Steve Benen on the rest of the media’s (minus Jacob Weisberg) bizarre defense of Fox News:
But let’s put all of that aside and focus on a point too many observers don’t appreciate: the line between Fox News’ personality-driven primetime hosts and Fox News’ “reporting” doesn’t exist. This isn’t a network that does legitimate journalism during the day, and then let’s GOP clowns run wild at night — this is a network that acts as the arm of a political party and a cog in a larger partisan machine all day.
[….]Josh (Marshall) added, “If you actually watch Fox News with any regularity it’s hard to see any point to discussing the fact that the station operates more or less openly as a wing of the GOP.” And yet, now that the White House has shown the audacity to note this plain fact, the pushback from other media figures is pretty intense.
For Ruth Marcus and others, the problem isn’t that Fox News is making a mockery of modern journalism; the problem is that the White House has acknowledged reality. The establishment, I’m afraid, is complaining about the wrong party here.
There are lots of reasons for why mainstream journalists to would side with Fox on this one. There’s the fact that it’s always good to take an irrational right-wing position to prove you’re not teh librul. There’s the need to defend fellow real journalists like Chris Wallace and Brit Hume from the vituperative, foul-mouthed blogging hordes. (EDIT: if you can’t tell this is snark….)
But I have to wonder if there’s something else at work here too: the possibility of having to work for Murdoch some day. It’s an article of faith among a lot of journalists that Murdoch is a super-brilliant businessman whose genius will transcend the economic crisis that is destroying the news business, that he will somehow take declining ad revenues and make declining-ad-revenue-ade. Better to be on his side, just to be safe.
Maybe I’m being too cynical. But I think that’s part of the dynamic here.
Fred Hiatt
Hey, I don’t need to be lectured on journalism by someone who’s never even been to a Georgetown cocktail party.
mutt
Britt Hume? You say he’s, like, a real journo, and NOT hack ideologue?
Huh?
Quaker in a Basement
Hey, a white man’s gotta get paid!
handy
Fox even admitted in a court of law–on the record–that they lie and when they broadcast their lies they call it news. They fought for that right. You would never know that the way the Sensible Serious Press has responded to Anita Dunn and the WH. It’s as if it’s irrelevant to these “journalists” that an organization under the banner of journalism broadcasts lies.
Wait a second…
handy
@mutt:
LOL does all sarcasm need its tag next to it? Perhaps I am not aware of all internet traditions.
Midnight Marauder
Fixed, etc.
There are no reasons for such intellectually dishonest and hollow actions as defending Fox News as a legitimate news operation. But there are certainly a multitude of reasons why the hacks and stenographers that constitute the Establishment Media would side with Fox against
the White Housesane people everywhere.I think you clearly demonstrate the case in your post. But don’t give those stenographers the benefit of even creating the slightest scintilla of legitimacy in their actions.
There are none.
Sentient Puddle
@handy:
Whoa, I want a link for that. This is golden.
General Winfield Stuck
Murdoch is 77 years old, so unless he can find the fountain of youth fairly soon, the devil will be his only employee.
jayackroyd
Not alone. I said this in atrios comments. tapper has been especially committed to defending fox jobs.
cleek_on_the_run
why would anyone want to speak out against a network that has shown the ability to muster its own militia ?
Gregory
Fixed.
Cat Lady
You forgot the air quotes around “fellow real journalists”. The MSM hacks never cite Shep Smith, always Chris Wallace and Brit Hume, who are Exhibit A to the White House’s Fox “News” not being news argument. By the way, it’s not possible to be too cynical when it comes to the MSM and Murdoch. He’s the 800 pound gorilla in their newsrooms and living rooms, every minute of every day.
And it took someone from Sydney, Australia to make the hack-of-the-day at the WaPo point out the obvious:
Elizabelle
Here’s the transcript of the PBS Newshour segment last night with
“Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, a research organization, and Jane Hall, a media professor at American University. She was, until recently, a contributor to a weekly media watch program on FOX News.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/july-dec09/fox2_10-19.html
FWIW: I thought Ms. Hall, the Fox guest, was the more forthcoming and, frankly, honest of the two.
Very troubling WRT Rosenstiel, whom I’d taken for a straight shooter on previous appearances.
Yes, the Bush Administration pushed back against the NYTimes, but wasn’t most of what they pushed back against generally proven to be true, in the final analysis?
Paul Krugman had a good piece on that. It goes up next.
Zifnab
Rupert Murdoch is willing to do what few of his peers will accept. He is willing to operate his news businesses at a loss.
The New York Post and the Weekly Standard never turned a profit under his administration. FOX was started with near non-existent profits, and Rupert pushed hard to get it on every cable provider in the nation. Only recently has it made it into the red, and even then no thanks to guys like Glenn Beck who happily hemorrhaged advertisers.
And this model isn’t unique to Rupert either. Clear Channel was willing to drop a cool $400 million on El Rushboi’s contract. Then it found a $400 million budget hole and filled it by slashing away at staff.
There’s always room for another million dollar salary and your ratings don’t matter a smidge. Just ask Lou Dobbs, who has been courting offers from FOX for months. Wingnut welfare, baby! That gravy train has got to look awfully tempting.
And this is setting aside the right wing bias of parent companies GE and Disney. You’ll notice how CBS is the “liberal” broadcast outlet and also happens to be the last not completely consumed by mega-corps.
geg6
I have sort of had the same reaction and conclusion to this bizarre situation as you, Doug. I watched Chris Matthews acting all up in arms over the White House criticism of FOXNews the other day and kept thinking, whut? And then, it dawned on me that people like Tweety are just covering their own asses with Murdoch. They think he’s this superhero of media, completely impervious to markets and the things that affect the media marketplace. And that, apparently, he isn’t like a zillion years old and will live forever and provide them with their well-paid pundit chairs from which to bloviate until the end of time. Meanwhile, they are completely blind to the demographics that show FOX, the WSJ, Rupert, and pretty much all old media like tv and newspapers are like the wooly mammoths of our time. Still lumbering around and pretty scary when you run across one, but fewer and fewer people actually do and people under 30 don’t even know they still exist, let alone ever find themselves face to face with one.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Pre-asskissing? I refuse to believe any of those clowns have the ability to perform this type of forward planning.
