1 Boring Old Man

The O’Garbage Factor
Fox News isn’t just bad. It’s un-American
Newsweek
by Jacob Weisberg
Oct 17, 2009

Last week, when White House Communications Director Anita Dunn charged the Fox News Channel with right-wing bias, Fox responded the way it always does. It denied the accusation with a straight face while proceeding to confirm it with its coverage.

… One glance at Fox’s Web site or five minutes’ random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant. The lefty documentary Outfoxed spent a lot of time mustering evidence that Fox managers order reporters to take the Republican side. But after 13 years under Roger Ailes, Fox employees skew news right as instinctively as fish swim.

Rather than in any way maturing, Fox has in recent months become more boisterous and demagogic. Fox sponsored as much as it covered the anti-Obama "tea parties" this summer. Its "fact checking" about the president’s health-care proposal is provided by Karl Rove. And weepy Glenn Beck has begun to exhibit a Strangelovean concern about government invading our bloodstream by vaccinating people for swine flu. With this misinformation campaign, Fox stands to become the first network to actively try to kill its viewers.

That Rupert Murdoch may tilt the news rightward more for commercial than ideological reasons is beside the point. What matters is the way that Fox’s model has invaded the bloodstream of the American media. By showing that ideologically distorted news can drive ratings, Ailes has provoked his rivals at CNN and MSNBC to develop a variety of populist and ideological takes on the news. In this way, Fox hasn’t just corrupted its own coverage. Its example has made all of cable news unpleasant and unreliable.

What’s most distinctive about the American press is not its freedom but its century-old tradition of independence—that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups. Media independence is a 20th-century innovation that has never fully taken root in many other countries that do have a free press. The Australian-British-continental model of politicized media that Murdoch has applied at Fox is un-American, so much so that he has little choice but go on denying what he’s doing as he does it. For Murdoch, Ailes, and company, "fair and balanced" is a necessary lie…

Whether the White House engages with Fox is a tactical political question. Whether we journalists continue to do so is an ethical one. By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations…

I suppose that one might make the case for Fox News based on our tradition of freedom of speech much as one might make a case for a blog. But Weisberg makes a strong point here, albeit sarcastic. He’s correct that the newspapers in Europe are very different than here. Living there, I was awed with how different they were, at least in the UK. There were some real newspapers like the Guardian or the London Times. Then there were the ‘rags.’ There was the BBC News, and then there were others, ‘moving rags’ at best, but I recall nothing like Fox in Europe either.

Weisberg’s point is that Fox News is not independent, it is the media arm of the Republican Party – and that is correct. He’s right that the station’s editorial policy colors how the news is presented. Actually, everything he says is correct, so what does he have in mind that we do about it?

I think it’s more pertinent to ask ourselves why so many Americans voluntarily turn their television sets to a station that is more like Pravda than a news outlet? And why do they turn their televisions to a station that is an editorialized news outlet for a particular political party that represents primarily the interests of the wealthy elite in our country [I doubt that they even watch Fox News]?

Culture Wars: In 1990, paleoconservative commentator Pat Buchanan mounted a campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States against incumbent George H. W. Bush in 1992. He received a prime time speech slot at the 1992 Republican National Convention, which is sometimes dubbed the "‘culture war’ speech".

During his speech, he said: "There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself." In addition to criticizing "environmental extremists" and "radical feminism," he said public morality was a defining issue

The agenda [Bill] Clinton and [Hillary] Clinton would impose on America — abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat — that’s change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America wants. It is not the kind of change America needs. And it is not the kind of change we can tolerate in a nation that we still call God’s country.

A month later, Buchanan elaborated that this conflict was about power over society’s definition of right and wrong. He named abortion, sexual orientation, and popular culture as major fronts – and mentioned other controversies, including clashes over the Confederate Flag, Christmas and taxpayer-funded art. He also said that the negative attention his talk of a culture war received was itself evidence of America’s polarizationhen Buchanan ran for President in 1996, he promised to fight for the conservative side of the culture war:

I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came.

Americans are afraid – scared to death. It’s as if there’s this dark underbelly of bad people lurking out there, and we "Liberals" are promoting it with our programs and permissiveness. That’s what the Republican/Fox set is branding us with. So we‘re going to take away their guns and leave them and their children defenseless against the evil forces [the current genre of Vampire Movies plays on this same theme – the evil ones]. Just watch O’Reilly or Beck tonight. What I’m talking about will be infinitely apparent within minutes.