The Real War on Fox

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Een van oorsprong conservatief, die zich afkeert van de
voorlichtingsmethodes van de conservatieven.
Zelfs zich zodanig er aan ergert, dat hij fors tegengas gaat geven.

Groet / Cees

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-30/the-real-war-on-fox/

The Real War on Fox
The White House may be in a cold war with Fox News. But Media Matters is
on the front lines. Benjamin Sarlin on the latest ways David Brock’s
group has hit the right’s house network—and aided the White House
counterattacks.

The White House's war on Fox News may be a new chapter in the
administration’s relationship with the media. But bashing the
conservative press has been an Olympic sport among liberals for years.
And no one has done it better than Media Matters.

Founded in 2004 by right winger-turned-liberal crusader David Brock, the
site and its staff of about 70 employees have relentlessly hounded Fox
and other news outlets by deploying research teams to quickly fact-check
their hosts' claims and publicize their gaffes. Now with the White House
turning the debate over Fox’s objectivity and accuracy into a major news
story, Media Matters is putting its thousands of articles, transcripts,
and clips of the network's contributors to use in support of Team
Obama’s effort.

“We're the first line of defense for the progressive movement,” Brock
says.

As a 501c(3), Media Matters is prohibited from coordinating activities
with the White House. But Brock takes credit for setting the stage for
the White House's Fox wars indirectly and providing the ammunition for
the network's critics to aggressively rebut conservative counterattacks.

“Obviously when the White House makes a case like this, it gets a lot
more attention,” Brock told The Daily Beast. “But the factual groundwork
had been laid by us and the rhetorical case as well.”

• Lloyd Grove: Shep Smith, Fox News’ Man of Reason In an effort to
undermine Fox's claims that its editorial and news reporting are
separate, Brock’s site has launched a video series of Fox clips Media
Matters sees as anti-Obama—using the tagline, “Fox is not news. It's a
24/7 political operation.” That’s a problem he thinks has grown much
more pronounced since the 2008 election. But perhaps most importantly,
his group has played a major role in defending administration officials
from Fox attacks—sometimes more effectively than the White House itself
has.

Earlier this month, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who
has spearheaded the anti-Fox effort, came under fire from Glenn Beck for
a recent speech in which she referred to Mao Zedong and Mother Theresa
as her two “favorite political philosophers.” Anticipating the story
could have legs, Media Matters staffers raced into action, frantically
scouring the Internet for examples of conservatives citing Mao
themselves, and published their first quotes within a half hour of the
show ending. By the time Beck tried to extend the attack later that week
to another Obama official who had cited Mao, “manufacturing czar” Ron
Bloom, the list of similar Republican quotes included John McCain, Newt
Gingrich, and Ralph Reed. Beck's story bounced around the right-wing
press for several days but failed to migrate to the mainstream media.

Brock believes that effort helped contain the story’s spread. “Speed was
of the essence here,” he said. “We're the first line of defense for the
progressive movement.”

Earlier this month, Media Matters rallied around another one of Fox
News' top White House targets, education official Kevin Jennings. Sean
Hannity called for him to be fired for reportedly failing to report a
statutory rape case to the authorities when a 15-year old gay student
asked for Jennings' advice on a relationship with an older man. But
Media Matters quickly confirmed with the student in question himself
that he was 16 at the time, the legal age of consent in the state, and
that he denied any sexual contact with the person in question. The group
then posted a Facebook exchange between the student and a Fox News
reporter in which the network inquired about his age. Fox issued a
correction and without a criminal angle the story failed to gain
traction outside of the conservative press. The Atlantic's Chris Good
reported that Media Matters' reporting was the key to deflating the
attack—especially given the White House's reluctance to rebut the Fox
accounts directly.

“What you saw in the Kevin Jennings case is that it can be done,” said
Brock. “It is not impossible to defend against these right-wing attacks.
You just have to do the work.”

Brock knows a thing or two about right-wing attacks. He leveled a few of
his own, when he was a conservative cub reporter for the American
Spectator. Brock’s reporting on Paula Jones and “Troopergate” helped
trigger an investigative tide that eventually led to impeachment
proceedings against President Clinton. But in subsequent reporting on
Hillary Clinton, Brock had a crisis of conscience; after being lambasted
by the right for failing to dig up sufficient dirt on her, he came to
believe that much of what had been alleged against the Clintons was
baseless—and became a liberal convert.

