The far-left Fox-haters are at it again. In just the past couple of days, we've seen multiple instances of leftist pundits dishonestly bashing the Fox News Channel in yet more attempts to slime the cable news channel.
The latest such attempts caught the attention of cable news blogger Johnny Dollar, who consistently documents the left's growing hatred of everything Fox.
The more notable instance of Fox-hating came from former MSNBC host David Shuster. Shuster took to twitter Thursday to celebrate Canada's rejection of Fox News's application for a broadcasting license. Just one problem: Fox's licesnse was approved in 2004. Called out on the mistake, Shuster deleted his tweet, blocked Dollar, and to date has not issued a correction.
The deleted tweet - which, thanks to a few re-tweets, is still viewable elsewhere - linked to a Huffington Post column by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which inexplicably claimed that "Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all!" But again, Fox moved into Canada years ago. Where did RFK get his incorrect information? It's not clear. But it is incorrect, as was Shuster's tweet parroting the claim. Like Shuster, HuffPo has yet to correct the record.
For his part, Shuster apparently felt no need to verify the claim. It reflected poorly on Fox, so it was just too good to check. Another Shuster tweet posted on Thursday praised Canada for "rejecting" Fox News. That one has yet to be deleted - or corrected.
If the hypocrisy of a journalist celebrating our northern neighbor's stringent limits on freedom of the press (licensing for cable news would be thoroughly unconstitutional in the Untied States) weren't astounding enough, Shuster has the gall to continue alleging dishonesty on Fox's part while the latter tweet sits in his Twitter feed.
And Shuster is thoroughly convinced that Fox News lies. He told left wing talk radio host Stephanie Miller, apparently in all seriousness, that the country is infatuated with Charlie Sheen because, you guessed it, Fox lies (mp3):
In an environment where you do have a self-proclaimed news organization that spews lies day in and day out and doesn’t usually get called on it by the rest of the media, I mean maybe this is some escape that some people have, to be able to say OK, enough of the serious stuff. I want to take a break. I just want to be entertained for ten minutes and hear the latest about Charlie Sheen’s travails.
Meanwhile, ultra-liberal blog ThinkProgress, which has been struggling with factual accuracy of late (let's not sugar coat it - they've struggled for a while now), accused Fox's Greta Van Susteren of trying to draw a comment out of Wisconsin GOP State Senator Glenn Grothman, who found himself surrounded by an angry mob of union protesters in Madison early this week.
"Despite Fox host Greta Van Susteren’s best attempts," ThinkProgress blogger Alex Seitz-Wald wrote on Thursday, "while appearing on her show last night, Grothman said he never 'felt threatened,' and that in fact, 'there were many friendly people in that crowd.'"
What were Susteren's "best attempts," exactly? The blogger doesn't say, for one obvious reason: Greta did no such thing. In fact, a cursory review of the segment's transcript reveals this question from Susteren, which of course evaded mention in the ThinkProgress post:
Senator, what’s it been like for the Republicans going through those crowds? Actually, I’ve been in the State Capitol and they were quite respectful at least towards the media when I was there. But tell me what it’s like for you being a Republican in a crowd that’s protesting against you?
At no point in the segment did Susteren try to get Grothman to say he felt threatened.
Some on the left are so determined to demonize Fox, it seems. that they will disregard truth altogether if it conflicts with that effort.
