FOX2

this is newer content 10/12; main/OLD see FOX NEWS CORP

some problems with tags so foxnc

see FOX3 3/18 F&F direct line to djt tweets

see echo escalator

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mayer on franken

According to McIntyre, Hannity wanted to use the photograph in 2007, when it would have derailed Franken’s first Senate bid. But he deferred to Tweeden, who feared that, because she had been a lingerie model, her credibility would be attacked. “To Sean Hannity’s credit, he never said a word about it,” McIntyre told me. (Hannity, through a spokesperson, praised Tweeden as “patriotic” and called Franken “literally insane.”) McIntyre emphasized that Tweeden and KABC-AM deliberately chose not to break the story with Hannity, or on Fox, because they didn’t want it to be tainted with charges of political bias.

There was a history of deep animosity between Fox News’ conservative hosts and Franken. Fox sued Franken over his 2003 best-seller, “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” which relentlessly disparages the network and its big star at the time, Bill O’Reilly. It includes a chapter mocking Hannity as, among other things, “an angry, Irish Ape-man.” Franken writes that, after having a greenroom shouting match with Hannity about Rush Limbaugh, in 1996, he “had never in my life hated a person more.” Fox dropped the suit, but O’Reilly reportedly threatened vengeance. 

When Andrea Mackris later sued O’Reilly for sexually harassing her while she was a producer at Fox News, she revealed that, in 2004, O’Reilly had told her, “If you cross Fox News Channel, it’s not just me, it’s Roger Ailes”—at the time the head of the network—“who will go after you. . . . Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what’s coming to them but never sees it coming. Look at Al Franken, one day he’s going to get a knock on his door and life as he’s known it will change forever. That day will happen, trust me.” When Tweeden accused Franken, one of his wife’s first thoughts was of O’Reilly’s prediction.

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no lnx

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2016/07/19/roger-ailes-legacy-building-gops-communications-arm-under-guise-news-network/211722#door

7/16

Roger Ailes is reportedly exiting Fox News, the cable network where he has served as CEO since its founding in 1996, amid controversy over his alleged years-long pattern of sexual harassment. Despite its "Fair and Balanced" slogan, Fox News under Ailes' leadership has embraced its role as the communications arm of the Republican Party. During the Obama administration, this partisanship accelerated as the network openly campaigned for Republican candidates, launched the tea party movement, became a farm system for Republican politicians, and served as the stage for Republican presidential primaries, among other egregious ethical issues.

Fox News “Took A Hard Right Turn” And Became “The Alamo” After President Obama’s Election

The Revolving Door Between Fox News And Republican Officials

Fox News On The Campaign Trail: Employees Fundraised, Stumped For Dozens Of Republican Candidates

Fox Aggressively Helped Launch And Support The Anti-Obama Tea Party Movement

The Fox News Primary: The 2012 And 2016 Republican Primaries Played Out On Fox Airwaves

Fox News Executive Bill Sammon Admitted To Lying On-Air About Obama, Kept Job

Report Ailes Is Reportedly On His Way Out Due To Fallout From Numerous Sexual Harassment Allegations

NY Times: “Roger Ailes Is Negotiating His Departure As Chairman Of Fox News.” From a July 19 article:

Roger Ailes’s tenure as the head of Fox News appears to be over.

Mr. Ailes and 21st Century Fox, Fox News’s parent company, are in the advanced stages of discussions that would lead to his departure as chairman, Susan Estrich, one of Mr. Ailes’s lawyers, said in an interview on Tuesday.

The development follows a sexual harassment suit filed July 6 against Mr. Ailes by a former anchor, Gretchen Carlson. The suit prompted 21st Century Fox to conduct an internal review.

Since then, Mr. Ailes’s future at Fox News has been the subject of intense speculation, which increased on Monday with a report from New York magazine that the executives leading 21st Century Fox — Rupert Murdoch and his sons, James and Lachlan — had determined that Mr. Ailes must go. [The New York Times, 7/19/16]

Fox News “Took A Hard Right Turn” And Became “The Alamo” After President Obama’s Election

Roger Ailes On Obama's Election: "I See This As The Alamo." A March 6, 2009, Los Angeles Times article reported that, in a meeting with former Fox News host Glenn Beck, Ailes declared that his network would challenge the Obama administration, reportedly saying, "I see this as the Alamo." Bill Shine, Fox News' senior vice president for programming, also reportedly described the network as "the voice of the opposition on some issues" to "this particular group of people in power right now." [Media Matters, 9/2/12]

Fox News Executives Admitted To Howard Kurtz That “The Entire Network Took A Hard Right Turn After Obama's Election." In an article for Newsweek, Howard Kurtz, who now works as a media reporter for Fox News, reported, "Fox executives say the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama's election, but, as the Tea Party's popularity fades, is edging back toward the mainstream." [Newsweek, 9/25/11]

The Revolving Door Between Fox News And Republican Party

Numerous Republicans Have Left Fox News To Run For Office. Numerous Fox News personalities have left the network to run for office (several returned to Fox after losing). In many instances, Fox News helped launch those Republicans’ political careers while on the network’s payroll. Those Republicans include: Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Rick Santorum, Liz Cheney, Angela McGlowan, Pete Snyder, Rep. Mark Sanford, and Scott Brown. [Media Matters, 12/22/13; 11/20/14; 8/5/15]

Numerous Fox News Contributors Were Republican Candidates. Fox News has employed numerous contributors over the years who previously ran for office (successfully and unsuccessfully) as a Republican. They include Herman Cain, Al D'Amato, John LeBoutillier, KT McFarland, Oliver North, Jeanine Pirro, and Allen West. Fox News infamously hired Sarah Palin (twice); she has since left the network. [Media Matters, 4/7/14]

Fox News Hired Numerous Former Bush Administration Officials. Fox News has hired numerous former Bush administration officials over the years. Current contributors Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Richard Grenell, and John Bolton worked in the Bush administration. Fox News also hired former Bush officials Elaine Chao and Liz Cheney; both are no longer with the network. [Media Matters, 10/26/09, 9/10/12, 6/3/14; LinkedIn.com, accessed 7/19/16]

Fox News On The Campaign Trail: Employees Fundraised, Stumped For Dozens Of Republican Candidates

30-Plus Fox Hosts And Contributors Supported GOP In 600-Plus Instances During 2009-2010 Midterms.A Media Matters report found that during the 2009-2010 election cycle, more than 30 Fox News personalities endorsed, raised money, or campaigned for Republican candidates or organizations in more than 600 instances. The Republican support was given to more than 300 different races or party organizations in at least 47 states. [Media Matters, 10/27/10]

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30-Plus Fox Hosts And Contributors Campaigned For Republicans In 2011-2012 Election Cycle. According to a Media Matters review, at least 32 Fox News figures backed Republican efforts in more than 300 instances during the 2011-2012 election cycle. The Fox News personalities campaigned for Republicans nationally and in more than 40 states. [Media Matters, 11/1/12]

12 Fox News Contributors Took Part In Romney's Campaign. During the 2012 presidential campaign, 12 Fox News contributors took part in Romney's campaign by being featured in a campaign event (such as a fundraiser or speech), advising his campaign, or both. They were: Fred Barnes, John Bolton, Liz Cheney, Alfonse D'Amato, Mike Huckabee, William Kristol, Thomas McInerney, Dennis Miller, Chuck Nash, Walid Phares, Karl Rove, and Pete Snyder. [Media Matters, 11/1/12]

Fox News Continued Employing Karl Rove Despite Massive Ethical Conflict. Rove has worked for Fox News while serving as a major adviser and fundraiser for American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. Those organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars attempting to elect Republicans over the years. Fox News regularly failed to disclose Rove's involvement in races he discussed on the air. Fox News has also promoted Crossroads content without disclosing Rove’s ties. [Media Matters, 9/2/12; 2/4/14]

Fox Aggressively Helped Launch And Support The Anti-Obama Tea Party Movement

Tea Party Express Founder: "There Would Not Have Been A Tea Party Without Fox." A 2011 New Yorkmagazine profile on Ailes, headlined, "The Elephant in the Green Room," featured a quote from Tea Party Express founder Sal Russo proclaiming: "There would not have been a tea party without Fox." [New York, 5/22/11]

Media Matters Report Found Fox Aired At Least 20 Segments And 73 Promos On Tea Party Protests In Lead Up To 2009 Tax Day Protests. In April 2009, Media Matters reported that Fox News had frequently aired segments not only covering tea party protests but encouraging viewers to get involved. An April 15, 2009, study found that from April 6-13, Fox had aired 20 segments and 73 in-show and commercial promotions on the tea party protests scheduled for April 15. [Media Matters, 4/8/09, 4/15/09]

Fox News Hosts Attended "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties." In the days leading up to the "Tax Day" protests, Fox repeatedly aired on-screen text describing protests Fox news hosts would be attending as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties." [Media Matters, 4/9/09]

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Fox's Tax Day Coverage Promoted Protesters' Cause, Urged Viewer Involvement. Fox News and Fox Business also hyped the tea party during its coverage of the "Tax Day" protests on April 15, 2009. Hosts and guests on several shows promoted the protesters' cause and urged viewers to join the protests and visit tea party websites. [Media Matters, 4/16/09]

Fox News Hosts Participated In More Than A Dozen Tea Party Events In 2010. Fox News hosts participated in more than a dozen tea party events during the week of April 15, 2010. [Media Matters, 4/15/10]

For more about Fox News’ heavily involvement in the tea party movement, go here.

The Fox News Primary: The 2012 And 2016 Republican Primaries Played Out On Fox Airwaves

2016

During 2016 Election, Fox Devoted More Than 200 Hours To Airing Interviews With Republican Primary Candidates. Between May 1, 2015, and May 3, 2016, Fox News devoted 202 hours and 2 minutes to airing 1,481 original and reaired interviews with the 17 Republican candidates. [Media Matters, 5/5/16]

Network Aired Over 49 Hours Of Interviews With Eventual Nominee Donald Trump, More Than Twice As Much As Any Other Candidate. [Media Matters, 5/5/16]

Sen. Ted Cruz: Murdoch And Ailes “Have Turned Fox News Into The Donald Trump Network.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the runner-up for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, lamented that “network executives have made a decision to get behind Donald Trump. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes at Fox News have turned Fox News into the Donald Trump network, 24/7.” [Media Matters, 5/3/16]

Four 2016 Candidates Worked For Fox News. Rick Santorum, John Kasich, Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee all worked for the network for various periods of time before launching their bids. [Media Matters, 8/5/15]

Huckabee: Fox News Job Put Me In “People’s Homes Every Week.” During a visit to Iowa before he launched his presidential bid, Mike Huckabee reportedly credited his platform hosting a show at the network with boosting his name recognition in the crucial primary state of Iowa. [Media Matters, 10/24/15]

CNN Host Brian Stelter: "There Really Is No Disputing Fox's Power In Influencing The GOP." Reliable Sources host Stelter noted that Fox News has been a frequent stop for presidential candidates announcing their candidacies. [CNN, Reliable Sources, 4/19/15]

Politico's Hadas Gold: Fox News Is The "Central Place Where All The Conservatives Are Going ... They Have A Huge Influence." [CNN, Reliable Sources, 4/19/15]

LA Times' Doyle McManus: Fox News Is The "Gatekeeper" Of The Republican Primary. McManus, a Times Washington columnist, wrote that Ailes "will decide which candidates can compete in Republican presidential primaries next year" and "One side effect, GOP strategists say, is that during the next two months, those candidates will be even more desperate to boost their name recognition -- by appearing on Fox News." He added, "Fox won't exactly be judge, jury and executioner, but it will be rule-maker, gatekeeper and moderator." [Los Angeles Times, 5/30/15]

2012

Fox News And Fox Business Devoted More Than 77 Hours Of Interview Airtime To 12 Republican Candidates During 2012 Race. [Media Matters, 2/27/12]

Newt Gingrich And Rick Santorum Worked For Fox Before Launching 2012 Bids. [Media Matters, 2/27/12]

Santorum Boasted That Fox News Employment Had “Helped Folks Remember Who I Am” As He Prepped Run. [Media Matters, 11/3/10]

New York Times In 2011: “Fox News Practically Owns And Operates” Republican Primary. The New York Times’ Alessandra Stanley reported in 2011 of Fox News’ coverage of the Republican primary campaign:

There’s a reason Fox News is beginning to look like a meet-the-candidate pancake breakfast in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

“You don’t win Iowa in Iowa, you win it on this couch,” is how the Republican commentator Dick Morris put it on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday. Mr. Morris said that the Republican debates and Fox News had forged a national primary that “imposes itself on Iowa.”

It’s certainly obvious in Iowa that candidates are investing a lot more time in television interviews than they are on the campaign trail. It’s a safe bet: a recent New York Times/CBS News poll of likely Iowa Republican caucus participants showed that 37 percent said they get most of their information from Fox News, that’s compared with 27 percent who cited broadcast news and a mere 2 percent who said they relied on MSNBC.

Accordingly, caucus and primary voters have a voice on Fox News. All the networks, broadcast and cable, are closely covering the campaign, but Fox News practically owns and operates it: its viewers are seeing the world through the eyes of a Tea Party activist in Davenport, or a small business leader in Ames — my own private Iowa. [New York Times, 12/10/11]

Fox News Executive Bill Sammon Admitted To Lying On-Air About Obama, Kept Job

Bill Sammon: Engaged In "Mischievous Speculation About Whether Barack Obama Really Advocated Socialism" Even Though He "Privately" Thought That Was "Far-Fetched." During a speech on a high-priced cruise, Fox News executive Sammon admitted he promoted the idea that Barack Obama "really advocated socialism" on Fox News prior to the 2008 election, even though he "privately" found the concept "far-fetched":

Speaking in 2009 onboard a pricey Mediterranean cruise sponsored by a right-wing college, Fox Washington managing editor Bill Sammon described his attempts the previous year to link Obama to "socialism" as "mischievous speculation." Sammon, who is also a Fox News vice president, acknowledged that "privately" he had believed that the socialism allegation was "rather far-fetched."

"Last year, candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to quote, 'spread the wealth around,' " said Sammon. "At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched." [Media Matters,3/29/11]

Ailes Gave Sammon A Reprieve After "Fox Critics" Reportedly Called For His Firing In Response To Smear. "Fox critics" criticized Sammon when the speech became public and called for his removal as Washington managing editor, but Ailes "reprimanded Sammon but he also let it be known he didn't consider it a firing offense," according to Ailes' authorized biographer. From Zev Chafets' Roger Ailes: Off Camera:

In 2009, on a Mediterranean cruise, Bill Sammon regaled his conservative audience with a tale of inside news making. During the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama had famously told 'Joe the Plumber,' an Ohio blue-collar voter, that there was nothing wrong with spreading the wealth around. "I have to admit that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched," Sammon boasted. Fox critics learned about the speech and castigated Sammon for this obvious misuse of his position. There were rumblings in the Fox Washington bureau that Sammon should be replaced as bureau chief. Ailes reprimanded Sammon but also let it be known that he didn't consider it a firing offense. [Zev Chafets, Roger Ailes: Off Camera, via Google Books]

==

https://www.gq.com/story/spygate-conspiracy-theory-explained

escalator

no many lnx

Spygate: How Right-Wing Media Creates a Conspiracy Theory Out of Thin Air

BY JAY WILLIS

This is how conservative media transformed a small news item into a full-blown conspiracy theory that the president (apparently) believes to be true.

The plot goes like this: During the summer of 2016, on the clandestine orders of then-president Barack Obama, the FBI and CIA hatched an ambitious plan to topple the Trump campaign from the inside. In a scandal of unprecedented scope, Democratic politicians commandeered American counterintelligence resources to spy on their primary political opponent and boost Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the election. The Russia investigation that has dominated headlines for nearly two years is, in fact, a desperate smokescreen conjured up by terrified Deep State actors to conceal evidence of their own wrongdoing, and to frame the president for heinous crimes he didn't commit.

On May 8, The Washington Post reported on the White House's decision to back the Justice Department's withholding of information from House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, on the grounds that disclosure would expose the identity of "a U.S. citizen who has provided information to the FBI and CIA." The authors added, though, that the individual had been a source of information used by the special counsel's office—and that it was unclear whether Trump knew this "key fact" when his administration chose to side with law enforcement.

It didn't take long for him to find out. Almost immediately, the right-wing-media ecosystem began laundering and repackaging this news item, weaving its constituent elements together with Trumpian talking points until a full-blown conspiracy theory worthy of the president's tweets emerged on the other side. This metamorphosis is what would happen if a word cloud sourced from a Trump rally were used in a giant game of telephone—but one in which the gibberish end result were then broadcast as news to hundreds of millions of recipients.

How did this happen?

May 10

Two days after the initial report, citing "the Washington Post's unnamed law-enforcement leakers," The Wall Street Journal publishes an analysis by conservative commentator Kim Strassel. "[W]e might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign." Such a development, she writes, "would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting." Strassel continues (all emphasis mine):

[W]hen precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that in turn would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.

This is at once cautious and bold, introducing the salacious vocabulary of espionage to a detail about an intelligence source—but only, she clarifies, if the allegations are true. Strassel does not offer a reason for entertaining her hypothetical, other than her characterization of the players' accounts of the investigation as "suspiciously vague."She is, in the classic style of well-compensated public intellectuals filling up column inches, just asking questions.

That night, other journalists are happy to offer answers. On Sean Hannity's Fox News show, journalist Sara Carter, citing Strassel,tells listeners of “concern that the FBI actually had a spy within the Trump campaign.” Hannity is dumbfounded: “What? What?” he splutters. "Yes," replies Carter. Blogs like Gateway Pundit kick off the breathless hyperbole category. "Now we know why the Deep State has been working so hard to take down President Trump and the republic," said the post, linking to and block-quoting Strassel. "OBAMA DEEP STATE HAD A SPY INSIDE THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN!"

May 11

The baton is passed to Fox News, which syndicates Strassel's article and changes the headline from “About that FBI ‘source’” to “Did the FBI place a mole inside the 2016 Trump campaign?” On Fox & Friends, the president's morning program of choice, Pete Hegseth weighs in, hesitantly at first. "Did the FBI have a spy in the Trump campaign? Just asking the question. There’s an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal about it." Ainsley Earhardt quotes at length from the column before positing that it means the FBI and DOJ had someone "paid to go and spy on President Trump."

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh picks up the thread, encouraging the conflation of the FBI and President Obama. Strassel's article mentions Obama only once, and only in passing. But this is Rush Limbaugh, not a major newspaper; he can say things like this without fear of repercussions.

When I say “the FBI,” I mean the Obama administration. They infiltrated the Trump campaign with a spy, and while they had that spy implanted, they were unmasking and leaking and obtaining FISA spying warrants and conducting criminal investigations of Trump advisers. This is a big deal...For our purposes, folks, the important thing is that the Obama administration infiltrated the Trump campaign with a spy.

The buzz grows louder online. "Did the FBI have a spy in the Trump campaign?"asks Andrew McCarthy, praising Strassel's column as "essential reporting," in a National Review article that published early the next morning.Right-wing blog ZeroHedge makes an affirmative statement—“WSJ: The FBI Hid a Mole in the Trump Campaign”—out of his question. Also citing Strassel, Tucker Carlson refers to a "government spy" and a "mole" sent by "the Obama administration." His guest, NRATV personality Dan Bongino, reveals that he believes there to have been more than one spy, referring to "reporting." He does not elaborate on-air.

May 14

The week begins with lawmakers joining the fray. On Fox & Friends, GOP congressman Ron DeSantis calls for a follow-up investigation into the matter. "I know that we’re actively trying to get the underlying documents that would tell us: Did they spy on the Trump campaign or not?” he asks, implicitly treating the premises of that query as if they were beyond dispute. To Lou Dobbs on Fox Business Network, Matt Gaetz expresses unease with "reports" he'd heard "about potential human intelligence being collected on a rival presidential campaign."

These men are egged on by, among others, Rush Limbaugh,who asserts he knows the identity of the spy that the FBI "put in the Trump campaign," and Hannity, whose radio guest David Limbaugh—Rush's younger brother—opines that "an official policy inserting a confidential source into a presidential campaign" would be "unprecedented" and "worse than Watergate." Like DeSantis, he includes a soft qualifier, though: "If it happened! We have to get to the bottom of it."

May 15

Nunes appears on the Fox & Friends set, hinting that the campaign might have been "set up" by the FBI. “I believe they never should have opened a counterintelligence investigation into a political party,” he explains. And although he at first avoids using the word "spy," his hosts are happy to put it in his mouth. Steve Doocy suggests that Nunes's narrative implies that Trump was "framed," while Earhardt adds that "it makes it sound like there was a spy."

Some 12 hours later, Hannity is again agape at the "possibility of an FBI mole that was inside the Trump campaign." He runs snippets of the "stunning" Nunes interview, scarcely able to believe his ears. "The powerful tools of intelligence used to spy on an opposition party candidate, and those powerful tools used against Americans?" he muses. "No, that can't happen here."

May 16

On Laura Ingraham's show, Rudy Giuliani at once broaches the subject of the FBI "possibly placing a spy in the Trump campaign" while admitting that he doesn't know if the gossip is true. The next morning, on Fox & Friends, he’ll again dip his toes in the water before retreating to solid ground. "That would be the biggest scandal in the history of this town—at least, involving law enforcement," Giuliani warns.

