Last night, in a report on the horrific school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, Bill O'Reilly discussed with Fox News senior correspondent Rick Leventhal how the media - including Fox News - got some of its facts wrong in its early reporting, including mistakenly identifying the gunman as his brother. Leventhal told O'Reilly, "Bill, you can understand, in the aftermath of a major incident like this, there's a lot of confusion."
A lot of confusion? Don't you think the same thing might apply to, say, an attack on an American consulate in Benghazi, Libya? Plenty of people have told Fox News that might be the case:
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Greta Van Susteren: When things are unfolding very, very quickly, it’s not always easy to know what is going on on the ground. It was a point Van Susteren forgot just 24 hours later.
Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Tom Ricks told Jon Scott: I've covered a lot of firefights. It's impossible to figure out what happens in them sometimes. Sadly, Fox was so insulted by Ricks calling out Fox's politicized coverage, they cut short the interview.
Fox's own Geraldo Rivera told Bill O'Reilly: I think there's a fog of war aspect.
Still, Fox continued to act as though the Obama administration had engaged in some big cover up of the truth when they initially said that the violence was spurred by an anti-Muslim video and was not a terrorist attack.
Do you think they'll see it differently now that the shoe has been on the other foot? Nah, I don't think so, either.
You are, however, right in thinking I don’t believe much if anything of what I hear on Fox. I’ve been watching them off and on for over eight years and remain in awe at the extent to which supposedly intelligent people can lie day after day. I’m a news junkie who watches 4 to 5 different sources pretty regularly: in English (American, Canadian and British), in French (Canadian and French) and in Italian, satellite, paper and online (very recently).
Each source reflects a particular culture and mixing them up kind of causes the truth to curdle and rise out of the mass. Fox is always the outlier.
The similarity of the dems and reps is a common complaint but it often sounds like a way to justify flailing out left, right and centre. Tiring and tiresome. It would be great for America to have a credible third party (but don’t make the mistake of having too many). Prospective third parties have actually not been all that different from the dems/reps. Things will change only if the elements with deep pockets (aka $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$) can no longer pilot the elections. If nothing else that seems to have happened with President Obama but you would probably point to his own milionnaires. Fact is that he has far fewer than the other side but you would disagree.
Music, maestro: “let’s call the whole thing off” Curtain
Why is it that every time the foxies are caught lying, the nit-wit defenders always come up with the same lies. (FIXED)
I presume you have sources for what you say about corruption in Washington. I don’t doubt that it exists (opportunity makes the thief) but I don’t think the current administration is any worse than the previous one that kept two (2) wars off the books so that the numbers wouldn’t appear on the charts. Deceitful, don’t you think? I do agree – and fully – that any administration should be held accountable but am not holding my breath so long as we keep on electing the idiots who are more sensitive to the voice of $$$$$$$ than to the will of the people.
PS: Yes, I’ve been watching Fox a lot lately. The tragedy in CT has hit me awfully hard and Fox is on it non-stop. It’s easier to keep them on because I can ignore all the blathering until the press conference finally takes place. Al Jazeera’s programs are so good that I have to listen to them and I do have work to do.
After firmly correcting a whole slew of things the foxies had been saying for two hours prior to the press conference, the police chief has just told reporters to be patient, that it will take time – not just a few days, mind you – to collect and piece together the facts on the shooter, possible complices, where those guns have been, etc. as well as stuff they don’t even know they should be looking for.
The chief said he couldn’t really say how long that would take and also that he was not going to say anything that he was not absolutely sure was factual. He refused to be rushed because it is important not to create yet more rumors. I admire that and remain appalled that the foxies continue to speculate. Disgusting.
It may be useful for you, Sir, to reflect a moment on the fact that the Newtown is INSIDE America not in another country and in a remote zone of the latter to boot. The two situations are totally different in termsof investigative difficulty (accessibility, language, culture, etc.). I, personally, wouldn’t be at all surprised if the final word on the Newton tragedy were to come only after a couple of weeks and even then I expect a lot of gaps. I live in the real world not C.S.I.