In yet another example of Fox News' denial of reality and a clear case of "pot meet kettle," Fox & Friends' wall of morning genius, Elisabeth Hasselbeck and her teabagging diva guest, Scottie Nell Hughes, actually stated, with certitude, that the mainstream media is biased. You just can't make this stuff up - oh, wait a minute....
Yesterday, a smiling Hasselbeck showed uncustomary affect when she happily introduced the topic: "Well, the 2016 presidential campaign is in full swing and so is the media bias whether they were attacking Carly Fiorina on Planned Parenthood or criticizing Ben Carson for his comments about a hypothetical Muslim president, the mainstream media hardly hesitates when it comes to taking sides." She introduced Tea Party News Network head, Scottie Nell Hughes who, when last on Fox & Friends, mocked those who are transgender.
Hasselbeck made the bullshit claim that NBC's Chuck Todd "attacked" Carly Fiorina. In attempting to prove that Todd treats Hillary Clinton better than Fiorina, Hasselbeck showed one brief moment, during Todd's lengthy Hillary Clinton interview, in which Todd and Clinton laughed. This was immediately juxtaposed with video of Todd confronting Fiorina about her infamous Planned Parenthood lie. After Fiorina said that she wouldn't concede that she was wrong, Hasselbeck said "good for her." The banner showed what "side" Fox is on: "Taking Sides, Mainstream Media Reveals Its Political Bias."
Hughes claimed that "conservatives are held to higher standards in the media." (Uh, like the truth?) Given that this is network (and a show) that routinely promotes right wing propaganda, the banner was so ironic: "Objective Journalism, Networks Accused of Biased Political Coverage." Hughes whined that because Fiorina is now a "pro-life" hero, the media is "trying to destroy her" and, sob, sob, "they're winning to a certain extant." She accused the media of trying to divert their lies about the videos by defaming Fiorina about "one little thing she got wrong." ("one little thing?")
Their next target was Scott Pelley who, according to the gals, had the unmitigated gall to smirk over Donald Trump's opinion on the Syrian situation. Hughes averred that Pelley "was the joke." She noted that those who insult Trump are insulting his fans. (But it's OK for Fox to malign the President and other Democratic politicians?) Given that Fox never wastes an opportunity to show some love for Republicans, the banner provided more irony: "Attacks on the GOP," Republican Candidates Face Tough Interviews."
But Fox News is "fair & balanced" so it's all good...
I once took my girlfriend and very young son (who was big-time into a PlayStation wrestling game) to a WWE (was WWF, I think, at the time) match at the Richmond Coliseum. I think Bob was the guy in the seat in front of us screaming red faced in outrage because he was sure it was real. Just as real as Fox News’ fair and balanced right-wing propaganda. ;^)
How does Bob know it’s real? Because it’s popular and oh so profitable.
The fact is that Fox News viewers tend to be angry right wing people who are comforted by the Fox News (and right wing radio) spin that somehow all the voters who disagree with them are all “low information” people who don’t know anything. The almost casual bigotry that goes with this spin seems to go unnoticed as well, for those people inside the bubble. Granted, there are also a lot of more liberal viewers who tend to be drawn to the rants of people like Hannity for sheer entertainment value – along the lines of “Can you believe that so-and-so said that?” The overall ratings numbers for Fox News have usually been higher than the other networks (although they faltered in early 2013 for obvious reasons), but this disregards the important information we can glean from the key demographics. Namely, that Fox News viewers have been shown to primarily be older, whiter and male. It’s a demographic of an aging population that does not understand how someone like Barack Obama was elected president (and likely was not helped to understand by the kind of coverage that Fox News has provided).
Fox News has never internally believed itself to be “fair and balanced”. That’s an advertising slogan, based on the anger of the right wing that they felt they weren’t hearing “their” side of the story. So now angry right wingers have an outlet that repeats the same biased worldview they’ve been hearing from Rush Limbaugh for nearly 30 years now. And as a result, the GOP has been pushed steadily farther to the right, to the point that it can no longer appeal to mainstream Americans and thus cannot win national elections in anything other than gerrymandered districts. And as a side result of that, we now have not only right wing radio, but Extreme right wing radio, fomented by angry and hateful people like Glenn Beck.
Bob apparently does not understand that Fox News has a history of misstatements, misrepresentations and biased coverage that has been exhaustively documented in public by outlets like this website. And there are research papers that have consistently shown over the past 20 years that Fox News viewers are the least informed of news consumers – regularly indicating that they believe the most extreme and inaccurate propaganda to be purveyed on Fox News and right wing radio. (There’s an argument to be made that it’s actually the Fox News viewers who may be the “low information voters” – as we saw in the 2012 election results.)
The issue that really should concern Fox News proponents is what they’ll do in a few years when the older population that was watching the channel begins to sharply recede. It’s the same problem that the GOP faces – what will they do when their base of older white male voters (mostly from the Baby Boom) begins to decline? Fox News has worked very hard to encourage the most extreme views, particularly of angry “Tea Party” groups, but there’s simply not enough of those people to make for a dependable audience base. Further, the really extreme groups no longer think that Fox News is extreme enough for them now – they’re off listening to exploiters like Alex Jones or Glenn Beck, and referring to even hard right GOP congresspeople as RINOs. This is a problem of the right wing’s own making, and it is one that they’ll have to face sooner or later.
Posters like Bob would do better to spend a little more time looking at those real problems and not trying to debate undisputed facts that have been documented on sites like these. And they might want to look a bit more inward to see who’s really posting out of anger.
However, I’m suffering Benghazi withdrawals so can they get back to that?
Sincerely, The Tea Party 😉
Well, Scottie, perhaps you conservatards have only yourselves to blame for that. I mean, when you talk about a certain moral and ethical behavior high ground, it’s a bit difficult for people to expect anything but “higher standards.”
You know, like when you talk about “family values,” people tend to expect you to NOT be cheating on your spouse (often with someone else’s spouse). When you talk about being “pro-life,” people tend to expect you to support women having appropriate health care and making sure that the babies that get born have a chance to make it to their first birthdays. When you talk about repealing Obamacare, people tend to expect you have a plan to replace it that doesn’t adversely affect people being helped by Obamacare. When you talk about balancing the budget, people tend to expect you to actually balance it instead of proposing more tax cuts for the wealthy that every economist worth his salt says will drive up the deficit. When you talk about “creating jobs,” people tend to expect you to do THAT rather than spend tens of millions of dollars a day on committees that are nothing more than political hatchet jobs (hint: That’s NOT the kind of “job creation” people expected you to be doing).
And, btw, where the hell was the “fair & balanced” in this segment? The segment was biased bullish!t.