He's intrigued by the possibility, though. "Maybe two spies!" he wonders aloud.

Meanwhile, outside the MAGAsphere, a New York Times article helps breathe new life into the conspiracy theory. The authors of that report—an account of the 2016 law-enforcement inquiry into the Trump campaign—note that “at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos.” Referring to the preceding week of innuendo, they characterize this detail as a “politically contentious point, with Mr. Trump’s allies questioning whether the F.B.I. was spying on the Trump campaign or trying to entrap campaign officials.”

As noted by USA Today's Brad Heath, FBI guidelines allow agents to use informants, among many other methods of information-gathering, when assessing whether a matter warrants a full criminal investigation. The Bureau's partial reliance on a "source" here isn't especially remarkable.

Furthermore, given their knowledge of the Kremlin's election-meddling efforts, it isn't difficult to understand why the intelligence community might have an interest in a campaign's ties to Russia, regardless of the candidate's political affiliation. Marco Rubio—a man not known for being fond of Hillary Clinton—said as much after reviewing the underlying evidence along with the rest of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which found no secret political motivation for opening the inquiry. “There was a growing body of evidence that a foreign government was attempting to interfere in both the process and the debate surrounding our elections, and their job is to investigate counterintelligence,” he reasoned in comments cited by the Times. “That’s what they did.”

It doesn't matter. One little opening is all it takes. Breitbart, mentioning the May 8 Post story and Strassel's follow-up, proclaims that the Times report "confirmed" that the FBI ran a "spy operation on the Trump campaign that involved government informants, secret subpoenas, and possible wiretaps." (The article itself mentions only the FISA warrant on Page, but the headline'splural form—"wiretaps"—does its job of making things sound especially ominous.)

May 17

Other right-wing outlets aggregating the Timesreport draw the same conclusions Breitbart did. “FBI officials admit they spied on the Trump campaign,” blares The Federalist, which justifies its assertion with a helpful explanatory aside.

This paragraph [in the Times report] is noteworthy for the way it describes spying on the campaign—“at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos”—before suggesting that might not be spying. The definition of spying is to secretly collect information, so it’s not really in dispute whether a government informant fits the bill.”

Note that the write-up does not actually suggest that the FBI "planted" anyone in the campaign. But by setting out an expansive definition of "spying," articles like this one allow other publications—ones that might not so carefully define their terms—to use the word in that more specific (and more nefarious) context.

It is the National Review's coverage—assisted by cable news—that finally allows this story to reach the hallways of the Executive Residence."With the blessing of the Obama White House," writes Andrew McCarthy, again attributing the actions of law-enforcement officials to affirmative decisions of the then-president, the FBI "took the powers that enable our government to spy on foreign adversaries and used them to spy on Americans—Americans who just happened to be their political adversaries."He continues:

Obviously, Russia was trying to meddle in the election, mainly through cyber-espionage—hacking. There would, then, have been nothing inappropriate about the FBI’s opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Russia. Indeed, it would have been irresponsible not to do so. That’s what counterintelligence powers are for.

But opening up a counterintelligence investigation against Russia is not the same thing as opening up a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign.

This is the thrust of his argument, and it is nonsensical. McCarthy seems to assume that counterintelligence investigations "against Russia" and counterintelligence investigations "against the Trump campaign" must be mutually exclusive propositions, and that under no circumstances could a Russia-related intelligence probe look at the activities of Russia-related Trump officials. (His analysis is aided by a gross oversimplification of a key provision of FISA.) It would be "irresponsible," he urges, not to investigate what Russia may have been doing. But by virtue of their affiliation with a politician, everyone on the campaign should be insulated from any attendant scrutiny.

Before his column publishes, McCarthy hops on Fox & Friends to promote it. “There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign,” he says in a strange moment of confidence and timidity. (In a fun, incestuous right-wing-media aside, while listing McCarthy's credentials, F&F co-host Brian Kilmeade adds, "Hopefully a Fox News contributor soon.") Not long afterward, Trump takes to Twitter to express his outrage, shouting out McCarthy by name for a job well done.

Donald J. Trump

?

@realDonaldTrump

Wow, word seems to be coming out that the Obama FBI “SPIED ON THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN WITH AN EMBEDDED INFORMANT.” Andrew McCarthy says, “There’s probably no doubt that they had at least one confidential informant in the campaign.” If so, this is bigger than Watergate!

...

Law-enforcement pushback begins in earnest.Sources tell CNN that, no, the source was not placed within the Trump campaign. The Times provides even more details about the timeline, affirming that the informant spoke to campaign members only after the FBI learned of their dubious contacts with Russia. "No evidence has emerged," it reiterates, "that the informant acted improperly when the F.B.I. asked for help in gathering information on the former campaign advisers, or that agents veered from the F.B.I.’s investigative guidelines and began a politically motivated inquiry, which would be illegal."

It's too late. Because Donald Trump is president of the United States, the content of his tweets becomes breaking news regardless of its accuracy. "Trump: Justice Department planted spy in 2016 campaign," declares an AP headline that runs, among other places, in The Washington Post and U.S. News & World Report. The body text notes that Trump's "own lawyer" has said that the allegation "might not be true."But for readers inclined to believe what Donald Trump says, or for those who only saw the headline as they scrolled through their social feeds, it might as well have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Epilogue: May 18–20

The next day, the president tweets again, and again, with grateful acknowledgements for the hard work put in by Fox News personalities Lou Dobbs, David Asman, and Gregg Jarrett.

==

https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-sean-hannity-and-donald-trumps-bromance-extends-them-chatting-bed-night-report

Every night the phone rings for Fox News host Sean Hannity from the White House. While the first lady is in her own bedroom down the hall of the executive residence, the bromance between the two men is glowing through the phone as they gush over the president’s latest coverage on the network.

A shocking expose in New York Magazine revealed Sunday the many sources that are intimately aware of the relationship the two men share and how it has crafted the communications strategy for the White House.

"White House staff are aware that the calls happen, thanks to the president entering a room and announcing, 'I just hung up with Hannity,' or referring to what Hannity said during their conversations, or even ringing Hannity up from his desk in their presence," the report outlined.

Early on in the Trump presidency, the morning was spent flipping from cable news shows like MSNBC's Morning Joe to CNN's New Day, which ultimately lead to rage tweeting and an entire day's plans thrown out onto the White House lawn.

“It got to the point that they were just like, ‘We need to get him off these channels and onto Fox & Friends or else we’re going to be chasing down this crazy-train bullshit from MSNBC and CNN all day,’” one former White House official told New York Magazine.

Thanks to former chief of staff Reince Priebus and press secretary Sean Spicer, however, the team was able to move the president to Fox News. The result has been a happier and more blissfully benighted Trump less likely to ignite World War III after a Chris Cuomo quip. That's not to say that there aren't other problems.

“Sometimes on Fox, a lot of stories are embellished, and they don’t necessarily cover the big news stories of the day," explained the current White House official. "When they cover the smaller stories, if that gets the president riled up, then that becomes an issue. Whenever he tweets, all of us do a mad dash or mad scramble to find out as much information about that random topic as possible. We’re used to it in a lot of ways, so it’s part of our morning routine.”

To make matters worse, Trump doesn't trust anyone willing to work for him. Instead he flocks to his phone, begging for outsiders to confirm he's right. At the center of those on speed dial, however, is Hannity

==

RR:

robt r:

What’s worrying isn’t that Trump is now getting advice about policy from fanatics like John Bolton and Lawrence Kudlow. Trump has never cared about policy.

The real worry is that – with Robert Mueller breathing down his neck, and several special elections suggesting a giant “blue wave” in November – Trump is getting ready to do whatever it takes to maintain his power, even if that requires fanatical policies.

Trump is preparing for an epic war over the future of his presidency. This has required purging naysayers from his Cabinet and White House staff, and replacing them with bomb-throwing advocates like Bolton and Kudlow.

Fox News is preparing for the same war, and has made a parallel purge – removing Trump critics like George Will, Megyn Kelly, and Rich Lowry, and installing Trump marketers like Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, and Sebastian Gorka.

Trump and Fox News are also approaching the war with the same story.

Some of it is by now familiar: Liberals have opened America to hostile forces – unauthorized immigrants, Muslims, Chinese traders, criminal gangs, drug dealers, government bureaucrats, coastal elites (Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi), North Korea, Iran, and “political correctness” in all its forms.

Trump intends to protect America from these forces.

The new twist to the story– requiring the recent purges and a united front – is that these forces are conspiring with the FBI to oust Trump from the presidency.

We all know Trump watches an inordinate amount of Fox News, beginning in the wee hours with “Fox and Friends,” which provides much of the fodder for his morning tweets.The membrane separating Trump’s brain from Fox News has always been thin, but in coming months it’s likely to disappear entirely.

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trump victory party monitors fox, so got state wins in different order

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/right-wing-media-explodes-over-new-fbi-texts-misrepresents-facts

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https://www.alternet.org/media/fox-news-trump-fire-rosenstein

hannity

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/now-far-right-pundits-are-calling-death-trumps-opponents

While he is notoriously stubborn and self-assured, President Donald Trump is also famous for being susceptible to the power of suggestion.

Trump demonstrates how easily persuadable he is by responding via Twitter to “Fox & Friends" almost every day. His campaign and White House staffers have admitted to this several times, albeit not on the record. But their actions have made clear they believe this: White House chief of staff John Kelly has reportedly prohibited staff members from giving Trump reading materials. More recently, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer asked that presidential aide and immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller be kept out of an immigration meeting, lest he shape the president's thinking too much. Even Russian-controlled Twitter accounts have apparently been set to tweet at Trump during times he’s habitually online.

But the relationship between Trump and his admirers goes both ways. It has been observed that the people who have worked closely with the president, either in private or public life, eventually start behaving like him, even when he’s not around. Longtime lawyer Marc Kasowitz certainly demonstrated that when he threatened to stalk a "bitch" emailer. Trump’s personal physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, has also waxed Trumpian at times, describing his patient’s health as “extraordinary” and “astonishingly excellent.”

Given how the president and his close admirers tend to bring out the worst in each other, it’s particularly concerning how the most vehemently pro-Trump media outlets are going far beyond the sycophantic blather of “Fox & Friends” to outright calls for the president to jail or even execute people he doesn’t like -- particularly if they happen to be investigating connections between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.

In December, Fox News pundit and Trump ally Jeanine Pirro called on the president to implement a massive purge of officials who are not totally loyal.

“There is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice — it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in cuffs!” Pirro ranted.

The alleged need for large-scale firings and arrests within America’s intelligence agencies is a subject on which Pirro and her fellow Fox News Trump commentators Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have opined for many months now.

But Trump did not need months of persuasion to respond, however. As the New York Times reported on Thursday, the president ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller in June, just a few weeks after he had been appointed. Luckily for Trump, White House counsel Don McGahn and other staffers reportedly declined to carry out the order.

But the president’s Fox fans not have been the only right-wing media figures urging Trump to jail various Democrats and government investigators.

On Tuesday, John Guandolo, a disgraced former FBI agentwho has made a second career as an anti-Muslim and pro-Trump commentator, repeatedly told viewers of the Christian television station theDove that anyone who had allegedly promoted the famous “Steele dossier” as a justification for wiretapping Trump campaign officials was guilty of “sedition and treason” and must be given the death penalty.

“People need to be tried, convicted and executed for treason,” Guandolo said, in remarks that were first reported by the blog Right Wing Watch. “They are conspiring to overthrow the government … they need to be charged, sent to jail, executed, etc., if the republic is to survive.”

Though Guandolo is a relatively obscure pundit, he is apparently respected by a number of federal law enforcement agencies who have repeatedly paid for his anti-Muslim training programs.

Fox News viewers have also been introduced to the idea of capital punishment for Trump's critics. In October, Sebastian Gorka, the former White House adviser who is now a “national security strategist” at Fox News, invoked a conspiracy theory about former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's supposed approved of a deal for a Canadian uranium company that was working with a Russian firm.

“If this had happened in the 1950s, there would be people up on treason charges right now. The Rosenbergs, OK?” Gorka told a rapturous Sean Hannity. “This is equivalent to what the Rosenbergs did, and those people got the chair. Think about it. Giving away nuclear capability to our enemies, that’s what we’re talking about.”According to Gorka, American officials who approved the sale are the equivalent of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the American couple executed for selling nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.

As the Russia investigation has continued to heat up, Alex Jones— the conspiracy radio host who shifted from commentary about gay frogs, Ron Paul, and space aliens to spittle-flecked pro-Trump bombast — has begun increasing his own rhetorical vehemence against law enforcement officials.

Even before he became devoted to Trump, Jones had a long history of, such as warning actor Robert DeNiro that he wanted to “tear his nose completely off his face” and threatening to break the jaws of various other people he dislikes.

(While some observers of his program have argued Jones is just acting, during an April episode, he denied that his harangues are purely theatrical. “We’re the most bona fide, hard-core, real McCoy thing there is,” he told listeners.)

As the Mueller investigation has gotten two guilty pleas and numerous indictments against former Trump associates, Jones’ violent outbursts have only increased. He has apparently absorbed every unhinged conspiracy theory about treasonous “Deep State” elites and the ways they are using their supposedly limitless power to overthrow the president.

During the Jan. 19 episode of his program, Jones went on an, saying that Clinton, former president Barack Obama, former FBI director James Comey and a host of others were accusing Trump of acting like a dictator. Jones' suggested remedy: Trump should start doing just that.

“Mr. President, they’re not going to stop, they’ve already started a civil war! They’ve all got to go to prison!” Jones raged in a segment discussing CNN host Anderson Cooper and New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg. “They’re saying you’re a dictator, we all need to be shut down, take our free speech, and then say you’re doing that. They’ve already launched their operations!"

The Infowars founder then alluded to Phil Mudd, a former FBI and CIA official who now is a commentator at CNN who said last August that Trump’s antagonistic remarks about career intelligence officials could result in them wanting to “kill this guy.” It was clearly a metaphor, as host Jake Tapper and Mudd were quick to point out, for the idea that Trump might be inspiring government officials to leak disparaging information about the president.

According to Jones, however, Mudd had instead publicly stated that American intelligence agencies are planning to assassinate Trump. Because of that, Jones suggested, the president needs to begin physically rounding up his political opponents and treating them like violent traitors:

“Phil Mudd is on TV saying he’s going to kill you! All you need to do is go after them now! Turn the dogs loose! They started it! They did it! They’re the foreign power! They’re the enemy! They’re the traitors!”

“Get ’em! Get ’em!” Jones screamed as he pointed at an image of Cooper and Rosenberg on his studio screen.

, Jones revisited the topic of the Trump-Russia investigation, claiming that Obama “needs to go to prison” because “these people aren’t above the law.”

“These aren’t Americans,” Jones continued. “They’re globalists.”

He then tried to answer listeners and viewers who might believe that Trump imprisoning Clinton and Obama could lead to civil war.

“They’re already trying to cause one,” Jones replied. “Justice be done, may the heavens fall,” he said, alluding to the famous Latin phrase that is also a line in Oliver Stone's conspiracy film “JFK.”

The Infowars chief then compared government officials and liberal political figures to the Japanese and German armies America fought in World War II.

“We have to attack them legally and lawfully. ...We have to defeat them all. They’re not going to stop,” Jones continued. “Like World War II, you don’t just kick Hitler back into Germany, he’s going to reconstitute and attack again. You don’t just kick the Japanese out of the Pacific Islands, you’ve gotta go all the way to Tokyo. They started it!”

As he continued, Jones suggested that because of their “treason,” Trump needs to “go all the way” against his opponents.

“Whatever has to happen is going to happen. We’re going all the way against these people, period. We have to do it. There’s no other choice. They’ve all got to politically hang for their crimes,” he said.

“Incidentally,” Jones said as he looked deep into the camera and drummed his fingers to accentuate the dramatic pause. “You know what the punishment for treason is.”

He continued: “These are the foreign individuals that took our country over. They’re the ones who corrupted everything almost to the point of the country’s death. And they’re still trying to strangle the country today. We must stand against them.”

Before the rise of Trump, Jones was an irrelevant conspiracy radio host whose ravings were listened to by a small number of deranged core fans and hipsters with eccentric senses of humor. All of that changed after Jones latched on to Trump during his campaign.

Trump returned the favor, saying publicly that Jones has an “amazing” reputation during his campaign. As president, he has given Jones and his Infowars colleagues prime access to White House officials. According to Jones, Trump has called him multiple times at home during the past few months. The host has also claimed that he knows several personal phone numbers for Trump, including the president’s private suite at Mar-a-Lago.

Nor Jones is the only person associated with Infowars who has deep connections inside the administration.

Trump’s longtime friend and unofficial political adviser Roger Stone is now the host of an Infowars show of his own. Donald Trump Jr., the president's oldest son, posted on Twitter last April that Infowars correspondent and conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich deserved a Pulitzer Prize after an administration source fed him a scoop days before the mainstream press. It was one of several important stories the two have broken ahead of legitimate news outlets. Cernovich has also boasted that Donald Jr. and other Trump family members personally give the president printouts of stories from Infowars and other dubious websites.

Given the many strictures on the commander in chief's authority, it is unlikely that Trump could start imprisoning his political opponents even if he wanted to. But the president is far from the only person exposed to a constant diet of violent rhetoric against Democrats, journalists and law enforcement officers. Many disturbed people who voted for him are as well.

Last week, a Michigan man named Brandon Griesemer was arrested for threatening to kill CNN’s “fake news” anchors.In December of 2016, North Carolina resident Edgar Maddison Welch burst into a pizza restaurant near Washington with a rifle and fired off three rounds, in part because Jones and his staff had spent hours telling their followers the place was the center of a global child-sex ring.

Following Welch’s guilty plea last March, Jones begrudgingly and partially retracted his support for the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory. His actions since, however, suggest he has no legitimate intention of cleaning up his act.

People have mocked the idea that Trump could become a dictator. What's clear is that many people he likes are telling him to become one.

Matthew Sheffield

https://www.alternet.org/media/5-worst-fox-news-lies-and-errors-repeated-donald-trump

Most U.S. presidents get their briefings from the experts on their staff. Donald Trump gets his information from Fox News. The New York Times reported early this month that Trump watches up to eight hours of cable TV news a day, and Fox News is his absolute favorite. As he guzzles Diet Cokes and scarfs fast food, Trump keeps on eye on the Faux News anchors and pundits who offer him their constant adoration. Everything else he denigrates as fake news, particularly if it offers an unflattering truth.

This would be problematic by any standard, but it’s made all the more insidious by the fact that Fox News is garbage. Studies have found that viewers who watch Fox News aren’t just less informed than other news consumers, but know less than people who don’t watch any news at all. That’s the result of Fox’s endless stream of alternative facts, the very thing that keeps the network in favor with the Trump regime.

Trump often promotes Fox errors and misinformation because they serve his agenda. Here are five examples of Fox lies and misinformation Trump has repeated since his election.

1. When he tweeted Fox News' lies about his campaign manager’s crimes.

In late October, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort—who made his name doing PR for dictators—was indicted on a dozen charges, including money laundering, conspiracy and tax fraud. Court papers specified that while Manafort’s crimes date back to 2006, the allegations included actions in 2016 and 2017. Fox & Friends quickly got to work spreading the lie that Manafort’s wrongdoing had occurred “many years before he joined Trump.” Fox News talking heads ran with their assigned angle, with Geraldo Rivera tweeting that Manafort’s “corruption predates time w @realDonaldTrump” and contributor Byron York stating Manafort’s “alleged crimes...if they took place, took place years before he joined the Trump campaign.”

Shortly after Fox’s inaccurate reporting, Trump seized on the useful lie and used it in one of his own defensive tweets. “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign,” Trump wrote in his message, blathering on about “Crooked Hillary & the Dems.”

2. When he repeated Fox News’ false reporting about James Comey.

In their feverish haste to impugn former FBI director Comey, Fox & Friends writers totally misread a report from reputable news outlet the Hill. The source article indicated that of the seven memos Comey wrote detailing his troubling conversations with Trump, four contained classified information. Comey had previously stated, testifying before the Senate, that he shared one memo that did not contain classified information with a friend to leak to press. But a Fox & Friends segment and subsequent tweet claimed Comey had leaked “top secret information” to a friend, a declaration with no relationship to the truth.

"James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media,” Trump tweeted, his obvious source the bad information provided by Fox & Friends. “That is so illegal!"

The following day, after numerous outlets reported on the lie, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy issued a correction—though not an apology—for the error. The Trump correction is definitely on its way any day now….

3. When he was confused by Fox News about the Swedish terror attack that never was.

In their ongoing efforts to demonize Muslims both at home and abroad, Fox News put its spotlight on a documentary linking the increase in violent crime in Sweden with the arrival of brown migrants. (On a not-so-side note, the Guardian cites a Swedish Migration Agency report showing that is totally made-up Islamophobic garbage.) After watching the report on a Friday night, a confused and fact-indifferent Trump told an audience on Saturday that a terror attack had just occurred. 

“You look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this?” Trump lamented to a Florida crowd. “Sweden, they took in large numbers, they are having problems like they never thought possible.”

