Back in 2001, conservative media figures were adamant. Democratic Party victories at the ballot boxes during the off-year elections had little national significance. Fox News contributor Dick Morris said at the time, "[I]f you have a Republican president, people are going to vote Democrat, and if you have a Democrat president, they're going to vote Republicans." Proffering further spin of the GOP losses, Fox News contributor Mort Kondracke said, "We have no way of knowing" how the 2001 outcome would affect the 2002 midterms, a sentiment echoed by conservative writer Michael Barone, who declared on CNN, "I don't think that the issues and personalities" in the Virginia and New Jersey races "are going to be congruent with very many" races in 2002 or 2004. Then there was Laura Ingraham on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes noting that "[b]oth sides are going to spin this," before offering her own spin: "[T]o call this some kind of watershed moment against Republican views is nonsense."
For anyone watching Fox News in the weeks leading up to this year's off-year election, it should have been apparent what was afoot on the conservative network.
In the two weeks leading up to their November 3 elections, Conservative Party congressional candidate Doug Hoffman (NY-23), New Jersey Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, and Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell appeared on Fox News and its personalities' radio shows at least 16 times for live interviews lasting a total of 114 minutes and 36 seconds.
As leading Republican politicians and activists celebrated Fox News' role in pushing just the right message and helping their electoral chances, two Fox News employees spent time fundraising and recruiting volunteers in support of GOP-backed candidates. Fox News host Mike Huckabee used network airtime to collect email addresses for his PAC, which in turn used the addresses to recruit volunteers for GOP candidates on Tuesday's ballot, including McDonnell and Hoffman. Meanwhile, Fox News contributor Karl Rove was shilling for the Republican Governors' Association to help Christie's bid in New Jersey. All the while, Fox continued to feature his spin of that same election.
So, Fox News gave Republican candidates a huge platform to communicate with conservative activists and voters while Fox News employees recruited volunteers and raised money for them.
What else did Fox need to check off the list before Election Day? How about telling people how to vote and pre-spinning Democratic Party losses before a single ballot had been counted? Check.
One Fox News graphic actually stated that if the GOP were to win the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey -- races with no direct influence over congressional efforts to reform health care -- it would mean "no gov't-run option" in health care reform.
If you're a masochist, like me, then I know exactly where you were last Sunday morning: in front of your television, eyes fixed to Rush Limbaugh's 30-minute tee-ball interview, courtesy of Fox News Sunday and Chris Wallace.
If you're a regular listener of The Rush Limbaugh Show -- or, better yet, a regular reader of Media Matters' Limbaugh Wire -- then you probably recognized that every morsel Limbaugh fed to ratings-hungry Wallace on the subject of Obama's destruction of the economy was just a regurgitation of what Rush passes off as compelling radio on a daily basis.
But aside from Limbaugh's deluge of misinformation -- how many times do we need to point out that issue expertise is as common on The Rush Limbaugh Show as insightful commentary is on a Fox World Series broadcast with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver? -- there was one revealing exchange between Limbaugh and Wallace. Wallace brought up that Limbaugh's current contract is reported to be worth $400 million over eight years.
Media figures continue to falsely claim that a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the House health care reform bill would only have the effect of prohibiting government money from being used to pay for abortions, echoing a myth previously advanced about a proposed amendment to a prior version of that legislation. In fact, language in the current House bill already segregates federal money so it cannot be used directly to fund abortions, and the proposed amendment would effectively ban abortion coverage for some who have it now.
Media advance false, misleading claims on abortion language, push anti-abortion alternative
Current bill forbids government money from being used to directly fund abortion
Media forwarded same myth about previous version of billRight-wing media figures have used the shooting at Fort Hood as an excuse to attack Islam and American Muslims in particular, with Debbie Schlussel, for example, urging readers to think of the alleged shooter "whenever you hear about how Muslims serve their country in the U.S. military." Additionally, commentators have blamed the shooting on "political correctness," with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggesting the implementation of "special debriefings" for Muslim American soldiers to prevent future attacks.
WorldNetDaily CEO and editor-in-chief Joseph Farah claimed that WND's false report that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised" the "Obama transition" -- previously debunked by Media Matters for America -- had been subsequently "confirm[ed]" by an official with the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University, which had listed Hasan as a member of its Presidential Transition Task Force "Event Participants." But the updated article reported only that the official confirmed that the Hasan listed as a "participant" was the alleged shooter, not that he had advised the "Obama transition" -- a falsehood undermined by WND's own reporting that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition."
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
Fox News advances false claim that "House Call" protest was "spontaneous," "organic," organized by "word of mouth"
By J.V.B.
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
Citing no evidence, Sean Hannity twice stated that 20,000 people gathered to protest health care reform at a GOP rally on Capitol Hill -- a claim he later walked back drastically -- while MSNBC reported that Capitol police estimated the crowd at only 4,000; prior to the rally, Hannity said crowds at the event -- which he and other Fox News figures heavily promoted -- would be "massive." Conservative media previously inflated crowd estimates for the 9-12 March on Washington.In aggressively promoting Rep. Michele Bachmann's November 5 anti-health care reform rally on Capitol Hill, Fox News has chosen to associate itself with the offensive and extremist rhetoric emanating from that event. This rhetoric includes the disturbing signs -- such as one of a pile of Holocaust victims' bodies captioned "National Socialist Health Care, Dachau, Germany - 1945" -- displayed at the event.
