MRC's Bozell Addresses Anti-Tax Cut Bias, 'Islamophobia' on 'Hannity,' Anti-Tea Party Bias on 'Fox & Friends'
Memo to Meredith [Vieira]: You can have a debate about what future tax cuts might or might not result in but a record is a record. Under George Bush, 8 million jobs were created with his tax cuts. With Ronald Reagan's tax cuts there were 20 million jobs created. We've done nothing but lose jobs with Barack Obama with the stimulus package. Truth is truth, facts are facts. Don't go on television saying it didn't work. It did work!
The economy-boosting, jobs-creating benefits of across-the-board tax cuts are not all the media are not telling the truth about. The Media Research Center founder and president also addressed how the media, particularly ABC's Christiane Amanpour are smearing everyday Americans as "Islamophobic" [Listen to MP3 audio here or download WMV video here]:
There comes a point where the American people should say to Christiane Amanpour, "Please shut up!" I am sick and tired of this. Just like Arizona, Sean. If you raise a policy question, you're a bigot for saying it....We did a study on soundbites I think it was the last month, did you know that 93 percent of the soundbites talk about Islamophobia in the news media. They can't stop talking about it. And when they talk about a handful of people that that pastor [Terry Jones] caused an international incident. No! He did not cause that incident, they caused the incident with the non-stop coverage.
This morning Bozell appeared via satellite on "Fox & Friends" to discuss the media's anti-Tea Party bias, particularly their recent obsession with bashing Christine O'Donnell [download MP3 audio of segment here or WMV video here]:
What was the great story on Tuesday night. It was not just that Christine O'Donnell won, it was that 60,000 votes were cast when it's normally 30,000 [and] for a candidate who had no money to campaign on. That was the [real] story, but all you got instead was ad hominem attacks.
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Good piece that addresses your fake facts problem
Submitted by coin of the realm on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 8:56pm.
The Post-Truth Network Turns 15
October 07, 2011 12:11 am ET by Ari Rabin-Havt
Fox News' effect on our political culture extends beyond the network's daily cavalcade of ideological and partisan attacks. Its 15 years in existence and nearly 10 at the top of the cable news ratings food chain have ushered in an era of ideological polarization and post-truth politics.
In the middle of the last decade, there were discussions about the impact of citizen journalism conducted by bloggers and its effect on the media. Under the radar, Fox was using its platform and a major cable news channel to contort our political dialogue, creating two Americas and two truths.
As a political consultant, Fox News President Roger Ailes specialized in dividing voters along racial, ethnic, and religious lines. While working for the George H.W. Bush campaign, he told a reporter, "The only question is whether we depict Willie Horton with a knife in his hand or without it," and produced the divisive "Revolving Door."
Ailes used these same tactics on Rudy Giuliani's unsuccessful 1989 campaign for mayor of New York. He was criticized for utilizing a strategy that "prey[ed] upon the fears of the Jewish community."
While Fox has certainly stoked racial fears, pushing bogus, concocted smears in an attempt to connect Barack Obama to the New Black Panther Party, it has also created an environment in which truth, facts, and science no longer are paramount. Fox-created facts rule the day. And its viewers trust the network more than any other source. Climate change? Doesn't exist, according to many on the network. Forget what scientists say. Also did you hear that this "climategate" scandal debunked the entire notion of global warming?
Now as a progressive, I will point out that there is overwhelming consensus among scientists that the Earth is warming. Additionally, "climategate" did nothing to debunk the body of scientific knowledge backing up that claim. However, no amount of evidence presented will convince Fox viewers otherwise. Any presenter not fitting the network's worldview is biased, bought off, stupid, or evil. Stephen Colbert astutely pointed out this worldview at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner when he noted that "reality has a well-known liberal bias." While a laugh line, the outcome of the post-truth era is dangerous: a country not only divided by ideology, but divided along factual lines. Without a common narrative, constructive debate is simply impossible.
This truth dichotomy extends beyond climate science.
