Fox News, always willing to run the war agitprop:
How long before Nic Robertson is forced to spend more time with his family?
My personal favorite part of this is the chyron message about Charlie Sheen’s twitter followers.
by John Cole| 63 Comments
This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment
Fox News, always willing to run the war agitprop:
How long before Nic Robertson is forced to spend more time with his family?
My personal favorite part of this is the chyron message about Charlie Sheen’s twitter followers.
Comments are closed.
jl
From the cuteness of a Cole pet pix, to this mess.
I have been very careful about what news I listen to after experiencing something that may, or may not have been, a hallucination early this weekend.
Wandering around the house doing chores, I heard a special report on Libya on the news.
From another room, seemed to hear the voice of McCain yelling “America Must Win!”
Did he say that on some news show?
Scary. I decided to just be very careful about what I click on or listen too.
Mnemosyne
The funny part is, the whole “babies ripped from incubators” thing was a PR campaign by an outside group, not government propaganda.
Ahh, astroturfing. Is there anything you can’t sell?
Barb (formerly Gex)
Well, yeah, the human shield thing might have been a lie. But I’m pretty sure he actually DOES eat babies as reported.
JPL
Fox News and lies..Next thing you’ll tell me is there’s no easter bunny.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl:
I gave up on the Sunday shows a couple years ago, but I believe it was CNN/Candy Crowley who had McCain and Lieberman on together to get a balanced view of how neocon militarists view foreign policy. I also saw Lindsey Graham having a tizzy about how “we” need to “replace” Qaddafi. With what, with whom, or why that’s “our” job, he didn’t say in the clip I saw.
My first thought here was that it’s not surprising that a Brit (Aussie? don’t know) is going to be quicker to call bullshit on FoxNews than an American who has spent their whole adult life in Uncle Broder’s Re-Ned-ucation camp. A sweepin’ generalization, I know.
Omnes Omnibus
@JPL: WHAT?!
inventor
I’m shocked! SHOCKED I SAY! to find gambling going on in this establishment!
Suffern ACE
@Barb (formerly Gex):
What does the Libyan zoo look like? Any stories we can expect about how the bad guys are mean to the animals in the zoo?
jl
@inventor: It is innocent. I am sure some one was misinformed about the waters.
The Dangerman
For some reason, my Dad watches O’Reilly; tonight, he led with:
1) We destroyed Kaddafi’s compound (not true) in an attempt to kill Kaddafi (almost surely not true);
2) The American Left is walking away from Obama; the example of the American Left? Louis Farrakan. Louis Fucking Farrakan.
I had to walk away at that point.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
I wonder what FOX will say about this.
Probably nothing.
It doesn’t take wizardry and a pensieve to see that saving muslim citizen lives at this moment in the well of history might be a very good thing.
joe from Lowell
Shorter Fox: Pay attention to ME! This Libya story is about ME!
PIGL
It is strange how almost everyone rapidly developed the certainty that Mr Q. was crazy, evil and bent on nothing short of genocide ™. All these may be true for all I know, but there has been more breathless assertion of the supposedly self-evident than any actual evidence provided.
We don’t really make the case that a legitimate government supressing an insurgency qualifies as genocide, even if there are bodies all over the place. Do I really need to mention the obvious counter examples that serve our rulers interests?
And it should not be necessary to point out that I am not taking a position vis-a-vis Mr. Q. I’m just pointing out a bad and familiar smell.
arguingwithsignposts
OK, first of all, fuck the “Situation Room.” Wolff Blitzer needs to grow the fuck up and get a real show. Second, WTF is CNN interviewing anyone from FOX? head/desk
Just Some Fuckhead
@PIGL:
That was different because shut up.
OzoneR
@The Dangerman:
A wingnut friend of mine is crowing about Kucinich wanting to impeach Obama. Said something to the effect of “you lefties are our best friends, you’re going to destroy your own President”
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Suffern ACE: I have to fess up, you lost me there. I can haz a hint?
ETA: I have no idea why I went LOLCat at the end there.
+?
OzoneR
@PIGL:
Threatening to destroy an entire city and killing everyone inside qualifies as genocide.
CB
actually, that would be simple mass murder and crimes against humanity. not actually genocide.
joe from Lowell
@PIGL:
Khadaffy didn’t use military force to “suppress an insurgency.” He used military force to suppress protests. The protesters only took up arms in response to his attacks; before that, they were doing the same things as the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia. That is not legitimate.
And “insurgency?” That’s not really what’s going on. ETA: insurgents don’t hold territory. Insurgencies don’t feature front lines. Insurgents don’t administer large portions of a country under an openly-operating government.