Today, Brock and his team—fueled by millions in donations from big-name
Democratic donors like producer Steve Bing and cable TV giant Leo
Hindery—are hard at work to limit the damage done by the right. “We've
always had a 'containment' strategy regarding Fox,” Brock explained. “We
don't necessarily think you can change their behavior, but you can
change the behavior of the rest of the media in relation to Fox. I think
that's the important subtext to this White House/Fox story.”

Of course, many members of the media have come to Fox News’ defense
since the White House began singling the network out. ABC's Jake Tapper,
for example, challenged White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the
issue, calling Fox “one of our sister organizations,” and asked “why
it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization
is not one.”

Brock says he’s not surprised. “It does seem like there’s been a little
circling of the wagons around Fox by some people in the press and I
guess that’s to be expected, in the sense that the press is always
uncomfortable when politicians seem to be attacking them,” he said. “But
the idea that this is some kind of unprecedented White House attack or
pushback on the press is just baloney.”

A representative for Fox declined to comment on Media Matters'
criticisms. But the group has come under fire throughout its existence
for its openly liberal angle and combative approach to its subjects.
Bill O'Reilly, a frequent target of their ire, once described them on
his show as “a far-left swamp pit,” and “a disgusting Web site that just
attacks people with whom they disagree and takes things out of context
all day long.”

Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson, who has also worked for CNN and
MSNBC and has been criticized many times by Media Matters for his on-air
comments, says he believes the group is disingenuous.

“I don't have a problem at all with lefties critiquing the news from a
left-wing point of view,” said Carlson, who has also written for The
Daily Beast. “What sets Media Matters apart is it's doing the bidding of
a political party and specific politicians. That's by definition
dishonest.”

Carlson says he admires the group’s industry. But he feels they go too
far in their sensitivity to perceived racism and sexism on-air quotes.
The site called out Carlson at one point for saying on MSNBC that "It
takes a lot of guts for a rich, privileged white lady who is one of the
most powerful people in the world to claim that she is a victim of
gender discrimination."

“They were outraged by anybody criticizing Hillary: You don't like
Hillary, you don't like women,” he said. “I got three daughters and a
wife, I don't like women? It's so ludicrous.”

Brock contends that his site's biases are out in the open and that its
factual reporting is consistently accurate.

“Unlike Fox, we're not trying to have it both ways; we are a progressive
organization and there's no fig leaf,” he said. “We're here to defend
progressive ideas and progressive leaders in a climate that's very
hostile.”

Benjamin Sarlin is a reporter for The Daily Beast. He previously covered
New York City politics for The New York Sun and has worked for
talkingpointsmemo.com.

For More of The Daily Beast, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on
Twitter.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at
editorial at thedailybeast.com.




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Desertpenguin
I applaud Media Matters for their conscientious work.

Right-wing tv and hate radio spew out an enormous amount of lies and
it's good to see someone doing something about it.

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2:35 am, Oct 30, 2009





UltimateFitz
Crazies versus crazies. Yawn.

On a more important FOX note, I wish they would bring back Terminator:
TSCC because that was a good show.

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4:59 am, Oct 30, 2009





connie47
Sarlin seems to think there's something wrong with fact checking cable
news.

Huh?

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5:51 am, Oct 30, 2009





Aramingo
I think a more telling article would be to compare and contrast MMFA
with it's right-wing counter part, Newsbusters.

I did notice in the above article that O'Reilly responded to MMFAs fact
checking with name calling. IMHO, that's a sure indicator that they
(MMFA) hit the nail on the head.

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6:16 am, Oct 30, 2009





PUPITO
BLAH BLAH BLAH Politics as usual. Same as it ever was. No wonder the
country's in a funk!

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6:49 am, Oct 30, 2009





Ozone69
Did Media Matters have anything to say about CBS when Dan Rathers
attempted to discredit President Bush (weeks before his re-election)
with a forged document? Or NBC's Dateline when they rigged Ford vehicles
with incendiary devices and showed how they burst into flames upon
impact? Or the NY Times when they gave a full page ad to MoveOn.org (at
a below market price) be-littling US Army General David Petreus, or
Jason Blair for making up reports from other cities while writing from
his apartment in Brooklyn. He invented quotes, wrote about scenery from
published photographs and stole material from other news organizations.
I don't recall Fox having to fire anyone for fabricating a story or data
nor do I recall Fox having to apologize for such journalistic fraud.