The so-called journalists who defend this crap do it for one reason only: They want to keep the bar for what passes for news very low so they don’t have to do any work.
Imagine how fast their pants are filling up at the thought that people might question the value of the constant stream of wankery, mock-shock and half-arsed opinions thinly disguised as fact they’ve swapped the news for.
Keith G
Seems as if “journalists”, high priests of American media, are reluctant to call out the misdeeds of their own – not unlike the priests of the Catholic Church.
Big surprize.
freelancer
DougJ,
This may be my favorite title out of all the posts you’ve ever written.
handy
@Sentient Puddle:
Here’s one to start. There’s more to be found out there on the Google.
Violet
They’re just circling the wagons. You attack Fox “News,” you attack them too. We are all Fox News. In cable news world, anyway.
Zifnab
@cleek_on_the_run: :-p There’s a difference between not speaking out against and actively standing up for. These guys aren’t just twiddling their thumbs in the middle of a shit storm. They’re leaping over each other in defense of the bastion of right wing talk.
danimal
I like the way you think, DougJ. Always look to the incentives when evaluating motives. Self-interest trumps ideology. Usually.
Australian-American faux newsman billionaire dollars spend just as green as Obamafacist dollars. Also.
DougJ
This may be my favorite title out of all the posts you’ve ever written.
Well, the credit goes to Gregory for suggesting “chickens” rather than “hens”.
Max
@jayackroyd: I noticed that, both at the briefing and he’s all a-Twitter about it.
Cue Toby Harnden, from the Telegraph UK, for the “First they came for Fox” hyperbole.
Yes, because this is exactly like the extermination of the Jews. Wankers. Every fucking one of them.
General Winfield Stuck
Actually, I am mildly surprised at the tepid response from the MSM proper. Most of the pooh poohing on Obama’s war of Fox has seemed more just pro forma questioning of Obama’s getting distracted, and not so much a rousing defense of Fox. though I’m not watching a lot of cable news currently.
While it may be true, the grunts in the media news biz wonder if they may be working for Murdoch someday, I doubt that many would be all that enthused at the prospect. There are always the ambitious sprouts, like Chuckee Todd, that have stars in their eyes and bank accounts, but most vets would just as soon not be under the News Corp,. thumb I’d suspect, imho.
JGabriel
I think you’re right, though I also think it’s not the smart play. Not that anyone would accuse our mainstream news media of being overly brilliant.
But think about it for a moment — if the current news paradigms are losing money, then the search for new models that will make money kind of precludes doing things the old way.
That means that either Murdoch should be looking for people critical of his media empire, or people looking for long term success should be looking in directions other than Murdoch.
.
cleek
i don’t know if i think they’re planning to work for Murdoch, but i do think that they all play for the national journalism league and they don’t want to antagonize their peers for something as trivial as the kinds of stories the other guy reports.
the presumably-less-biased media is full of knuckleheads and dimwits – we’re lucky if they can report a story accurately, let alone free of bias. these are the same clowns who spent weeks talking about “death camps” without bursting into laughter. you think they can even tell that FOX is slanted ?
J
The most that could be said for the reaction to the white house criticism of Fox news is that there is something a bit questionable about a government questioning the bona fides of critics in the media. It’s just to easy for those in power to dismiss criticisms in this way rather than answering it. I think this has a certain plausibility if–and it’s a big if–one abstracts from the actual content of what Fox news says (scurrilous lies and slanders) and what the administration says. The main problem, however, is that this comes down to saying that criticism of Fox would be better coming from another source. To be sure, but what would that source be if not the so-called or would-be legitimate press? For example, stories along the lines of ‘we’ve put our crack investigative research team to work looking into allegations on Fox that …., our findings are…. ‘ would be welcome. But there has instead been, as usual, pretty deafening silence there. Promoting ruling class interests by stretching, torturing, mutilating and, when needs be, murdering the truth isn’t the kind of thing that gets a rise out of our establishment press. The reserve their ire for DFHs with blogs.
freelancer
@DougJ:
You can share, I wrote it when Hens was still up.
DougJ
You can share, I wrote it when Hens was still up.
Thanks. I feel better now.
MattF
I have a suspicion that the Villagers never watch Fox News. It’s the sort of thing that the little people do. Someone ought to make Ruth Marcus actually watch Glenn Beck for a few days in a row–
General Winfield Stuck
@J:
Oh, I don’t know. Media criticism is one thing, even if it’s partisan in nature and low on facts. The likes of Glenn Beck rising to marquee status is something else altogether. And becoming part and parcel to a partisan grassroots political movement like the Tea Bag crazies takes it even further down the crazy road of political promotion in liew of claiming your a news org. I think this is the single point of what the Obama admin. is saying. That Fox News has jumped that shark with both feet, and should be considered just one big 24 hour GOP campaign ad. Christ, they been caught actually managing and participating in some tea bag events.
Woody
Of course that’s one of the most important elements to understand why mainstream ‘journalists’ defend FOX. NewsCorp never forgives any slight by any outsider (and has a security arm to back it up).
Remember, too, in the power of circles. Co-careerists know each other through university and professional organizations, shared children’s prep schools, churches, and especially the gala cocktail parties of McLean and Georgetown.
When it comes to truth vs. mild discomfort over a canapé, Our Intrepid Media will always shaft truth. You see, they will never be punished for it, unlike social disgraces . . .
LoveMonkey
Brit Hume is a real journalist?
