7/7/09 9:15 AM

Fox Haters Week in Review

UPDATED! It's a spectacular new edition of Fox Haters Week in Review. So big, so newsworthy that it just couldn't wait until Sunday! And so full of distortions and lies that we gave up trying to count them all. Read through the latest drivel from Kos, the hounds, and assorted hate sites and decide for yourself just how many fabrications there are.

Megyn It Up As They Go Along
Something called The Gholston Post decided to attack Megyn Kelly for the crime of defending Fox News. After dismissing Ms Kelly, Bret Baier, and others as biased "right-wingers", the author then whipped out the conclusive proof:

Look at their roster of “analysts” who pollute the airwaves: Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Bernie Goldberg, Mary Katharine Ham, Liz Trotta..., Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, John Kasich, Cal Thomas, Jim Pinkerton, Dennis Miller, Dick Morris, Jesse Lee Peterson, Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy and the list goes on. All of these are committed, hardcore right wingers.
Quite an impressive list. Of course five of them are not Fox News analysts, and three of them aren't employed by Fox in any capacity (we'll let the Ghoulstons figure out which ones). Do you count this as a lie?
They mix in a few moderates/liberals, and think that is supposed to create balance.
What, no list? We'll give you one, and we'll play fair and only list people who actually are analysts for Fox News:

Bob Beckel, Alan Colmes, Geraldine Ferraro, Susan Estrich, Marc Lamont Hill, Kirsten Powers, Judith Miller, Ellis Henican, Ellen Ratner, Juan Williams. Among others.

Back to the Ghoulstons who then take a shot at News Watch:
Fox News Watch, is typically stacked with far right commentators like Pinkerton and Thomas who don’t even attempt to display objectivity … ON A SHOW ABOUT MEDIA ACCOUNTABILITY. Although I don’t exactly have unconditional love for CNN’s Reliable Sources, Fox News Watch is a poor imitation of the real thing.
Thomas and Pinkerton are two commentators from the right. The other two are opposing views, like Jane Hall, Judith Miller, Kirsten Powers, etc. How can a panel be "stacked" when it's balanced 50/50? Another lie? Oh, and to correct the historical record, Reliable Sources is an imitation of News Watch, which was on the air long before CNN's version. [see update below].

Another Fern Mess
We've never heard of Fern Siegel, or his "Media Daily News" column, and now we know why. Fern calls Bill O'Reilly "un-American" (questioning his patriotism), complaining that O'Reilly "compared" Dr Tiller to Al Qaeda. We've looked for the exact quote, but when it comes to O'Reilly the internet is a huge echo chamber. The same charge gets circulated with the same wording at hundreds of sites. For example, take this description of O'Reilly on Tiller's practices:
moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaeda, he suggested
Those precise words, in that exact order, appear over 700 times. The source seems to be this Salon article, which provides direct quotes and video clips of other statements, but for some reason not this one. We are apparently supposed to dispense with evidence and just take their word that he "suggested" something.

On the other hand, there is no doubt whatsoever that Keith Olbermann declared Fox News worse than the KKK and worse than Al Qaeda. We have his exact words. We searched through Fern's site but found no reference to this daily media news. No condemnation of Olby as "vile" and "un-American". Most curious. But Fern has more. Rhapsodizing over Colbert's trip to Iraq, he served up this gem:
Hosts like Bill O'Reilly champion our Iraq troops, and the cherry-picked intelligence that sent them there, from the safety of their studios. We all support the troops, though O'Reilly, often accused of bullying anti-war opponents, has yet to step foot in Iraq. Just ask Keith Olbermann, who has long offered to send him.
We're not sure exactly when Olby made that offer (Fern doesn't give the details), but we're sure about one thing: Fern ain't telling the truth here. Not only has O'Reilly visited Iraq, he's gone to Afghanistan too. Surely someone who writes up media news daily would know that. But perhaps the hate for Fox overrode any requirement of journalistic honesty. Would that make this another lie?

Rush to Judgment
It was just a few hours after the shooting at DC's Holocaust museum that one of the intrepid bloggers at The Daily Kos decided to concoct a link between the killer and Fox News. The headline blared:
Von Brunn - Fox news afficiando [sic] (and Freeper?).
Now you may wonder how an anti-Semitic criminal who bashed Bill O'Reilly and had Fox News on his list of locales to target could possibly be described as a "Fox news afficiando [sic]". Don't worry, the Kossacks had the proof:
There is also a direct post by this guy that refers to Fox news. It is here.
So what did Von Drumm have to say about Fox News that made him an "afficiando" [sic] of the channel? The killer's words:
You didn't know the Federal Reserve was privately owned? Why not? Didn't your good ol' politician buddies tell you about this? What about your TV? Didn't Fox News tell you about this?
Hey, sounds like a real Fox fan! Here's another reference to FNC from the same website:
Cable network propaganda machines like FAUX (FOX) News... These buzzards who call themselves news anchors, commentators, and fair and balanced have shown themselves to be just the opposite... The standouts include: Carl Cameron...Bill O'Reilly, Glen [sic] Beck, shallow Sean Hannity, and the smarmiest of all, Frank Luntz--major creep factor.
Somehow this brilliant Kos post is no longer available, but the question remains. They claimed Von Drumm was a fan of Fox News. Does that count as another lie?

