Fox Spews

Written By: - Date published: 8:12 pm, August 11th, 2011 - 28 comments
Categories: Media - Tags:

Read how the Fox Network under Roger Ailes works on fear, if you want to know why American politics is so dysfunctional they can have a tea party but can’t manage a budget.

A couple of extracts:

Ailes knows exactly who is watching Fox News each day, and he is adept at playing to their darkest fears in the age of Obama. The network’s viewers are old, with a median age of 65. Ads cater to the immobile, the infirm and the incontinent, with appeals to join class action hip-replacement lawsuits, commercials for products such as Colon Flow and testimonials for the services of Liberator Medical (“Liberator gave me back the freedom I haven’t had since I started using catheters”).

To watch even a day of Fox News – the anger, the bombast, the virulent paranoid streak, the unending appeals to white resentment, the reporting that is held to the same standard of evidence as a political campaign attack ad – is to see a refraction of its founder, one of the most skilled and fearsome operatives in the history of the Republican party. As a political consultant, Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail healthcare reform in 1993.

Roger Ailes is Murdoch’s spawn because Fox makes the most money for Murdoch. But according to the article from the Guardian, abbreviated from Rolling Stone, even Murdoch is afraid of Ailes. Ailes also runs a so-called “brain room” which has faced allegations of systematic phone-hacking.One of Fox’s targets is NPR, or National Public Radio. Late last year Ailes had to apologise for calling National Public Radio “Nazis”.

Murdoch says he is proud of his company. I wouldn’t be. Ailes’s crap is on our screens too, on Sky.

28 comments on “Fox Spews ”

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  1. Macro 1
    11 August 2011 at 9:37 pm

    Yes Mike I read the article today and wept!
    As an aside I watched a film on dvd this week – The 2002 Australian film “Black and White”.
    Why I mention this is because Rupert Murdock features at the start of his publishing career, fighting initially for the underdog. It’s a fascinating story and whilst one could be forgiven that Murdock takes on this cause from a cynical, for profit and get my paper noticed point of view, the final outcome is for the good. I heard Dick Smith talking on approaches to tackling Climate Change the other day. What he had to say was also revealing. That is, that whilst Murdock himself fully understands the problem – such could not be said for the next tier down who are fiercely in the camp of the deniers, whether as simply propagandists, or as they see it merely to continue to promote the unfettered market ideology that is sacrosanct to the ultra right.

  2. Colonial Viper 2
    11 August 2011 at 9:45 pm

    Some in the US have the guts to say it like it is

    We need more of this (at least the NZ equivalent), on TV, every day. Listen up NZ MSM do your fraking work you lameass toe sucking apparatchiks.

    Obama has been a disappointment, I’m sure he’d like to step up and speak up but the last President I remember who did that was JFK.

  3. Andrei 3
    11 August 2011 at 9:49 pm

    Well “1984” was a satire of the BBC so all is not well in beeb land either. CNN is out there too, they can be pretty well biased towards a particular view point with Ted Turner at the helm – no?

    Still if you want Fox News screw ups here’s a beauty from almost exactly three years ago, where a 12 year old interviewee went off message

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fBGtXS66VM

    Does it match the BBC calling the London rioters “protestors”. You decide

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      11 August 2011 at 10:21 pm

      Fucking “You Decide” Fox News meme, how lameass.

      • Andrei 3.1.1
        11 August 2011 at 10:38 pm

        You’ld be a grumpy old thing – me I’m just trying to make a point that they all screw up and trying to give a hint as to why.

        That being channel has a predetermined narrative as to how they present the story and viewers too have their own narrative which if it conflicts with that of the presenter causes mental discomfort.

        The clip I put up shows the interviewers and/or producers narrative go out the window and their clumsy attempts to recover.

        They should have seen that coming though

  4. clandestino 4
    11 August 2011 at 10:20 pm

    Amazing how influential the Guardian has become in the last couple of years in setting agendas all over the blogosphere, glad it’s been my fav paper for some years now!

    • Colonial Viper 4.1
      11 August 2011 at 10:23 pm

      Guardian is owned by a trust set up, so isn’t as affected by the same corporate tentacles that the other papers are.

      Having said that, they still screwed Julian Assange. They have to play the game to some extent to keep printing.

      • insider 4.1.1
        12 August 2011 at 4:49 pm

        They also lost something like $60m last year. Can the trust sustain it when no-one is willing to buy ads?

        • Colonial Viper 4.1.1.1
          12 August 2011 at 4:58 pm

          Sadly, serious newspapers are a dying industry, and have been for 20 years. Advertising revenues have been damaged. I don’t know if the Telegraph or the Times are doing much better.

          NZ newspapers used to have departments of journalists specialising in reporting different areas of news. Now its just the same regurgitated story, rewording someone’s pre-prepared press release etc. Democracy is poorer for it.

    • rosy 4.2
      11 August 2011 at 10:42 pm

      The Guardian has been my favorite paper for many years too. Except for the week I swapped newspapers for a bet with my Tory friend. A week of the Torygraph made me appreciate the Guardian even more. If it wasn’t for The Guardian respecting the ability of their reporters to follow a story News International would have got away with the phone hacking. And their comment and analysis section is outstanding IMO.