In that case, I am the fucking Queen of Sheba.
drillfork
Forget Fox. This is just another example of the media sticking together. The MSM never eats its own. Remember Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner? Even Keith Olbermann criticized him (under the guise of “not being funny”). Why? Because as viciously as he attacked the Bush Administration to their faces, Colbert absolutely savaged the Villagers to their faces.
Now, Olbermann may or may not have believed that Colbert “wasn’t funny.” But I imagine he felt like he had to stick up for all his correspondents and contributors, the regular MSNBC schmucks who fill his program.
It really is a Village. And they look out for one another…
The Bearded Blogger
@kommrade reproductive vigor: DING DING DING!
Dougj, you are one of my favorite bloggers and I love you, but NEVER GO AGAINST OCKHAM’S RAZOR.
The explanation for the Fox defense is simple: mediocre media hacks want to keep the bar real low. Questioning fox hackery is questioning all hackery.
There is a ghost running around washington media… it is the ghost of competence….
Hacks of the world unite!, you have your jobs and aura of respectability to lose!
David
Fox would happily and shamelessly attack and smear any tv personality who might acknowledge the fact that they’re part and parcel of the GOP.
Zifnab
@drillfork:
Well, and that’s the real joke isn’t it? FOX went out of it’s way to pillary the rest of the media. They were the loudest voices condemning Dan Rather in the ’04 rat fuck. They threatened to start a campaign against the President of GE in part of the O’Reilly / Olbermann feud. They regularly call out journalists and bloggers – from Glenn Greenwald to Matt Taibi to Markos Moulitas – that they consider “too liberal”. And they’re happy to claim any scalps that pass their way.
FOX doesn’t defend it’s media peers in the slightest. In fact, it goes out of its way to launch right wing attacks on even the most luck warm moderates. Hell, I can’t count how many times they’ve even gone after each other, with Sean Hannity launching salvos at David Frum or Brit Hume for being insufficiently starbursty over George Bush or Sara Palin.
Cathie from Canada
The White House has breached the fourth wall here — you know, the invisible “wall” of a theatre stage where nobody is supposed to acknowledge or speak directly to the audience.
By calling Fox out, the White House is subverting the conventional journalistic fiction that reporters should never be blamed for anything because they are just “reporting” the news.
Of course, this isn’t true now and actually hasn’t ever been true (remember The Front Page, or Citizen Kane?) but reporters loved to believe it because then they didn’t have to be accountable or take responsibility for their work.
I also love the title for this post, and suggest a sub-title too: “There ain’t nobody here but us chickens”
Makewi
Fox News, the WSJ, IBD and Rush Limbaugh. It’s a shame there isn’t any other news media or left leaning opinion makers out there. Must be a tough world for the modern progressive.
How put upon you must feel.
Reason60
Good post- for some added history, Greenwald has long had some of the sharpest comments regarding the insular, incestuous world of media. There is a detachment in the bi-coastal media rivaled only by the bizarre bubble world of Hollywood.
As with the “debate” on Afghanistan, the only option not allowed to be discussed is the one most Americans would prefer- to get out.
Even ideological opponents in the media stick together- the “arguments” are akin to prosecutors and defense attorneys battling in court, then joining afterward in a bar to bond their friendship.
The narrative of “Left” and “Right” that is erected must be maintained, and nursed- puncturing that with criticism of the narrative is the only real taboo.
The Bearded Blogger
@JGabriel: For Murdoch, media isn’t a business, it’s a business expense, a way to keep taxes low and legislators in his pockets. Instead of paying more taxes he pays millions and millions of dollars for people to poison the minds of his victims. Odd.
Martin
Murdoch has a pretty obvious plan, IMO.
News is pretty fungible in the US, and that makes it difficult to extract real money out of viewers. Murdoch is trying to change that by making his news (Fox, WSJ, etc.) ‘different’, adding value to it. It might be wingnut value, but it’ll be value perceived by the viewer, value enough so that when he throws up his pay wall that he’s promising to do, that his audience won’t shrug their shoulders and say ‘Oh well, MSNBC is good enough’, instead they’ll buy a subscription.
The problem here is AP. So long as they are willing to syndicate their stuff out to the 4 corners, nobody has a competitive advantage because pretty much everyone is pimping the same story. Any story that is similar to AP (ABC, CNN, etc.) might as well just be AP if it comes down to a pay/free choice. So, Murdoch needs to drive his network as far from AP as possible for his plan to work. He needs Glenn Beck and he needs Megyn Kelly and he genuinely needs to poison the news media well here and to bring his audience along, otherwise he’s nothing more than an outlet for google ads, like Kos or BJ or anyone else. In a way, the more MSNBC manages to look liberal by putting out Olbermann and Maddow, the better off Murdoch is – and the more Olbermann allows Murdoch and Fox to play the victim card on behalf of all of those God-fearing, real ‘murcans, the more likely he’ll be able to take them behind the pay wall.
Think of it as a big Jonestown enterprise, but with a $29.95 annual charge rather than Kool-Aid at the end.
The Bearded Blogger
@Makewi: Whatever man it is you are attacking, it is made of straw
Dave
I think you’re going contrarian here DougJ. The wankers defend FOX because they think they’re all in the same business: opposing Democrats. And they’re right.
Makewi
If you allow the government to consider Fox News illegitimate, then which part of the fourth estate will it go after next? What if Nixon had been able to do something similar to the WaPo?
geg6
Trolls act as if media are all liberal like back in the glory days of Tricky Dick and St. Ronnie (newsflash: wasn’t true then either. I know; I was there). And then screech about MSNBC. Sorry, but three hours per day (6pm, 8pm, and 9pm) is not the makings of a liberal media empire. And the only print media that can be pointed to as unabashedly liberal are Mother Jones and The Nation. But please feel free to show me how I’m wrong, troll.
