You will never find me encouraging anyone to watch Faux News. Instead, I’d like to recommend a documentary entitled “Outfoxed,” which shines a light on what goes on behind Faux News’ cameras.
All the same, this is America: If the nuts on Faux News want to fake-cry, lie, twist the facts, make shit up — that’s their right. If even more nuts want to watch that crap, pretend like it’s actual news and never seek the facts, that’s their right.
Never forget, in America, you’re allowed to be as uninformed as you want to be; there are no non-nonsense limits.
So, White House officials, do us a big favor and stop telling us what to watch on TV. You’re ticking off the people who like you and there’s a pretty good chance all you’re going to accomplish in your war on Faux is to encourage people who already hate you to hate you even more.
Focus POTUS. Focus on something else like, I dunno, the public option, climate change, unemployment, the two wars you need to get us out of, and on and on and on.
Pick different battles. Drop this one.
“They’re not really a news station,” David Axelrod explained to George Stephanopoulos last Sunday. “It’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming if you watch, it’s really not news… The bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way.”The official White House position is that the rest of the media should join Team Obama in ostracizing a news outlet that the White House doesn’t like. This raises several obvious questions:
Since when does the federal government get to make programming decisions, much less decide what is and what is not a legitimate news organization?
Where did political consultants—people who spend their lives lying to reporters—get the moral standing to make pronouncements about journalistic ethics?
When did liberals agree it was OK to use government power to muzzle opinions they don’t agree with?
And, most of all, when did the press decide to go along with all of this?
Read the rest of this “Big Fat Story” from The Daily Beast here.
Further reading: The Conservative Media Bias
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn: “Fox News is the research arm of the Republican Party.”
Here’s a trailer for “Outfoxed,” released in 2004. Oh, one more thing: Flipflop.
This article appears in Oct 20-26, 2009.
Well, Frank, you definitely fit the description: “If even more nuts want to watch that crap, pretend like it’s actual news and never seek the facts, that’s their right.”
I’m sure no one is surprised to know that you’re a huge Faux News fan, you repeat their talking points in the comment section of this blog every day.
The utterly amazing thing is that most of Fox’s detractors have never watched a second of it, but, rather, have absorbed the opinions of their pals who hate Fox and have never watched a second of it. Don’t like it? Exercise your right to use the CHANNEL button on your remote.
Try watching sometime during the “non-opinion” part of the day (the MSNBC equivalent would be any time Chris Matthews is not on). You won’t see too much difference with any of the other (less-watched) cable news networks.
“I want to do everything I can to make […] this new Presidency work […] This is my job.”
If the above quote had been uttered by Neil Cavuto or Glenn Beck in 2004, can you IMAGINE the explosion from the left? However, this quote was made on November 6, 2008, after the election, by Chris Matthews on the MSNBC television program “Morning Joe.”
On April 18, 2008, Matthews told Bill Maher that he has “made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987, and [he is] honoring that commitment, not getting involved in it.”
C’mon, libs. I used to be one of you — I know how the template functions. It’s all “free and fair” speech until some hapless soul violates your holy ideology. Now Obama is sinking like a rock and you don’t know what to do except blame a cable news outlet and a guy on the AM radio. Pathetic.