      I saw an interview with Bob Woodward of Watergate fame. He reckons after all the years of ‘gate’ being suffixed to scandals, Hackergate is the one that deserves it. High praise indeed.

      As for Assange I’m not sure it’s clear yet which party has the major responsibility for screwing up that relationship.

      • Colonial Viper 4.2.1
        11 August 2011 at 10:52 pm

        Fair point; the Guardian accused Assange of being an unreasonable prima dona.

        • AAMC 4.2.1.1
          11 August 2011 at 11:16 pm

          I think it was a clash of personalities rather than a clash of ideologies. Love Assange’s work, he makes a lot if sense, but he’s plainly not an easy character to work with and doesn’t tolerate the same transparency in his organisation that he’s trying to achieve from government.

  5. queenstfarmer 5
    11 August 2011 at 11:48 pm

    Good to have the Guardian, to balance out Fox News (actually the Guardian and the Independent).

    • rosy 5.1
      12 August 2011 at 12:11 am

      The Guardian and the Independent don’t balance out Fox News. They bring a particular angle to news. The Telegraph, Financial Times etc bring other angles to the same piece of news. These can be said to ‘balance out’, these papers inform their readers albeit from different angles on the same events.

      Fox News lies, there is nothing that can balance out that – the viewers are misinformed.

      • queenstfarmer 5.1.1
        12 August 2011 at 9:23 am

        The Guardian certainly does have its particular angle, biases and target audience. As does Fox. There’s nothing wrong with that for either Fox or the Guardian. I find the key is to get all sides and make up ones own mind.

    • Morrissey 5.2
      12 August 2011 at 10:52 am

      Good to have the Guardian, to balance out Fox News (actually the Guardian and the Independent).

      Be careful about expecting too much of the Guardian. Any newspaper that employs Emma Brockes and Rory Carroll is neither credible nor serious…

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/nov/17/pressandpublishing.corrections

      http://redpepper.blogs.com/venezuela/2008/04/british-media-s.html

  6. Gosman 6
    12 August 2011 at 7:37 am

    What I can’t understand is lefties are always so big on how appalling Fox news is, (and I’m not saying it isn’t), but can’t seemed to be bothered putting together a Network or media group that would take on Fox from a more ‘balanced’ (read leftist) perspective.

    Surely there are enough moneyed lefties in the world and enough talent to set it up not to mention the obviously tens of millions of viewers crying out for such a station. Somehow I suspect most lefties like the current situation as it hives them something to justifiable moan at rather than do something useful.

    • rosy 6.1
      12 August 2011 at 9:53 am

      QSF, Gosman – it’s not taking on fox to provide balance. There are left-wing and right-wing commentators and most stations provide a balance. The point it – FOX tells lies, not the news.

      There is plenty wrong with Fox, if their wasn’t they it could expand into Canada , but they can’t because they have legislation saying news channels must. tell. the. truth.

      There is no balance for lies. There is plenty of opportunities for perspectives on the news. Fox doesn’t have a perspective. It lies.

    • Morrissey 6.2
      12 August 2011 at 10:38 am

      Something called “Gosman” seems a tad bewildered…

      …can’t seemed to be bothered putting together a Network or media group that would take on Fox from a more ‘balanced’ (read leftist) perspective.

      You’ve not watched Al Jazeera, obviously.

      • Gosman 6.2.1
        12 August 2011 at 12:09 pm

        So why are you bothered with Fox if there are other News channels which you are happy with out there?

        You are not implying that you want some sort of Government intervention to ensure that the News is “correct” are you?

        I would suggest that trying that in the US would fall foul of the 1st Amendment.

  7. grumpy 7
    12 August 2011 at 9:35 am

    I watch FOX quite a lot (but can only stand 5min bursts). I don’t find them so much as biased as mind numbingly stupid.
    I much prefer Al Jaziera who are surprisingly objective and give a bloody good perspective on Western news.

  8. joe90 8
    12 August 2011 at 2:35 pm

    How Bad Is News Corp.?.

    In my biography of Rupert Murdoch, I referred to News Corporation as Mafia-like, provoking the annoyance of my publisher’s libel lawyers. I explained to them that I did not mean to suggest this was an organized crime family, but instead was using “mafia” as a metaphor to imply that News Corp. saw itself as a state within a state, and that the company was built on a basic notion of extended family bonds and loyalty.

    But just because it’s a metaphor doesn’t mean it isn’t the real thing, too.

    Well-sourced information coming out of the Department of Justice and the FBI suggests a debate is going on that could result in the recently launched investigations of News Corp. falling under the RICO statutes.

    RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, establishes a way to prosecute the leaders of organizations—and strike at the organizations themselves—for crimes company leaders may not have directly committed, but which were otherwise countenanced by the organization. Any two of a series of crimes that can be proven to have occurred within a 10-year period by members of the organization can establish a pattern of racketeering and result in draconian remedies.

  9. randal 9
    13 August 2011 at 10:16 pm

    they could put swearing on it and then it would only be a good half hour sitcom.