Sly
Chris Wallace and Brit Hume are real journalists in the same sense that I’m a real visitor from the planet Zebulon, come to Earth to sample your excellent produce and roller coasters.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Yeah, yeah Scarlett, we’ve heard it all before, teh liberal news media. So that gives you license to build Glen Beck a doom room and rant all day about how commie Obamabots are taking over the world and calling it news. Wingnut logic.
And since you morans get to wank about the news being liberal all the time, why can’t we wank about your alleged news being wingnut all the time. That is really all that is happening here, no one says Fox shouldn’t be on the air, just that we have the right to call it non news bullshit, just like you’ve been doing for decades now with the liberal bias nonsense.
More WATB hypocrisy from the right, that libtards are fighting back/ poor babies.
Calouste
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
This.
In the end the journalists just want to collect rent for being well connected, not do any actual work. Just like all the would be Galts really.
Midnight Marauder
@Makewi:
Do you even attempt to discern what the particular topic of discussion for a given thread is before you just come spewing your disingenuous nonsense all over it? Because, honestly, at no point did anyone come close to talking about whatever the fuck point it is you’re trying to make.
A little effortA smidge of respectabilitySome courtesy, pleaseReading comprehensionJust fucking pretend like you’re making an effort, that’s all I’m asking.Lev
Interesting theory, Martin, but AP has been skewing rightward for at least a year now. Fournier’s seeing to that. Is United Press still around?
DougJ has a real point, but there’s one major point that’s missing here. The media is dominated by liberals, but they’re elite, self-hating liberals who really do believe that almost the entire country is right-wing and thus don’t want to ever be seen as anti-conservative. It’s basically cynicism–they figure they’re smart insiders, most voters are ignorant saps who will eat whatever Fox feeds them, so who really cares about keeping them informed?
Aside from the porn industry, I can’t think of another industry aside from the media that has such open contempt for its members.
The Bearded Blogger
@Lev: I think porn people care a lot about their members. Their members are their livelihood.
Lev
@The Bearded Blogger: Hehe, you caught me in some ambiguity there. I should have said something like patrons.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
OT: Ralph Nader is on The Ed Show right now. Odd but it looks like Nader is morphing into Trafficant. Are the related? Right now, they both look like winos you would find behind a 7-11, grubby and swigging from a paper bag with a half full bottle of Thunderbird in it.
Demo Woman
I just listened to Beck’s latest rant about volunteering and Hollywood promoting it. He compared what Hollywood is doing to Armstrong Williams being paid by the administration to promote education. Someone needs to explain to Beck the difference between promoting legislation and helping your neighbor.
geg6
Lev: I do not agree that the media is monolithically liberal. It has never been true. They might sympathetically cover “liberal” issues, like the civil rights movement, but not always (see: feminism). They have no morality other than self-preservation. They used to have a kind of industry morality to facts and the general good in addition to self-preservation. But now it’s all self-preservation. Believe me, I grew up as a child of a journalist who hung out with other journalists and began my post-college career at a newspaper. I know these people.
Makewi
Who’s calling Glenn Beck news? Paranoid fantasy.
What liberal media? I don’t see no liberal media.
LoveMonkey
@Makewi:
Well, Mister DougJ’s Latest Handle, Nixon and his cronies beat up on the WPost on an almost daily basis. They were brutal and merciless, setting the standard for press bashing that is still in effect today. And lo and behold, they made a movie called All the President’s Men and guess what, the stars of the story were WP reporters.
So there ya go. Of course, when WP went after the White House for criminal activity, it turned out, they were on to something.
The Teaparty/DeathPanel Channel might have a harder time establishing that kind of credibility. Eh?
Demo Woman
@Makewi: The helicopters aren’t laughing.
Neutron Flux
@Makewi: Yeah, I hear ya. But I am wondering, what if Spartucus had a Piper Cub?
Lex
Nah, I think they’re just stupid.
geg6
Demo Woman: Damn you! Now I have Pepsi all over my BlackBerry.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Shorter Makewi – I don’t see nothin’, I don’t know nothin;, I just troll cause they told me to.
arguingwithsignposts
@Demo Woman:
Maybe if Makewi faxes her credenza … she’ll … show … you!
@geg6: Gass never gets old.
mistersnrub
but, but…Major Garrett!
Makewi
@General Winfield Stuck:
Like I said, paranoid fantasy. You should get away from your computer more. Talk to real people about things that aren’t partisan related.
Scott
Better to be on his side, just to be safe.
No, it’s not that they want to protect Murdoch, just in case they need him someday. Ultimately, they agree with the right-wingers. They all favor the Republican side of things. They’re not whoring themselves to make some money — they’re doing because they really, really love their pimp.
Martin
Well, Murdoch is sucking in most of the audience. Just looking at the major NY papers, the NYT has a circulation of about 1M, the Post (Murdoch) has 750K, and the WSJ has about 2M. The ‘liberal’ NYT isn’t exactly dominating the market.
And unlike, well anyone, Murdoch actually has voiced a plan to be profitable. Will it work? I don’t think so, but at least he has a plan other than ‘lay off staff and pray’. AP knows where the market is and they’re slowly chasing it, but that doesn’t invalidate my theory, because no matter how crazy AP might be willing to get, Murdoch is willing to go much further.
And yes, UPI is still around.
Zifnab
@Martin:
That’s actually insidiously fucking brilliant.
JK
Any news junkie understands that Fox News Channel is the most intellectually dishonest news organization in America. Their programming is a bottomless cesspool of lies and a putrid, super sized, steaming pile of excrement.
Steve Benen is absolutely correct that “the line between Fox News’ personality-driven primetime hosts and Fox News’ “reporting” doesn’t exist.”
