Judy Oerly gathers food she will be taking home from the Central Pantry in Columbia, Mo., on 10/4/13.
Perhaps it’s not a surprise that Fox “News” attacks the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP”), which Fox and the Republicans refer to by its old-fashioned and perhaps derisive name “food stamps.” Perhaps it’s also not a surprise that Fox “News” attacks almost all things in the great Blue State California, from “liberal Hollywood” to progressive policies such as green energy (which, by the way, is responsible for many good California jobs.) But what might be surprising is that Fox found a way to attack both SNAP and California at the same time, via its “Food Stamp Surfer” story.
Last August, Fox found a guy named Jason Greenslate who (a) lives in California; (b) has long hair and looks like Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski; (c) is a surfer; (d) is a struggling musician; and (e) lists his music playing as his job, which lets him receive SNAP assistance. If only Greenslate were black, he would have been the perfect storm of Fox caricatures. This past week, Fox brought Greenslate back onto “The O’Reilly Factor,” just after Republicans were able to cut nearly $9 billion from SNAP (though short of the more than $40 billion Republicans tried to cut), as if to imply that this one example proves that SNAP assistance doesn’t go to many needy people.
You have to give Fox News credit — it has become the 24-hour Culture War Channel, battling government (only when it’s in Democratic hands, of course), gays, gun laws, Scary Brown People, women, Christmas Scrooges, welfare kings and queens, clean air and water, and the evil “Obamacare.” So it’s only natural that Fox would jump at the opportunity to attack SNAP and California Culture at the same time.
The thing to remember, though, is that media outlets create their own opportunities, by making their own editorial judgments about what to cover. Every day, there are probably 10,000 stories that could be covered, and yet only a handful make it to air. Fox’s producers and editors (and bosses like Roger Ailes, probably) choose to air stories that further its conservative culture war narrative (pro-corporate, pro-white male, pro-rich), and they choose to ignore stories that don’t fit their narrative, such as the many success stories of people receiving affordable healthcare insurance for the first time under the Affordable Care Act, the steady improvement in the U.S. economy and employment since President Obama took over from George W. Bush despite Congressional Republicans blocking these improvements every step of the way, or the massive corporate welfare and tremendous waste and fraud that takes place in programs like military spending that Republicans love.
Of course, this means that Fox is practicing several Messaging Maxims, including Maxim #1 – Go on Offense, Maxim #2 – Rinse and Repeat, and Maxim #4 – Feed the Narrative. Republicans and Conservatives have being doing this expertly for decades. This is what Democrats and Liberals are up against. Recognize this Fox “News” Conservative Culture War being waged 24 hours a day, and you’ll start to take its power away.
Photo by KOMUnews, used under Creative Commons license. http://is.gd/TrUnwF
