Fox Turns CIA Rendition Issue into a Fairy Tale
Reported by Melanie - December 5, 2005
Fox turned the issue of CIA kidnappings, secret prisons, and torture into a fairy tale about an ungrateful Europe today (December 5, 2005) on Your World w/Neil Cavuto.
Ian Williams, the UN correspondent for The Nation magazine was Cavuto's guest. The title of the segment, reflected in a chyron that repeatedly appeared on screen, was, "Are Europeans Ingrates When it Comes to the War on Terror?" Cavuto opened the segment by telling the audience that Condoleezza Rice would be in Europe this week where she "will be pressed by a number of EU leaders" about "those secret CIA prison allegations" (the full extent of the background given on the topic). Cavuto said that Rice claims the "people of Europe are safer because of the US war on terror and its intelligence gathering. So, we ask," he said, "instead of the questions from Europe, where is the thanks?"
Williams did a fantastic job of talking about the larger issue despite Cavuto's repeated attempts to make Europe's alleged lack of gratitude stay front and center, "whether we question these guys harshly or not." Williams repeatedly made the point that, "The worst thing the terrorists can do is provoke governments into behaving unreasonably. Once they've done that, they're succeeding and in this case, Osama bin Laden and all the others, they've provoked the United States into illegal detentions. They're kidnapping people. We are arresting the wrong people."
Comment: In the fall of 2004, the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) released a study titled, "The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters." The study showed that Fox News watchers had more misconceptions about the War on Terror and other national and international issues than those who got their news from other sources. Given the way the CIA torture matter morphed into one about an ever ungrateful Europe on Fox today, Fox's viewers undoubtedly continue to have misconceptions about what's going on in the world. And that, I'm sure, is precisely the objective.