The Ten Most Egregious Fox News Distortions
h/t http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20/the-ten-most-egregious-fo_n_327140.html
Tom Rosenstiel took a dive on the NewsHour last night by refusing to acknowledge that Fox News is a fraud and a crime against journalism.
Silver Owl
It is much cheaper and requires less money, time, resources and actual reporting to uphold Fox News shit standards.
Those who want the dumb dirty masses to be obedient will pay top dollar for feeding crap. One thing today’s executives love is having others fawn at their feet and give them extra money for shoe shopping trips.
The media personalities that enjoy doing a shit job for mega bucks have no reason to want viable competition that could and would do their job better.
The media businesses that have been around too long will defend Fox News. Those that want to survive in the future will bury Fox News.
General Winfield Stuck
@Makewi:
Send us your certs.
We’d like to learn a little bit about you for our files
Neutron Flux
@Neutron Flux: Spartacus, dumbass.
Midwest Meg
As an ex-news reporter, I think you’re right. Our news media is made up of craven careerists–especially the Beltway crew. Also, as others have noted, the Villagers are now hard-wired to lean Right, which is a combination of having to please right-wing publishers and of having D.C being run by conservative for lo these last 30 or 40 years.
arguingwithsignposts
BTW, speaking of news media, I’m amazed that Olbermann compared the Balloon Boy saga to the Aristocrats. I assume most of his audience would be up on teh funny, but it’s a gross joke and I’m amazed he pulled it out for this episode.
John Cole
Fox News openly promoted the tea parties. Doesn’t that end the debate right there?
Omnes Omnibus
@General Winfield Stuck: Makewi is EOD trained? Who knew?
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
does for me
Martin
Uh, he’s on ‘Fox News’. I think that, pretty much by definition, means that he and Murdoch are calling him news.
metricpenny
I’m with Dave @ 41. I’d speculate they’re GOP sympathizers.
Or just mad that their self-worth … er, net worth will take a hit when Obama allows the Bush tax cuts to expire.
Gwangung
@John Cole: Not for Real Americans.
Beauzeaux
This just makes me miss Media Whores Online all the more.
Midnight Marauder
@John Cole:
I think the debate ended the second time they pulled one of their favorite tricks: switching the R/D on a politician’s name.
One time, meh, you could argue it’s a mistake.
Countless times over countless years? Yep, you’re not a legitimate news organization.
Xenos
@Beauzeaux: The horse was not with us for long, but it left quite a legacy.
LanceThruster
Nobody wants to be told, “You’ll never work in this town again!” unless they’ve amassed sufficient F-U money.
HB
No, you’re not being too cynical. Like Lily Tomlin said a few years back: she wasn’t cynical; she couldn’t keep up with all the stuff to be cynical about. Neither can I, and neither can you. It’s worse today than when Lily first uttered those words. HB Acker
Fulcanelli
@Makewi:
Is this fool Makewi a new low rent version of ‘Atarjuanat’, you know, back in his first BJ incarnation when we all wanted to strap him to an anthill? Makewi puts the lotion on itself or it get the hose again.
That court decision that handy just linked to is IMO the perfect opportunity for the feds to require FOX to run a “this is opinion” or “news entertainment” disclaimer at the start of every programming segment on the FOX News network if they can get away with openly lying to the public. Sadly, the loyal FOX audience is either too stupid to notice or would probably still watch it anyway.
Morton Downey Jr. would be proud.
Makewi
@John Cole:
And the other networks derided them calling them “teabaggers”, so it should end the debate on both sides.
slag
@Cathie from Canada:
There’s some truth to this. Even though members of the media love to report on themselves, they don’t want anyone else to report on them. Reporting/analyzing is their job, and the WH is taking away their job.
Like when America’s Concern Troll opined today:
I’ve seen this criticism of Obama before. It’s also one of the things the media elite has against teh interwebs. People aren’t allowed to write their own stories because doing so renders members of the media–in their minds–useless. And instead of finding new ways to be useful–like…I don’t know…checking out somebody’s accuracy in storytelling or something–they’d rather just be defensive.
slag
@Makewi: I don’t think horse manure works well as a pie ingredient. You should double check your recipe.
Fulcanelli
@Makewi: Well what would you call angry, pasty faced, white racist lunatics running around with tea bags stapled to their hats and signs, and sewn to their clothes?
I mean, other than the GOP “base”, of course.
slag
@Fulcanelli: “Working Americans”
asiangrrlMN
Fap pat pat pat fap pat pat pat fap pat pat pat. That’s the sound of the Village jacking off with one hand and patting each other on the back with the other.
Bad Horse's Filly
Another depressing day of horrible news out of Fort Carson. They’ve been hit so hard these last few weeks with casualities. I feel it – I spent 3 years living a stone’s throw away from that base while my dad was stationed in Colorado Springs. No Air Force/Army rivalry – bases and families were too close.
So I need me some pet pictures, Mr. Cole. I’d love to see Tunch, but I’d settle for BJ-er’s pets. Meanwhile I’ll head over to LOLCat.
Midnight Marauder
@Makewi:
Because they are, in fact, self-proclaimed “teabaggers.” What do teabaggers call themselves then, if not teabaggers?
And no, “Real Americans” is not an acceptable answer.
LD50
@Makewi: So now condemning Fox is the same was threatening to shut it down. Brilliant.
Geez, no wonder people kick you around here.
LD50
@Makewi: Says the genius who wanders in here every day and babbles wingnut talking points.
LD50
@Makewi:
Makewi, you are really wearing out this whole ’embittered wingnut hag’ routine.
Napoleon
Sunday my local paper the Cleveland Plain Dealer ran a complete political hit piece on ACORN on the front page, headline story, that was just amazing.
After 25 years I canceled the paper.
dmsilev
@asiangrrlMN: I’ve got Chris Matthews on in the background right now. Thank you *ever* so much for ruining my appetite for dinner, and probably breakfast and lunch tomorrow.