Uprising, maybe?
Suffern ACE
@Barb (formerly Gex): In the first Iraq war, the babies in incubators story was running about the same time as stories about saddam stealing or killing the animals in the Kuwait zoo. Maybe true, but I have a tough time believing anything from that time period any longer.
piratedan
the good Colonel wasn’t shooting at protesters you big silly, he was shooting at what they were saying. They just happened to be there.
joe from Lowell
@Suffern ACE: I can’t really blame the Kuwaitis for putting together a PR strategy to get their country liberated after it had been invaded by Iraq. What would you do in their place? It’s their country, their neighbors put under Saddam’s boot.
But Fox: they’ve got no dog in this fight. They’re spewing propaganda just because they want war ratings.
Mike in NC
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Jim DeMint?
PIGL
@OzoneR: Actually, it doesn’t, unless that cities population contains a significant proportion of the total population of some ethnic or national group.
As someone pointed out it would really be threatening
.
Indeed it would be. And the USA has not in decency one word to say about it. Fallujah. The prosecution rests.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
Peace? Or is that just because it’s never been tried, not because it couldn’t possibly work?
salacious crumb
oh please, Nic Robertson is just a Fox News lite anchor. This was bound to happen. When CNN and its establishment sucking correspondents failed to ask any of the hard questions during the run up to the Iraq war, it was only natural for Fox to one up CNN and go more right wing than CNN or MSNBC. Fox is using Nic, well because they know they can get away with it..
here is just an example of Nic doing some stenography for the Bush admin in Iraq.
Nic wont be kicked out..sure he will huff and puff a bit but he knows he cant do much because Fox will get away with it..The only time people like Nic will get kicked out is when they cross the line and mildly criticize Israel
http://mediamatters.org/research/200505260006
jrg
Fox should stick to lying about college professors and anonymous liberals instead of multinational news corporations.
Arundel
@arguingwithsignposts: I’d say Blitzer would be just as terrible on any “real show” he might get- he just needs to go the fuck away, he’s just so useless. Is there the slightest hint of intelligence and personality there? He has nothing to say, but does he have to shout that nothingness?
Anyway, I love this guy Nic Robertson here, for painting a picture of the Fox News crew as cowardly and lazy, barely leaving their hotel, just making shit up and no doubt stuffing their faces and chain-smoking. His disgust is palpable, so glad he said it.
PIGL
@piratedan: even shooting your own protesting citizens does not constitute genocide, or even necessarily crimes against humanity.
Look, for god’s sake, all I am saying is that the facts matter, or should. If one is embark on military action, we should be considering real events and issues, not dirty words that can be used to justify anything.
OzoneR
@PIGL:
it does, the city contains a significant proportion of the REBEL group.
Mnemosyne
@PIGL:
Oh, well, if it’s just mass murder and crimes against humanity, what’s everyone getting so upset about? Hey, I think it’s time for “American Idol”!
OzoneR
@Roger Moore:
there have been things called peace treaties…they’ve never done much.
Canadian Observer
What about the recent revelations by Der Spiegel about US war crimes in Afghanistan?
Where’s the no-fly zone over Afgghanistan? Is this not genocide?
Take your “moral standing” and shove it, joe from Lowell!
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752310,00.html
Disgusting.
tkogrumpy
Am I the only one who thinks this footage is a watershed event? I can’t remember seeing anything this open, cut and dry as this by legit news media against Fox. Course I don’t have cable so, there’s that.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
cher is putting out a country album.
this is become the most multifaceted tragedy in the last week or so.
Canadian Observer
VIEW THE GENOCIDAL PHOTOS:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,752310,00.html
Down with the Empire!
PIGL
@OzoneR: you’re being deliberately obtuse. It’s not genocide on that count, no matter how much you personally hate it, nor how evil it may well be. And it didn’t even happen.
Get a grip.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Canadian Observer: Geez, posing with a few human trophies is hardly genocide.
doofus
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: I saw that too. Who will think of the children?
Canadian Observer
They were INNOCENT CIVILIANS.
This is WORSE than Abu Ghirab.
PIGL
@Mnemosyne: the flagrently dishnonest and manipulative use of the term “genocide” to refer to the non-destruction of a city is what is at issue, because “genocide” would justify any and all intevention that the western powers found convenient.
To what city in which Q. has so far conducted mass murder of civilians do you refer specifically? I am no longer certain what actual event is under discussion here.
Ronc99
I think Wolf Blitzer, Israeli mouthpiece, is worse than the entire network of Fox News *entertainers*!
OzoneR
@PIGL:
ok, so we’re allowed to step in only AFTER hundreds of thousands have been killed, not before?