The news shocked no one more than the Swedes, who had no idea what Trump was talking about and quickly recognized that he didn’t, either. “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking?” Swedish politician Carl Bildt mockingly asked.He went on to mention the cities of Nice, Paris and Brussels, all of which had experienced terrorist attacks in recent years.

On Sunday, Trump tweeted that his “statement as to what's happening in Swedenwas in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.” Of course.

4. When he tweeted falsehoods about President Obama because he misunderstood a Fox News report.

In the early morning of March 7, Fox & Friends quickly cycled through the day’s headlines. Trump’s attention may have been caught by a report that the “Trump administration just killed a former Guantanamo Bay detainee [Yasir al-Silmi] released by Barack Obama...He had been released back in 2009 even though the Department of Defense recommended that he stay behind bars. One hundred twenty-two prisoners released from Gitmo have returned to the battlefield.”

Fox reiterated that announcement in a tweet that again stated “at least 122 former Gitmo detainees have re-engaged in terrorism.” Trump could easily have asked any of the experts in his orbit about a numbers breakdown, but instead he decided to wing it, posting a tweet incorrectly blaming Obama. “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield,” Trump wrote in the Twitter missive. “Just another terrible decision!”

That’s a fairly funny claim from the king of terrible decisions. The Daily Banter gets to the heart of the problem here:

Naturally, Trump leaped to the conclusion that all 122 detainees mentioned in the piece were released by President Obama. They weren't. In fact, according to the Director of National Intelligence's website, President Bush released 532 detainees from Guantanamo Bay, and 113 of those former detainees returned to "the battlefield." Meanwhile, Obama released 161 detainees, with just nine returning to the battlefield.So, no, Obama didn't release 122 "vicious prisoners" from Gitmo who returned to terrorism. He released 161, but only nine of them rejoined al-Qaeda.

Trump lied.

5. When he even retweeted a Fox spelling error of his own words.

While delivering a speech in Poland last summer, Trump declared that "the West was saved with the blood of patriots."

Fox News aired the speech, but instead of Trump’s actual words, the chyron offered a misquote that read, “POTUS: WEST SAVED BY THE BLOOD OF PATRIARCHS.”

The error itself isn’t that extraordinary. Tickers, chyrons and other onscreen graphics are often written quickly, and mistakes are bound to happen. That, or Fox News believes Trump truly meant to say that bloodthirsty dads, fighting to the death, are the real heroes. Both of these things seem equally likely.

In any case, Trump tweeted the Fox News clip featuring the typo, despite the fact that it contained a total misstatement of his own words.

As another Twitter user noted, footage from just after the speech seemed to show Trump aimlessly moving around the stage with no sense of where to go or what to do. I guess that fits well with not remembering his own speech.

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rare victory for correction:

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/fox-news-viewers-melt-down-after-shep-smith-blows-latest-hillary-conspiracy-theory

hannity 24 hr deadline on moore --> clinton bimbos

// dn trump voter 180 in poll on personal morality matter dn 11/17/17

https://www.alternet.org/media/fox-news-hire-laura-ingraham-signals-theyve-picked-side-gop-civil-war

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Shep Smith debunks fake news previously spread by Fox News

Fox News anchor Shep Smith debunked fake news about Puerto Rican truck drivers meant to absolve Trump after the poor response to Hurricane Maria. Just days earlier, the claim had been repeated by a colleague of his at Fox News.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/watch-fox-anchor-praises-trump-giving-cops-grenade-launchers-use-front-lines

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fake news russia wikileaks mirror

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/white-house-signed-bogus-fox-news-story-pushing-seth-rich-murder-conspiracy

explosive new lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that the Trump White House reviewed and signed off on a bogus Fox News story that claimed murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich had been in direct contact with WikiLeaks.

NPR reports that the lawsuit was filed against Fox News by Rod Wheeler, a longtime Fox contributor who was quoted in a Fox story about his so-called “investigation” into the Rich murder.

In the original report, Wheeler was quoted as saying he “absolutely” found evidence that Rich had been in contact with WikiLeaks in the weeks before the website published stolen DNC emails that U.S. intelligence agencies believe were stolen by Russian hackers.

However, Wheeler’s lawsuit alleges that the Fox reporter behind the story, Malia Zimmerman, fabricated these quotes in her story. Additionally, Wheeler’s lawsuit claims that the story was originally concocted to help take heat off the White House, which has been struggling to contain assorted scandals related to the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials during the 2016 election.

The most explosive allegation in the story, however, is that the Trump White House reviewed the contents of the Fox News article on the Seth Rich conspiracy before it was published.

“On April 20, a month before the story ran, [wealthy Trump supporter Ed] Butowsky and Wheeler… met at the White House with then Press Secretary Sean Spicer to brief him on what they were uncovering,” NPR reports. “The first page of the lawsuit quotes a voicemail and text from Butowsky boasting that President Trump himself had reviewed drafts of the Fox News story just before it went to air and was published.”

The Butowsky text in question tells Wheeler that “the president just read the article” and “he wants it out immediately.”

Neither Fox News nor Wheeler have responded to Raw Story’s request for comment.

Read the entire story about the lawsuit at this link.

The full text of the lawsuit follows below.

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http://www.alternet.org/culture/simpsons-creator-i-was-told-lay-fox-news-after-we-called-it-no-1-racists

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alt rt 2: love hate

IV. Complicity Of Others

The “alt-right” is the engine driving this harassment, and fake news is the tool. But it’s clear that failure of others in the media landscape helped the perverse movement get this far.

For one, the tech industry is profiting from this activity every step of the way. Twitter’s failure to stop harassment is legendary. The Trump subreddit has grown completely out of hand. Facebook’s complicity in the spread of fake news is clear. The tech industry is so concerned with engagement that companies have been reluctant to act even when it is clear that some of that engagement is outright abuse and harassment.

While mainstream media outlets seem to realize that fake news is a problem, they largely raise concerns only to the extent that fake news is a competitor or when the abuse is big enough that they can easily see it. There is surely fake news of every political stripe, and it should all be disincentivized. But there is no built-out ecosystem to weaponize it anywhere like there is with Breitbart, Alex Jones, Reddit, and the “alt-right.” That’s what mainstream media’s scolding about fake news and “both sides” gets wrong, time and again. In their reluctance to show the unique damage that fake news has on the right, mainstream media are continuing their biggest mistake of the Bush and Obama years: ignoring the growing radicalization of the right in America.

And this ecosystem of fake news and the “alt-right” is entirely different from the previous right-wing media ecosystem. The previous model involved moving the audience from mainstream news to Fox News and then to the deeper trenches of talk radio and online email lists, where right-wing operators can often bilk their recipients financially. Now, things are different. Fox News’ brand of right-wing misinformation is pervasive, and over recent decades fewerpeople are watching mainstream news networks.

The independence of the fake news/“alt-right” ecosystem has interesting consequences. First, members feel empowered to attack Fox News, framing it as part of the establishment media rather than an alternative to traditional sources. Aside from “Pizzagate,” the clearest example of this ecosystem is the harassment directed at Fox anchor Megyn Kelly. The first fake news story to trend on Facebook after the company fired its editors was about Kelly, falsely claiming that Fox fired her for being “‘a closet liberal who actually wants Hillary to win,’” according to CBS. Versions of this fake story featured language like “Megyn Kelly has gotten into a lot of hot water for her many attempts to smear Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump.” Another fake news story called her a “traitor” for her behavior toward Trump. As Kelly has now recently explained, she also was the recipient of torrents of online abuse from Trump supporters. The harassment may not have begun with the fake news story, but their connection seems clear. And the attacks on Fox News are not limited to Kelly -- Alex Jones attacks the network regularly.[hence newsmax TV?]

Secondly, traditional figures like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are functionally irrelevant to the "alt-right." They may support Trump on a given day or they may not, but the “alt-right” operates independently of anything they say or do. Alex Jones or Breitbart issuing a call to action will move people, while Limbaugh and O’Reilly are now glorified book salesmen.

And yet, right-wing media are still allied with and permissive of the “alt-right,” continuing to train their focus on mainstream media. Rather than concerning themselves with the issue of fake news, right-wing media use the term to attack mainstream outlets.

In fact, right-wing media go out of their way to give space for the “alt-right” to operate. Fox News dramatically undercovered “Pizzagate” compared to other mainstream outlets. Fox News reporters (not just pundits) have dismissed the concept of “fake news” and defended the “alt-right” on air. When Facebook announced its plan to alleviate its fake news infestation, the most aghast were right-wing pundits.

It is unclear where the phenomenon is going, but one clue may be Fox’s newest host. Tucker Carlson, Fox News’ Elf on the Shelf, is a huge favorite of “alt-right” trolls. If Carlson’s show is a success, Fox News in the future could drift more toward the “alt-right” model. (Worth noting is that Rupert Murdoch is reportedly a fan of Carlson's.) And the biggest glue tying together traditional right-wing media and the fake news ecosystem are the NRA and The Drudge Report, both of which were undoubtedly further empowered this election season.

==

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/12/08/right-wing-media-s-government-takeover-donald-trump/214760

Donald Trump: President

Trump Had Weekly Segments On Fox & Friends And Squawk Box For Years. Before he ran for president, Donald Trump had weekly segments on Fox News’ morning show Fox & Friends for years, where he repeatedly pushed birther claims against President Obama, and a weekly segment with CNBC’s Squawk Box in 2012. *Media Matters*, [9/12/16]

Mike Pence: Vice President

Pence Was A Self-Described “Rush Limbaugh On Decaf” Conservative Radio Host. Before he became governor of Indiana and then Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence served in the House of Representatives for six terms and worked as a conservative talk radio host. In a 2014 speech to “a gathering of the Radio Advertising Bureau and the National Association of Broadcasters,” Pence reportedly said, “I hosted a talk radio show in the early days of that format. I liked to say, ‘I’m a conservative, but I’m not [in] a bad mood about it.’ I was kind of like Rush Limbaugh on decaf.” *Media Matters*, [7/14/16]

Stephen Bannon: White House Chief Counselor And Senior Strategist

Bannon Ran Breitbart.com -- A “Platform For The ‘Alt-Right’” -- And Hosted A Satellite Radio Show. Stephen Bannon, who was the Trump campaign CEO and was named as Trump’s White House chief counselor and senior strategist, ran the right-wing news site Breitbart.com, which he called “the platform of the ‘alt-right,’” referring to the fringe movement that pushes white nationalism. Bannon also hosted the SiriusXM radio show Breitbart News Daily. *Media Matters*, [11/13/16, 8/25/16; The Washington Post, 11/15/16]

Ben Carson: Secretary Of Housing And Urban Development

Carson Was A Right-Wing Media Star Before Becoming A Fox Contributor And Washington Times Columnist. Ben Carson, whom Trump has named to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was praised by conservative media for talking up conservative policies at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast with President Obama. That July, he became a columnist for the conservative Washington Times:{, and that October, he was hired by Fox News as a contributor. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[12/5/16:{, }:6/4/15:{]}:

Michael Flynn: National Security Adviser

Flynn Was A Regular Fox Guest, And Presidential Candidates Sought His Advice Because Of His TV Appearances. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn frequently appeared as a guest on Fox, where he pushed anti-Islamic views. Politico:{ reported that his frequent Fox appearances resulted in several Republican presidential candidates reaching out to him for advice throughout the presidential campaign. Trump named Flynn as his pick for national security adviser on November 18. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[11/18/16:{]}:

K.T. McFarland: Deputy National Security Adviser

McFarland Worked As A Fox Analyst For Years. K.T. McFarland, whom Trump named as his deputy national security adviser, was a national security analyst for Fox, where she repeatedly pushed for war with Iran.:{ :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[11/26/16:{;}:Deadline Hollywood,11/25/16:{]}:

Elaine Chao: Transportation Secretary

Chao Worked As A Fox Contributor After Serving In The Bush Administration. Elaine Chao, Trump’s pick to run the Department of Transportation, was a Fox contributor after serving as President George W. Bush’s secretary of labor. FoxNews.com, [11/29/16]

Andy Puzder: Labor Secretary

Puzder Uses Op-Eds And TV Appearances To Attack Progress For Workers. Fast food CEO Andy Puzder, Trump’s pick for secretary of labor, writes op-eds and makes TV appearances to criticize wage increases and regulations that increase salaries. He has made appearances on Fox News and has written op-eds for The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, and Forbes.:{ :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[11/17/16:{, }:5/19/16:{, }:6/24/15:{]}:

John Bolton: Potential Secretary Of State Or Deputy Secretary Of State

Bolton Has Been A Fox Contributor For Years. John Bolton, who was reportedly under consideration to be Trump’s secretary of state and is now reportedly being considered for deputy secretary of state, is a longtime Fox contributor who also repeatedly pushed for war with Iran and considered using his TV platform to run for president himself in early 2015. On December 11 and 12, Bolton aided Trump’s efforts to undermine a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf by repeatedly suggesting the hacking of the Democratic National Committee could be a “false flag operation.” *Media Matters*, [:{11/16/16:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, :{1/23/15:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, 12/12/16; NBC News, 12/11/16]

Rudy Giuliani: Potential Secretary Of State

Giuliani Is A Frequent Fox Guest Who Served As A Trump Surrogate. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has also been considered for the secretary of state position under Trump, served as a media surrogate for Trump during the presidential election and has been a frequent Fox guest for years, where he often made anti-Muslim statements. On December 9, Giuliani reportedly removed himself from consideration for Trump’s secretary of state. *The New York Times*, [:{11/24/16:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:; Media Matters, :{5/11/16:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:, :{6/14/16:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:; USA Today, 12/9/16]

Laura Ingraham: Potential Press Secretary

Ingraham Has Been An ABC And Fox Contributor, Founded A Right-Wing News Site, And Hosts A Radio Show. :{Laura Ingraham has been reportedly under consideration by Trump to serve as his press secretary since November 12. Ingraham is a longtime Fox contributor and talk radio host who has repeatedly singled out Hispanic media outlets and journalists for criticism and ridicule. She was also an ABC News contributor and founded the right-wing news site LifeZette in 2015. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[11/13/16:{, }:4/13/14:{; }:Politico:{, }:4/1/15:{]}:

Monica Crowley: Deputy National Security Adviser

Crowley Was A Longtime Fox Contributor And Washington Times Columnist. Monica Crowley, who was reportedly being considered for press secretary by Trump, was named his deputy national security adviser for strategic communications on December 15. Crowley was previously a Fox contributor who frequently pushed conspiracy theories on air. She also works as a Washington Times:{ columnist. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[:{11/28/16:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::{; }:The Hill:{, }::{11/25/16:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}::{]}:

Eric Bolling: Potential Commerce Department Hire

Bolling Is A Fox Host. Eric Bolling, who has reportedly been in discussion with the Trump team for a position in the Department of Commerce, currently works as one of the co-hosts of Fox’s The Five:{. He previously had his own show on Fox Business, and he has frequently pushed racism, anti-Muslim views, and conspiracy theories on Fox and Fox Business. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[11/21/16:{]}:

David Clarke: Potential Secretary Of Homeland Security

Clarke Publishes A Radio Podcast And Is A Favorite Fox Guest. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, whom Trump considered to run the Department of Homeland Security before selecting retired Gen. John Kelly, hosts a podcast for Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze Radio Network, called The People’s Sheriff:{, and is a regular Fox News guest who often attacks Black Lives Matter and other protest movements. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[11/16/16:{, TheBlaze, }:6/2/15:{]}:

Allen West: Potential Pick For A Defense Or National Security Position

West Runs His Own News Site, Online Radio Show, And Is A Fox Contributor. Allen West, a retired lieutenant colonel who performed illegal acts during an interrogation of an Iraqi prisoner and later became a one-term tea party congressman from Florida, told Fox host Brian Kilmeade on Kilmeade’s radio show that he went to Trump Tower on December 12 “and had a really good interview.” He didn’t specify what administration position he was interviewed for, but said that “it is definitely something that relates to defense or national security.” In 2013, West launched an online radio show and was hired as a Fox contributor, and runs his own news site AllenBWest.com, whose editor-in-chief apologized on December 10 for a meme posted to West’s Facebook page that promoted genocide against Muslims. :{:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[12/12/16:{; Fox News Radio, }:12/12/16:{; }:Politico:{, }:1/16/13:{, }:5/17/13:{; The Daily Beast, }:12/12/16:{; PolitiFact Florida, }:10/16/12:{]}:

David Martosko: Potential Press Secretary

Martosko Was Conservative Daily Caller’s Executive Editor Before Working For Daily Mail. Politico reported on December 13 that the Daily Mail’s U.S. political editor, David Martosko, has interviewed for a Trump administration position and that his name had been mentioned as a possible pick for press secretary. Before joining the Daily Mail in 2013, Martosko worked as the executive editor for the conservative news site The Daily Caller starting in 2011. During his stint at The Daily Caller, Martosko refused to correct an embarrassing false report about an EPA court brief, then doubled down on the erroneous story with a misleading editor’s note. While working at the Daily Mail:{, Martosko fell for and reported a false smear by discredited conservative activist James O’Keefe, and pushed the baseless smear that Surgeon General Vivek Murthy is anti-gun. Martosko also serves on the media advisory board of the American Media Institute, which plants stories in major publications and is largely funded by a right-wing dark money group. :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Politico*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[12/13/16:{; }:Media Matters:{, }:9/29/11:{, }:10/20/11:{, }:6/18/13:{, }:3/12/14:{, }:10/19/16:{]}:

Kimberly Guilfoyle: Potential Press Secretary

Guilfoyle Co-Hosts Fox’s The Five. Kimberly Guilfoyle, who has reportedly had multiple meetings with President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team about possibly serving as his press secretary, currently works as a co-host for Fox’s 5 p.m. show The Five:{, and like Trump, has expressedadmiration for Putin-- even once calling for him to be president "for 48 hours." :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:*Media Matters*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[12/15/16:{]}:

This item will continue to be updated.

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http://www.salon.com/2016/11/02/peak-propaganda-fox-news-creates-an-alternate-reality-and-cnn-perpetuates-it/

In the United States, the right-wing news-entertainment complex has constructed an alternate reality for conservatives that functions like a political version of the Upside-Down from the hit Netflix show “Stranger Things.”

Fox News sits at its center. New Suffolk University polling data shows how Fox News viewers (and those respondents who identify as “conservative” and “very conservative”) are much more critical of President Barack Obama,  are afraid of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and have a much more negative attitude about the future of the United States than the general public. Fox News viewers are also much more likely to believe that the presidential election will somehow be manipulated or subjected to fraud and that the American news media is conspiring against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

In a recent story, the 24/7 cable news outlet CNN also analyzed and commented upon the new Suffolk University poll. It offered the following important qualifier:

Fox allies might say the poll findings show that other channels have a liberal bent. Fox critics might say that the results illustrate the echo chamber of conservative media.

With one small comment, CNN has unintentionally (and ironically) provided an example of how the “liberal news media” has aided and abetted the rise of Trump.

...

CNN alluded to differences in opinion about Fox News, partisanship, as well as how other news channels may have a “liberal bias.” CNN then chose, however, to ignore research, which has repeatedly shown that Fox News is not “fair or balanced” but rather extremely biased and partisan. Other work has demonstrated that Fox News is a source of disinformation whereby viewers are repeatedly fed lies on a broad range of topics including science, the economy, health care policy, terrorism, immigration and religion.

Perhaps most damning of all, is the finding that people who watch Fox News actually know less about factual news matters than those who do not watch any news program at all.

In all, Fox News is extremely dangerous to the public discourse and consensus politics in America because it creates a feedback loop among conservatives, one that is almost impossible to break. Chris Mooney explained this in his book, “The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality”:

Fox News is both deceiver and enabler simultaneously. First, its existence creates the opportunity for conservatives to exercise their biases, by selecting into the Fox information stream, and also by imbibing Fox-style arguments and claims that can then fuel biased reasoning about politics, science, and whatever else comes up.

But at the same time, it’s also likely that conservatives, tending to be more closed-minded and more authoritarian, have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape from the belief challenges constantly presented by the “liberal media.” Their psychological need for something affirmative is probably stronger than what’s encountered on the opposite side of the aisle — as is their revulsion towards allegedly liberal (but really centrist) media outlets.

This has a deleterious impact on the ability of Republicans to legislate and govern in a responsible manner. Writing at the New Republic, Danny Vinik examined findings from a 2014 Brookings and Public Religion Research Institute poll came up with the following conclusion:

...

The relationship between Fox News, CNN and other parts of the American corporate news media is symbiotic and adversarial. Fox News claims to be “fair and balanced” while actually serving as the de facto mouthpiece for the Republican Party. Fox News also used the false narrative that competitors such as CNN are “biased” against conservatives to become the most watched news network in America.

While conservatives would like to believe that CNN is somehow biased against Republicans, it has lavished coverage of Donald Trump, earning a reported $100 million in advertising revenue by featuring him. This is a small part of the estimated $3 billion in free coverage that Trump has been given by American media outlets during the 2016 presidential season....

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Another study, cited by The Guardian [no link]Tuesday, concludes that the growth of conservative media has cemented this gap.

Conservative newspaper The Wall Street Journalwas found to publish inaccurate information on the topic, according to a report by Media Matters for America.

"Out of 93 climate-related opinion pieces published in the Journal during the time period examined, 31 featured climate science denial or other scientifically inaccurate claims about climate change (33 percent)," Media Matters for America said.

