They Can't See the Forest for the Trees
Reported by Melanie - November 19, 2004 -
Fox News anchor John Gibson was a guest today (November 19, 2004) on Dayside w/Linda Vester, promoting both his book, Hating America, The New World Sport, as well as a special with the same name which will air on Fox Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. ET. (Hating America is published by Regan Books, a holding of News Corp., Fox's parent company, something which wasn't mentioned during the segment.)
Gibson said Al Jazeera was "issuing a call" to fight the Iraqi government so (American appointed and controlled) Interim Prime Minister Allawi "had to shut them down." He said they "just pass those calls through" without any moderation. (COMMENT: Fox should talk.) He said Al Jazeera is basically an "anti-American, Arab language, pan Arabic" channel that's "operating with impunity."
Vester turned to an audience member and asked, "If it was reported on Al Jazeera that the 'US is a plague and an ongoing crime,' would that surprise you?" The audience member said no, and Vester turned to Gibson: "Sad to say that's not a surprise. Is that actually what they've said on their air?" Unfortunately Gibson didn't answer but went on to another subject. (COMMENT: The way Vester read the question, it sounded like what she read had indeed been said on Al Jazeera's air, yet she didn't know for sure. Fox wouldn't be trying to use "techniques of propaganda" to "stir people up would they?") (See below.)
Gibson said the Al Jazeera "people are taking the point of view of the Islamists and the jihadists and they are using all the techniques of propaganda to stir people up against the United States, including splashing an awful lot of blood on the screen for the purpose of horrifying the audience and then saying that it's America's fault." Gibson also talked about a French author he interviewed for Sunday's show who says 9/11 was a "US government plot against it's own people" to foment a war against the whole world and a Canadian author who's "going to go around making half a million bucks this year running lecture series on this very subject." (COMMENT: Why is it so significant that two guys, one in France and one in Canada, have written conspiracy theory books? Is Fox implying that this is why we should hate the two countries as a whole, or why those two countries as a whole hate us? I think so.)
COMMENT: I've never watched Al Jazeera so I don't know what they're like. But I have watched Fox and whenever I hear Fox talking about Al Jazeera, I can imagine changing a few words and having the whole discussion apply to Fox. Fox is no different in the sense that it takes a specific point of view and uses "techniques of propaganda" to "stir people up" by "horrifying the audience" and "then saying it's - the Democrats - Hollywood's -France's - liberals' - the ACLU's - Al Zarqawi's - the insurgent's - the UN's fault. Insert the "bad guy" of your choice. I never know whether to laugh or cry at their hypocracy.