Let Loose the Dogs of Deceit
Needless to say, you know there would be efforts made to connect Von Brumm to Fox News at the premier hate site, the newshounds. And sure enough, recitivist Priscilla was able to leap tall conclusions in a single bound:
Von Brunn Is A “Birther” – Fox Nation Still Has “Birther” Thread
Well, that's proof of something, right? But hey, didn't Von Brunn hate "neocons"? That suggests another headline:
Von Brunn Ranted Against "Neocons" - Newshounds Still Has "Neocon" Thread
Oh wait, make that newshounds still has two neocon threads. Or three. Four. Do I hear five? Six? OK, we're not counting any further. Besides, we have bigger foxhounds to fry as Ellen's flunky, "guest blogger Julie", delivers a plate piled high with fabrications and distortions. Let's start with complaints about what stories get covered on foxnews.com:
In fact, a search of Fox News' website on “Todd Palin sister's arrest” pulled up a bunch of Letterman-slamming-Palin articles, oh, something about Sarah Palin's memoirs – nope, nothing on Todd Palin's sister's arrest.
The truth: Do you wish to count this as one lie or two?
I actually posted a while back on that very thing.
Was that a lie too?
Similarly, a search of Sarah Palin's umpteen ethics violation complaints (okay, I left out the word “umpteen,” and searched “Sarah Palin ethics violations”) pulled up something about her being a rising star in the GOP, her victories over a couple of the ethics violations, and more about her memoirs.
Once again, it falls on J$P to tell you the truth about Fox News. Those ethics violation articles "Julie" said weren't there? See for yourself: Is that one lie or six? Still keeping count? Good. Because "Julie" isn't finished yet. Of Bill O'Reilly's conversation with Laura Ingraham, we find the guest blogger purporting to "quote" O'Reilly:
“But there's a reason for that, Laura, they're still working on Helen Thomas and me when I said that she kinda looked like . . . .” Finish the thought, Bill. You said Helen Thomas looked like the Wicked Witch of the East, right?
Um, wrong. He said no such thing. In the conversation Bill referenced he compared her voice to the sound of the wicked witch, and never said a word about her looking like anyone. Another hound lie? Oh, and by the way, to make her point Julie had to resort to quote doctoring. Compare what Julie claims Bill said on Thursday night:
"I said that she kinda looked like . . . .”
With what O'Reilly's actually said:
O'REILLY: I said that she sounded a little bit like..."
How brazen is this? "Julie" writes a post, boasts that it's "with video", and then she blithely rewrites what O'Reilly says to fit her smear! Won't people just watch the video and see for themselves? No, because this is another one of those fake "with video" posts, where the newspoodles pretend to include a video, only with the embedding code altered so that it won't play! That way, nobody will catch the counterfeit quotes. It's hard not to count all of this as another lie. By the way, embedding video is a cut and paste proposition. Like this video, the one "Julie" didn't want you to see:


If you want to break the video you change the code to prevent it from playing. Oddly enough, that happens repeatedly in posts from "Julie": like here, here, and here. Coincidence? We don't believe in coincidences.

So get out your calculators, tote up the fabrications, and let us know your findings. How many lies, which were the most reprehensible, and who is The Liar of the Week? Comments are open!

Spot something you'd like to see in the next Fox Haters Week in Review? Send us an email!

UPDATE: That's what we get for trying to get ahead of schedule. No sooner did we post this article than another brilliant piece of reportage showed up from newspoodle Priscilla complaining about The Fox Nation:
The only article about the Tiller murder was taken down a week ago.
Really? Just do a search for Tiller and the first thing that turns up is:
Abortion Doctor Gunned Down at Kansas Church, Suspect in Custody
Is Priscilla lying again? She continues:
And the only article about the Holocaust Museum shooting is a thread, taken from Brent Bozell’s Newsbusters...
Sigh. Does truth mean nothing to these people? This article has nothing to do with Newsbusters:
White Supremacist Opens Fire at Holocaust Museum
OK Priscilla, we get it. You don't like The Fox Nation. That doesn't mean you have to make up stuff to smear them!

An additional note: we remembered wrong about the origins of Reliable Sources vs News Watch. RS was first, though in a different form that its current one. Apologies to CNN and the Gholstonites!

6/12/09 7:09 PM, posted in: slanders (Permalink) |