A 2013 study found that those Americans who consumed news from conservative news sources such asFox had a higher distrust of science and scientists, than did those who read or watched non-conservative media.

Breaking through to those who fiercely deny the existence of climate change is no easy task, the Ohio State University researchers concluded.

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http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/egyn-kellys-trump-interview-signaled-fox-news-surrender

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http://www.alternet.org/media/fox-news-brainwashed-so-many-dads-people-are-being-bamboozled-massive-scale

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end of year wrap features fox:  http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/04/media-climate-change-2/3/**

8. Following Damning Reports, Fox Business’ Bartiromo Praises Exxon: “You Actually Helped Finance Accurate Scientific Research About Climate Change”

Following reports by InsideClimate News and the Los Angeles Times revealing that Exxon peddled climate science denial for years after its scientists recognized that burning fossil fuels causes global warming, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo allowed Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson to call the charges against Exxon “unfounded” and “without any substance at all.” Rather than challenge Tillerson with evidence that Exxon knowingly deceived shareholders and the public about climate change, Bartiromo defended the company during the interview, stating to Tillerson: “You actually helped finance accurate scientific research about climate change.”

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11.15

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http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/11/23/how-fox-news-climate-change-denial-finds-its-wa/207037

New Study Connects Conservative Misinformation On Climate Change To California Textbook Inaccuracies

New research from Southern Methodist University (SMU) found that some children's textbooks that depict the reality of human-caused climate change with uncertainty are influenced by a climate science knowledge gap that finds its roots partly in conservative media misinformation.

In a language analysis of four major California science textbooks, the SMU researchers found that the books delivered a message "that climate change is possibly happening, that humans may or may not be causing it, and that we do not need to take immediate mitigating action."

The study concluded that the four 6th grade textbooks -- including books from major national publishing companies McGraw-Hill Education and Pearson -- used language and writing techniques that "more closely match the public discourse of doubt about climate change rather than the scientific discourse" one might expect from academic texts. The books used language that misleadingly amplified uncertainty about the causes of climate change, undermined the expertise of climate scientists, and implied a false balance narrative around the realities of climate change within the scientific community.

For example, the authors found that only 21 percent of the instances discussing the cause-effect factors in climate change identified the effects of human activity, and that in the texts, "Scientists were often said to think or believe but rarely were scientists said to be inferring from evidence or data."

The SMU study explained that conservative media falsehoods about climate change contribute to a shift in public discourse, which eventually influences textbook language by creating competing interests within the textbook market. Publishers' attempts to cater to the largest market -- which includes textbook buyers who ascribe to the "public discourse of doubt" around climate change -- ultimately result in misleading textbook language and factual inaccuracies. Although the study focused on California textbooks, such a large textbook market often "set[s] standards for the rest of the country" according to the study's authors -- an effect that may already be seen in Texas.

How does this "public discourse of doubt" on climate change first develop? The researchers at SMU cited Fox News' coverage of climate science as one factor in shaping misinformation, pointing to previous research that showed Fox has disproportionately interviewed climate science deniers and that its viewers are more likely to be climate science deniers themselves (emphasis added):

[I]n discussing the topic of climate change, some segments of the media use the journalistic norm of 'balance' -- giving equal weight to all positions about this phenomenon -- when building frames to present to the public (Boykoff 2007). When frame setting, segments of the media adhere to this norm to give equal time to a climate scientist and a climate denier when addressing climate change. For example, Fox News presents climate change as uncertain by interviewing a greater proportion of climate deniers (Feldman et al. 2012). As a result, at the individual-level effects of framing stage, the audience may come to understand human-caused climate change as controversial. And indeed, viewers of Fox News are more likely to be climate skeptics even when taking into account political affiliation (Feldman et al. 2012). The effects of framing go beyond individual positions about specific topics. Frames accumulate into larger discourses, which are 'a shared way of apprehending the world... enabling those who subscribe to it to interpret bits of information and put them together into coherent stories or accounts' (Dryzek 2013, 9). We see two discourses prevalent in climate change communication: a 'scientific discourse' and a 'public discourse.'

The researchers' implication of Fox News in the creation of a misinformed public discourse is well founded. Media figures at Fox have a long record of repeating scientific inaccuracies on air and allowing fringe figures to perpetuate widely debunked claims. The similarities between the doubtful language and inaccurate claims on Fox and in the textbook examples from the study are striking:

Textbook Frame: "Some Scientists" Think Global Warming Is Due In Part To "Natural Variations In Climate"

The SMU study found that the textbooks dedicated substantial portions of their passages on climate change to discussing natural causes rather than human causes, despite that "there is little doubt about the causes of current climate change" within the scientific community that human activities are the driving force behind the phenomenon:

All four textbooks dedicated a substantial portion of the chapters about climate change to describe the natural factors that could be causing this phenomenon. Although all four textbooks indicated that human beings could be having an impact on climate change, they framed this topic as an issue in which not all scientists are in agreement as can be seen in the following example:

• Not all scientists agree about the causes of global warming. Some scientists think that the 0.7 Celsius degree rise in global temperatures over the past 120 years may be due in part to natural variations in climate. (Prentice Hall 2008)

The study stated in a discussion of its findings: "The causes of climate change were shrouded in uncertainty in the texts we analyzed. Specifically, the human contribution to climate change was presented as a possibility rather than a certainty."

Fox News Frame: "Nobody Knows" What's Causing Global Warming

Fox Host: Is Global Warming Man-Made? "Nobody Knows."In a June 2014 edition of Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends,Fox News' Steve Doocy asserted that "nobody knows" if the causes of global warming are natural or man-made:

STEVE DOOCY: Keep in mind: nobody is saying that the planet isn't getting warmer. Although, you know, we had a story a couple of days ago that the 1930s were much, much warmer than the decade we're in right now. And the globe has not warmed in 17 years. Here's the thing - nobody's saying the globe isn't warming. The question comes down to, if it is, what's making it warm up? Is it just a natural climactic [sic] cycle? Or is it something man-caused? Nobody knows.

Fox News Correspondent: "There Is Not Consensus" On Causes Of Climate Change.On the September 1 edition of Special Report with Bret Baier,Fox News correspondent Dan Springerrejected the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change, stating that "while the Obama administration blames man and the burning of fossil fuels, there is not consensus," before cutting to an economist from the conservative Heritage Foundation to support his claim.

DAN SPRINGER: Scientists say the Arctic has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the nation. Sea ice is arriving later in the fall and melting sooner in the summer. This was one of the worst wildfire seasons on record in the Last Frontier State -- 5 million acres burned, about the size of Massachusetts. But while the Obama administration blames man and the burning of fossil fuels, there is not consensus.

Textbook Frame: Climate Has "Changed Throughout Earth's History"

The SMU study identified language in multiple textbooks that emphasized the historical context of climate change "to support the idea that climate had been changing well before humans were here and, therefore, is a naturally occurring phenomenon," including the following examples:

However, climates have gradually changed throughout Earth's history. (Prentice Hall, 2008)

Scientists have found evidence of many major ice ages throughout Earth's geologic history. (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Inc. 2007)

Fox News Frame: "Climate Changes. It Always Has And It Always Will"

Media figures often appear on Fox News to suggest that historical shifts in the global climate somehow disprove the notion that human-driven climate change is threatening our way of life.Media Matters compiled several, such as Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner, saying: "Climate changes. It always has, it always will."

Textbook Frame: Global Warming "Could Have Some Positive Effects"

The SMU study noted that "all four textbooks mentioned the negative effects of climate change, but two of them also discussed the potential positive results of this phenomenon," pointing out the following examples:

Global warming could have some positive effects. Farmers in some areas that are now cool could plant crops two times a year instead of one. Places that are too cold for farming today could become farmland. However, many effects of global warming are likely to be less positive. (Prentice Hall, 2008)

But farther north, such as in Canada, weather conditions for farming would improve. (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston Inc. 2007)

Fox News Frame: Global Warming Is "Good For Human Beings"

Fox's Gutfeld: "Even If There Is Global Warming ... It's Good For Human Beings."On the April 11, 2012 edition of Fox News' The Five, co-host Greg Gutfeld asserted : "even if there is global warming ... it's good for human beings. If a polar bear dies, I don't feel bad. Honestly I don't. No, human beings. When temperature goes up, human beings live longer. When you have cold spells across countries, people die."

Fox Turned To Mark Levin And A Coal Miner To Say "CO's What Make Plants Grow." During an hour-long special on the "green agenda" in 2012, Fox News turned to right-wing radio host Mark Levin, who denied that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that should be regulated, saying: "Carbon dioxide is what we exhale. Carbon dioxide is necessary for plants." Fox later aired video of coal miner Robert "Buz" Hilberry echoing this, saying: "I'm no scientist but CO's what make plants grow and what make you breathe, so they're trying to choke us all out by stopping the burning of coal."

Fox Frequent Marc Morano: Record High Carbon Dioxide "Should Be Welcomed" Because "Plants Are Going To Be Happy." Marc Morano, who was featured on Fox News to discuss climate change 11 times in 2014 alone, said to Bloomberg that Americans "should welcome" a record high in greenhouse gases because "This means that plants are going to be happy, and this means that global-warming fearmongers are going to be proven wrong."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/11/23/how-fox-news-climate-change-denial-finds-its-wa/207037

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predictable, mandatory re sammon?

9/3/15

http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/02/obama-climate-change/

Fox News Host: Obama Is so Obsessed With Climate Change He Should Work for the Weather Channel

Cole Mellino

Don’t miss out. Stay Informed. Get EcoWatch’s Top News of the Day.

Not everyone is thrilled that President Obama is addressing climate change while visiting Alaska this week. Environmentalists have accused the President of hypocrisy for talking about the urgency of climate change while at the same time approvingArctic drilling. On the other hand, some conservatives don’t think he should be talking about climate change at all.

“To me, it’s such a glaring example of priorities askew,” said Kimberly Guilfoyle, one of the hosts of Fox News The Five.“I fail still at this point to understand where he’s coming from because I don’t speak the language he speaks. … He thinks the biggest threat to national security is climate change. Whoa. Where do you even go from there?” Guilfoyle feels that the increasing crime rate is a much more serious issue than climate change.

Co-host Greg Gutfeld agreed with Guilfoyle, saying the President is more concerned with the “academic, climate change-obsessed community” than communities that have seen an increase in crime.

“He should work for The Weather Channel,” offered Guilfoyle. “He’s like, obsessed with cumulus clouds.”

The two hosts aren’t the only ones who think the President has misplaced priorities. Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican presidential candidate, told a crowd gathered in North Charleston, South Carolina today that he has to “respectively disagree” with the President that climate change is the greatest threat we face. “The greatest threat to Americans is radical Islamic terrorism and we need to do something about it,” said Walker.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Watch Chris Christie Angrily Refute His Climate Denial

Hundreds Rally in Alaska to Tell Obama ‘Climate Leaders Don’t Drill the Arctic’

Bernie Sanders: The Environment Deserves a Debate

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After reports surfaced that Rupert Murdoch planned to step down as head of media giant 21st Century Fox, many were left to wonder where the shakeup would leave Fox News Channel and its longtime head, Roger Ailes.

CNBC broke the news last week that the billionaire CEO of 21st Century Fox was to step down as head of the media conglomerate, leaving the management to his two sons, Lachlan and James. It seemed like a bad omen for the right-wing network: Murdoch’s sons reportedly detest it.

But Ailes, the evil genius behind Fox News, was said to be left unaffected by the change, somehow managing to continue to report to Murdoch directly despite his impending departure.

Well, who said that? Fox News, of course:

Rupert Murdoch would continue to serve as executive chairman, according to Stuart Varney, host of Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.” Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes will continue to run the news network, reporting directly to Rupert Murdoch, according to Fox News Channel.

Nope. Not true. Not happening. Just more Fox fiction.

“Roger will report to Lachlan and James but will continue his unique and long-standing relationship with Rupert,” 21st Century Fox spokesperson Nathaniel Brown said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter

Ailes will not actually get any special arrangement to continue reporting directly to Rupert. Instead, Ailes’ new boss will be an environmentalist.

Ailes biographer and veteran Fox News watcher Gabriel Sherman describes a scene at Fox last Thursday that reminds me of the infamous on-air Karl Rove meltdownafter getting word from Megyn Kelly that Mitt Romney had lost Ohio and the 2012 election:

According to a well-placed source, Ailes directed Fox Business executive Bill Shine to tell anchor Stuart Varney to read the statement on air. “Ailes told Shine to write the announcement of the move for Varney to say,” the source said. “In it, Ailes inserted language that he would report to Rupert.”

That’s the Roger Ailes way, just make stuff up to feed to your anchors who enthusiastically repeat the baseless claims on-air. News.

Well, it finally appears to be blowing back in Ailes’ face now. Sherman writes of the impact of Ailes’ “demotion“:

For much of the past 15 years, Roger Ailes has operated with virtual impunity inside Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Nothing, it seemed, could induce Murdoch to rebuke Ailes publicly, even if Ailes forced Murdoch to choose between him and his sons. Such was Ailes’s power that he has been able to run a right-wing political operation under the auspices of a news channel.

This week, for the first time, there are signs that this remarkable era may be entering its twilight. Yesterday, 21st Century Fox announced that Ailes would be reporting to Lachlan and James Murdoch. For Ailes, it was a stinging smack-down and effectively a demotion....

http://www.alternet.org/media/fox-news-we-know-it-may-be-toast-roger-ailes-new-bosses-smack-him-down

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I Watched Fox's Megyn Kelly So You Don't Have To: How I Learned to Uncode the Fox News Propaganda Machine

Fox News markets Megyn Kelly as a refreshing, independent voice. She's really just O'Reilly in fancier packaging.

By Charles L. Ponce De Leon / Salon June 17, 2015

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139 COMMENTS

A few months ago, the New York Times Magazine published an interesting profile of Fox News Channel anchor Megyn Kelly. Written by Jim Rutenberg, one of the Times’ political reporters, it suggested that Kelly’s promotion to the coveted 9 p.m. time slot, immediately following “The O’Reilly Factor,” was part of Roger Ailes’ interest in broadening FNC’s audience.

As numerous surveys have revealed, Fox News may be the “most-watched” cable news channel, but its viewers are older than those of its competitors (though, to be fair, the competition’s viewers are pretty old, too), and its most devoted ones are consistently conservative.  Rutenberg’s piece raised the possibility that Kelly might be able to attract younger and more ideologically diverse viewers, especially “independents” who watch Fox from time to time but are not regulars.

The magazine’s cover went so far as to suggest that Kelly’s style and departures from conservative orthodoxy might even make her appealing to … readers of the New York Times! (That appeal, such as it is, seems likely to have been undercut in recent weeks by Kelly’s bafflingly out of touch interview of the Duggars and her resort to the tired, racially coded “not exactly a saint” to describe the teenage girl knocked down by a cop in McKinney, Texas.)

These departures from orthodoxy have become legendary among close followers of the media and have earned her praise from a variety of figures outside the conservative movement.  Rutenberg calls them “Megyn moments”: occasions when she asks a conservative guest, nearly always an older white man, a sharp question that doesn’t necessarily fit within the conservative worldview.

Rutenberg’s argument struck me as dubious. While conducting research for my book on the history of TV news, I watched lots and lots of old segments and programs, including many from Fox News.  I’m pretty familiar with Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Shepard Smith and the rest of the Fox crew, including its regular pundits. But I hadn’t seen that much of Kelly.  Could Ailes really be moving away from his successful formula of pandering to Fox’s conservative base?  By watching Kelly’s program, could I learn about important subjects unreported by the Times and the other “mainstream media” that I follow?  Or perhaps acquire new and useful perspectives on things that I thought I understood?

To find out, I watched “The Kelly File” nearly every day from early March through the first week of May.  I saw her report on everything from the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program to the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email account, and watched her interviews with Republican presidential aspirants and her coverage of the riots in Baltimore in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death. But, in the end, I wasn’t impressed — and not because Kelly is a conservative and her program trumpets conservative points of view.  The problem is that she is a conventional Fox News television anchor, and Fox News isn’t about nuance or complexity, the things I look for in news reporting and analysis.

It’s true that she is less doctrinaire than Hannity.  And she can occasionally ask good questions — though, mostly, it’s her prosecutorial style, rather than the question itself, that it is noteworthy.  Watching her regularly, however, made me realize that she’s merely a slightly different version of O’Reilly — she’s a smart, engaging television personality whose “reports” reaffirm the conservative ideology of most of her viewers.

Kelly’s biggest attribute is her personality.  She’s intelligent, down-to-earth and can poke fun at herself as well as at her guests.  And, no doubt much to Ailes’s delight, she has developed a very effective broadcasting style.  Her husky voice, quick wit and experience as a lawyer give her an admirable air of authority.  In the peculiar style favored by FNC producers, she evokes a still glamorous ex-cheerleader.  She is also a superb performer, never losing her cool or command of her program. She’s well suited for television journalism, and in another era, would likely have been a big star for the networks.

Sadly, however, she works for Fox News, a purveyor of a kind of television journalism that has become the norm for cable news, even among channels that eschew its conservatism.  That means covering only a few stories, usually the ones most likely to appeal to their target audience, and following them very closely over the course of the broadcast day, sometimes through live reports from the field, but mostly by allowing assorted guests to opine and pontificate about them.  At Fox News and MSNBC, anchors routinely join in the pontificating, and these breaks with old-school journalistic practice are part of their appeal.  It makes them seem “real,” and as Ailes recognized long ago, most viewers of TV news prefer this to the detachment displayed by journalists at the major networks and CNN.  And Fox at least has the ratings to prove it.

Kelly is most certainly “real,” and she opines and pontificates no less than O’Reilly and Hannity.  This is why she is popular with Fox News viewers, who expect this from their prime-time anchors in particular.  But I doubt it will appeal to very many real independents (as opposed to people with largely conservative beliefs who like to think they are independents) or readers of the Times.  And this isn’t just because “The Kelly File” covers so few stories or because Kelly expresses her opinions about so many things.  The same can be said about Rachel Maddow.

It’s because Kelly’s program isn’t very informative, even when she devotes attention to stories given short shrift by other news outlets.  With a handful of exceptions — usually compelling breaking news stories like the tragic Germanwings airline crash — every story Kelly and her producers select is predictable.  And, rather than exploring their complexity, Kelly and her guests dumb them down so that everything fits neatly into their viewers’ worldview.

I was shocked at how few subjects, sources and points of view “The Kelly File” presents, and by her almost ritualistic recourse to the same old conservative clichés and talking points during discussion and analysis, even when more interesting and complicated angles virtually begged to be examined.  As on “The O’Reilly Factor,” the role played by liberal guests is to be flayed by the host and her allies.  Often this is easy because such guests are academics or policy wonks unaccustomed to talking in sound bites; sometimes their statements are so out of touch with reality that they almost invite ridicule.  Even those famous “Megyn moments” are too few for my liking.  And they always are followed by gracious and supportive remarks that demonstrate to viewers that Kelly is on the side of the “good guys.”

Watching Kelly reminded me of what I learned while researching my book — that Fox News, particularly during prime time, really isn’t in the news business.  It’s in the entertainment business.  To a certain degree, this is true of most all television news.  But in FNC’s case, there is a difference.  Fox News’ core audience is more than just a particular slice of the larger consumer marketplace.  It’s a group of people with firm convictions and a coherent ideological worldview — not unlike orthodox Marxists back in the early 1900s.  And part of what Fox does is make this worldview seem even more coherent — and impervious to information that might undermine or contradict it.  That’s actually what its viewers want, and, from the start, Ailes and FNC have eagerly given it to them.

I’m sure Ailes would like to expand FNC’s audience and win over viewers whose views are less doctrinaire.  This would be good business, and Ailes is a brilliant businessman.  But I can’t see this happening without him alienating his most loyal viewers, who prefer every story and virtually every fact filtered through the lens of ideology.  At least in present form, “The Kelly File” isn’t going to do this, despite Kelly’s undeniable appeal as a broadcaster.

Charles L. Ponce de Leon is associate professor of history and American studies at California State University Long Beac

http://www.alternet.org/i-watched-foxs-megyn-kelly-so-you-dont-have-how-i-learned-uncode-fox-news-propaganda-machine

==

These are words I never thought I would say: I feel kind of sorry for Bob Beckel.

That was a strange sentence to type. I could almost feel my fingers rebelling. After all, in his capacity as a “liberal” Fox News analyst, Bob Beckel has staked a claim for himself as one of the more odious personalities on television. In a past life, I wrote a story entitled “Bob Beckel Has A Long History Of Saying Awful Things On TV,” a roundup of some of his choice thoughts on diverse topics such as Muslims (he basically thinks they should all be interned), “Chinamen,” and rape. I once ran a picture of Beckel under a headline that simply read, “THE WORST.” So it takes quite a lot to elicit sympathy for the man from me.

Well, thanks to the notoriously scorched-earth press team over at Fox News, the unthinkable has happened. On Thursday afternoon, the network informed Mediaite that Beckel—who had been off the air for a while thanks to some well-publicized struggles with drug addiction—is no longer on the payroll and won’t be returning as a co-host of panel show “The Five.” After the site said that the parting was “amicable,” Fox News went to Politico to emphasize that, no, it was n0t:

“We tried to work with Bob for months, but we couldn’t hold ‘The Five’ hostage to one man’s personal issues,” Bill Shine, executive vice president of programming, said in a statement. “He took tremendous advantage of our generosity, empathy and goodwill and we simply came to the end of the road with him.”

