When challenged about the accuracy of their "fair & balanced" slogan, the top brass at Fox News claimed that its "news" programs, such as Bret Baier's nightly "Special Report," are objective. But their definition of objectivity is a bit odd considering that factually inaccurate information, dare we say lies, is part of their supposed "objective" commentary. Such was the case during Friday's "Special Report" panel discussion when Charles Krauthammer, for the second time, provided factually inaccurate information, dare we say lie, about the supposed media black out of the Gosnell trial. It's ironic that while Fox is trying to present themselves as doing due diligence about covering a trial that the evil librul media has supposedly ignored, their supposedly objective coverage includes, in addition to anti-choice propaganda, inaccurate information - dare we say lies?
Back in April Fox News responded to their anti-choice base by immediately jumping on the anti-choice meme that the mainstream media wasn't sufficiently covering the Gosnell trial - a claim that was advanced by one of Fox's token Democrats, Kirsten Powers who wrote an article about a supposed "media blackout." As part of their "objective" coverage, Charles Krauthammer, in April, claimed that the non-Fox media wasn't covering it. Nobody on the panel mentioned that the media had covered the trial and while chastising the media, Baier and his pals neglected to mention that of all the networks, they provided the least coverage. Nobody mentioned that there was a gag rule on the trial.
On last night's "Special Report," Krauthammer continued to push the lie that the mainstream media ignored the trial. He expressed dismay that so few Americans are following the trial. He attributed this to how "the mainstream media gave it no coverage" until the publication of Kirsten Power's April article which "shamed them into covering it." That Krauthammer is either deliberately lying or just ignorant of the facts is underscored by the existence of a CNN video, about Gosnell, from 2011. (Guess they just put it up and backdated it?) It said it was "scandalous" that this story, of all the stories "out there," is "the least known."
It's bad enough that the supposedly "fair & balanced" Fox News, in the service of a right wing, anti-choice agenda, considers itself the arbiter of what other news networks should be covering. But what makes it even more ridiculous is that their condemnation is based on misinformation - dare we say lies!
If you’re saying that Charles Krauthamer is more fair and balanced than other pundits, I’m not sure if you can be serious about this. Krauthammer has unabashedly supported Fox News’ issue positions on multiple occasions. He was a cheerleader for Mitt Romney last year and showed genuine anger on election night after he was surprised with the defeat. He tried to make an issue out of the “Churchill’s Bust” nonsense that had been debunked a year earlier. And now he’s trumpeting the nonsense about a very serious criminal trial that Fox News has been trying to politicize and distort. If anyone thinks this conduct is somehow “fair and balanced”, I’d wonder what the standard for judgment was.
And while I can appreciate someone trying to use a libertarian approach, I frankly don’t agree that this is a matter of just “objectively perceiving the universe”. Libertarian philosophy, in a nutshell, posits that we’re all in it for ourselves and that’s the way it should be. It’s been summarized quite well by Doug Henwood as IGMFU. The idea is “Why should I pay for my neighbors’ kids to go to school or get health care? Let them take care of theirs and I’ll take care of mine. Why should I pay taxes for everyone else to have a fire department or a police department? Why should I pay for a public school if I have my kids in private school? Why not just have everyone take care of themselves?”
The problem with this philosophy is that it assumes not only that everyone will equally be able to take care of themselves but also that we have no civic duty to each other as part of a society. It’s also in direct contradiction to the spiritual traditions many “family values” conservatives claim to uphold. It’s an appealing philosophy if the perspective is that someone wants to achieve on their own and keep their spoils – and this of course lives on the dreams that most people have of becoming wealthy on their own. But the reality is that most people don’t, and many pundits who present this idea to their radio and TV audiences never deal with that reality. They just play the game of “Isn’t it ridiculous that we’re paying taxes for this idea or that idea? Isn’t it ridiculous that there are unions for government workers? Isn’t it ridiculous that we don’t just cut all the taxes and do away with as much of the government as possible?” It’s this philosophy that leads to false stories like O’Reilly’s infamous 15 dollar muffin or accounts of the salaries of various government employees being too high. (I exempt the City of Bell situation from this discussion as that was one of clear abuse of the system.)
The point is that the Libertarian ideology runs counter to the idea of a mutually cooperative society as we have developed it over thousands of years. We have strived to create a society where a rising tide lifts all boats and we all work together at some level to help each other. The Libertarian response would be to say that those people who have the strength to build or the means to acquire one can have a boat, while anyone without the means can just struggle along in the water on their own. As history has repeatedly shown us, this results in the well-to-do doing well and the majority going underwater quickly.
to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. They legally argued in court that they have the right to LIE and
OBFUSCATE and won”.
LIE –
a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth
OBFUSCATE – To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand
Chucky takes to heart the FACT that Faux can lie and distort the news, and he’s very good at it. Just fact check his b. s. and you’ll be fascinated by the results. Aint nothing “severely distorted or sloppy” ’bout that . Baa-baa.
This is another reminder that Fox News is not a “fair and balanced” news source, and another falsehood that must be corrected to keep the record clear for the future times when Fox and its acolytes will try to cite it without challenge.
The actual record stands that this matter was covered when it was news in 2011, and that Fox News and right wing media have deliberately conflated the circumstances of the case to make it sound like this is what happens in a normal abortion clinic.
Kirsten Powers has sadly been on a roll of late, dutifully spouting multiple Fox talking points on a variety of issues. It’s enough to wonder if someone talked to her about the more combative positions she’d taken during President Obama’s first term, particularly after seeing various other paid contributors shown the door…
It should also be noted that Fox News and right wing media are fully aware that there’s only so far they can push a story like this. While this riles up their base and gives them a phony talking point about the perils of abortion, the guys atop the GOP know that they can never actually do anything more about abortion than chip away at it here and there. The more extreme right wingers will continue to try to ban this or that procedure, but usually the bigger reaches get swatted back by the courts as well as the voters. If somehow the hard right got their way and saw Roe v Wade thrown out and abortion declared illegal, you’d see a giant backlash in the country that those guys don’t want to face.
So they continue to make pious noises about it, just as they do about undocumented immigrants, knowing full well that they can never actually take action about it. And the hectoring, including on matters like the Gosnell case, becomes just another way to keep their base agitated and distracted.