-dms
Martin
Well, you measure legitimacy by who is in the room. Is Fox still getting press credentials? If so, and if the government isn’t censoring, then what’s the problem?
Violet
Have you voted for Little Bitsy today? Even James Wolcott is encouraging his readers to vote for her.
Vote Bitsy!
J
General WS #32
Sure, but what you’re saying seems to be compatible with I said. As you say, Fox takes it to a whole new level, not a difference in degree but in kind. But I take it the mainstream voices that are objecting to the White house’s response are, as I put it, abstracting from the actual behavior of Fox and just classifying the White House response under the head ‘sitting admin denies critics in press are legitimate practitioners of craft’ and pretending, as they like to do, that there is all the usual, both sides do it blah blah blah, instead of acknowledging that Fox and the movement to which it is tied are crazy fanatics. Their line, if I’ve got it right, has a certain measure of plausibility if you ignore the distinctive features of the present situation, which isn’t to defend it but to say it’ their job to pay attention to those features.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
hey, that’s cool. let’s hope he helps put Bitsy over the top!
valdivia
Maybe OT but perhaps not so much given the constant accusations by Fox that Obama is a tyrant. As if they knew what that means. This is what it looks like. A fantastic documentary on Pinochet which I just watched for one of my classes is depressing, blood curling and sobering. Must watch.
MikeJ
I expect Obama to pull Marshall Mcluhan out from behind a curtain at his next press conference.
Makewi
@Midnight Marauder:
They call themselves “tea partiers”. So no, they aren’t self-proclainmed “teabaggers”.
Gregory
@DougJ:
Gosh, thanks!
Demo Woman
@Violet: Great plug for Bitsy! John and crew are attracting quite a viewing audience.
'Niques
@Martin: That is the first time I’ve read something about Murdouch that seemed to make sense. I know he’s a businessman and I know it’s about the money. This puts it in perspective, thanks.
jeffreyw
Waitin for an open thread
gwangung
@Makewi: After it was pointed out to them, no.
But…revise away.
Midnight Marauder
@Makewi:
Well, I do apologize for offending such noble sensibilities. Although, I will rebut by saying that I’ve seen numerous articles and reports where you’re “tea partiers” have identified with the “teabagger” label.
If it’s all the same to you, I’ll just stick with “teabaggers.” “Delusional, incompetent morans” just doesn’t have the same rhythm as “teabaggers,” amirite?
asiangrrlMN
@dmsilev: Coulda been worse. Coulda been Wolf Blitzer or Cokie Roberts.
Midnight Marauder, you are right. They are the ones who called themselves that initially.
Anne Laurie
“Yes, but when Murdoch started negotiating with the ChiComs to learn how to run a really efficient 21st-century kleptocracy, they gave him a hot young Stanford-Business-School-trained wife as a souvenir! And now she’s bred him a couple replacements for his earlier, unsatisfactory Mark I offspring, so once Rupert is dragged down to hell by the statue of Don Corleone in the final act, Wendy’s gonna TAKE OVER THE WORLD with her relentless piranaha skillz, eleventy-one! !”
When I was reading the world-business-China-division news professionally, during the Cheney Regency, the American bidnizmedia were absolutely obsessed with this particular campfire horror tale. It encapsulated their every prejudice about wimmen and furriners and nepotism and young MBAs and megacorporate globalism, all in one prime-time-soap-worthy saga. I’m sure the only difference today is that Michael Wolff and Tom Friedman are now ‘grey eminences’ whose mythologies have hardened into the Media Village Idiots’ best imitation of received wisdom.
Demo Woman
@jeffreyw: Hopefully an open thread with a video of Tunch doing his exercises.
ellaesther
@Violet: Dude! That is so cool!
Go Bitsy, go Bitsy, go Bitsy!
asiangrrlMN
@Demo Woman: Tuuuuuuunch! I demand pictures of Tunch! Because we all know how well Cole gives into demands.
geg6
Apparently the troll forgets that it was the teabaggers themselves who started calling themselves teabaggers. We only call them that because that’s what they wanted to be called. Of course, once some junior high kid finally explained it to them, all they’ve done is whine about us mean ol’ libtards calling them names. Gawd, this is why I hate wingnuts. Whiny, hysterical, cry babies unless they are bullying someone half their size. And too stupid to understand why everybody hates them.
Anne Laurie
@MikeJ:
If Gibbs, or Rahm, pulls out a sockful of horse manure and “playfully” threatens to bash Tapper or Gregory with it, I shall die a happy woman.
slag
@Midnight Marauder: Actually, this is true. I tweeted (back in my young and foolhardy days) with a teabagger who bragged about the fact that he popularized the term. Of course, it was just a path to martyrdom afterward, but he was pretty proud of it at the time.
@MikeJ: McLuhan to media pontificators:
MikeJ
@Anne Laurie: Gibbs might be playful but I don’t think Rahm makes idle threats.
In other words, yes, I’d love to see that too!
ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: Srsly glad that my dinner is already too far down in my gullet to come back up….
Midnight Marauder
@slag:
Yeah, I thought I would entertain the protestations of Resident Troll #2 (BOB, clear, is Resident Troll #1). So to Makewi, I offer the following to your currently wounded pride:
My sincerest apologies if I offended you. I was merely posting too fast.
jeffreyw
@Demo Woman: Tunch Tunch Tunch!
Calouste
@valdivia:
Hey, Pinochet can’t be a tyrant. He was good buddies with Maggie Thatcher, who was BFF with Saint Ronnie.
(Slightly OT: is it a conincidence that both Thatcher and Reagan became affected with dementia at 75 where someone like Jimmy Carter is still as sharp as a tack at 85?)
schrodinger's cat
@John Cole:
How is the great white beast with the beautiful orange tail. His fans miss him
kommrade reproductive vigor
[Warning: May cause fatal projectile vomiting]
Dug this out of the Carpetbagger’s archives. This, apparently is the only way members of the government are allowed to speak of Faux Snooze:
matoko_chan
nonononono
This made me laff so hard.