To call that “harsh” isn’t even an understatement. It’s an under-under-under-under-understatement. Fox News is famous for the pugnaciousness it employs when talking about its competitors, but to turn on your own employee like that when he’s dealing with a drug problem is fairly jaw-dropping. No matter what private misery Bob Beckel may have put his colleagues through, Fox News had the option of letting him go quietly and leaving him to handle his clearly tough fight with addiction. Instead, the network chose to drive the knife through. That’ll definitely help Beckel get better, won’t it?

Really, I don’t know why I would have expected anything less from the Fox News PR team, which operates like a particularly vindictive campaign war room rather than a standard media operation. Any journalist who has had even the faintest brush with the communications staff there comes away from the encounter fairly astounded at the vitriolic, heavy-handed tactics they employ. I should know; when I was editing the Huffington Post’s media section, I landed on the network’s notorious blacklist. Fox News cut off all contact with me completely. Spokespeople would email editors of other sections if they had corrections. They would call my deputies and if I picked up the phone, they would panic and hang up. It was crazy! (Though I definitely preferred being frozen out to having to deal with the constant, hyper-aggressive messages.) And my experience is nothing when you compare it to that of Matthew Flamm, a reporter whose crime was writing about the good ratings CNN was enjoying in 2013. As NPR’s David Folkenflik reported, Fox News actually planted a false story with Flamm and then released a statement to a rival outlet ridiculing him after he printed it.

Fox News will even turn on its own PR people, as it did when its former press chief Brian Lewis fell out with Roger Ailes. Bill Shine (remember him from a couple hundred words ago?) told reporters that Lewis was fired for “issues relating to financial irregularities, as well as for multiple, material and significant breaches of his employment contract.” However, some reports suggested that the real reason for his (very public) axing was the suspicion that he was a source for New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman’s much-touted book about Roger Ailes.

So, poor Bob Beckel never stood a chance. He has now become an official enemy of Fox News. If he’s reading this, I want him to know something: Life is better that way. And if it means anything, his former employer even got me to feel bad for him.

==

http://ecowatch.com/2013/11/12/fox-slams-george-clooney-climate-change-typhoon-haiyan/

==

2/15

Riding a hollow premise to new uncharted depths, Fox News not only tossed aside its own clearly stated position about airing violent propaganda videos distributed by terrorists, it also became, accordingto The Guardian, the only American news organization this week to toil in the realm of marketing an execution.

Fox not only aired graphic images of a controversial Islamic State (ISIS) clip on its signature nightly news show, it embedded the gruesome, unedited video on its website, and provided lurid, play-by-play description of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh dying at the hands of his captures. (Shepard Smith: "Eventually the pilot collapses to his knees.")

This is just stunning. An American news organization hosting on its website an explicit terrorist video that captures the staged execution of an innocent hostage.

jrnlism 7/14 UCS

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/fight-misinformation/cable-news-coverage-climate-change-science.html

fox wrong 72%, worst cable

==

congrats, a watchdog: http://newscorpwatch.org/

==

Jon Stewart Roasts Republicans Who Deny Climate Change

Editor Post | June 27, 2014  | 1 Comment

Read more at http://livinggreenmag.com/2014/06/27/video/jon-stewart-roasts-republicans-deny-climate-change/#gVyIU7TCTXgS5IqU.99

epa 4 admin: rmn, b1, b2, rr wm ruckles: no debate on real or we do it; CTW; boozman ark optometrist, zoo mjr; jeff sessions: co2 is plant food, not nox/sox; inhofe: nat'l elect mkt, BO's green dream; Deak Party Jam; 

TUE JAN 07, 2014 AT 04:45 PM PST

Jon Stewart blasts climate change deniers at Fox News

byBruinKidFollow

Last night, Jon Stewart was back for his first show of 2014, and he blasted those on Fox News for being climate change deniers, and then talked with Jessica Williams about these denials.

Hey, you know what?  This is nice.  No name-calling, no left vs. right ideological bullshit, it's just the pleasure of watching news anchors slowly perish from hypothermia.

MELISSA FRANCIS (1/2/2014): All this snow, and still cries over global warming.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.  Hold on there, but the weather where you are on a particular day doesn't... don't... don't do this, don't.

ERIC BOLLING (1/4/2014): We're having a hard time understand how global warming alarmists are still trying to push their radical position.

DANIEL HENNINGER (1/4/2014): Global warming, a phrase we're all familiar with, I think it's going to die this year ... given the kind of incredible cold weather we've had this weekend.

(disappointed audience laughter)

Right now there are parts of my body that are getting angry that I didn't even know could get angry.  (audience cheering and applause for earlier joke reference)  And it's... they're getting so angry right now that it's... I'm not going to tell you which part it is... it's my balls.  (audience laughter)  Right now, I have angry balls.  Oh my God, I think I just invented a new video game

(audience laughter)

"Are you kids playing Angry Balls?  Hey you kids!  Stop playing Angry Balls!"

Just when you think it's over, they pull you back in!

There you have it.  War on Christmas is over, the War on Carbon begins.  Global warming, just one more liberal conspiracy.  Because even though there is a great deal of scientific data establishing climate trends, even though many of the models of global warming predict more extremes of weather — not just warming — apparently decades of peer-reviewed scientific study can be, like a ficus plant, destroyed in one cold weekend.

STUART VARNEY (1/2/2014): Looks to me like we're looking at global cooling.  Forget this global warming.  That's just my opinion.

Yeah!  You're fucking opinion!  That's your opinion!  It means nothing!!  Sorry.  (yells at balls)  Guys, settle down!  (audience laughter)

What... it's your opinion!  "Yeah, based on its flavor, I think lead paint is good to drink.  That's my opinion.  Peeing into a fountain the same time as another person is a good way to switch souls with them.  My opinion!"

1/4/2014: DAN WEISS, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: If 97 doctors told you that that lump on your lung was something to worry about, and 3 scientists — er, doctors — told you not to worry about it, are you going to listen to the 97, or the 3?  Sounds like you might listen to the 3, which would be sad.

ERIC BOLLING: Well, it really matters to me if the 97 were getting paid to tell me I had a lump on my lung, and it was bad.

(confused audience laughter)

You know, that is how doctors get paid, right?  You go to them, and then they charge you to diagnose and treat your problem.  Although, I think I've figured out where the lump is.  (looks at image of Eric Bolling)

All right, let's follow this climate science money.

ERIC BOLLING (1/4/2014): I gotta tell you, I think these scientists are laughing from their lavish laboratories, and their vacations up at the Arctic, in their nice boats that are well-equipped.

(shocked audience laughter)

This Arctic?  This lavish boat?

Yeah, that's the dream, man.  I remember thinking, when I get older, I'm gonna be taking one of them Arctic research cruises.  And monitor shit, 'cause all the ladies be like, "Damn, your readings are so accurate."  (audience laughter)

But I get it.  You can't trust these scientists, their judgment is clouded by money.  Why do you oppose these scientists?

NEIL CAVUTO (5/4/2013): I think it borders on lunacy that we commit billions — dare I say it, Charles — trillions of dollars to something that might not be.

STEVE FORBES (11/24/2012): This is simply another government attempt to extort money from businesses.

Ah, so the integrity and research of corporations saving millions of dollars by denying climate change is unimpeachable.  But keep an eye on those tricky global warming scientist thousand-aires.  I've never trusted them since I found out one of the elements on their Periodic Table — gold.  Pretty convenient!

Look, it seems like there's a simple way to solve this.  Just bring on someone whose opinion we all respect, and whose expertise in this field cannot be denied.

DONALD TRUMP (1/6/2014): This whole global warming hoax.

(Jon facepalms as audience bursts into laughter)

(in Jerry Lewis voice)  Nooooo!  Oh, the doctor is in!

DONALD TRUMP (1/6/2014): This winter is brutal!  I mean, I'm in New York right now, the airports were closed, everything's closed, it's freezing!

Oh!  So global warming must be a hoax.  Because, I mean, Mr. Trump would never conceal a bald-faced truth or go through any effort to hide when something's clearly receding over the years.  (scratches hair as audience laughs)

1/14 fox

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/07/1267926/-Jon-Stewart-blasts-climate-change-deniers-at-Fox-News

==

Media Matters / By Eric Boehlert [1]

How Fox News Dresses Up Extreme Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories as News

May 8, 2014 |

The Benghazi blueprint matches up right down to the fact that there's no there there, in terms of a criminal White House cover up. It "doesn't add up to much of a scandal," wrote [2] Michael Hirsh at Politico this week, reviewing the facts of Benghazi to date. "But it's already too late for the truth. Benghazi has taken on a cultural life of its own on the right." He added, "Benghazi has become to the 2010s what Vince Foster" was in the 1990s.

Foster was the then-deputy White House counsel who committed suicide [3] in Northern Virginia's Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993, not far from Washington, D.C. His suicide, which sparked controversy when the so-called Clinton Crazies [4] accused the president and his wife of being part of a plot to murder their friend (he knew too much!), quickly become shorthand for the type of despicable claims [5] that were so casually lobbed in the 1990s.

Looking ahead to Hillary Clinton's possible 2016 presidential run, Hirsh wrote that the "Benghazi-Industrial Complex is going to be as toxic as anything Hillary has faced since ... Vince Foster."

The analogy is a strong and a factual one. But in trying to understand what's happening today with the ceaseless, two-year Benghazi propaganda campaign, a blitz that's utterly lacking in factual support [6], it's important to understand how the media game has changed between the Vince Foster era and today. Specifically, it's important to understand what's different and more dangerous about the elaborate and irresponsible gotcha games that Republicans now play in concert with the right-wing media. (Hint: The games today get way more coverage.)

Here's what's key: Twenty years ago the far-right Foster tale was told mostly from the fringes. Word was spread via emerging online bulletin boards [7], snail mail pamphlets, faxed newsletters [8], self-published exposes [9], and VCR tapes, like "The Clinton Chronicles [10]," which portrayed the president as a one-man crime syndicate [11] involved in drug-running, prostitution, murder, adultery, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, just to name a few.

At the top of the Foster-feeding pyramid stood the New York Post, Rush Limbaugh's radio show [12] ("Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton"), and Robert Bartley's team of writers at theWall Street Journal editorial page, who spent eight years lost in a dense, Clinton-thick fog [13].

Notice the hole in that ‘90s media menu? Television. Specifically, 24-hour television.

Now, fast-forward to the never-ending Benghazi feast of outrage. Today, that far-right tale is amplified via every single conservative media outlet in existence, and is powered by the most-watched 24-hour cable news channel in America. A news channel that long ago threw away any semblance of accountability.

So yes, Fox News is what's changed between 1994 and 2014, and Fox News is what has elevated Benghazi from a fringe-type "scandal" into the pressing issue [12] adopted by the Republican Party today. ("Benghazi" has been mentioned approximately 1,000 times on Fox since May 1, according to TVeyes.com)

Remember, Rupert Murdoch's all-news channel didn't debut in America until October 1996 when it launched [14] with just 17 million subscribers. (Today it boasts 90 millions subs.) And for the first few years it generally delivered a conservative slant on the news. It didn't function as a hothouse of fabrications the way it does today.

Now, Fox acts as a crucial bridge between the radical and the everyday. Fox gives a voice and a national platform to the same type of deranged, hard-core haters who hounded the new, young Democratic president in the early 1990s. Fox embraces and helps legitimize the kind of conspiratorial talk that flourished back then but mostly on the sidelines. The Murdoch channel has moved derangement into the mainstream of Republican politics.

By making the Foster comparison, I'm not downplaying how Republicans and the president's dedicated detractors irresponsibly flogged the Foster story for years. It stood as one of the most rancid examples of the politics of personal destruction that defined the Clinton era. (The Foster family begged [15], to no avail, for an end to the use of "outrageous innuendo and speculation for political ends.")

But given how vast the right-wing noise machine apparatus has expanded since the 1990s, I'm suggesting that if that same type of event unfolded under the current Democratic president and if Fox News decided to hype the story, regardless of facts, for ten, twenty, or thirty months, the scandal wouldn't be treated as a fleeting affair. In other words, if Vince Foster truly were the '90s equivalent of Benghazi, it would have received mountains of more media attention, from all corners.

Fact: During Clinton's eight years in office, the New York Times published less than 30 news articles and columns that mentioned Foster at least three times, according to Nexis. By comparison, since the terror attack in Libya 20 months ago, the Times has published more than 250 hundred articles and columns that mentioned "Benghazi" three or more times.

That's what happens when you add the mighty medium of television into the all-scandal mix. That kind of drumbeat of televised phony outrage forces and/or encourages Republican politicians to respond, as well as the mainstream media.

Meanwhile, how do we know Fox would've gone all in on the dark Foster story? Because in the mid-'90s Fox chief Roger Ailes, then programming CNBC, told Don Imus [16] that Foster's death could have been a murder. At the time, Ailes didn't have the influence or the independence to unleash NBC-owned financial news channel on a reckless Vince Foster witch-hunt. But he certainly would have if he'd been running today's hyper-partisan, hyper-irresponsible version of Fox News.

Also, even years after the ugly Foster smear campaign faded, Fox talkers like Sean Hannity push the lies:

• After suggesting Vince Foster was murdered, Hannity praised caller who accused Clinton of multiple rapes [17]
• Discussing Foster, Hannity asked: "Did a close friend of Hillary Clinton commit suicide, or was it a massive coverup?" [18]
• Hannity asserted that "Whitewater and the death of Vince Foster" are "chapters remaining open" for Sen. Clinton [19]

In 2007, Fox News host Sean Hannity hosted [20] a special episode on the "mysterious death" of Foster, hinting that the Clintons might have pulled off "a massive cover-up."

So yes, I'm pretty sure today's Fox News would have eagerly endorsed the sordid Foster affair, relentlessly demanding that "unanswered questions" be addressed and that sweeping investigations be launched. That in turn, would have forced Republicans into action, which would have sparked endless mainstream news coverage.

That's what happens when televised propaganda is added to the media scandal mix; the megaphone's much bigger, much louder, and in many ways much more dangerous.

==

Climate ChangeScience Writer Fox News

This week, a science writer was asked to appear on Fox News to discuss the future of science and technology. However, he says there was one caveat: The issue of climate change would be off-limits.

On Wednesday, Michael Moyer, an editor at Scientific American, described his experience with the news outlet this way:

In a blog post on Scientific American, Moyer explained that he had offered to discuss what he foresees as the "trends for the future" on "Fox & Friends."

"About the only interesting thing that the scientific community is sure will happen in the next 50 years is that climate change is going to get worse, and that we’re going to have to deal with the impacts. So I put that as one of my talking points," he wrote.

But Moyer says a producer of the show soon reached out to him to tell him explicitly to not discuss climate change during the segment. Not wanting to back out of an opportunity to "share cool science with whomever will listen," Moyer agreed to still appear on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday.

(Story continues below)...

...This wouldn't be the first time that Fox News' coverage of climate change has beencalled into question. A recent study by the Union of Concerned Scientists found the conservative news outlet covers climate change inaccurately 72 percent of the time.

A 2013 study also found that the more time viewers spend watching conservative media, the more skeptical they become of climate science.

"There are some things that in science and scientific discourse are not controversial at all," Moyer told Talking Points Memo in light of his Fox News experience. "I hope that we can all as a society agree to at least discuss them and come up with good solutions. Just because you don't want something to be true doesn't make it not true."

According to a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, about four in 10 Americans said "they are not too confident or outright disbelieve that the earth is warming, mostly a result of man-made heat-trapping gases," per the AP. That's in stark contrast to the97 percent of climate scientists who say global warming in the last 100 years has very likely been caused by human activity.

.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/30/fox-news-climate-change-michael-moyer_n_5242147.html?utm_hp_ref=climate-change

holdings: Television

Cable TelevisionFOX News ChannelFOX Business NetworkFOX College SportsFox DeportesFox Movie ChannelFox Pan American Sports (33%)Fox Regional Sports NetworksFOX Soccer ChannelFOX Sports EnterprisesFOX Sports NetBig Ten Network (49%)FSNFUEL TVFXNat Geo Wild (71%)National Geographic Channel United States (71%)SPEEDSTARStats, Inc. (50%)YES network (49%)---FilmTwentieth Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox EspanolTwentieth Century Fox Home EntertainmentTwentieth Century Fox International20th Century Fox TelevisionFox 2000 PicturesFox MusicFox Searchlight PicturesFox Studios AustraliaFox Studios LAFox Television StudiosBlue Sky StudiosShine GroupTwentieth TelevisionFox Consumer ProductsPremium Movie Partnership (Australia and New Zealand - 50%)Newspapers (U.S.)New York PostThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal Digital NetworkFSI (SmartSource Magazine)Newspapers (International)The Advertiser and Sunday Mail (Australia)The Australian (Australia)The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail (Australia)The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph (Australia)Gold Coast Bulletin (Australia)Herald Sun and Sunday Herald Sun (Australia)mX (Australia)The Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian (Australia)Northern Territory News and Sunday Territorian (Australia)Perth Now (Australia)Post-Courier (Papua New Guinea)The Sun (U.K.)Sunday Times (Australia)The Times and The Sunday Times (U.K.)Weekly Times (Australia)Dow JonesThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal AsiaThe Wall Street Journal EuropeThe Wall Street Journal RadioThe Wall Street Journal Digital NetworkThe Wall STreet Journal ClassroomBarron'sDow Jones Local Media Group (Ottaway):Cape Cod Media Group (MA)Cape Cod TimesCape Cod ViewBarnstable PatriotHudson Valley Media Group (NY)Times Herald-Record (Middletown)Orange Magazine (Orange County)Nantucket Island Media Group (MA)The Inquirer and Mirror (Nantucket)Nantucket TodayPocono Mountains Media Group (PA)Pocono Record (Stroudsburg)San Joaquin Media Group (CA)The Record (Stockton)Seacoast Media Group (NH)The Portsmouth HeraldThe Exeter News-LetterThe Hampton UnionThe York WeeklyYork County Coast StarSouth Coast Media Group (MA)The Standard-Times (New Bedford)The Advocate (Fairhaven)The Chronicle (Westport and Dartmouth)Middleboro GazetteThe Spectator (Somerset and Swansea)The Fall RIver SpiritNew England Business BulletinSouthern Oregon Media Group (OR)Medford Mail TribuneThe Nickel (Medford)Ashland Daily TidingsAllThingsD.comBigCharts.comeFinancialNewsFactivaDow Jones AveragesDow Jones Client SolutionsDow Jones Companies & ExecutivesDow Jones EventsDow Jones IndexesDow Jones InsightDow Jones Investment BankerDow Jones LP SourceDow Jones NewswiresDow Jones Private MarketsDow Jones Reprint PortalDow Jones WatchlistDow Jones VentureSourceFINS.comMarketwatch.comSmartMoney.comVedomosti (with Pearson and Independent Media)Virtual Stock ExchangeMagazinesAlpha (Australia)Big League (Australia)Inside Out (Australia)Donna Hay (Australia)Other News PropertiesNews Corp. Digital MediaNews InternationalPublishingHarperCollins PublishersAmistadAvonAvon AAvon InspireAvon RedCaedmonHarper DesignEccoHarperHarper BusinessHarperLuxeHarper PaperbacksHarper PerennialHarper Perennial Modern ClassicsHarper VoyagerHarperAudioHarperBiblesHarperCollins e-BooksHarperOneItBooksRayoWilliam MorrowHarperCollins Children's BooksAmistadBalzer + BrayCollinsGreenwillow BooksHarperCollins Children's AudioHarperCollins Children's BooksHarperCollins e-booksHarperFestivalHarperTeenKatherine Tegen BooksRayoWalden Pond PressHarperCollins AustraliaHarperCollins CanadaHarperCollins IndiaHarperCollins New ZealandHarperCollins USHarperCollins UKZondervanOnline PropertiesAmericanIdol.comAskMenBrandAlley UK (49%)careerone.com.auCARSguide.com.auFox.comFoxSports.comFoxSports.com.auFox Audience Networkhulu.com (32%)kSoloMilkaroundNews.com.auNews Digital MediaScouttruelocal.com.auWhatIfSportsOtherNDS (49%)News America Marketinglast updated 2/14/2013

==

fox biz (presumably to other cable news biz channel?)

"the power to prosper" TM

http://www.foxbusiness.com/topics**/the-government-is-killing-my-business**.htm

On Broadcast Shows, Republicans And Conservatives Hosted More Often Than Democrats And Progressives Overall. On three of the four broadcast shows, Republicans and conservatives were brought on as guests more often than Democrats and progressives: 49 percent of guests on Fox News Sunday were from the right while only 27 percent were from the left, 28 percent of guests on Face the Nation were from the right while 21 percent were from the left, and 37 percent of guests on Meet the Press were from the right while 34 percent were from the left.This Week was the only show to host guests on the right and left evenly at 31 percent for each...

http://mediamatters.org/print/research/2014/01/30/report-the-demographics-of-the-sunday-morning-p/197783

Posted: 01/16/2014 7:30 am EST  |  Updated: 01/16/2014 2:27 pm EST

WASHINGTON -- Climate change got more coverage on broadcast news in 2013 than in the previous few years, but the issue still didn't get nearly as much attention as it did in 2009, Media Matters found in a new analysis.