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6:52 am, Oct 30, 2009




Aramingo
Do the words "Indonesian Madrassa" ring a bell?

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7:57 am, Oct 30, 2009




Ozone69
Loudly rung. The claim that Barrack Hussein Obama attended a madrassa in
the largest Muslim country in the world was started by "Insight"
Magazine" and Fox then reported on it. Fox never fabricated anything and
they cited "Insight Magazine" as the source.

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8:48 am, Oct 30, 2009




Aramingo
Too lazy to fact check. CNN sent a reporter to find out the truth.

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10:11 am, Oct 30, 2009




amanda07070
Just like Fox, MM can report on anything they feel like reporting. The
fact that they choose not to report on something is irrelevant. Fox
picks and chooses what THEY report, only they argued in a Florida court
that they had the right to falsify the news (see link below)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&fo
rum=385&topic_id=375393&mesg_id=375442

Please site a case where Media Matters has falsely reported something.

Fox apologizes for nothing.

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8:00 am, Oct 30, 2009




Baddchild
ok:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/10/22/media-matters-wont-ap
ologize-spreading-fake-limbaugh-slavery-quote

http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2009/10/kevin-jennings-nambla-media-matt
ers-wrong-on-kevin-jenning-nambla/

http://foundry.heritage.org/2009/05/19/fact-check-media-matters-wrong-on
-card-check/

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/04/09/hannity-right-media-matters-wrong-on
-missle-defense-and-budget/

http://patterico.com/2007/01/06/media-matterss-eric-boehlert-gets-the-fa
cts-wrong-again/

that was just 2 minutes of searching.

Look, Media Matters is a keft wing hack site and can mischarachterize
all they want because this is America and dumbass liberals are free to
believe their bullshit, right amanda. The problem is when lazy reporters
in the MSM use their talking points without fact checking them which
happens way to often.

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9:02 am, Oct 30, 2009




amanda07070
Right wing, unprovable garbage!

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2:02 pm, Oct 30, 2009




DellDolly
MMFA didn't spread any fake Limbaugh quote. Neither were they guilty of
being wrong about the false linkage of Kevin Jennings with NAMBLA. They
weren't wrong on card check, or on the defense budget, and your link
about Eric Boehlert goes nowhere. Your assertion that you easily found
evidence of MMFA falsely reporting anything falls flat. In fact, MMFA
debunked the misleading posting by the Heritage Foundation the very next
day with facts. http://mediamattersaction.org/blog/200905200008

FoxNews and MSNBC are not similar in hardly any ways. We debunk the
false equivalency argument on MMFA every day!

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4:15 pm, Oct 30, 2009




bhavanibbana
"Unlike Fox, we're not trying to have it both ways; we are a progressive
organization and there's no fig leaf," he said. "We're here to defend
progressive ideas and progressive leaders in a climate that's very
hostile."

You caught this part, right? Be sure to read the entire article before
deploying red herrings.

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8:34 am, Oct 30, 2009




Reason
Ozone,

Reporting on Dan Rather, the Ford incident or any of the other stories
you mention are not what MM was founded to do. They are a progressive
watchdog for conservative misinformation and they are upfront about it.

Here is the first paragraph of the About Us on their website:

"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3)
progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively
monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the
U.S. media."


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10:14 am, Oct 30, 2009




NorCalGladiator
You don't recall Fox firing anybody because it's their job to fabricate
news.
MM is left (no pun intended) with the job of calling them out on it.
The reason you hear about people being fired from CNN and MSNBC for
fabricating news is because they aren't paid to do it. They are paid to
report news, a lot of times leaning left. John Stewart has a
entertaining show twisting the news, and calls it comedy. Fox has
entertaining shows for the right that twists news, but tries to call it
"fair and balanced" news reporting.

"Fox then reported on it. Fox never fabricated anything and they cited
"Insight Magazine" as the source."
.......
"stole material from other news organizations."

seems to be contradicting..



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11:01 am, Oct 30, 2009




AlanD2
Ozone69: If Fox News had to fire people for fabricating a story, they
would go out of business (no Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity,
etc., etc.).

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12:02 pm, Oct 30, 2009





markfrommanhattan

PEW Rearch Poll

October 29, 2009

Fox News Viewed as Most Ideological Network

But how can that be, they say we are Fair and Balanced.

So America does not agree with FOX.

So FOX hates America.

