Tag: Media Watch
Did Fox Mean to Deceive with ‘Palm Tree Lie’ – Or Were O’Reilly’s Producers Just Being Sloppy?
Have the protests in Wisconsin turned violent? On legitimate news outlets, the crowds appear to be quite peaceful. But coverage on Fox relentlessly promotes the idea that outside agitators and union thugs are fomenting unrest. Fox’s Mike Tobin even claimed to have been assaulted as he was reporting live from the scene — but video taken by bystanders appears to show he was lying.
On the Factor yesterday, as Bill O’Reilly and Tobin discussed the protests, the Factor’s producers ran B-roll of unruly protesters hurling epithets that appeared to prove there was trouble in the streets in Wisconsin. Big problem: The backdrop of the incident was not snowy, frigid Madison but a street lined with California palms.
Now the question is, did Fox intentionally deceive or were O’Reilly’s producers just being sloppy?
We report. You decide.
Beltway Media Finally Musters Outrage – Over Rep. Issa Spokesman Leaking Reporters’ Emails to an Author
“Death panels” didn’t do it. The fakery of the astroturfed tea party mobs didn’t do it. Nor has the increasingly embarrassing presence of the Fox News cuckoo bird hatchling befouling the media elites’ well-feathered nest.
In fact, you’d have to go back to the Chandra Levy scandal in 2001, — in which Democratic Rep. Gary Condit was tried and convicted (falsely, of course) by the Beltway media in the murder of Levy, a young congressional intern — to find the last time the bewigged media dandies in the capitol shook off their collective torpor … until today:
Corporate Media Gives Tea Party Way More Attention Than Its Numbers Warrant
If you listen to the Beltway media and Fox, the tea party is now the dominate political force in the country. Do the numbers back them up?
NO. Polls consistently show that around 20 percent of Americans self-identify as tea partyists. However, when it comes to actually participating in rallies and donating to tea party causes, the number falls to 4 percent. In Congress, 11 percent of the 535 members — 52 in the House, four in the Senate — have joined the tea party caucus.
Interdiction: There’s Method to Fox’s Rudeness to the President
| 1. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly-Pres. Obama, Feb. 6, 2011 | 2. Fox’s Bret Baier-Pres. Obama, March 2010 |
| 3. O’Reilly-candidate Obama, Sept. 4, 2008 | 4. Baier-George Bush, Dec. 17, 2008 |
During the live portion of Fox’s interview with Pres. Obama before the Super Bowl on Sunday, Bill O’Reilly interrupted the president 43 times, according to Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” on Monday. (See #1 above.)
If Fox were a legitimate news organization, its purpose in interviewing the president would be to let its audience hear what he has to say.
The interruptions continued in a second, taped part of the interview that was shown later, so that by the end of the 15-minute sit-down, O’Reilly had interrupted the president more than 70 times — once every 19 seconds, according to O’Donnell in a follow-up segment Tuesday night.
Conversely, the number of times O’Reilly let the president finish a sentence was zero, by O’Donnell’s count.
O’Reilly’s 70-plus interjections more than doubled the number of interruptions the president endured in his previous interview on Fox. In March 2010, O’Reilly’s lesser known colleague Bret Baier — host of Fox’s daily round-table presentation of Republican talking points — stopped the president in mid-sentence just 30 times or so. (See video #2.)
So, other than rudeness, what is behind this behavior from Fox? In a word: fear.
Fear the Google!
Look! Buck produced an editorial cartoon about the Google.
(Note to the Google: The views expressed in this video are the views of Buck Banks, and do not reflect the views of the management of Pensito Review.)
Verbatim
Many liberal Democrats opposed the tax rate compromise because it included provisions that helped the wealthy.
— CNN, demonstrating in a story about Pres. Obama’s high poll numbers the kind of sloppy writing that we have come to accept without question. I don’t know any “liberal Democrats” who don’t want to help everybody, the wealthy included. They just don’t want to help the wealthy at the expense of all others.
Fox Issues Nixonian Non-Denial Denial When Confronted with Evidence It Deliberately Deceives Viewers
In case you missed it in the pre-holiday bustle last week, the University of Maryland has released results of a study that found the Republican Party’s Fox propaganda channel deliberately deceives its viewers by presenting disinformation as “news.”
Even if you heard about the survey, what you may have missed is that, given an opportunity to debunk the findings, to provide a point by point refutation of the results, Fox’s point person chose instead to attack the University of Maryland as a “party school.”
First, here are the findings from the survey showing for each assertion both the anti-factual information Fox viewers believe to be true (with the share of Fox viewers versus non-viewers shown in parentheses) along with the reality-based fact:
Ten Percent of Muslims Are Terrorists? That’s the Population of Iran, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon and Somalia – Combined
The latest anti-Muslim propaganda coming from the Republican Party’s Fox network is a suggestion by the network’s resident Mormon televangelist Glenn Beck that 10 percent of Muslims worldwide are terrorists.
GLENN BECK: What is the number of Islamic terrorists? One percent? I think it’s closer to 10 percent, but the rest of the PC world will tell you ‘oh no, it’s minuscule.’ Okay, well, let’s take you at your one percent. Look at the havoc of one percent of Muslims causing on the rest of the world!
This claim is so ridiculous that it stands as a tragic indictment of our times that it even has to be addressed. But, just in case it comes up at family events over the holidays, here goes.