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox together featured more coverage in 2013 than they did in 2012. The amount of airtime granted to climate change on both the Sunday shows and the nightly news was up, too -- to a total of 27 minutes, and an hour and 42 minutes, respectively, for the entire year. The progressive media watchdog group Media Matters totaled the time broadcasters devoted to climate change for a new report released Thursday.

The Media Matters report deemed overall coverage of climate change "tepid," and noted there were many news events in 2013 that created opportunities for coverage, including carbon dioxide levels that exceeded 400 parts per million in May, President Barack Obama'smajor climate policy address in June, and the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changeassessment in September.

Coverage peaked in 2009, the year of the Copenhagen climate summit and the release of hundreds emailsstolen from climate scientists. It was much lower for the three years that followed.

CBS won the gold medal for Sunday morning coverage, devoting 16 minutes of "Face the Nation" to climate throughout the year. NBC's "Meet the Press," meanwhile, was cited as "failing to offer a single substantial mention of climate change in all of 2013." Even "Fox News Sunday" gave the subject more air time, at four minutes.

The analysis notes that "Face the Nation" was the first Sunday show in five years to feature scientists discussing climate change, in a May 28 segment with climatologist Heidi Cullen. More often, the report noted, the news programs will feature politicians or media figures discussing climate.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) announced earlier this week that they are launching an effort to pressure television networks to devote more time to covering climate change, citing Media Matters' 2012 report.

The analysis notes that "Face the Nation" was the first Sunday show in five years to feature scientists discussing climate change, in a May 28 segment with climatologist Heidi Cullen. More often, the report noted, the news programs will feature politicians or media figures discussing climate.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) announced earlier this week that they are launching an effort to pressure television networks to devote more time to covering climate change, citing Media Matters' 2012 report. [nice graphs]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/16/climate-change-tv-news_n_4606313.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

MediaMatters / By Laura Santhanam [1]

8 Most Absurd Attacks on Clean Tech in 2013

December 23, 2013 |

If 2012 was the year of Solyndra [2], then 2013 was the year of Tesla, whose initial success has encapsulated the potential of clean energy. The electric automaker received a loan from the same overarching program as Solyndra, the bankrupt solar company that became the target of political attacks, but it turned a profit and became the poster child for clean energy subsidies. This confounded conservative media, who alternated between praising Tesla while denying or ignoring its federal loan, and putting it down just days later.

In addition to the more traditional targets -- electric cars like Tesla's, solar (allegedly "tanking the economy") and wind energy (supposedly causing "devastating" health effects) -- this year conservative media reached so far right as to go after energy efficiency and bike-share programs. We collected some of the worst attacks from conservative media against clean energy technology during 2013.

1. Fox Business Reporter: Germany's Solar Industry Better Than U.S.'s Because "They've Got A Lot More Sun Than We Do." 

In February, Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson pushed [3] the claim that the solar industry's future in the United States "looks dim." Fox Business reporter Shibani Joshi then compared the state of the U.S. solar industry to that of Germany, saying that Germans enjoy more success because "they've got a lot more sun than we do."Joshi added that "In California, it's a great solution, but here on the East Coast it's just not going to work." After her comments were widely derided [4] since the U.S. actually has much greater solar potential than Germany even on the East Coast, Joshi was forced to issue an online correction. The U.S. solar industry is on track to outpace [5] Germany's solar industry this year for the "first time in more than fifteen years," according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

2. After Electric Automaker Tesla Becomes A Success, Fox Forgets Its Federal Loan.

Fox News and Fox Business hosts and pundits alike attacked Tesla Motors after the green technology company received federal loans to begin to produce electric automobiles. Once Tesla turned a profit, however, these conservative media figures developed amnesia [6] about the company's federal loan, even trying to use the company to dismiss the need for clean energy subsidies.

3. Bill O'Reilly Smears Tesla, Falsely Claims It Had Net Losses.

Fox News aired mixed messages about Tesla, offering the company praise and then disparaging it, all within the same week. Host Bill O'Reilly called the company a failure and claimed that it posted net losses. O'Reilly's statement, however, was untrue [7]. In fact, just days earlier, Fox News had heralded Tesla as a "success story [8]" after the company turned a profit [9].

4. WSJ Editorial Board Member: New York City's Bike Share Program Part Of "Totalitarian" Plot.

With a straight face, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Dorothy Rabinowitz said [10] that bicyclists were the "most important danger" facing New York City, and raged against bike share programs that are pursued by the "all powerful" "bike lobby" emboldened by "totalitarians." She emphasizes that "the city is helpless" before the driven ambitions of its "autocratic" mayor. Rabinowitz's overly hyped attack of a bike-share program attractedcriticism [11], notably from Comedy Central's The Daily Show [12]. However, Rabinowitz stuck by her attack, saying the bike racks are "instruments of aesthetic torture [13]" and told a bicyclist who asked her a question to instead ask "the therapist we hope this biker is consulting [14]."

5. Fox News: Wind Turbines May Cause "Devastating" Health Effects.

Fox News did not shy away from reporting on easily debunked allegations as if they were true, namely that clean energy was responsible for causing the dubiously named Wind Turbine Syndrome [15] among a handful of residents in a small Massachusetts town. In February, Fox News hyped [16] the "devastating" effects of wind turbines on a few residents in Falmouth, Mass. For all of Fox's reporting on the horrors of Wind Turbine Syndrome, the outlet failed to note that no evidence supports that this condition even exists, and multiple studies [17] have suggested that the array of health effects may simply be an effect of hypochondria. The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection even concluded[18] in 2012 that "There is no evidence for a set of health effects from exposure to wind turbines."

6. Right-Wing Media Falsely Claim Energy Efficiency Responsible For Super Bowl Blackout. 

When the lights went out inside the Super Bowl, fans and television personalities alike were initially baffled. The Drudge Report and conservative media figures on Fox News were quick to spin [19] their own narrative about why the blackout occurred, blaming the energy efficient LED lighting [20] outside of the stadium, despite the fact that the LED lights outside the stadium never [21] went out. 

7. Fox News: Solar Power "Might Be Tanking Our Economy."

In February Fox News hosts used the misfortune of one solar company to admonish the entire solar industry, going so far as to say [22] that this sector is "tanking our economy," despite the fact that solar actually has helped to grow the U.S. economy. After California-based solar panel company, SoloPower, laid off employees and had trouble meetings requirements for its federal loan guarantee, Fox News hosts surmised that the solar industry and the nation's entire economy was in peril as a result. However, solar industry jobs have grown [22] in recent years, and dropping prices are driving record [23] installations.

8. When Fox Couldn't Point To Actual Facts To Smear Tesla, They Made Some Up.

In May, Fox Business reporter Elizabeth MacDonald was thinking on her feet when making disparaging comments about Tesla Motors. She claimed that the Tesla Model S "conks out after about 16 miles," when in fact [24] the car's battery boasts a battery range of 265 miles, making it the longest-range [25] electric automobile battery on the market at the time. The next day she said [26] that she "gave incomplete information," suggesting she was referring to the range if you charged the car for only half an hour using a mobile connector.

See more stories tagged with:

clean energy [27],

bikeshare programs [28],

solar energy [29],

wind energy [30],

fox news [31]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/media/8-most-absurd-attacks-clean-tech-2013

http://samuel-warde.com/2013/02/fox-news-the-sun-revolves-around-the-earth/

germany gets more sun

==

fulkenflick book  press suppression (detox, fax email, sock puppets on blogs/discussion 

==

At a House Benghazi hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Alan Grayson's (D-FL) patient questioning of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy destroyedconservative myths about Benghazi. For a network that can't talk about Benghazi enough, don't expect them to show this 4 minute video.http://mm4a.org/19eAslw

==

9/13

mma

The House Republicans are gearing up to slash nearly $40 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), knocking up to 3.8 million people off the food stamp rolls over the next two years. As far as benefit programs go, SNAP is pretty effective, and can be indispensable in hard economic times. The Republicans, however, are raising the specter of rampant waste and fraud within the program, and the centerpiece of their PR campaign to cut the program's funding is a terrifically misleading Fox News special from August hosted by Special Reportanchor and "straight journalist" Bret Baier. 

That special, called "The Great Food Stamp Binge," made a right-wing celebrity out of Jason Greenslate, an unlikeable surfer from San Diego who refuses to work and proudly abuses his SNAP benefits. Greenslate is a rarity. The vast majority of SNAP households (75 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office) have a child, a person over the age of 60, or a disabled person. Greenslate's yearly benefit represents 0.000003 percent of the annual SNAP budget. He is in no way representative of SNAP recipients, and his behavior is atypical -- waste and fraud within the SNAP program is actually pretty rare.

In spite of all this, Greenslate ate up nine minutes of the hour-long special, divided between two segments. Offering no data or fact-based justification of any kind, Baier proclaimed Greenslate "the new face of food stamps." Baier's intention was clear: to create the (false) impression that SNAP is rife with abuse, and to transform Greenslate into a punching bag for conservative politicians and pundits who want to slash the social safety net. 

And it worked. Reporting on the House Republican efforts to dramatically cut funding for SNAP on September 18, NPR's Tamara Keith quoted Rep. Tom Cotton (R-AR) saying "we should reform the food stamp program so we can get the aid to those who need it most in their hour of need without the kind of rampant waste and abuse that you see." Keith noted that Cotton was embellishing the degree to which waste and fraud exist, and pointed out that the House Republican messaging on SNAP has been shaped by Baier's special (and its focus on Greenslate), which was "circulated to GOP lawmakers."

As Keith alluded, Fox News has been making a concerted effort to turn their special into political action. Politico reported on September 4 that copies of the special were "distributed by Fox staff to House members" ahead of the SNAP debate. "POLITICO inquiries to Fox News regarding the videos have gone unanswered since Saturday. But both Republican and Democratic offices confirmed that copies have been dropped off unsolicited in recent days, and the broadcast has already provided colorful fodder in promoting the Cantor package."

GOP leaders seized on the Fox special. According to Roll Call, Greenslate played a starring role in a memo sent around by the House Republican leadership laying out SNAP talking points:

The surfer, unnamed in a memo Cantor circulated to GOP lawmakers earlier this month, is Jason Greenslate, 29. A Fox News report in August highlighted Greenslate, an unemployed musician perpetually in a cap and sunglasses, buying lobster rolls with $200-a-month benefits and laughing at the idea of a 9-to-5 job.

Conservative bloggers quickly cited Greenslate as a prime example of a flawed government program. But Democrats will counter that Greenslate is atypical of SNAP recipients, and they are expected to highlight more sympathetic beneficiaries.

An Associated Press fact-check of the memo quotes it as citing "newscasts" that "tell stories of young surfers who aren't working, but cash their food stamps in for lobster."

The House Republicans have this "surfer" to kick around because Bret Baier created a false and derogatory caricature of SNAP recipients and presented it as investigative journalism. And then his network pushed out his slanted and misleading "investigation" in an effort to tip the SNAP fight in the Republicans' favor as part of their campaign to cut funding to a program that helps keep millions of hard-up Americans out of poverty and starvation. Baier's work was less "journalism" than it was pre-fab GOP talking points.

But Baier's reporting, terrible as it may be, can have this sort of influence because of Baier's reputation as the "serious journalist" on Fox News. Back in 2011, NPR's David Folkenflik profiled Baier and noted that "like fellow Fox anchor Shepard Smith, Baier is presented by executives as evidence of the network's fairness in its news coverage." And people tend to swallow this line: Politico's Mike Allen also profiled Baier -- "A Boy Scout with a very sharp knife," per the headline -- and quoted Baier saying "I'm not soft on either side."

Baier's reputation as a straight-shooting, down-the-middle avatar of fairness notwithstanding, "The Great Food Stamp Binge" shows that he's just as capable of the sort of partisan chicanery the cable news-watching world has come to expect from the uniformly conservative, pro-GOP Fox News commentary division. The difference is that Baier does it under the banner of journalistic integrity, which gives his reporting an audience and a reach the average Sean Hannity diatribe doesn't have, and the dangerous potential to wreak havoc on the livelihoods of America's less fortunate.

At least eight Fox News personalities took to Twitter over a period of just over two hours today to defend network president Roger Ailes following a report that he's "all alone" after firing top Fox News executive Brian Lewis.

The Hollywood Reporter first reported yesterday that Lewis, who was Fox News' executive vice president for corporate communications and considered Ailes' "right-hand man," was fired "over what insiders are calling financial issues and other performance problems." Fox later confirmedLewis' firing, citing "issues relating to financial irregularities, as well as for multiple, material and significant breaches of his employment contract."

Lewis' firing was a major shakeup for Fox. As Politico's Dylan Byers noted, "Lewis had been one of Ailes's top advisers since the network's inception in 1996, was a member of his inner circle and had the respect and trust of the president. ... On Ailes's orders, he built and led a team of notoriously combative press representatives who fought against all perceived enemies -- especially other media outlets -- with a take-no-prisoners approach that was the envy of executives across the industry."

In response to the firing, New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman wrote an August 20 piece headlined, "Roger Ailes Fired His PR Chief, and Now He's All Alone." Sherman, who has come under repeated attack from Fox News employees because he is writing an unauthorized Ailes biography, wrote that Lewis' departure is "far more consequential to the long-term direction of" Fox News than recent show changes because he's "a moderating influence on Ailes. Lewis was one of the few senior executives who would vocally challenge Ailes (although he was smart enough to do it privately)."

Politico reported today that "sources with knowledge of the situation" said"Ailes had suspected Lewis of leaking information to Gabriel Sherman, the author of a forthcoming book about Ailes and Fox News."

Today, within a period of roughly two hours and fifteen minutes, eight different Fox News personalities responded to Sherman's August 20 report by defending their boss and attacking the New York reporter. 

 ==

Fox Still Ignoring That IRS Targeted Progressives

Blog ››› August 21, 2013 10:48 AM EDT ››› ZACHARY PLEAT

A day after a Democratic congressman revealed further evidence that the IRS targeted progressive groups, Fox News is still ignoring the story by continuing to suggest that the IRS targeted only conservative groups.

The August 20 edition of On the Record and the August 21 edition of Fox & Friends both highlighted a lawsuit filed against the IRS that seeks to review the agency's guidelines for determining whether an organization deserves tax-exempt status, following reports that the agency inappropriately imposed extra scrutiny on conservative organizations. But in neither of the segments, which together devoted a total of six minutes to the topic, did Fox find the time to mention the fact that new evidence released August 20 effectively ends the IRS "scandal" the network has been hyping for months.

On August 20, Salon reported that the new documents reinforced evidence proving the IRS targeted progressive groups as well:

We already know that the IRS targeted progressive groups in addition to Tea Party ones, but new information released today adds further details, showing that the tax agency also targeted "ACORN successors" and left-leaning "Emerge" groups. Emerge Nevada, Emerge Maine and Emerge Massachusetts were the only groups to have their applications actually denied 501(c)4 tax-exempt status. Conservative groups had their applications delayed, in some cases for over a year, but not rejected outright.

Democrats say the new information should put to rest any lingering embers of the IRS scandal. "This new information should put a nail in the coffin of the Republican claims that the IRS's actions were politically motivated or were targeted at only one side of the political spectrum," said Elijah Cummings, the Maryland Democrat who is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee.

The term "Emerge" had been redacted from an earlier version of a document released by the IRS, but was present on a newer version made available today. The new documents also showed that successors to ACORN, the liberal grass-roots organizing group that became a bugaboo of conservatives and that Congress defunded (again and again). The instructions on "ACORN successors" came on a BOLO (be on the lookout) list that included healthcare organizations, medical marijuana groups, newspapers, open source technology groups and other non-political organizations.

A day later, Fox News has yet to report on these revelations.

==

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/06/fox-news-climate-change_n_3714802.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Fox News' Climate Change Coverage Could Increase Viewers' Skepticism, New Study Finds]

Fox News has been known for their extensive climate change denial (see here, here, here and here), despite living in an age where 97 percent of scientific papers support the human-driven phenomenon. Yet the right-leaning news channel's views may be contagious: A new study has found that the more time viewers spend consuming conservative media, the more skeptical they become of climate science.

The paper, published in the journal "Public Understanding of Science," found that the key link between climate change denial and conservative outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh was an inherent distrust of scientists. "Conservative media use decreases trust in scientists which, in turn, decreases certainty that global warming is happening," the study says.

Conversely, researchers found that consumption of nonconservative media (i.e. CNN, MSNBC and NPR) had the opposite effect.

Americans' support for climate change is on the rise -- nearly 60 percent of people said they worry a great deal or fair amount about the problem earlier this year, up from 51 percent in 2011. President Obama has also been more vocal about the warming planet in recent months, although Americans are split on their approval of his plans.

The paper isn't the first to identify the connection between Fox and climate denial, but expands on earlier observations, particularly that "the more Americans use conservative media, the less certain they are that global warming is happening."

The study was conducted in two phases, beginning with 2,497 respondents in 2008, of which 1,036 were reinterviewed in 2011. The study incorporated variables including political ideology, religiosity and certain demographics.

(h/t Mother Jones)

In the past several years, a number of polls have documented the huge gap between liberals and conservatives when it comes to their acceptance of the science of climate change. Naturally, then, researchers have increasingly turned their attention to trying to explain this dramatic divide over what is factually true. And it wasn't long before they homed in on the role of conservative media in particular—thus, a number of studies (e.g., here) show that watching Fox News increases your risk of holding incorrect beliefs about the science of climate change.

Now, a new paper just out in the journal Public Understanding of Science takes this line of inquiry further, beginning to unpack precisely how conservative media work to undermine the public's acceptance of science. The paper shows that a distrust of climate scientists is a significant factor underlying the modern denial of global warming, and moreover, that watching Fox News and listening to Rush Limbaugh both increase one's level of distrust of these scientific experts. Or as the paper puts it, "[C]onservative media use decreases trust in scientists which, in turn, decreases certainty that global warming is happening."

The study, conducted by Jay Hmielowski of the University of Arizona and colleagues at several other universities, relied on a large polling sample of Americans in two phases: 2,497 individuals were interviewed in 2008, and then a smaller sample of 1,036 were reinterviewed in 2011. The respondents were asked about what kind of media they consumed—conservative choices included Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh Show; "non-conservative" media outlets included CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio, and network news—as well as about how much they trusted or distrusted climate scientists. They were also asked about their belief that global warming is happening. (The study controlled for variables like political ideology, religiosity, and other demographic factors.)

The results showed that conservative media consumption led to less trust in climate scientists, even as consuming nonconservative media had the opposite effect (leading to an increased trust in climate scientists). Between people who said they don't consume any conservative media and people who said they consume a large amount, "we see a 13 percent difference in the amount of trust in scientists," according to study coauthor Lauren Feldman of American University.

The authors then proposed that distrust of scientists is a key link in the chain between watching Fox (or listening to Rush) and coming to doubt climate science. The idea is that because most people don't know a great deal about the science of global warming, they rely on "heuristics"—or mental shortcuts—to make up their minds about what to believe. "Trust" (or the lack thereof) is a classic shortcut, allowing one to quickly determine who's right and who's wrong in a seemingly complex and data-laden debate. Or as the paper put it: "The public's low level of knowledge and the media's conflicting, often value-laden messages about global warming lead people to use heuristics to make sense of this complex issue."

Evidence of Fox and Rush Limbaugh raising doubts about climate scientists—in a way that could generate distrust—isn't hard to come by. Limbaugh includes scientists in his "four corners of deceit…government, academia, science, and the media." As for Fox, there are myriad examples of coverage that could be said to cast doubt on climate science. For instance, there's the 2009 memo, exposed by Media Matters, in which Fox Washington editor Bill Sammon instructed staff to cast doubt on climate research in their coverage.

It seems unlikely, however, that conservative media alone can account for the distrust of science on the right. In a major 2012 study, the sociologist Gordon Gauchat showed that conservatives have lost trust in scientists across the board over a period of many decades, dating all the way back to 1974. Fox News only launched in 1996, however; Rush Limbaugh started national broadcasts in 1988.

Clearly, then, other factors must be involved in sowing distrust as well—including a long history of left-right policy fights in which scientists seemed to be on the "liberal" side, with a canonical example being the battle over Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" program in the 1980s.

As a result of these conflicts, politically attuned conservatives today are well aware that scientists and academics rarely seem to come out on their side. Perhaps Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh Show are, in the end, simply the media reflection of that long-standing conservative perception.

==

redux; News corp gave $ 1m to RNC,(#1 corp donor, publically traded co's give to both sides) //  david koch 

fox unapolegetic b/c rnc supports free mkts, and nayway really b/c of pal Kasich (fox pundit --> ohio gov)218

aslo 1m to Coc, in middle of 72 m attack ads , incl distorting of gabby g recd

in face of CoC charge for $m GBeck donated and urged listeners to, 300K best day ever

==

non incubator http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Hasselbeck

==

nearly all gop 2012 cands on payroll:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/27/fox-news-has-nearly-all-p_n_740070.html?view=print&comm_ref=false

Twenty-nine days ago, ProPublica launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to hire an intern to help us investigate unpaid internships – an issue that has regained national attention with a flurry of new lawsuitsfollowing a key ruling against Fox Searchlight Pictures.