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8:54 am, Oct 30, 2009





Reason
There is no logic in Carlsons statement, "What sets Media Matters apart
is it's doing the bidding of a political party and specific politicians.
That's by definition dishonest."

Just because one has an agenda, liberal or conservative, it does not
automatically follow that, "That's by definition dishonest."

Dishonesty would be if MM claimed to be "Fair and Balanced".

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9:59 am, Oct 30, 2009




coltraning
Yup...and is it not the definition of unintentional irony at best, and
hypocrisy at worst, for utter GOP hack Carlson, working for the most
blatantly ideological network in the history of this country, to call
out media matters for what he, Beck, Hannity, Coulter and O'Reilly do
every single day?

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8:25 pm, Oct 30, 2009





periscope
Fake News is by far America's biggest fraud
Their wacko audience needs lies it can applaud
so Hannity's insanity
and O'Reilly's inanity
are dished daily with Beck's psychotic discord.

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10:08 am, Oct 30, 2009





Dillon
On Halloween night you will find
Reminders that time you rewind
They've done it at Fox
Who set back their clocks
So far they're four decades behind.

News Short n' Sweet by JFD8
http://twitter.com/JFD8



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11:03 am, Oct 30, 2009





JackHughes
David Brock's "Blinded by the Right," the story of his crisis of
conscience and conversion from right-wing media hit-man to liberal media
critic, is an insider's report about the right's vicious anti-Clinton
propaganda campaign of the 1990s.

It's a great read.

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12:57 pm, Oct 30, 2009





sophia5
FOX leans to the biased right. MSNBC leans to the biased left.

Good for CNN's Campbell Brown challenging Valerie Jarrett
on bias that exists both on the right and left networks.


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1:37 pm, Oct 30, 2009




AlanD2
sophia5: The problem is not the bias of Fox News.

The problem is that Fox News tells lies.

None of the other cable networks consistently lie like Fox.

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3:15 pm, Oct 30, 2009




DellDolly
As others have said, the problem is not the bias. The problem is the
lies, distortions and omissions of critically relevant data by FoxNews.
It's their unfair attacks on Obama, and their unfair praise of Bush.
It's their lack of critical investigative reporting of Bush, and their
virtual refusal to publish a positive story about Obama. It's their
promotion of the Tea Parties - for cripes sake, do you think that's an
appropriate thing for a legitimate news organization to do? It's the
bias that bleeds from their opinion shows into their 'straight' news
shows, and it's the inflammatory "questions" they ask with their
scrolling messages and chryons. It's the 'accidental' placement of "D"
instead of "R" after Republicans who get themselves in trouble.

On top of all that is the fact that despite having some prime time hosts
whose personal political preferences lean left, MSNBC doesn't let that
affect the way they cover news stories. FoxNews does. MSNBC has several
center politicians, and they have a former conservative Republican
Congressman who has 3 hours in the morning. FoxNews has no such counter,
and they have some real crazies like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

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4:24 pm, Oct 30, 2009





pacheco3
What happens with Beck's ??? its he mentally stable??

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2:37 pm, Oct 30, 2009





periscope
The most insidious aspect of Fake News and the right-wing in America, is
the fact that they don't really care about the welfare of the country.
They're only interested in their agenda, regardless of it's effect on
anyone else.
More tax cuts for the rich? You bet. Private healthcare insurance
maintained at it's horrendous status quo, while it crushes or kills
American citizens? You bet.
Denying women the right to choose when to become mothers? You bet.
Block science and stem cell research? You bet.
Go to war, senseless or not? You bet.
Fake News is cheerleading their gullibe audience right off the cliff as
the Republican Party plays the marching music.

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6:33 pm, Oct 30, 2009




AlanD2
You tell 'em, periscope!

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8:11 pm, Oct 30, 2009





mzkitti
>>From CJ
Beck or Fox News fair and honest and on what planet would that be?

By legitimizing Fox News as a news organization, reporters and
commentators are enabling the network to continue conducting a massive
conservative political campaign under the guise of journalism. In the
process, they are permitting Fox News to dominate the national
discussion by spreading smears and lies -- smears and lies that become
conventional wisdom. They are also defending an organization that has
nothing but contempt for journalistic standards -- hence undermining
their own profession and the public interest at the same time.

Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press. Fox
News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP,
and it is long past time that it was treated as such by our nation's
media.