Frum gets it.
rawr, FOXnews and Obama are strippin’ the GOP for parts.
lulz.
asiangrrlMN
@ellaesther: What? What did I say? Heh.
P.S. Thank you for commenting on my blog. I usually respond en masse late at night.
Makewi
This is a lie and you are a liar.
General Winfield Stuck
Nukular triangulation
TenguPhule
This is irony.
Fuck you is satire.
maya
Some years ago, when I was still watching Leno, he made a joke about FOX News being an extension of the Republican Party in his opening monologue one night. The audience got it. Now if even a Repo like Leno was aware of the connection, then what’s with the fainting goats of the Village?
matoko_chan
Makewi, you glued the teabagger epithet on your bigselves.
All you had to do was ask one of your kids or check the Urban Dictionary.
EVERYONE in the 18 to 29 demographic knows what teabagging is.
That the Teabagger Demographic didn’t just points out that the GOP is teh Party of Old People.
matoko_chan
well…..not Jehovah Witnesses or mormons or home-school graduates or college students at Oral Roberts….maybe.
;)
ellaesther
@asiangrrlMN: Oh, I don’t respond at all on my own blog…! The better to avoid fighting in my own virtual home, you see. And it was my pleasure. I have enormous respect for your honesty and your search.
But seriously, dude, if you’re going to bring up conservative wanking and back-patting and the noises thereto, really: Warn a gal first!
valdivia
@Calouste:
yeah I know. He must have been a good guy right? /snark
I am so depressed after that documentary I am going to drink on a school night.
dmsilev
@Makewi: Might want to do a modicum of research before calling people liars. Here’s Wkipedia:
That footnote [119] goes to a tea-whatever exhortation from 1 April 2009 (ie about 2 weeks before the mockery started in ernest) which is titled ” Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.”
Your move.
-dms
Phoenix Woman
Dear Make-Wee-Wee:
The title of this April 1, 2009 conservative Teabagger blog post (http://www.reteaparty.com/2009/02/27/rick-santelli-is-as-mad-as-hell-chicago-tea-party/) is:
Eat it raw, dude.
Phoenix Woman
@dmsilev:
Heh! GMTA!
General Winfield Stuck
@dmsilev: @Phoenix Woman:
Our dynamic duo
Ruskus
@Martin:
Think of it as a big Jonestown enterprise, but with a $29.95 annual charge rather than Kool-Aid at the end.
Nice take on the issue but the summery says it all.
@‘Niques:
It’s always about the money, how much he can get and how much we have to pay. Except we don’t have to pay anything. He does not seem to own/produce anything humans actually need, just crap they want.
dmsilev
@Phoenix Woman: Heh.
I’m sure Makewi will find some way to either ignore or dismiss what we both managed to dig up in a couple of minutes of work.
-dms
dmsilev
@General Winfield Stuck: When the Troll-signal lights up the night sky, we must respond.
-dms
HRA
@Zifnab:
You have to see that it’s the “plan”. It keeps the interest high and therefore the ratings. O’Reilly attacks Olbermann. Then Olbermann reciprocates. The audience can tune into O’Reilly earlier and into Olbermann later. It’s a win-win for both. This is only one example.
@maya:
The fainting goats of the Village are led by their shepherds.
BruceFromOhio
@Martin:
I do believe you have it right there.
LD50
My prediction is that MakeWee will disappear for the night, and reappear tomorrow pretending this never happened, her towering reputation for wisdom untouched.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@matoko_chan: They call it Saddlebagging.
(Link goes to Savage Love. If you’re at work … just don’t.)
Zuzu's Petals
@General Winfield Stuck:
The difference being that one is based on fact.
General Winfield Stuck
@LD50:
Scarlett is a 5 day workweek troll with boss somewhere, at least imo. It prolly won’t be possible to shame her into leaving, and lately she has provided some primo comedy material to work with. And I am always cool with that.
General Winfield Stuck
@Zuzu’s Petals:
I know. I was just being exceedingly generous for argument sake.
Phoenix Woman
@dmsilev:
Hold on, I’ve got Commissioner Gordon on the other line!
Jason Bylinowski
This situation is such a tough call for me. It goes without saying that I hate FOX News, especially that smarmy fucking idiot Chris Wallace, who daily pisses all over his journalistic legacy. BUT…….do we really want the White House going there? I mean, we have lots of websites, all of them very active, that are solely committed to debunking stupid FOX stories, to convincing their advertisers to pull out, among other things. I admit that it’s all essentially a fruitless endeavor (because as has been noted many times, Murdock doesn’t give a flip about the money element of it) but it’s the only appropriate venue for airing these kinds of grievances.
I sympathize with the White House because FOX really has gone out of its way to subvert the national agenda. But that doesn’t mean they have permission to start a flame-war. (If
FOX ever got openly seditious, that’s another story, but one would have to have a very high standard for what would be considered seditious.)
Now: why would I, a named socialist devil, poo-poo on the parade of my hero, fellow terrorist Barack Obama? First of all, this kind of conduct fucks with the decorum of the Office. You can call me a stick in the mud or old-fashioned if you want: to my mind, decorum is what keeps the two-party system from erupting into a literal gang-war. Secondly, I generally hate the slippery slope argument, but this surpasses my distaste; besides, once the State takes on the media, whether it’s justified or not, you have already slid down the fucking hill. As much as I hate FOX News, the only weapon we have against them is the superiority of our philosophy and our culture, and to my mind, we are most definitely winning the long-term battle.
BruceFromOhio
@Napoleon:
And that from Stephen Koff, too – this is saddening, but not surprising. He got fed a line of shit from Issa, ate too much, and puked all over his story before turning it.