==

After Republican Electoral Losses, Media See Fox's Involvement As Hurting The GOP

The Atlantic's Friedersdorf: Misinformation From Fox And Conservative Media Cost Romney The Election. Conor Friedersdorf wrote for The Atlantic that "right-leaning outlets like Fox News and Rush Limbaugh's show are far more intellectually closed than CNN or public radio. If you're a rank-and-file conservative, you're probably ready to acknowledge that ideologically friendly media didn't accurately inform you about Election 2012." Friedersdorf continued:

How many hours of Glenn Beck conspiracy theories did Fox News broadcast to its viewers? How many hours of transparently mindless Sean Hannity content is still broadcast daily? Why don't Americans trust Republicans on foreign policy as they once did? In part because conservatism hasn't grappled with the foreign-policy failures of George W. Bush. A conspiracy of silence surrounds the subject. Romney could neither run on the man's record nor repudiate it. *The Atlantic*, [11/7/12]

SF Chronicle Columnist Carroll: "Could It Be That The Fox Model Has Played Out?" In a November 9 column, the San Francisco Chronicle's Jon Carroll described watching Fox, MSNBC, and PBS on Election Night. He wrote:

You had to wonder about Fox. This is the third presidential election in which Fox has been a major player, and the Democrats have won two of them. A combination of big money and big propaganda was supposed to carry the day for Romney and the Republicans, but it didn't.

Could it be that the Fox model has played out? Could it be that the lack of civility and grace, the embrace of the most extreme candidates as long as they were Republicans, indeed, the whole idea behind Roger Ailes' brainchild -- a pimping station for the far right -- may be politically bankrupt?

Carroll concluded by asking, "Could a moderate Republican get nominated in the era of Fox News? I don't think so. And as long as that's so, Fox News hurts the GOP." *San Francisco Chronicle*, [11/9/12]

American Prospect's Waldman: Fox And Conservative Media May Be "The Right's Achilles' Heel."Paul Waldman wrote inThe American Prospect that Fox and other conservative media are effective at "whipping up stories out of nothing and forcing the mainstream media to pay attention, capable of keeping their troops in line and bucking up their morale, capable of quickly disseminating messages far and wide, creating new stars and enforcing discipline." But the success of this misinformation resulted in the "single most damaging moment for Mitt Romney in this election, the 47 percent tape":

Where did Romney learn that number, wrapped as it was in an argument about the shocking numbers of Americans who mooch off the efforts of virtuous hard-working job creators? He almost certainly got it from Fox or conservative talk radio, where it had been in wide circulation for some time, and if it wasn't directly from listening to Limbaugh or Hannity, it came to him from somebody who did. *The American Prospect*, [11/8/12]

Slate's Benedikt: Fox Wins By Demonizing Democrats With Stories "To Feed Into The GOP Bloodstream," But Republicans Lose.On November 7, Slate's Allison Benedikt discussed how "[w]ith massive funds and infinite air time, Roger Ailes' little network that could spent the past four years demonizing President Obama (after a year of demonizing candidate Obama), and obsessively churning up non-news" to "feed into the GOP bloodstream," yet Obama won a second term and Democrats gained seats in Congress. Benedikt wrote:

Fox News feeds its viewers a line of bull about the way the world is. Viewers buy this line of bull. Misinformed viewers become misinformed voters. And then misinformed voters are shocked when Obama wins.

[...]

For the ratings whores, it's likely true that four more years of Obama is exactly what the network needs -- but it's clearly not what's best for, say, Chris Christie. Fueled by intensity and hatred, Fox thrives as the opposition. The trouble is that for the GOP to survive, Republican candidates eventually have to get votes. When they fail, Fox gets to keep on printing money. Slate.com, [11/7/12]

Salon's Pareene: "Fox Discovers Constant Lying Isn't Consistently Effective Electoral Strategy." In a November 7 blog post, Salon.com's Alex Pareene suggested that Fox "knows it's constantly lying to its audience." He commented: "In the Bush era this was fine for morale. In the first years of Obama's term it was good for midterm election turnout. But it's apparent that it's clearly bad for the movement in the long term. Counting midterms, the parallel conservative media has now utterly failed to grasp the reality of the American electorate in three of the last four national elections." Salon.com, [11/7/12]

Telegraph's Hodges: "Fox News Is Killing The Republican Party."Dan Hodges wrote a November 8 article for The Telegraph titled "Fox News Is Killing the Republican Party." He stated that "Fox News, widely perceived to be one of the Republican party's greatest assets, has actually become a liability to it." Fox News, he wrote, was "an albatross around the neck of Mitt Romney." Hodges also wrote that Fox's misinformation "provides a false comfort zone for conservative politicians and their supporters." *The Telegraph*, [11/8/12]

Fox News Employees Campaigned For Republicans In 2012 And 2010

During The 2012 Election, At Least 32 Fox News Hosts And Contributors Campaigned For Republican Candidates.A Media Matters report found that during the 2012 presidential election, over 32 Fox hosts and contributors campaigned for Republican candidates in more than 300 instances. Fox contributor Karl Rove's American Crossroads promised to spend $300 million on ads for conservative candidates. *Media Matters*, [11/1/12]

Five Fox Figures Advised The Romney Campaign, And Nine Were Featured At Romney Events.The same report revealed that Fox News' John Bolton, Liz Cheney, Thomas McInerney, Chuck Nash, and Walid Phares each advised the Romney campaign. Additionally, nine Fox News personalities "played key roles in Romney events: Fred Barnes, John Bolton, Liz Cheney, Al D'Amato, Mike Huckabee, William Kristol, Dennis Miller, Karl Rove, and Pete Snyder. (Bolton and Cheney have both advised the campaign and been featured in public Romney events.)" *Media Matters*, [11/1/12]

In 2010 Election, Over 30 Fox Personalities Campaigned For Republicans.During the 2010 election cycle, more than 30 Fox hosts and contributors endorsed, fundraised, or campaigned for Republican candidates. *Media Matters*, [4/21/10, 10/27/10]

Republican Candidates Routinely Touted Fox News' Support In Campaigning.Media Mattersfound that Republican candidates often highlighted support they had received from Fox News. In one such example, on his September 13, 2010, Fox News program, host Sean Hannity told North Carolina congressional candidate Ilario Pantano that "you belong in Congress, I'm very impressed." In an email, Pantano highlighted the Fox News exchange to raise campaign funds. The campaign also issued a press release calling Hannity's praise a "significant achievement." *Media Matters*, [10/17/10]

Fox Hosts Advised Romney About What He Should Do ...

O'Reilly: Romney Should "Fluster" Obama. In a discussion with Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Bill O'Reilly said that Romney "hasn't been forceful enough," and encouraged Romney to "fluster" Obama during the debates.  He also encouraged Romney to convince Americans he can "fix" the economy by saying, "Hey, I'm your handy man here. I can fix it." Fox News, *The O'Reilly Factor*, [10/1/12, via Media Matters]

Bolling: "Mitt, Get Back To The Economy." Addressing Romney on The Five, co-host Eric Bolling told the candidate: "Mitt, get back to the economy. That's how you're going to win. It's not going to be these other games." Fox News, *The Five*, [8/10/12, via Media Matters]

O'Reilly To Romney: Say That Obama "Doesn't Like This Capitalistic System." On his Fox News program, O'Reilly said that if he were Romney, he would "keep pounding" the message that Obama "doesn't like this capitalistic system." Fox News, *The O'Reilly Factor*, [5/23/12]

Gretchen Carlson Gave Romney Advice For A "Pretty Compelling Campaign Ad." Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson said that Romney could create a "pretty compelling campaign ad" by juxtaposing Obama saying he had three years to fix the economy with him saying he needs another four years. Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/4/12]

For more on how right-wing media advised the Romney campaign, click here and here.

... And Counseled Elected Republicans Not To Cooperate With Democrats

Fox Nation: "Palin Issues Stern Warning To Boehner About Debt Ceiling." In July 2011, Fox contributor Sarah Palin told Newsweek that "she's against any deal that raises the debt ceiling and would hold House Speaker John Boehner's feet to the fire if he agreed to one." Linking to an article in The Hill reporting on Palin's comments, Fox Nation posted the following headline:....

http://mediamatters.org/print/research/2012/11/10/fox-news-relationship-with-the-gop-is-under-fir/191329

rbst gmo fox killed akre and wilson investigation on milk monsanto hired lawyer who sent letter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JL1pKlnhvg0

The Justice Department spied extensively on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, tracking his movements in and out of the State Department, and seizing two days of Rosen’s personal emails, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

In a chilling move sure to rile defenders of civil liberties, an FBI agent also accused Rosen of breaking the law with behavior that—at least as described—falls inside the bounds of traditional news reporting. (Disclosure: This reporter counts Rosen among his friends.)

The revelations surfaced with President Barack Obama’s administration already under fire for seizing two months of telephone records of reporters and editors at the Associated Press. Obama last week said he makes “no apologies” for investigations into national security-related leaks. The AP's CEO, Gray Pruitt, said Sunday that the seizure was "unconstitutional."

The Obama administration has prosecuted twice as many leakers as all previous administrations combined.

Fox News chief Washington correspondent.

Son of Regina and Myron S. Rosen of Sunnyside, Staten Island. His mother is the confidential secretary to State Supreme Court Justice Allen Hurkin-Torres in Brooklyn and his father is a partner in Edelman & Edelman, a Manhattan law firm.

Graduated from John Hopkins University and received a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

Joined Fox News Channel (FNC) in 1999.

Before joining Fox News, worked as a researcher to CBS News anchor and managing editor Dan Rather. Prior to CBS News, served as an associate producer at WWOR-TV in New York; as a field and control room producer at NY-1 News, also in New York; as an anchor/reporter for WREX-TV (NBC) in Rockford, Illinois; and as an anchor/reporter for News12/The Bronx.

In 2003, named "Funniest Celebrity in Washington".

(2008) Release of his book, "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate".

In 2008, Rosen's book, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate was published by Doubleday; it was a biography of Richard Nixon's Attorney General John N. Mitchell, and his involvement in the Watergate scandal. Rosen had spent 17 years researching and writing the book; the project was initially based on a grant Rosen had received from William F. Buckley, soon after graduating from journalism school, to write the book.^[2]

In 2010 Stephen Jin-Woo Kim was indicted under the Espionage Act for an alleged conversation with Rosen about North Korea's plans to test a nuclear bomb. ^[4]

http://www.alternet.org/print/media/10-biggest-rejects-scooped-fox-news

AlterNet [1] / By Mark Howard [2]

10 Biggest Rejects Scooped Up By Fox News

May 13, 2013 |

Journalism is a competitive field, and the best and the brightest are highly valued by reputable news enterprises. And then there’s Fox News.

No other “news” organization so aggressively recruits the rejects and reprobates cast off from other media employers. It must be a great comfort for wayward reporters and pundits to know that if they should violate the standards of ethics and/or decency demanded of them, they will always have somewhere to turn for sympathy and a fat paycheck, not to mention an undiscriminating audience.

For so many fallen television personalities, Fox News has been a support system that promises them a steady career path and a future that, in the past, would have meant well-deserved humiliation and disgrace. For these folks, Fox was their white knight that stepped forward to whitewash their professional sins.

1. Judith Miller: In the lead-up to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, New York Times reporter Judith Miller coordinated with the administration to make the case for war. Her articles gave credibility to fabricated allegations that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. Eventually her distortions were revealed and the Times sent her packing. And who else but Fox would have welcomed her with such open arms?

2. Erick Erickson: Following the election in November 2012, many news outlets resolved to reexamine their operations and staff. CNN concluded that there was no longer a place for an ultra-conservative blogger who once called Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-fucking child-molester.” Fox was also undergoing a self-examination, and decided that Erickson was just what it was looking for.

3. Rick Sanchez: Not satisfied with calling Jon Stewart a bigot in a radio interview, Sanchez elaborated by falling back on the well-worn anti-Semitic theme that "Jews control the media." “[E]verybody who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart,” Sanchez said, “and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they – the people in this country who are Jewish – are an oppressed minority? Yeah.”

Today Sanchez is a correspondent with Fox News Latino and MundoFox. Ironically, Sanchez once castigated Latinos who worked for Fox as “sell-outs.” Fox responded by saying, “Everyone knows that Rick is an industry joke, he shows that he’s a hack everyday. And he doesn’t have to worry about working at Fox because we only hire talent who have the ability to generate ratings.”

4. Pat Buchanan: The author of notoriously bigoted books like State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, Buchanan was released from his contract with MSNBC after he wrote that as a result of “the rise to power of an Obama rainbow coalition of peoples of color [...] whites may discover what it is like to ride in the back of the bus.” He then complained that he was a victim of blacklisting by a coalition of blacks, gays and Jews, before being swept up by Fox.

5. Juan Williams: A veteran correspondent for National Public Radio, Williams went astray when he confessed that “when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.” Williams failed to see the inherent racism in his commentary and refused to apologize. Shortly after NPR relieved him of his duties there, Fox signed him to a new multimillion-dollar contract.

6. Mark Fuhrman: A regular crime analyst on Fox, Fuhrman may be better known as the disgraced former Los Angeles police officer who upended the O.J. Simpson trial by falsely testifying that he had never used racist epithets. That sort of behavior, however, is not a problem for the editorial bosses at Fox.

7. Doug McKelway: A familiar face in Washington DC, McKelway anchored a local news broadcast until he drew complaints for having told a gay activist he was interviewing that he wanted to take him outside and punch him in the face. That episode capped a rocky tenure during which he often fought with producers over his perception that the station’s broadcasts were too liberal. He doesn’t have that problem anymore, now that he is a correspondent at Fox.

8. Lou Dobbs: This long-time CNN anchor was ostensibly CNN’s financial expert. Somewhere along the way he assumed the role of an immigrant basher and a proponent of the racist notion that all terrorists are Muslim. And to sweeten the pot, Dobbs joined the birther brigade by repeatedly demanding that President Obama produce his “real” birth certificate. In retrospect, it seems like Dobbs was positioning himself for future work at Fox News.

9. Oliver North: Here’s an oldie but goodie. Col. North was convicted of lying to Congress about President Reagan’s arms-for-hostages affair. While the conviction was later overturned by an appellate court that ruled North’s testimony had been immunized, the underlying facts were not in question. North’s confession to a host of illegal acts was not a hindrance to his becoming a host on Fox News.

10. Don Imus: What can be said about the guy who was fired for calling a group of women on a college basketball team “nappy-headed hos?” Fox calls him the anchor of the morning block on its financial network.

11. Tucker Carlson: Perhaps the poster child for Fox’s Disgraced Reporter Rescue Program is Tucker Carlson, who has managed to fail on CNN, PBS and MSNBC before receiving salvation from Fox. Like Sanchez, Carlson once held Fox in low esteem, calling it “a mean, sick group of people,” after it published his home phone number on the Fox website. But when Carlson was jettisoned from MSNBC he worked his way back into the good graces of Fox as the editor of the Daily Caller blog, then as a Fox contributor, and now the co-host of the weekend edition of "Fox & Friends."

This pattern of staff development relies heavily on applicants (or, in the case of Sanchez and Carlson, supplicants) with proven histories of impropriety. Fox seems to regard the discards of other networks as its richest vein of new talent. If the prospect has any lingering felonies on his or her rap sheet, all the better. The frequency with which Fox acquires ethically challenged employees belies any suggestion that it is mere coincidence. Fox is clearly drawn to the reportorial riffraff and regards moral defects as badges of honor.

See more stories tagged with:

fox news [3],

networks [4]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/media/10-biggest-rejects-scooped-fox-news

Links:

[1] http://www.alternet.org

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/mark-howard

[3] http://www.alternet.org/tags/fox-news

[4] http://www.alternet.org/tags/networks

[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

tax dodge;A few weeks ago video pimp and propagandist, James O’Keefe, released a heavily edited and deliberately deceptive video that purported to expose an institutional bias at National Public Radio. It was quickly debunked and denounced as a fraud by analysts across the political spectrum, including those at Glenn Beck’s web site, The Blaze.

Nevertheless, partisans in Congress and agenda-driven conservatives in the press continue to behave as if the video were legitimate. The House of Representatives, on a party-line vote, passed a resolution to defund NPR – a purely symbolic gesture as the Senate is not likely to concur.

The latest attack comes from former NPR correspondent, and confessed bigot, Juan Williams, in an op-ed for The Hill. After first conceding that “NPR is an important platform for journalism,” Williams joins his conservative comrades in calling for federal defunding of NPR. But he also reveals his self-serving and vengeful motivation by slandering NPR in saying that…

“They’re willing to do anything in service of any liberal with money. This includes firing me and skewing the editorial content of their programming.”

Nowhere in the article did Williams support his contention that “liberal money” was behind either his termination or any of its reporting. This is nothing more than a personal vendetta on Williams’ part. He is merely using the funding debate to strike his own blows against a former employer for whom he obviously bears a deep resentment.

However, if the right wants to introduce the issue of federal funding of the media into the public debate, they should be prepared to see their own Fox gored. Fox News has been the beneficiary of government largess for years and it is time to stop it and make Fox pay its own way. As far back as 1999, there have been reports documenting how News Corp, Fox’s parent company, exploited loopholes in tax laws that permitted them to avoid levies that all other citizens have to pay. From The Economist:

“…News Corporation and its subsidiaries paid only A$325m ($238m) in corporate taxes worldwide. In the same period, its consolidated pre-tax profits were A$5.4 billion. So News Corporation has paid an effective tax rate of only around 6%. By comparison, Disney, one of the world’s other media empires, paid 31%. Basic corporate-tax rates in Australia, America and Britain, the three main countries in which News Corporation operates, are 36%, 35% and 30% respectively.”

The article goes on to describe how News Corp used a complex network of accounting dodges including as many as 60 shell companies that were incorporated in such tax havens as the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Netherlands Antilles and the British Virgin Islands. More recently, an investigation by the New York Times revealed that…

“By taking advantage of a provision in the law that allows expanding companies like Mr. Murdoch’s to defer taxes to future years, the News Corporation paid no federal taxes in two of the last four years, and in the other two it paid only a fraction of what it otherwise would have owed. During that time, Securities and Exchange Commission records show, the News Corporation’s domestic pretax profits topped $9.4 billion.”

When giant, prosperous, multinational corporations weasel out of their tax obligations, ordinary citizens are the ones who are forced to make up the shortfall. That is effectively a tax subsidy for the corporations funded by you and me and all of the indignant Tea Partiers who claim to oppose special interest favors for the elite.

http://www.alternet.org/print/fox-news-audience-literally-dying-roger-ailes-grand-experiment-propaganda-doomed

Dr. Ben Carson has pivoted from apologizing "if anybody was offended" by his anti-gay comments to attacking his critics, some of whom he says are "racist[s]" who are trying to smear him as a bigot in order to silence him.

Carson, who has been lauded by the conservative media and treated to dozens of Fox News appearances over the past few months, lashed out at his critics during an April 1 interview on The Mark Levin Show.

The noted surgeon and Johns Hopkins University neurosurgery professor has been subject to harsh criticism, including from students and staff at Johns Hopkins Medical School, since he compared gays who support marriage equality to pedophiles and practitioners of bestiality during a March 27 interview on Fox News' Hannity.

During that appearance, Carson said, "Marriage is between a man and a woman. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality, it doesn't matter what they are. They don't get to change the definition. So, it's not something against gays. It's against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has significant ramifications."

Carson had previously written in his 2012 book that marriage equality could destroy America like the "fall of the Roman Empire."

After LGBT medical students called for Carson's replacement as the commencement speaker for the class of 2013, he attempted to claim that he hadn't been "equating" gays with pedophiles or those who engage in bestiality, while apologizing "if anybody was offended." He also said he would be willing to step down as commencement speaker.

But on Levin's show, Carson went on the offensive, saying that the criticism he has received proves that he's right that "political correctness is threatening to destroy our nation because it puts a muzzle over honest conversation." He added that "the attacks against me have been so vicious because I represent an existential threat" to his critics, who he says "take my words, misinterpret them, and try to make it seem that I'm a bigot."

After Levin claimed that Carson has been "attacked also, in many respects, because of your race" because "a lot of white liberals" don't like black conservatives, Carson replied, "Well, they're the most racist people there are. Because you know, they put you in a little category, a little box, 'you have to think this way, how could you dare come off the plantation?'"

oppose UN armshttp://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/26/fox-gives-credence-to-un-arms-trade-treaty-cons/193270

 ===

Another Misleading Fox News Graphic: Temperature Edition

Blog››› March 25, 2013 5:33 PM EDT ››› JILL FITZSIMMONS

Fox News is suggesting that scientists were "wrong" about global warming by using misleading graphics to obscure the long-term global temperature rise.

On his Fox News show, Neil Cavuto suggested that the recent cold weather invalidates concerns about global warming, asking weather forecaster and climate misinformer Joe Bastardi, "How did we get this so wrong?" Cavuto aired a graphic which at first glance appears to show that temperatures are dramatically cooler now than they were last March. But the graphic compares apples to oranges: the map on the left shows whether temperatures were above or below average for the month of March, while the map on the right shows absolute minimum temperatures for last Wednesday, March 20.

If the temperature scale for the map on the right were applied to the map on the left, it would mean that temperatures were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the upper Midwest in March 2012.

