There's been lots of commentary about Chris Wallace's FOX news interview Sunday with Jon Stewart, particularly the back and forth about Stewart's shifting temperament during the interview and the way in which it was edited down for broadcast.
But I wanted to mention two points to highlight Wallace's utterly preposterous claim that FOX is no more one-sided in a conservative direction than CNN, ABC, NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post are in a liberal direction (and no, MSNBC, despite its evening line-up, is also not comparable, but Wallace argued that all of the major organizations have a clear, partisan liberal agenda).
Of course, it's absurd to even try to think of examples because it's not remotely plausible that FOX would ever report a story of such significance in a way that favored the preferred liberal spin on that issue, let alone when serious skepticism was called for about that framing.
And that's certainly not the only example, or the most recent one. The Washington Post editors repeatedly write misleading and ill-informed editorials about the dire straits of Social Security in terms highly favorable to conservative frames. CNN repeatedly presents information about the economy and, in particular, about deficits, that does the same. These are far from isolated examples
(As I have said before, it's become a sick joke to argue that the Post, in particular, qualifies as liberal media).
In his mocking comparison the other night of FOX to the New England Patriots -- FOX being a perennial powerhouse in the world of media misinformation -- Stewart listed dozens of key assertions that FOX has trumpeted that are simply false. Death Panels, government takeover of health care, Stalinism, Nazism, climate denial -- the list of stories that FOX gets egregiously and deliberately wrong is endless and, needless to say, they do so in a relentlessly partisan, right-wing direction. One would never have to go back a year to find such blatantly partisan and wrong coverage on FOX. It's what they do every day.
That the Sawyer clip from 2010 was Wallace's telling piece of evidence was itself a telling statement about the absurdity of his claims of equivalent bias.
Of course, in a sane world, we wouldn't need to have this conversation. That FOX is a relentless propaganda machine ought to be too banal even to have to note. But FOX is also the reductio ad absurdum, in a way, of the mainstream media's own tendency to engage in he-said/she-said journalism, to credulously report both sides of a story even when the facts ought to dictate otherwise. In short, what ought to be news organizations' prime responsibility -- to serve Americans by ensuring that they are well-informed on the issues -- has been supplanted by their practice of overwhelming Americans with frivolity, half-truths and mis-characterizations. In that swamp, the FOX Ness Monster has thrived (sorry, couldn't resist the lame play on words).
Follow Jonathan Weiler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jonweiler
Andy Ostroy: Jon Stewart Is Definitely A Comedian; Chris Wallace Admits Fox's Bias
Steven Weber: The Fox, the Fool and the Facts
I'd like to read what a 'modrator' has to say on this glaring omission of this most news-worthy event.
Please?
A week before the 2008 election, a memo to the news staff collected quotes from Obama’s autobiography, Dreams of My Father, that Sammon claimed contained “references to socialism, liberalism, Marxism and Marxists,” along with “a couple of his many self-described ‘racial obsessions.'" They were to be used as fodder for "fair and balanced" Fox News attacks on the Democratic candidate for president.
All the above have one concern.....ratings. To get ratings, you have to 'target' an audience. To get and keep and keep this 'targeted' audience, you have to give them what they want.. which is not being told that their opinions and beliefs are stupid. So you provide a line-up that they will make them happy so that they return night after night. Again, it becomes a group-think situation.
I strongly suggest that you check out news from international sources. You will be shocked and angered as what the US MSM (including FoxNews) does report.
I feel like May West in "My little Chickadee" where in court the judge asks her, "Young lady, are you trying to show contempt for this court?" (perhaps paraphrased slightly as I cannot aspire to your level of perfection) and she replied in her usual tone, stating, "No, sir, your honor - I'm doing my very best to conceal it."
So feel free to gaze down upon us mortals from your lofty towering perch of intellectual and moral superiority but remember you do have a single glaring flaw: you think you can change my opinion, that I even give a hoot about you or you comments, and that I will continue to respond to your perfect nonsense. Go away, kid, you bother me, and will receive no response from me ever again as I care not for trolls with attitudes such as yours, chriswhatever. Oh, 1962. I'm new here, you've posted over 10,000 comments and have not a single friend. Put your giant brain to puzzling that out; it's not so hard to figure out why.
It is, as a mental exercise, interesting to note that people may argue facts forever as in, "The moon is 225,000 miles from earth…" to which a person might respond, " Not at this time of year and furthermore are you talking about the distance at apogee or perigee?" Alternatively, if I offer my opinion that, "The moon is beautiful tonight…" you may argue until you're blue in the face, you will never change that opinion, and it is fruitless for you to try.
Golly gee, some of the commenters here at the Huffington Post sure are sensitive when there is no need to be. I'm sorry if I offended your delicate sensibilities. That was certainly not my intent.
I don't see it in my local TV, Radio, or Newspapers. I don't hear it on national radio relative to how much I do hear Right wing hate radio. I don't see it in my Cable lineup or on broadcast TV.
Where is it, exactly, and who are they, exactly?