Nothing like continuing to beat the same dead horse, especially a week after Jon Stewart eviscerated Fox News and their one reputable journalist, Chris Wallace. But I came across a blog post on Buzzfeed that was worth passing on.
But before I throw another straw on the back of the “Fox News Equals Right Wing Propaganda” camel, it is worth spending a minute on Jon Stewart’s appearance on the Chris Wallace show last Sunday.
One of the greatest accomplishments of the Roger Ailes political machine has been the creation of a false equivalency between Fox News and the liberal “lamestream” media in the mind of the casual observer. I have witnessed its effectiveness firsthand as otherwise intelligent co-workers, friends and family members buy into this demonstrably fictitious notion.
Stewart’s message has never been the absence of liberal bias in the media. What he has consistently observed is how Fox News egregiously manipulates news stories to construct the ideological reality they want to impose on their viewers, cloaked in the facade of “Fair and Balanced.” Wallace, seemingly by accident, gave lie to the ludicrous “Fair and Balanced” tag line:
STEWART: So, you believe that Fox News is exactly the ideological equivalent of NBC News?
WALLACE: I think we’re the counterweight. I think that they have a liberal agenda and I think we tell the other side of the story.
Not exactly “Fair and Balanced,” but at least Wallace is honest. You can see Stewart’s bit on the interview here.
The fundamental flaw in reasoning that Wallace illustrated in his accidental admission is that Fox News is the the media equivalent of MSNBC or the New York Times. It isn’t. It’s not even close. I would invite you to scan the archives of the Times or MSNBC and find one headline that is a leading statement formulated as a question, a favorite tactic at Fox.
Stewart stayed on the topic the following night, responding to Politifact’s correction of his assertion that every poll found Fox viewers to be the most consistently misinformed. As it turns out only some polls found that. A subtle, but important distinction.
Stewart corrected himself on the air, and then went on to do a montage of some of the lies Fox has perpetrated on the public that were corrected by Politifact. An incomplete list to be sure, but it was funny. You can find the clip here.
Many of us are naturally inclined towards the notion of “equivalency.” The fact is, contrary to the notion that there is an equal amount of misinformation coming from both sides, the current political right has cornered the market on the dissemination of misinformation.
A quick visit to the “Pants on Fire” section of Politifact’s website illustrates the point. Of the first 40 “Pants on Fire” posts there are 3 that deal with statements made by a democrat. The other 37 Pants on Fire statements from various conservative political aspirants, pundits and Sarah Palin. If the political right was a baseball player they would be hitting .925 in “Pants on Fire.” That is a lot of misinformation. See for yourself.
For the past two years the Politifact “Lie of the Year” award has gone to misinformation the political right has spread about Obama’s healthcare plan.
I suppose convincing people to support corporate interests above their own economic self-interest can only be accomplished through overt manipulation of reality. Enter Fox News. If you support health care reform Obama and his homosexual Muslim bureaucrats will kill all the old people you care about and burn down their churches. The most “trusted name in news.” Right.
Buzzfeed gathered a list of actual headlines and then compared them to the Fox News headlines on the same stories. The results speak for themselves.
See the link to the Buzzfeed article here.
