APPARENTLY, THE FAR RIGHT AND FOX ARE ALLEGERIC TO THE TRUTH
Gary Ater
July 12, 2010
...The logo for the questionable "Fixed News"
In today´s overwhelming volume of misinformation being spewed by the far-right, radio and TV ding-bats, how does anyone with half-an-ounce of commonsense, decide about which one of those yo-yo´s to take on and dispute or de-bunk?
Looking at a short list of those that hit the airwaves every day with all their un-truthful and sometimes slanderous statements, one must consider these many undesirable choices: There´s "Slant-Head" Hannity, "Lardo" Limbaugh, and don´t forget the "The Mad Professor" Herr Beckster". There´s also "Drill Baby Drill" Palin and the "Highly Insulting" Laura Ingraham, to name a few.
But the latest "loud-mouthster" that has really slipped a cog from this stable of misfits is from the FOX´s, "Oh Really Factor !" Yes, I´m referring to, "The Spin Starts Here" star, Bill "the Serial Liar" O´Reilly.
Bill O´Reilly, really went out on a limb this last week when he declared, live on FOX, to the prior Democratic turn-coat, Dick Morris, that MSNBC and Media Matters, "lie every day on their show and web site".
For the "almost king" of the liars, to call anyone else a liar is like Osama Bin Laden calling Mother Teresa a terrorist! (I say "almost king" because even O´Reilly would have to go a long way to surpass the real "Lying King's": Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and many of the others on the FOX network.)
But let´s look at the actual facts….. (now there´s a new concept for Bill O. to ponder!).
I´ll be the first to admit that MSNBC has a strong liberal bias, just as FOX has a strong bias for the far right.
However, I have had to stop watching FOX, as their strong right-wing bias, combined with their outright lies was so overwhelmingly painful that it became too difficult to watch while trying to be both a balanced observer and an honest op-ed writer. I now check out other available avenues in order to find out what happens daily on FOX. I do this by going to those organizations where "someone credible watches and reports on FOX, so that I don´t have to".
The point here is that during Bill´s blustering statement with Dick Morris, at no time did Mr. Blow-Hard O´Reilly give one example of his blatant lying accusation that MSNBC and Media Matters, "lie every day".
For some time now, I have watch CNN and MSNBC, as well as the national broadcast channels and C-SPAN for breaking news and politics. (I also daily read the New York Times, WSJ, Washington Post and The Nation) And in the past, I have even seen MSNBC´s Rachael Maddow actually come on her own show and withdraw a statement or make a correction to something she may had said in a previous episode.
How can any media person that expects to have any credibility on cable or broadcast TV, seen by millions around the world, make these kinds of lying accusations without also backing them up with at least one or two examples of their claims? (Of course, my assumption here is that FOX and the GOP "want" that credibility.) But, as usual, these kind of lies are presented on FOX on a regular basis with seldom, if ever, an actual example of their blatant accusation. Nor do they ever withdraw or correct any of their previous false statements.
Actually, if FOX were to make any corrections to their plethora of false statements, as does Rachael Maddow, it would have to be on a daily basis. (FOX might even need to allow a daily, ˝ hour TV segment, just for offering the many necessary statement corrections.)
And then there is O´Reilly´s Media Matters (MM) accusation.
Media Matters´ excellent credibility today comes from the fact that they don´t have a "dog-in-the-race" for having a political bias, one way or the other. MM´s whole basis of being is to be like the old TV character, Sergeant Joe Friday from the old Dragnet TV police series. As Sergeant Friday would always say, "Just the facts Mame, just the facts."
Today, MM presents what was said, or done, without any additional comment or political bias.
As an example, if a politician had said that something was the color black and it was actually the color white, MM might say something like; "Senator So & So said that the XYZ was the color black. However, here is a picture of XYZ and it appears to be white." That´s about as far as MM would go. Media Matters´ basis of credibility is that they want people to go to their site knowing that they will only get the facts, and without a hint of political bias.
That´s what the concept for Media Matters was in its original inception.
Unfortunately, due to the many falsehoods that come from both the FOX network, and from the Republican party members in general, Media Matters has had to increase their staff "multifold" for de-bunking the statements that continue to pour out from these two groups.
During a recent interview with the head of Media Matters, it was stated that since the Democrats began winning House and Senate seats back in 2006, the amount of misinformation from the GOP and FOX has continued to expand and therefore so has MM´s review staff requirements. It was recently stated that on some heavy news days, MM´s staff is not able to even keep up with the volume of misinformation that come across the computer screens of those MM members that are monitoring FOX and the many far-right radio broadcasts. (Oh yes, we are reminded every day that there are 9 right-wing radio talk show stations for every single liberal station.)
It is a sad situation that real news has now become pure, "info-tainment". It would be really nice to have someone to rely on for the facts such as it was back when we still had the likes of, Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow and David Brinkley. But at least we do have web sites like Media Matters, FactCheck.com, Snopes.com and even TV´s, 60 Minutes.
Today, it takes a little more effort, but it is possible to find the facts and the truth, if someone is really interested.
Copyright G.Ater 2010
Follow me on Twitter: gater01
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