decades. Yet, the main media continued to drift left. The success of Fox News is proof of this.
Media has become the forth branch of government and it has grown more powerful than the other three combined. The First Amendment needs to be revisited. Real "news" and real "journalism" should be held accountable to a code of journalistic ethics. Those tools of politics that use the cover of news and journalism to manipulate public opinion for political gain should be ratted out and disqualified from First Amendment protections.
Amen Jeff!
You cited a single example without discussing the steps that they have taken since to avoid a repeat. That story came out almost a decade ago, do you have any examples of it happening since (since your statement is that they are just as guilty but you rely on one example).
1) You've condemned our local DA on far less evidence.
2) I suspect this incident is only the tip of the iceberg.
3) If I gave you ten examples, I suspect you would rationalize them all away, bc those examples do not fit w your world view that the NYT is not corrupt or biased.
4) The friggin' guy made stuff up at the NYT. How does that not tarnish the reputation of any news outlet that had that happen! It implies a corporate culture that does not supervise its underlings.
5) Do you honestly think Dan Rather "created news" just one time? Give me a break! His reputation was toast and he was booted off CBS for very good reason. And frankly, since he unfairly ousted Walter Kronkite to get where he got, one good turn deserves another!
From one single google search using the words "NYT false reporting":
Online Exclusive...Fatal Error: Lies of The Times, Their Lies Took ...
May 26, 2004 ... Today, _The New York Times_, for the first time, raised questions about its ... 0223_rr_button_no_play. Reports On Popular Uprisings .... who made sensational false claims that were championed by Miller and The Times. ...
http://www.democracynow.org/2004/5/26/online_exclusive_fatal_error_lies_of - 71k - Cached - Similar pages
Judith Miller's WMD reporting - New York Times war reporting ...
May 21, 2005 ... Pulitzer Prize winner Judith Miller's series of exclusives about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- courtesy of the now-notorious Ahmad ...
http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/ - 59k - Cached - Similar pages
Worst of the Week: The New York Times' False and Misleading ...
Worst of the Week: The New York Times' False and Misleading Allegations. By: Rep . Lamar Smith | September 30, 2008 | 4 Comments | Printer Friendly ...
http://www.aim.org/on-target-blog/worst-of-the-week-the-new-york-times-false-and-misleading-allegations/ - 43k - Cached - Similar pages
New York Times finally apologizes for false Guantánamo recidivism ...
Jun 6, 2009 ... On May 21, the New York Times published a front-page story, ... Claiming that the report “provides new details concluding that about one in ...
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/06/06/new-york-times-finally-apologizes-for-false-guantanamo-recidivism-story/ - 88k - Cached - Similar pages
Shocker: New York Times radioactive water report is false
Mar 8, 2011 ... The New York Times is on a tear about the dangers of a method of natural gas extraction called hydraulic fracturing.
http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/ shocker_new_york_times_report_is_cLlp6sP8ohc3mZIXbFT7EM
- 54k - Cached - Similar pages
False Report of 12 Survivors Was Result of ... - New York Times
Jan 4, 2006 ... A series of miscues among rescue workers exhausted from 30 hours of searching led to the news that 12 miners had survived.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/national/04cnd-mine.html - - Cached - Similar pages
FALSE RAPE REPORT UPSETTING CAMPUS - New York Times
Dec 12, 1990 ... The student newspaper's report of the rape hit the George ...
http://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/12/us/false-rape-report-upsetting-campus.html - 44k - Cached - Similar pages
New York Times editor uncovers false reporting in Latin American ...
Jan 8, 2007 ... The public editor of the New York Times has found that readers of its weekly Times Magazine were denied thorough and accurate reporting in a ...
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=8325 - 40k - Cached - Similar pages
False comparisons between New York Times and Huffington Post ...
Jun 20, 2011 ... False comparisons between New York Times and Huffington Post obscure true difference. Steve Myers by Steve Myers Published June 20, ...
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/136319/false-comparisons-between-new-york-times-and-huffington-post-obscure-true-difference/ - 50k - Cached - Similar pages
Judith Miller (journalist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Miller was criticized for her reporting on whether Iraq had weapons ... My job is to tell readers of the New York Times what the government ... This turned out to be false. On May 26, 2004, ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_(journalist) - 95k - Cached - Similar pages
OH YES, THE NYT IS JUST A BASTION OF HONESTY AND INTEGRITY! LOL
From the New York Post 2011:
11:03 AM, March 8, 2011 ι Abby Wisse Schachter
The New York Times is on a tear about the dangers of a method of natural gas extraction called hydraulic fracturing. But a funny thing happened on the way to proving their case for how "fracking" poisons drinking water. It turns out that when you actually test the waterways that provide the drinking water that is supposedly poisonous, the test reveal that the water is fine.
Recently the Times reported that waste water from hydraulic fracturing -- which contained dangerous levels of radioactivity -- was being dumped in Pennsylvania rivers and streams that provide the state's residents with their drinking water. In response to the Times' allegations, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection had issued a report of water tests from those same rivers which shows that there are no harmful or dangerous levels of radioactivity present in the water.
The New York Times story made this claim : "The [fracking] wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle." And the story specified Pennsylvania as an offender.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection did a water test of seven rivers and this is what their report concluded: "All of the samples, taken in November and December, showed levels at or below the normal naturally occurring background levels of radioactivity, the agency said. All samples also showed levels below the federal drinking water standard for Radium 226 and 228, it said."
Don't hold your breath for as splashy a correction from the Grey Lady as their original front page story. That would just complicate the paper's political motivation to try and stop natural gas drilling everywhere in the northeast.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/ shocker_new_york_times_report_is_cLlp6sP8ohc3mZIXbFT7EM
#ixzz1THUOPObE
David: I missed that post for some reason. Let me take a look and respond.
I agree that our own bias clouds what we read. However, I also think it clouds what is written and said. For some reason the majority of journalists, media talking heads, and Hollywood producers and actors tend to lean left. There is probably a psychologocal or behavior study in waiting to discover why, but it is pretty well accepted that this is the case. The ideological filtering process might start in public education and then be reinforced in higher education. Reguardless, given the power and reach of the media to influence, it corrupts the political process.
David: On your critique of the Groceclose study, I understand your point, but I am in agreement with Grocesclose that the method of counting the citations of references (think tanks) as compared to the citations from members of Congress is valid (and brilliant, I think).
First, the party alignment and ideological voting record of each politician is definitive. It provides a non-argumentative base for comparison. Also, we have well established agreement over the political leanings of all the major think tanks that are commonly referenced by politicians and political wonks.
You bring up a theoretical example of how this might not work, but in practice I absolutely agree that people cite supporting sources much more frequently than non-supporting sources. If what you use as your example was the rule and not the rare exception, we would not see the numbers as skewed left or right... there would be more middle-ground for all news sources as they equally cite sources on the both sides of the argument over a body of work.
This is an interesting topic for me because I see how hard you and other liberal progressives work to deny liberal media bias while you jump all over sources like Fox News. I am not prone to conspiracy theories, but the left view dominates education and the media. I think you and others know this but also know that the advantage is lost when the knowledge of this becomes conventional wisdom. So, the longer the left can prevent this truth from being absorbed into the collective understanding of the voting public, the longer the left can leverage the political power it provides. That is why I am thankful for Fox News, because with the media there is no check and balance other than the media. If the media has a bias (and this study proves it does), then at least we should celebrate it having copious diversity of bias.
Jon Stewart had a very inciteful piece last night explaining how the left really gets away with things in the media:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/wa...ctims-unit
