When the White House claimed that Fox News wasn’t a news organization, and at best was an “arm of the Republican party,” I cheered. Anyone who’s watched Fox News at any time in the past several years knows full well that Fox News is anything but news and is essentially nothing more than a video version of many right-wing talk radio stations that claim to “say what everyone is thinking” and “not be a part of the liberal media” (you know, that liberal media that depends on things like facts and journalistic integrity) so the call won’t come as any surprise.
But some conservatives whined and complained that the White House was unfairly targeting Fox News, and in some cases accused them of trying to gag the news organization for trying to speak truth to power (you know, the same thing that every other news organization was stifled doing during the Bush Presidency). Now those of us in the reality-based community know that’s ludicrous, but Adele Stan, writing for AlterNet, has 8 great reasons why Fox News isn’t News at all:
Even before Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, Rupert Murdoch had declared war on him via the personalities of Fox News Channel, a subsidiary of Murdoch’s media conglomerate, News Corp.
Since Obama’s election, the cable channel’s hosts and paid analysts have launched a full frontal assault on the president, smearing his nominees, calling him a racist and suggesting that his administration was trying to persuade disabled veterans to off themselves.
Now the fearmongers at Fox are crying foul since the president and his aides declared Fox not to be a news organization. Earlier this month, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn called Fox an “arm” of the Republican Party. Obama went even further, suggesting this week that Fox “is operating basically as a talk-radio format,” and we know what that means: A format in which the most provocative opinions dominate the discourse and facts are optional.
Yet that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Setting Fox apart from the two other cable news networks is its ownership by a corporation whose CEO and major shareholder is a mogul with an ideological agenda — who operates his News Channel as a propaganda machine for his anti-government cause.
What follows is a primer on Rupert Murdoch and why you should be very wary when he moves in on your favorite media outlet, but let’s get to the reasons:
1. Glenn Beck, the community organizer
2. Fox’s alliance with the corporate-funded astroturf group Americans for Prosperity
3. On-air fundraising for Republican PACs
4. Bill O’Reilly, stalker of those whose opinions he doesn’t like
5. Sunday talk-show host who promotes Republican falsehoods
6. Fox News anchors, show hosts and pundits parrot GOP press releases, or just make up stuff
7. Fox News hosts urge viewers to join a particular political group
8. Glenn Beck, deranged inventor of paranoid conspiracies
Yes, I know Glenn Beck appears twice, but the full descriptions of each are more than worth reading.
[ 8 Reasons Fox Is Not a News Organization ]
Source: AlterNet