The evidence supporting such a reality is overwhelming. To begin with,
Fox News CEO Roger Ailes has described his station's confrontation with
the Obama administration as "the Alamo." Fox News senior vice president
Bill Shine said Fox was "the voice of opposition." In other words, the
entire operation has an explicit political agenda, not just a few hosts.
There is no separation between Fox News' "opinion" programming and its
"news" programs. Bret Baier's Special Report, the closest show Fox News
has to a straight newscast, portrays Obama in a negative light 77
percent of the time, according to a recent study by the Center for Media
and Public Affairs.

But the story goes well beyond the conservative bias Fox News has
historically reflected. Like all major political entities, Fox News is
now coordinating grassroots (or, more accurately, astroturf) political
activities, lobbying for or against legislation, and fundraising for
conservative causes. The network called April's protests "Fox News Tea
Parties." It encouraged people to attend town halls last summer and then
broadcast only the statements of those who opposed Democratic health
care proposals. The 9/12 rally in Washington was the work of Beck, who
claimed that 1.7 million people showed up (it was actually closer to
70,000). A video soon emerged of one of the station's producers coaching
marchers before a live "report" from the scene.

Fox news routinely implores its audience to call Congress and oppose
progressive legislation. Fox's Dick Morris and Mike Huckabee have both
used Fox News airtime to encourage donations to conservative political
action committees.

Again, these are unambiguous campaign activities, not the work of a news
organization. It is no wonder that Fox's new website, FoxNation.com, has
repeatedly cheered legislative developments it favors as a "Fox Nation
Victory!"

Fox News relishes its newfound activism. "The conservative media is
winning now," Bill O'Reilly said on September 17. "They're damaging the
president of the United States." But the damage Fox News causes isn't
just political. Every day, it undermines serious journalism, misleads
millions of Americans, and distorts our national discussion on crucial
issues. Fox News represents an attack on democracy itself.

Much of the channel's "reporting" takes the form of obsessive and
factually inaccurate efforts to smear progressive organizations and
discredit Obama administration officials. To give you a sense of
priorities: over a three-year period, shows hosted by Sean Hannity and
Beck mentioned ACORN 1,502 times, saying it was a corruption scandal. By
contrast, their programs mentioned Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, Jack
Abramoff, and Bob Ney 109 times combined.

Fox is currently conducting a witch hunt against administration members.
After Van Jones resigned, Hannity told a crowd, "We got rid of one, and
my job starting tomorrow night is to get rid of every other one."

Exposing improper conduct is one thing. Inventing it is another. Fox
News breathlessly reported claims that an ACORN employee had murdered
her husband without confirming the story. It wasn't true. Similarly,
Hannity reported that Department of Education official Kevin Jennings
had concealed the "statutory rape" of a high school student. It was soon
revealed that the student was 16 at the time (the age of consent), and
by his own account had not engaged in sexual activity with his
fictitious assailant. Hannity never apologized.

Fake stories like these are what Fox News is built on. Health care
reform will create death panels? False. Cass Sunstein believes in
mandating that people become organ donors? False. John Holdren advocates
for "compulsory abortion and sterilization," as Hannity put it? False.
Fox reported them all as fact -- and the list goes on.

Never in American history has a media organization this powerful been so
willing to misrepresent reality in order to achieve a political goal.
The right-wing press ran a similar campaign targeting Bill Clinton in
the 1990s, but for most of that time period, it lacked the national,
real-time reach and impact Fox now possessed.

The impact of Fox News' long campaign of misinformation should concern
any citizen. Fox has repeatedly misinformed its viewers on everything
from the non-existent connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to
the contents of health care reform legislation. Such misinformation can
have serious consequences, and Fox News should be called out for
propagating it.

There is nothing wrong with the White House standing up to its most
powerful, unprincipled, and self-declared political opponent, one that
clearly started this fight. And beyond politics, there certainly isn't
anything wrong with exposing an organization that unapologetically harms
our democracy by poisoning our national discourse with falsehoods on an
hourly basis.

The channel knows what it's up against. "If they repeat this long
enough," said Fox News' Bernie Goldberg on Monday, "and often enough --
that Fox News is not a real news organization, it's an arm of the
national Republican Party, it's not to be taken seriously -- if they say
that long enough, it might become part of bloodstream of the American
culture."

Fox News' own media analyst got the story right, while so many others in
the media are still getting it wrong. For once, the channel was actually
breaking news, even if it is merely the simple truth.






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9:00 pm, Oct 30, 2009

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