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.
This week, Organizing for Action (formerly Obama for America), the Obama administration’s activism arm, sent around an email asking a terrific question about the Affordable Care Act:
Now that more than 3 million Americans have health insurance — a number that is growing every day — do these Health Care Repealers still want to take it away?
Megyn Kelly of Fox “News” waded into the imaginary War on Christmas this past week, and ended up stepping in yellow snow. First, on December 11, as indicated in the video above, Kelly said that “Santa just is white …. Santa is what he is.” Kelly went on to say that “Jesus was a white man too.”
Kelly’s remarks caused a firestorm among historians, anthropologists and almost everyone else over the age of seven. Many people pointed out that, aside from the little technicality that Santa Claus isn’t real, St. Nicholas was from present-day Turkey (and likely swarthy-looking), and the very white, rosy-cheeked Santa familiar to many American kids is merely a Coca-Cola advertising creation. After hearing about all this, Kelly took to the air last Friday to say that she had only been joking about that Santa being white thing, even though there was no indication in her original broadcast that she was joking about it. Then Kelly, apparently in her next stage of grief, said that her critics, not her, had decided to “race bait,” but that, come to think of it, it “is far from settled” whether Jesus was white (even though, according to the evidence, Jesus was a Middle-Eastern Jew who was likely as swarthy-looking or more than even St. Nicholas).
Sadly, Fox’s Megyn Kelly is not alone in having her history shaped by White Corporate America. So in honor of Megyn Kelly’s history lesson, how about we list some other myths perpetuated by some big U.S. corporations, their front groups and bought-off politicians, which make as much sense as Fox’s White Santa/White Jesus:
The very first post at Messaging Matters noted that many issues in the news seem to skew Republican. That was nearly three years ago, and it’s still the case. Many of the so-called major news stories of 2013 were ginned up by Republicans: Obamacare website glitches, Benghazi, IRS “scandal,” etc. Even the New York Times, supposedly the bastion of liberal media, fell for these Republican-created news memes. And how about the lineups of the Sunday morning talk shows? This year, only the GOP Shutdown seemed to favor the Democrats.
Now that Republicans have failed to stop the Affordable Care Act, their next tactic is to battle the Act in an anecdote war. The mainstream television news media love anecdotes, because they are small shiny objects around which the media folks can get their short attention spans. We saw this anecdote tactic play out, for example, during the recent GOP shutdown, when the media reduced many big, important issues about government to a small sideshow dispute over the World War II Memorial.
CNN announced yesterday that it is resurrecting its “Crossfire” television program this fall. According to CNN, the new “Crossfire” will feature Newt Gingrich and S.E. Cupp on the right, and Stephanie Cutter (ex-Obama White House) and Van Jones (ex-Obama White House until President Obama cut him loose due to right wing pressure) on the left.
CNN President Jeff Zucker stated that “‘Crossfire’ will be the forum where America holds its great debates.” Yet “Crossfire,” which first aired on CNN in 1982, helped usher in what is referred to today as “argue tv,” that coarse staple of television news networks such as CNN, MSNBC and Fox “News,” as well as other networks, in which hosts and guests bash each other, often with ad hominem attacks and prepared talking points.
Before the past few Thanksgivings, some media outlets have run pieces advising readers or viewers on how to respond to right-wing, Fox-concocted talking points that one or more relatives might regurgitate at the dinner table. As the above video from this past November 23 indicates, Ed Schultz invited Occupy Wall Street hero Jesse LaGreca on MSNBC’s “Ed Show” to do just that. Jesse does a good job using logic, facts, and figures to respond to the right-wing talking points raised by Ed. However, if you’re simply being reactive rather than proactive in these situations, you’ve already lost the political argument.
President Obama invites progressive black rapper Common to read poetry at the White House, and the folks at Fox “News” explode. It was perfectly predictable, since Fox and the Republicans have been waging a race-based cultural war on Barack Obama since Obama began running for President. That race war has included Reverend Wright, Van Jones, ACORN, the “New Black Panther Party”, Shirley Sherrod, and others as proxies for Obama in the Republicans’ “Scary Black People” strategy.
This time, the war on Obama (using Common as the proxy) was launched by Fox and Republicans contracted to work for Fox, including Sarah Palin and Karl Rove. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly then challenged Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” to a debate on the subject of Common, and Stewart took the bait. Many progressives are cheering, saying that Stewart will clean O’Reilly’s clock with the facts. Bad idea. Once such a debate is being held — on O’Reilly’s Fox “News” home turf, of course — Fox, O’Reilly, and the Republicans have already won.
As this piece from Crooks and Liars last December indicates, a leaked email from Fox “News” Washington Managing Editor Bill Sammon demonstrates how Fox deliberately and calculatedly uses language to slant news stories in favor of Republicans and/or against President Obama and the Democrats.
The issue was health care and, in 2009, Republican language guru Frank Luntz (a name you will likely hear a lot on this blog) advised Fox’s Sean Hannity to use the label “government option” in place of the Democrats’ “public option” proposal, because, according to Luntz, that simple one-word change caused a shift in voter reaction against the public option. According to Crooks and Liars, Sammon picked up on this advice and sent an email instructing Fox employees: “Please use the term ‘government-run health insurance’ or, when brevity is a concern, ‘government option,’ whenever possible”.
This is why mentions of “Fox ‘News'” will appear in quotes in this blog. It isn’t a news organization. It is the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.
The summer of 2010 was the second summer in a row in which Democrats lost control of the political message, and the news cycle. Given the 2010 election results, how did that work for you?
What’s the Problem?
In the summer of 2009, Republicans and their Tea Party surrogates took over Congressional town hall meetings, repeating false phrases such as “government-run health care.” Democrats dawdled for weeks, and when they finally responded, all they could muster was “no it isn’t.” Guess who won that battle? The “health care reform” law passed by the Democrats who control Congress and the presidency was severely watered down.