In the period before the passage of health care reform, the network chose to highlight the absurd claim made by Sarah Palin that the bill contained death panels. Fox continued to repeat this misinformation to its audience for months even after it had been debunked.
Attending the rally on Capitol Hill the weekend prior to the health care vote, I spoke to people in the crowd. I went around asking a simple question: "Why are you opposing this bill?" Almost universally, the answers I heard could be divided into four catagories:
Death panels
We won't be able to choose our doctor under Obamacare
It is socialism
It will add to the deficit
Never mind that the death panel had been named the lie of the year by the nonpartisan, Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact; that the plan did nothing to alter people's choice of doctors (that role was already filled by private insurance companies); that the bill, according to the Congressional Budget Office, actually reduced the deficit. Each speaker who appeared on stage, many of whom were frequent guests on the network, repeated more lies to the audience. It's no surprise that when polled, Fox viewers are consistently misinformed on a variety of issues.
Conservative David Frum spelled out the damage when he wrote: "There were leaders who knew better, who would have liked to deal. But they were trapped. Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible. How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother? Or -- more exactly -- with somebody whom your voters have been persuaded to believe wants to murder their grandmother?"
As Frum told Nightline in 2010, "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox."
The network's impact can clearly be seen in public opinion polling. When Republican polling outfit Public Opinion Strategies -- in a survey conducted for the League of Conservation Voters asked, "Do you support or oppose the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requiring reductions in carbon emissions from sources like power plants, cars and factories in an effort to reduce global warming pollution?" The crosstabs spelled out the effect Fox has on its audience. Seventy-one percent of Americans supported EPA action. Even a majority of Republicans, 54 percent, were in support of these regulations. However only 49% of Fox viewers agreed.
Fox uses its dedicated audience to create its own truth when the facts simply don't align with its preferred outcome. In its privileged position as the highest-rated cable news network, Fox can easily inject lies into our political bloodstream. While this misinformation is most dangerous when it metastasizes, it can never be filtered out entirely. That is how for 15 years, Fox has fundamentally damaged our democracy.
Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes her laws. Mayer Amschel Rothschild
coin
Submitted by Radical1979 on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 9:02pm.
So much nonsense. You must have a lot of time on your hands to write such trivel, but obviously you don't have enough time to check your facts.
Looks like a regurgitated Poli Sci 101 paper....
Submitted by drsamherman on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 9:26pm.
...submitted to an aging ex-hippie professor for an easy "A".
MM vomit...
Submitted by kata on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 9:40pm.
MediaMatters vomit
Welcome to NewsBusters, dumbMass troll
Submitted by Dave. on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 9:29pm.
And if you think Frum is a conservative, you are truly dumber than frozen dog squeeze.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
You must be from Attack the Masses.com
Submitted by Boudin on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 9:33pm.
Right? Your also a liar
Coin-tard---MSDNC does not engage in a...
Submitted by USMC8411 on Fri, 10/07/2011 - 9:20pm.
.."daily cavalcade of ideological and partisan attacks."???
That's why no reporting on fast and furious. Instead, Bashir and the rest of the genius clan gets their stories from "Muppets" to back up their "Fake but Accurate" Dan Rather reporting style! When hve they said anything positive about Palin? Cain? Bush?
Now, as a conservative, I will point out that consensus is NOT SCIENCE! It is a refuge for frustrated liberal whackos like you to hide behind! Let's use your flawed thinking in this example... "A recent Gallup poll revealed that American opinion on abortion has shifted. For the first time in about 15 years, a majority of Americans (51 percent) consider themselves pro-life."
Using your consensus theory, we should outlaw abortion!
Oh yeah, the ratings... They seem to be a consensus about FOX News being the most respected media outlet in the Nation!
The consensus is, FOX News rules.
Willie Horton, retard, was given a pass by DEMOCRAT Dukakis... who then went on to rape and murder again. Knife, gun, rope... Doesn't matter. Your ilk let him kill again. Educate yourself: http://1988election.com/