Genocide is a the deliberate mass murder of any group; ethnic, religious or political. The rebels are a political group and he threaten to wipe them out and everyone near them. Thus, threat of genocide.
I’m not sure why this is difficult to understand.
Maybe I’m reacting because I’ve had to deal with a never ending barrage of clueless hippies whining to me about Darfur for the past decade and bemoaning that no one is stepping in on their behalf, only to get a blank stare in response to me saying “you do realize, stepping in would involve bombing Sudan”
the next time someone hands me a petition about Darfur, I’m gonna have to resist the urge to shove it up their ass.
Suffern ACE
@Mnemosyne: Genocide is a thumb on the scale. Seriously. It’s free use by the supporters to justify this war is one of the reasons I’m still on the fence. I’m not a monster.
I prefer America’s Next Top Model, but so what?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Canadian Observer: Please. If they were innocent, why did they blur their faces in the photos?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Just Some Fuckhead:
morlock, one of the accused is from wasilla alaska.
that is canada as far as i am concerned.
ppcli
@Canadian Observer: Tabernak. 25 years in the ‘States and still not a day goes by when I don’t miss something about Canada. Especially these weeks, with the Briar just, and the world curling championships coming up. But I’m glad you are here to remind me of one thing I’m always glad to be away from, and that is the insufferable and frankly unfathomable moral self-satisfaction of far too many of my compatriots. But usually the self-righteousness isn’t quite so dumb. Rant if you must, but try coming up with an original idea or two.
So look, if you really are Canadian, and not just feigning a persona in an effort to derail comment threads, please stop blathering, because you’re making us look like fools, and that’s embarrassing.
PIGL
@OzoneR: you’re just lying now.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide
Please do resist the urge to get violent the next time the subject of Darfur comes up. Preventing the attacks on the Christian villages in the South would not have required bombing anyone. It would have required a brigade of infantry with light armour and helicpoter support. Unless the objective, as usual, is to wrest the evildoers to our will, without suffering a Single Casualty no matter How Many Civilians We Have to Bomb, and without losing control of the oil.
Look, for the last time. I am not even saying we should never intervene. I am saying that, for Libya, the case has not been made by any parties worthy of trust. And yet there we are, up to our keisters in bright shiny oil and dead bodies. Excuse me if I register my fucking doubts.
OzoneR
@PIGL:
What would these infantry and helicopter support have done, asked the Sudanese to nicely stop killing people with megaphones?
This is idiotic…they would have used bombs!
ppcli
Yes it was. It pains me to say that it is almost as bad as what a unit of the Canadian Airborne did in Somalia.
Corner Stone
@OzoneR:
Maybe you should consider leaving New York, and head somewhere with less hippies.
kdaug
@joe from Lowell:
Gonna have to run with the “yep” here.
Joel
@Canadian Observer: Old news, actually. The soldiers are being court marshalled as we speak. I hope they’re given life, although I doubt it.
joe from Lowell
@OzoneR:
Political groups are not included in the international treaties defining genocide.
You may denounce Josef Stalin for that at your leisure.
Hermione Granger-Weasley
well…if you really want FOX to stop pimping Operation Odessy Dawn, just make sure they know about the Libyan Islamic Fighters Group and that al-Qaeda and the USA are on the same side in this conflict.
Remember how insane they got about the Muslim Brotherhood?
joe from Lowell
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: I don’t know. I’m going to say that “Blindly follow along behind military action with lots of cool graphics” is a higher value for Fox News than even “Oh my God, Muslims!”
Just barely, though.
Just Some Fuckhead
@joe from Lowell:
Shit, they may have to launch Fox News II and do both.
Villago Delenda Est
Don’t forget that Leslie Blitzer is the assclown who ignored his own on the air experts to push the “boy in the balloon” story. While the experts were still on camera.
A new term for “beyond worthless” would be…Leslie Blitzer.
Villago Delenda Est
Civilians. No concept whatever of the logistical requirements needed to support a brigade of infantry with light armor (or ANY armor) and helicopter support.
None.
joe from Lowell
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Internal dissent?
In a Republican Party mouthpiece?
It would last four days, and then the entire staff at whichever channel got lower ratings would have to resign en masse.
JenJen
That is simply amazing. And excellent work from Nic Robertson.
I’d love to hear what another excellent reporter in the region, NBC’s Richard Engel, has to say about this tomorrow.
And of course what’s really sad about this story is that the gazillions of Fox News viewers will never, ever know that the reporter they’re relying on for on-the-scene information is too a-feared to leave his hotel room.
replicnt6
Um… did he refer to Fox News as “journalists”? Apparently, he’s not really familiar with that organization.