As we all have our eyes fixated in Iraq, Israel, or the potential for another stolen election
this year it is important to not forget the role of media in our everyday lives. So many
Americans get their information from the tainted mainstream media machine run by the current
government that it is a frightening prospect to merely hope the truth somehow gets through.
I am sure we all know people who are seemingly good folk, but somehow they keep getting it
wrong on such crucial matters such as election fraud, the war, or any number of Bush-GOP
scandals. You have to realize the gauntlet of false news that is thrown at them each day,
which is the basis for their political opinions.
Case in point is the poster child of fake news, Fox News. Using false slogans such as "fair and
balanced" or "we report, you decide", Fox News has made its living on being nothing short of
propaganda for the Republican Party. News shows are peppered with pro-administration stories
and even when they have to cover a negative story; it is always framed from a positive angle,
thus skewing the truth. The amount of time spent on positive stories versus negative GOP stories
is staggering and the guests on their various shows are designed to put a loud, confident voice
on the republican side and a milquetoast, timid voice on the democratic side.
That is never
more evident than on their flagship show Hannity and Colmes where the jaw-jutting, boisterous
Hannity is opposed by the meek and affable Colmes. Guests are extreme ideologues on the right,
such as war criminal Oliver North or venom-witch Anne Coulter and moderate voices on the left;
people you or I have probably never heard of. News is not reported on Fox, it is packaged. The
pre-set talking points for the GOP are sent to Fox each day, so that the commentators throughout
the day can repeat them over and over again, so that eventually the populace begins to think it
is true. Just this past week we saw President Bush began to use the ridiculous term islamo-fascism
and sure enough, there was all the Fox commentators using the same ridiculous line all night
long. Karl Rove says to call all democrats who support a troop withdrawal, cut and runners and
that very night there is O'Reilly, Hannity and company calling them cut and runners. Never mind
that the majority of the American people support bringing our troops home, it does not matter
in the world of fake news. The opinion of the American people does not matter when you are
deciding what the news will be.
Not satisfied with this, Fox also employs flat out lies in their coverage. It was recently
discovered that Fox used a"conservative strategist" named Karen Czarnecki on their evening
"news" shows. What they did not tell us was that she was not really a conservative strategist.
No, Ms. Czarnecki actually was the Labor Department deputy assistant secretary. She was a
government employee posing as a pundit on a news program, offering her opinion that not
surprisingly, agreed with the government line. The damage done here is that people watching
think they are getting an honest opinion, when in reality they are only getting the opinion
from the government's standpoint. Similarly, when the administration is in a tough spot, they
call on Fox to provide them with an "exclusive", meaning an administration official can sit with
someone like Sean Hannity to express the government's opinion without the threat of an actual
news interview breaking out. Dick Cheney and Karl Rove have both appeared on these "exclusives"
where Hannity did not pose one serious question in opposition to the government position.
Propaganda at its best.
Propaganda does not end with Fox though, as most realize now that they are not fair, nor
balanced. The real damage done by Fox News is that it makes the other news sources seem
mainstream, when in fact they mimic Fox and rarely question the GOP controlled government.
People like Chris Matthews are presented as moderate when in reality he has as worse a record
in supporting the GOP then anyone on Fox. People like Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough are
presented as average guys representing America. Never mind that Scarborough is a former GOP
Congressman and Tucker is as republican as they get. America buys it. About the only beacon in
this sea of untruth is Countdown with Keith Olbermann but you have to sift through hours of
lies just to get to that one beacon.
Moving past TV news however, the same bias exists in print media. Many local papers have sold
out the American people for the interest of the companies that own them. People look at the New
York Times as some bastion of liberalism, but a closer look reveals that while some op-ed writers
are liberal, the paper itself is not. It is owned by pro-Israel folks who agree with this
administration. They supported the Iraq War and in case you forgot, Judith Miller worked for
them when she sold us the WMD lies, straight from her confidential White House sources. Not
all subterfuge however is so subtle. Here in New York we deal with a paper like the New York
Post. The Post is possibly the worst paper in the country in terms of objectivity, which should
be the hallmark of any newspaper. The Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns Fox News. It
is estimated that it LOSES 15-30 million dollars per year. Estimates are necessary because
Murdoch refuses to allow anyone to know how much he really loses for operating the Post. Why
does he insist on operating a paper that loses so much money? Because he does not care about
the money, he cares about putting his version of the news on the streets of New York every day.
The Post is propaganda straight out of Communist Russia during the cold war. There is never a
bad word uttered in its pages about the GOP or the Bush administration. Every article, whether
op-ed or "news" is framed to support the GOP. The op-ed section is littered with pro-GOP
rhetoric including the daily White House talking points. I know well principled people who rely
on the Post as their primary news source each day and it is no wonder that their political
opinions are often simply inaccurate.
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