NBC's First Read reports on "jaw-dropping signs." In a November 5 post on the rally, the MSNBC.com blog First Read reported:
Here are some of the more jaw-dropping signs seen at the rally:
- "Get the Red Out of the White House."
- "Waterboard Congress"
- "Traitor to the U.S. Constitution" (Picture of Obama on sign)
- "Ken-Ya Trust Obama?" (Rep. Steve King, R-IA, autographing the sign)
- "Un-American McCarthyite" (with picture of Pelosi)
- "I'm the King of the World: Remember the Titanic?" (Drawing of Obama in the mold of the 'Jovial Sambo' from the Jim Crow era doing the Leo Titanic pose."
During a report about President Obama's decision to stop funding a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Fox News' William La Jeunesse referred to Obama's decision as "$13 billion of your money down the drain" and said that the facility is, "from an engineering standpoint," "complete" but "just waiting for a license" -- suggesting that Obama's decision cost taxpayers billions of dollars for no reason. However, even if Yucca Mountain were to receive a license -- which could be several years -- experts say it may not be safe, would not be able to receive radioactive fuel for a "long time," and the costs to build, operate, and receive the fuel have reportedly ballooned to more than $96 billion.
In 2006, Rush Limbaugh accused Democrats of "redefin[ing] victory" by claiming a "moral victory" in elections they lost by small margins. However, reacting to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's loss in New York's 23rd Congressional District, Limbaugh touted Hoffmann's "good showing" and applauded conservatives for having "kept a horrible Republican from possibly winning" in defending his and Sarah Palin's support of Hoffman.
In recent days, following its pattern of advocacy, Fox News and its personalities' have repeatedly promoted Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) November 5 anti-health care reform protest, to be held on Capitol Hill and in the halls of Congress. Fox News has previously promoted numerous other rallies such as the April 15 tea party protests, health care town hall protests, and the 9-12 march on Washington.
Bachmann called for "House Call" protest to advocate for defeat of health care reform bill
Fox News has repeatedly engaged in conservative advocacy by promoting protests
Fox News promoted April 15 tea parties. In the lead-up to the April 15 tea parties, which the channel repeatedly described as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties," Fox News frequently aired segments publicizing and encouraging viewers to get involved with the protests. A Media Matters for America study found that from April 6 to 13, Fox News featured at least 20 segments on the "tea party" protests. A subsequent Media Matters study found that from April 6 to 15, Fox News aired at least 107 commercial promotions for its coverage of the April 15 tea parties.Fox News promoted health care disruptions. Fox News promoted disruptions of Democratic town hall events by protesters opposed to health care reform -- protests that are touted by Republican leaders and supported by conservative groups. Following the August 2 disruption of a town hall event hosted by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Fox News personalities repeatedly lauded such protesters and urged viewers to take similar action.
Fox News promoted 9-12 protests. In the lead-up to the 9-12 protest, Beck's website worked with others organizing the September 12 "March on Washington," and he repeatedly encouraged viewers to attend the protest. Fox News also heavily promoted the Tea Party Express tour -- the final stop of which was the 9-12 protest -- on Fox News, Fox Business, the Fox Nation, and FoxNews.com.
An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal falsely claimed that a poll conducted by conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway for the right-wing Independent Women's Forum (IWF) found that two-thirds of women are "less likely to back candidates who support government care." In fact, the poll asked whether respondents would be "more likely or less likely to support a candidate for Congress knowing he or she favored moving people from their private healthcare plans to government-run healthcare plans" [emphasis added].
WSJ op-ed falsely claimed right-wing poll shows two-thirds of women "less likely to back candidates who support government care"
WSJ op-ed subhead: "Two-thirds are less likely to back candidates who support government care." The November 3, 2009, Wall Street Journal op-ed by IWF chairman Heather Richardson Higgins on the poll's findings carried a subhead falsely suggesting that "[t]wo-thirds [of women] are less likely to back candidates who support government [health] care."In fact, poll question asked women if they would support candidates who favored "moving people" from private to public health care
Right-wing poll asked respondents whether they would support candidates who favored moving people to the public option:And, would you be ... more likely or less likely to support a candidate for Congress knowing he or she favored moving people from their private healthcare plans to government-run healthcare plans?WSJ op-ed presented actual question in the article. Despite the WSJ subhead's distortion of the poll results, Higgins' op-ed acknowledged the actual question in the article:
And when asked if they would be more or less likely to support a congressional candidate if the [sic] knew that he or she supported moving people from their private health-care plans to government-run care, two out of three (67%) said it would either probably (26%) or definitely (41%) make them less likely to support the politician.Proposal does not require people to take public option. Neither the current House bill, its predecessor in the House, the Senate HELP Committee bill, nor the Finance Committee bill require anybody to purchase insurance through the public option.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=ebfefef5-fbfc-4230-9282-2582c09375dc)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment