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Surprised the media elite backed Fox?
By Gene Lyons, Columnist
Wednesday, November 04, 2009 | No comments posted.
Nobody should be surprised to see the nation’s esteemed celebrity news media align with Fox News against the White House.
Supposedly, the press regulates its own behavior; in reality, that’s been a joke for two decades.
Today, even the fig leaf has been removed. A “journalist,” so-called, is anybody paid by a media organization to enact the role on television. Otherwise, anything goes.
The Obama administration’s basic charge against Fox News is undeniably true: The network functions as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Fox openly organizes and promotes partisan political events such as April’s “Fox News Tea Party.” Its coverage of congressional “Town Hall” meetings reflected not a single individual supporting health care reform, as documented by Media Matters for America. Not one. Fox portrays every perceived setback for the Obama White House as a “victory” for “Fox Nation.”
As necessary, Fox resorts to sheer fiction: Reporting that Glenn Beck’s ballyhooed October Tea Party event drew upward of 2 million protestors to Washington. In reality, considerably more fans (102,941) attended the Auburn-Tennessee football game.
Explaining to The New York Times, deputy White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, “We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization.”
Yet neither The Times nor most “mainstream” pundits evaluated the claim on its merits. Most went straight to the aiding and abetting. Many invoked the ghost of Richard Nixon. Why, to criticize Fox, claimed the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus and Charles Krauthammer, was downright “Nixonian.”
NPR’s Ken Rudin recalled “what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list.” So did CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Excuse me, but Nixon’s enemies list was secret. Journalists and others got subjected to illegal FBI wiretaps, “black bag” break-ins and IRS audits. White House officials even discussed murdering columnist Jack Anderson.
Meanwhile, Nixon’s Oval Office tapes are the gift that keeps giving to historians like “Nixonland’s” Rick Pearlstein. “Bob, PLEASE get me the names of the Jews, you know the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats,” Nixon begged aide H.R. Haldeman. “Could we please investigate some of the (bleepbleepers)?”
That’s what I call an enemies list.
Look, here’s the deal. Where Democrats are concerned, journalism’s vaunted ethical code quit functioning as anything but camouflage during President Clinton’s first term. Out of scores of examples, the easiest to explain briefly may be a 1995 ABC Nightline broadcast in which a creatively edited video clip was used to insinuate Hillary Clinton lied about “Whitewater” legal work.
After excising the words “I was what we called the billing attorney” from the first lady’s remarks, ABC’s Jeff Greenfield suggested that concealing that very fact explained “why the White House was so worried about what was in Vince Foster’s office when he killed himself.”
The phony quote then showed up everywhere.
Ancient history? Maybe so. But there was Jeff Greenfield on CBS News last month, making the obligatory Nixon comparison and assuring Katie Couric that “if Fox is feeling any pain from the White House’s stance, it’s crying all the way to the bank.”
As do they all.
See, while Fox News acolytes remain convinced of “liberal media bias,” the reality is celebrity journalists rarely, if ever, get hurt for abusing Democrats. Mistreat a name-brand Republican, however, and...
Well, remember “60 Minutes” Dan Rather? Democrats complain; Republicans get even.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and author.)
Supposedly, the press regulates its own behavior; in reality, that’s been a joke for two decades.
Today, even the fig leaf has been removed. A “journalist,” so-called, is anybody paid by a media organization to enact the role on television. Otherwise, anything goes.
The Obama administration’s basic charge against Fox News is undeniably true: The network functions as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party. Fox openly organizes and promotes partisan political events such as April’s “Fox News Tea Party.” Its coverage of congressional “Town Hall” meetings reflected not a single individual supporting health care reform, as documented by Media Matters for America. Not one. Fox portrays every perceived setback for the Obama White House as a “victory” for “Fox Nation.”
As necessary, Fox resorts to sheer fiction: Reporting that Glenn Beck’s ballyhooed October Tea Party event drew upward of 2 million protestors to Washington. In reality, considerably more fans (102,941) attended the Auburn-Tennessee football game.
Explaining to The New York Times, deputy White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said, “We simply decided to stop abiding by the fiction, which is aided and abetted by the mainstream press, that Fox is a traditional news organization.”
Yet neither The Times nor most “mainstream” pundits evaluated the claim on its merits. Most went straight to the aiding and abetting. Many invoked the ghost of Richard Nixon. Why, to criticize Fox, claimed the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus and Charles Krauthammer, was downright “Nixonian.”
NPR’s Ken Rudin recalled “what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list.” So did CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Excuse me, but Nixon’s enemies list was secret. Journalists and others got subjected to illegal FBI wiretaps, “black bag” break-ins and IRS audits. White House officials even discussed murdering columnist Jack Anderson.
Meanwhile, Nixon’s Oval Office tapes are the gift that keeps giving to historians like “Nixonland’s” Rick Pearlstein. “Bob, PLEASE get me the names of the Jews, you know the big Jewish contributors of the Democrats,” Nixon begged aide H.R. Haldeman. “Could we please investigate some of the (bleepbleepers)?”
That’s what I call an enemies list.
Look, here’s the deal. Where Democrats are concerned, journalism’s vaunted ethical code quit functioning as anything but camouflage during President Clinton’s first term. Out of scores of examples, the easiest to explain briefly may be a 1995 ABC Nightline broadcast in which a creatively edited video clip was used to insinuate Hillary Clinton lied about “Whitewater” legal work.
After excising the words “I was what we called the billing attorney” from the first lady’s remarks, ABC’s Jeff Greenfield suggested that concealing that very fact explained “why the White House was so worried about what was in Vince Foster’s office when he killed himself.”
The phony quote then showed up everywhere.
Ancient history? Maybe so. But there was Jeff Greenfield on CBS News last month, making the obligatory Nixon comparison and assuring Katie Couric that “if Fox is feeling any pain from the White House’s stance, it’s crying all the way to the bank.”
As do they all.
See, while Fox News acolytes remain convinced of “liberal media bias,” the reality is celebrity journalists rarely, if ever, get hurt for abusing Democrats. Mistreat a name-brand Republican, however, and...
Well, remember “60 Minutes” Dan Rather? Democrats complain; Republicans get even.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and author.)
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