Martin
No, they all know what teabagging is – they just won’t admit to it. You think the two wetsuits and a dildo is an outlier? The gay prostitute and crystal meth? You realize that Utah is the largest per-capita consumer of online porn?
BruceFromOhio
@TenguPhule: FTW
asiangrrlMN
@ellaesther: Heh. But if I warned ya, you wouldn’t have read it, now would you?
I always respond to the comments on my blog. Most of my commenters are highly civil and articulate (much like you), so the debate is usually thoughtful and engaging.
I keep reminding myself that the more people talk about their experiences, the less shameful the experiences will seem.
Oh, and this is way OT.
bayville
Shorter Ruth Marcus: “Professional wrestling is real.”
dougymi
I quite agree with the post. I’ve long suspected that the entire reason howard kurtz has defended fox and written hagiographies about fox hosts and “analysts” has been because he wants a place to go after john king reclaims that 10am hour on sundays for the new “john mccain tireswinging show” cohosted by the old fart and dana bash. You have to know that king’s salivating about it. howie will have no other place to go save fox news.
Lurker with a Preexisting Condition
@Demo Woman: Have you seen this kitty exercise video? :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qXWCm3X7qg
Calouste
@matoko_chan:
The Teabagger demographic is not only unaware that teabagging has an additional meaning, they are also unaware of such things as UrbanDictionary, the Googles, probably the whole internet, or at a minimum the whole concept behind it and the parts of it that aren’t Fox and black helicopter conspiracy sites, and the fact that there is such a thing as a youth culture.
In summary, they are unaware of anything but themselves and their tiny little bubble.
Zuzu's Petals
@Midnight Marauder:
Aside from the fact the term came from commentators like Olberman and Maddow and not the news anchors, you are making the mistake of buying into her basic false equivalency.
A news network throwing its resources for a period of months, and then 24/7, promoting and then covering a political event, and sending its producers out to whip up the crowd for good measure … is not equivalent to a couple of commentators on other networks sticking out their tongue at them.
Wingnut 101.
Lesley
Not sure how brilliant Murdoch is if he’s willing to sacrifice advertising revenue – a lot of it – to keep the likes of Glenn Blech.
The Aspers are the Murdochs of Canada and their right wing media empire is up for sale because of bankruptcy. I guess they tried but it didn’t work too well for them here.
patrick
I don’t understand why you corrected this… “reason why” is redundant.
bago
Apparently this is the fox news talking point du jour. I was in a nice little french resturaunt today across the street from Ford’s Theater when I heard some politico type going off about how scary and unprecedented it was that the administration called out a media outlet on being biased.
I tried to point out that such behavior was almost as old as the union, and that his fear of Obama ordering the military to surround Fox and force it to shut down would kind of be an argument as to why the Unitary Executive theory was a bad idea.
It seems to be some element of belief on the right that criticism/disagreement = banning and prosecuting.
bago
Being armed with an iphone that I can google quotes from and actually carrying a book on semantics is quite fun in this town, I must say.
handy
@bago:
The Right is a perpetually persecuted class. They revel in their own victimhood.
I suppose one of the hallmarks of liberalism is openness to criticism and self-correction. I realize that’s kind of a self-serving remark, but think about it: the world moves on, science makes new discoveries, geo-political relationships shift and morph, yet Rightwingers insist on holding onto their old narratives. And proudly so. And any kind of criticism of those narratives is a full-on assault on their world view.
Fulcanelli
@maya: “Fainting goats of the Village”
I am sooooo stealing that. My sides are killing me and I can’t breathe… Tough crowd, tough crowd.
bob h
Maybe I’m being too cynical. But I think that’s part of the dynamic here.
About right. Even NYT staffers must be aware of this possibility.
matoko_chan
Well…..if mainsteam journalism can be forced to stamp FOXnews as legitimate, then why not the Christian Broadcast Network?
They have teh good news too.
Since the WEC/GOP>>50%, and GOP== the whole of FOX’s audience……FOXnews is really an evangelical christian network anyways. Beck is just a televangelist, and Rush is a radio-evangelist.
Unlike news, there is no penalty for making shit up in religion.
Bgno64
@Martin: You got it.
I mean, that’s it exactly. That’s how Murdoch keeps his business model viable, because those who are convinced they’re getting TEH TROOF only from Fox News will pony up – and really, $29.95 is too little. They’d pay a lot more.
On one level I like the idea that the wingnuts are being fleeced, and they don’t even realize it. They’re probably among the most gullible in our society – “knowing” things to be “true” in their “gut,” so all you need is the reporting and commentary that reinforces their preconceived notions. Gold.
But this also points the way for other news organizations. In the future, all partisans will have their own “truth” – with its relation to actual truth incidental, at best.
Malron
DougJ, I agree that many journalists are afraid they might be killing a chance to work for Murdoch some day. Funny thing is; Murdoch has been losing money on FOX News for years.
There’s also another possible reason they’re defending Fox: deep down, they agree with the memes.
slippy
I think the media is so used to swallowing Repuke johnson and gagging hard on it that they just don’t know how else to behave.
Which is why Fox News today, everybody else tomorrow. Fuck. Them. All. Into. The. Ground.
The media is worthless. I don’t watch TV news. I don’t read newspapers. They are all idiots and liars.
that colored fella
Yep, the fear of the Murdoch Business Model fits.
I remember a couple of decades ago when Murdoch took over the Chicago Sun-Times and turned it into a NY Post tabloid. The most wide read columnist in the city at the time was Mike Royko and he had an out clause if the Sun-Times was sold to a new owner.
He had the luxury of walking across the street to the other news outfit in town (the Tribune) at a time when print media was not under seige from the internets.
chrome agnomen
“…the problem is, the white house has acknowledged reality.”
as precisely said as could be. rule #*. “don’t point at the shiny object.”