A more honest comparison would look at the same day in March 2012, showing a far less stark contrast:

But even this comparison would be flawed, as daily and regional temperature fluctuations are expected, and do not contradict the observed long-term, global temperature trends.

Once again cherry-picking data to fit its narrative, Fox News did not mention that February was the ninth warmest on record globally, that 2012 was the warmest year on record in the U.S., or that each of the 12 years since the turn of the century have ranked among the 14 warmest on record. The following chart from Skeptical Science illustrates the clear long-term warming trend, with significant year-to-year variety, and how it has been distorted by climate misinformers:

Previously:

A History Of Dishonest Fox Charts

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/25/another-misleading-fox-news-graphic-temperature/193247

MSNBC is far more reliant on opinion coverage than any of its cable news rivals, a new study found.

The Pew Research Center's annual "State of the Media" study was released Monday. One section of the report — which, when taken in its totality, makes for very gloomy reading — deals with changes in the television news landscape over the past five years.

The study's authors found that, since 2007, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have all cut back sharply on the amount of actual reporting found on their airwaves. Cheaper, more provocative debate or interview segments have largely filled the void. MSNBC, though, stands out from the pack, Pew said:

CNN, which has branded itself around reporting resources and reach, cut back between 2007 and 2012 on two areas tied to that brand—in-depth story packages and live event coverage. Even so, CNN is the only one of the three big cable news channels to produce more straight reporting than commentary over all. At the other end of that spectrum lies MSNBC, where opinion fills a full 85% of the channel’s airtime.

Pew found that Fox News spent 55 percent of the time on opinion and 45 percent of the time on reporting. Critics of that figure would likely contend that the network's straight news reporting tilts conservative, but it is true that Fox News has more shows that feature reporting packages than MSNBC does. The network's straight news hours — hosted by Chris Jansing, Thomas Roberts, Tamron Hall and Andrea Mitchell — are usually filled with interview segments or pundit debates.

echo gop talking pts

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/03/02/you-may-have-seen-these-fox-graphics-before-in/192883

==

MSNBC is far more reliant on opinion coverage than any of its cable news rivals, a new study found.

The Pew Research Center's annual "State of the Media" study was released Monday. One section of the report — which, when taken in its totality, makes for very gloomy reading — deals with changes in the television news landscape over the past five years.

The study's authors found that, since 2007, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have all cut back sharply on the amount of actual reporting found on their airwaves. Cheaper, more provocative debate or interview segments have largely filled the void. MSNBC, though, stands out from the pack, Pew said:

CNN, which has branded itself around reporting resources and reach, cut back between 2007 and 2012 on two areas tied to that brand—in-depth story packages and live event coverage. Even so, CNN is the only one of the three big cable news channels to produce more straight reporting than commentary over all. At the other end of that spectrum lies MSNBC, where opinion fills a full 85% of the channel’s airtime.

Pew found that Fox News spent 55 percent of the time on opinion and 45 percent of the time on reporting. Critics of that figure would likely contend that the network's straight news reporting tilts conservative, but it is true that Fox News has more shows that feature reporting packages than MSNBC does. The network's straight news hours — hosted by Chris Jansing, Thomas Roberts, Tamron Hall and Andrea Mitchell — are usually filled with interview segments or pundit debates.

==

Neil Cavuto Mocks Climate Change Protesters, Says Weather During Rally Was 'Bad Optics' (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post  |  By Jessica Leader Posted: 02/21/2013 10:59 am EST 

February 17 was a sunny, clear day in Washington, D.C., although temperatures barely topped the freezing point. Despite the cold weather, an estimated 40,000 people gathered on the National Mall to participate in the Forward on Climate Rally, urging President Barack Obama to tackle climate change and deny a permit to the controversial the Keystone XL pipeline.

On Fox News, host Neil Cavuto ridiculed rally-goers for protesting "global warming" during an arctic blast. “I think they might call this a case of, I don’t know, bad optics,��� he said, as Fox showed footage of protesters bundled in hats and scarves. Cavuto was then joined by Fox Business analyst Charles Payne, who mocked not only the temperature, but the message of the rally. “Maybe that was it, maybe it was the icicles on their lips,” said Payne, laughing. He then imitated protesters trying to say the word “fracking” through frozen lips, a gag he repeated later in the segment.

Many climate deniers (and some Fox News pundits) have argued that low temperatures invalidate the science behind climate change. According to Media Matters, Rush Limbaugh noted in a January 11 show that it was "27 degrees outside San Diego right now, 27 degrees, and they're talking about global warming.” Stuart Varney cited Jerusalem’s snow storm and record-cold temperatures in China in an attempt to refute environmentalists lobbying for a carbon tax.

Yet the idea that climate change equals consistently hotter temperatures was dispelled long ago. “Global warming,” which refers to long-term warming of the planet, can be a somewhat misleading term when applied to climate science, since "climate change" encompasses both hot and cold temperature extremes. According to NASA, climate change “includes warming, cooling, and changes besides temperature.”

After an extreme winter storm in the Northeast earlier this month, the AP reported that warmer winters punctuated by strong blizzards are consistent with climate change. Warmer temperatures cause a buildup of moisture in the atmosphere, which leads to snowier days during the winter.

"Shorter snow season, less snow overall, but the occasional knockout punch," Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer told the AP. "That's the new world we live in."

Studies show that even precipitation-free cold temperatures may be a byproduct of climate change. Arctic Oscillations (AO), the pressure patterns in the atmosphere that regulate weather, switch between positive and negative states. During “negative” AO, air pressure is weakened around the polar vortex, allowing colder temperatures to break out of the Arctic Circle and collide with warm fronts in some regions. This collision creates extreme winter temperatures.

In his report on the Forward on Climate Rally, Cavuto suggested that environmental activists were merely changing their tune in the face of the cold weather. “It used to be that global warming was the cause, but, you know, if it's not warm outside then you had to change it to climate change to force that issue,” the host explained.

A recent analysis conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, found that Fox News misled the public in 37 out of 40 climate change mentions.

http://mediamatters.org/print/blog/2013/02/19/fox-mocks-climate-protesters-for-rallying-in-wi/192720

Fox Mocks Climate Protesters For Rallying In Winter

Blog››› February 19, 2013 2:49 PM EST ››› JILL FITZSIMMONS

Sunday's "Forward On Climate" rally drew an estimated 35,000 people to Washington, DC to protest the Keystone XL pipeline, making it the largest climate rally in U.S. history, according to organizers. Every major news outlet covered it, putting a national spotlight on the environmental risks associated with the project. But Fox News used the rally as an opportunity to mock the protesters and cast doubt on the science of climate change.

On his Fox News show, Neil Cavuto suggested that it was "bad optics" to "protest global warming in the middle of this Arctic blast." Fox Business' Charles Payne claimed that the protesters "probably have done very little research" and are relying on "anecdotal" evidence of climate change:

chris wallace ~ nra http://front.moveon.org/the-nra-is-ridiculous-and-this-fox-news-anchor-lets-them-know-it/?rc=daily.share

The humanoids at Fox & Friends want to know: Why is it that Germany can get so much of its power from solar, but the U.S. can’t manage without coal? It couldn’t have anything to do with Republican obstruction of green technologies and alternative power, because those are big words, but it’s not an enduring mystery, like the moon. It must be because Germany gets more sun than we do! Yes, bright summery Germany, with its pale angsty sun-worshippers lounging by the pool in their leather pants.

Cocker spaniel otherkin Gretchen Carlson kicked it off, around 2:45 on the video, by asking whether Germany has better solar because it’s a smaller country (which would mean, I guess, that the sun loses less power trying to cover the entire surface area, and therefore there is more left to collect). It was Fox News business reporter Shibani Joshi who responded: “They’re a smaller country, and they’ve got lots of sun. Right? They’ve got a lot more sun than we do. The problem is it’s a cloudy day and it’s raining, you’re not gonna have it. … In California it’s a great solution, but here on the East Coast it’s just not going to work.”

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Of course, Germany doesn’t remotely get more sun than most of the U.S. ��� it’s roughly on par with that sunbather’s heaven, the Pacific Northwest. But you can’t deny that it makes sensein your gut that a place with a more robust solar industry would necessarily have more sun. And understanding any other explanation requires knowing about things like politics and industry and regulation and business, and people become political commentators and business reporters to get away from that shit!

Source

• Fox News Claims Solar Won't Work in America Because It's Not Sunny Like Germany, Slate

http://grist.org/climate-energy/fox-news-solar-power-only-works-in-germany-because-germany-is-a-tropical-paradise/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Confronted With 97 Percent Of Climate Scientists, Fox Makes Up Stats

Blog›��› February 4, 2013 3:37 PM EST ��›› SHAUNA THEEL

On Fox News, Republican strategist Brad Blakeman denied the scientific consensus on manmade climate change, saying "For every one scientist that says there is, I'll give you 10 scientists that said it's not manmade":

But in fact, credible surveys have repeatedly found that the vast majority of climate scientists agree humans are changing the climate. For instance, a 2009 survey published by the American Geophysical Union found that 97 percent of those who specialize in climate science said human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures:

The American Geophysical Union and several other scientific bodies including the National Academy of Sciences have acknowledged manmade climate change based on a strong and growing body of evidence.

Despite all of this, Fox News has continually and falsely claimed the consensus on climate change does not exist -- yet another example of the network's willful denial of facts. As MSNBC host Rachel Maddow put it after the 2012 presidential election, conservative media need to "pop the factual bubble" if they're going to offer solutions to our problems rather than just wish them away.

http://mediamatters.org/print/blog/2013/02/04/fox-news-fictional-climate-math/192516

...But recent history has demonstrated the power of these two right-wing media outlets.

In October 2010, a New Yorkerarticle by Ryan Lizza revealed that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had previously urged Democratic Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Kerry to advance climate bill negotiations as much as possible before Fox News could find out about the talks. Lizza wrote that "Graham warned Lieberman and Kerry that they needed to get as far as they could in negotiating the bill 'before Fox News got wind of the fact that this was a serious process,' one of the people involved in the negotiations said."

Similarly, in July 2011, media reported that House Speaker John Boehner had briefed Limbaugh on his debt ceiling plan before even showing it to his Republican conference. Boehner also called into Limbaugh's show to seek the radio host's approval on air. 

Many Republican figures have also walked back comments they have made after Limbaugh objected to them. In October 2010, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told The Wall Street Journal that Americans "want us to come together [with the administration]." After Limbaugh attacked Issa on air for his comments, Issa came on Limbaugh's show to distance himself from the article. As we noted at the time, other Republican figures have also apologized to Limbaugh:

[Former]  RNC chairman Michael Steele apologized for calling Limbaugh an "entertainer," Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) told Limbaugh he was sorry for comments defending the House Republican leadership against criticism from Limbaugh, and former Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC) backed off criticism of Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" comments. Even Sarah Palin��changed her mind about condemning Limbaugh's use of the word "retards."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/28/fox-and-limbaugh-lash-out-at-obama-for-highligh/192424

Fox News guy is mad that Obama talked about climate change instead of ‘pressing issues’

By Philip Bump

Over the weekend, Fox News once again allowed its employees to say things on-air, which the media company somehow fails to understand is generally a risky proposition. But Fox seems committed to letting them do so, and therefore you get things like this.

On “Fox News Watch” (which is not, as you might assume, a weekly catalog of all of the ways in which Fox News has failed), talkers worried that “cheerleading” from the media for Obama’s inaugural address “threatens to overshadow reporting.” And Fox News hates it when cheerleading obscures objective coverage.

From the *Washington Post*:

Jon Scott, host of “Fox News Watch,” made clear that he wasn’t part of the adoration crowd. Here’s his take on Obama’s speech:

We heard during the inaugural address, we heard about climate change, we heard about gay rights, we heard about lots of issues but nothing much about the deficit and some of the pressing issues, you know, the really pressing issues of our time.

Emphasis added, because if you watch the clip, he really emphasizes that “really.” After all, Jon Scott, formerly the host of A Current Affair, knows what’s an important issue and what isn’t. The deficit or whatever is a hella big issue. Climate change isn’t. (In 2011, Scott asked Bill Nye if moon volcanoes disproved global warming. Nye suggested that they did not.)

The most recent ratings numbers indicate that Fox News is still the most-watched news channel, nearly tripling its next-closest competitor. Because they cover the pressing issues of our time.

Source

• Fox News host: Climate change, gay rights not ‘really pressing issues’, Washington Post

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a

Brian Kilmeade, Fox News Host, Suggests Only 'Corrupt' Scientists Believe In Climate Change (AUDIO)

The Huffington Post  |  By Meredith Bennett-Smith Posted: 01/23/2013 4:58 pm EST  |  Updated: 01/23/2013 5:11 pm EST

A Fox News host notorious for his skepticism made a controversial suggestion about climate scientists during an on-air debate this week.

Fox's Brian Kilmeade became testy during his radio show Tuesday when a caller argued that almost all scientists believe climate change is a real phenomenon, according to Raw Story.

The caller, named "John," was referring to the portion of President Barack Obama's inauguration address in which he said, "We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations."

John called climate change, the "most important thing we need to be concerned about," to which Kilmeade replied sarcastically, "This morning it snowed, only because there was pollution in China."

When John protested that 98 percent of climatologists say climate change is real, Kilmeade shot back: "You mean the corrupt ones? You mean the corrupt ones who admit they skew their findings?”

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 surveyed 1,372 climate researchers and found that "97–98 [percent] of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of [anthropogenic climate change] outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Nearly a dozen of the world's most prominent national science academies have acknowledged that the world's climate is changing as a result of increasing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels.

Kilmeade, however, has remained a staunch skeptic.

In October, he called global warming a scam in an interview with Dr. Alex Berezow.

 Kilmeade isn't the first Fox News personality to dispute the scientific consensus behind climate change. In May, Fox News contributor Deroy Murdock said there were "hundreds of thousands" of scientists still debating the issue.

While Murdock's claim does not seem to be backed up by fact, a study conducted by The Yale Project on Climate Change Communication found that while 70 percent of Americans believe the world is warming,only about half accept its human origin, NPR reports.

Fox News Questions Whether Government Faked Hottest Year On Record

Blog››› January 11, 2013 10:56 AM EST›› MAX GREENBERG

Quotes "Skeptic" Blogger Suggesting Scientists Should Go To Jail

A FoxNews.com article questioned whether 2012 was actually the hottest year on record, quoting "skeptics" who suggest a government office is manipulating data to fabricate proof of rising temperatures. In fact, statistical adjustments made by the agency are required, publicly-documented changes to correct for errors and known sources of bias in the raw data. 

In January, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) announced that 2012 was the hottest year on record in the contiguous U.S. - an announcement that Fox News ignored until one of Fox News' few liberal commentators, Bob Beckel, tried to bring it up on The Five. Soon after, FoxNews.com reporter Maxim Lott solicited the views of a few professional climate "skeptics" to claim that scientists made unjustified data adjustments to exaggerate 2012's heat. 

Under the headline "Hottest year ever? Skeptics question revisions to climate data," Lott quoted Roy Spencer, a rare climate contrarian scientist who considers it his job to "minimize the role of government," and Steve Goddard, a climate denier-cum-birther writing under a pseudonym, to cast doubt on the temperature record. According to Goddard, the U.S. only "appears" to have warmed as a result of the agency's adjustments, making the data "meaningless garbage." Lott gave the final word to former television weatherman and blogger Anthony Watts, who said, "In the business and trading world, people go to jail for such manipulations of data." 

But the NCDC has publicly explained that it needs to make adjustments to the raw temperature data to account for flaws that can result, for example, when stations are moved, are measuring temperatures at different times of day, or are measuring temperature with different instruments. The NCDC carefully applies these adjustments after publishing their methods in multiple peer-reviewed papers. As several scientists tried to explain to FoxNews.com, these adjustments make the temperature data more accurate:

Government climate scientist Peter Thorne, speaking in his personal capacity, said that there was consensus for the adjustments.

"These have been shown through at least three papers that have appeared in the past 12 months to be an improvement," he said.

NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen agreed.

"These kinds of improvements get us even closer to the true climate signal, and help our nation even more accurately understand its climate history," he said.

Peter Thorne, a climate scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites who was quoted by FoxNews.com, wrote in an email to Media Mattersthat recent changes to the data served to improve accuracy. The changes were posted prominently by NCDC in the September 2012 State of the Climate report and, according to Thorne, were "supported by extensive documentation" and "flagged with significant due process undertaken prior to release." 

John Abraham, an IPCC reviewer concluded that Fox News had "misinformed its readers about climate change again."

UPDATE (1/14/13): Skeptical Science notes that Spencer's own satellite data lists 2012 as the hottest year on record for the contiguous U.S., and states that "If��climate contrarians dispute the validity of any of the adjustments made by NCDC, they should subject their criticisms to the scientific peer-review process rather than making unsubstantiated and unjustified accusations of malfeasance in the mainstream media."

Posted in Climate Change, Environment & Science

Network/OutletFoxNews.com

PersonAnthony Watts, Maxim Lott

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/11/fox-news-questions-whether-government-faked-hot/192185

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/02/1175873/-A-Very-Merry-Christmas-For-MSNBC-A-Very-Unhappy-Holiday-For-Fox-News?detail=email#

Roger Ailes And Fox News' Lack Of Accountability

Blog››› December 4, 2012 5:43 PM EST SIMON MALOY

Politico's Dylan Byers neatly sums up the reaction, or lack thereof, to the news that Fox News chief Roger Ailes used a Fox contributor to pitch a presidential run to David Petraeus in 2011:

No one seemed to believe that Ailes had breached media ethics. Nor was anyone surprised that Ailes had asked Fox News analyst K.T. McFarland to ask Petraeus if there was "anything Fox is doing right or wrong that you want to tell us to do differently." Indeed, it is just what people have come to expect from the veteran Republican strategist who, in 2005, sent a note to then-Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice offering "help off the record" any time.

If there is a line of demarcation between the conservative Fox News and the liberal MSNBC, this is it: MSNBC may be hyper-partisan, but -- at least for now -- it is not a political operation.

It's a perverse sort of dynamic in which the president of a news organization is shielded from revelations of unethical behavior by his long-established record of unethical behavior. And while it's certainly true that Fox News is first and foremost a political operation, that doesn't explain entirely why Ailes is free to behave the way he does. The network also has a dysfunctional (one could argue nonexistent) culture of accountability.

Ailes has long benefited from Fox News' low standards for professional conduct. Most significantly, this isn't the first time he's been caught trying to persuade Republicans to run against President Obama. New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman reported last year that Ailes personally "called Chris Christie and encouraged him to jump into the race. Last summer, he'd invited Christie to dinner at his upstate compound along with Rush Limbaugh, and like much of the GOP Establishment, he fell hard for Christie, who nevertheless politely turned down Ailes's calls to run." (Ailes later denied the Christie report. He also claimed his Petraeus pitch "was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have.")

Then there's Ailes' inexcusable and outlandish behavior. In 2010, after NPR fired news analyst Juan Williams, Ailes lashed out at NPR executives, saying: "They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism." Ailes later amended his remarks, apologizing to the Anti-Defamation League -- not NPR -- for use of the word "Nazi," explaining that " 'nasty, inflexible bigot" would have worked better." For all this Ailes was rewarded with a four-year contract extension in October of this year.

The lax standards of accountability applied to Ailes trickle downward through the rest of Fox News. When it was revealed that Bill Sammon, Fox News' Washington managing editor, was directing news staff to cast doubt on climate science and tie President Obama to "Marxists" and "socialism" (an idea he later admitted to thinking was "far-fetched" and "mischievous"), Sammon faced no public consequences.

Karl Rove, a Fox News political analyst, used Fox News air time to hype political figures whose races his American Crossroads super PAC had invested in. He talked up former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as a potential Romney Cabinet member shortly after Bush agreed to help Rove raise money for American Crossroads. Rove has faced no public consequences, and seems to be under no requirement to disclose his many conflicting interests.

Dick Morris, who can hardly open his mouth without running into a conflict of interest, was caught auctioning off tours of Fox News studios to raise money for Republicans. Fox News said they'd "reprimanded" Morris, but he remains a constant presence at the network.

Fox News just does not adhere to any sort of accepted standard for accountability. They're relentlessly political, and so long as you're on the right side ideologically, the attitude is "anything goes."

UPDATE: After this post was published, New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman reported that Fox News has told its producers that it now must ask permission before booking Karl Rove or Dick Morris:

According to multiple Fox sources, Ailes has issued a new directive to his staff: He wants the faces associated with the election off the air -- for now. For Karl Rove and Dick Morris -- a pair of pundits perhaps most closely aligned with Fox's anti-Obama campaign -- Ailes's orders mean new rules. Ailes's deputy, Fox News programming chief Bill Shine, has sent out orders mandating that producers must get permission before booking  Rove or  Morris.

Sherman also reported that a Fox spokesperson "confirmed the new booking rules for Rove and Morris, and explained that Shine's message was 'the election's over.' "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/robert-f-kennedy-jr-fox-news_n_2261043.html

Robert F. Kennedy Jr told HuffPost Live host Josh Zepps in an interview Friday that he believes conservative media outlets such as Fox News are damaging the country.

Asked how he thought things have changed in the political landscape, Kennedy pointed to "big money" and "the right wing control of the American media, starting with Fox News" as hurtful to collaboration between differing political interests.

"Twenty-two percent of Americans say their primary news source is Fox News," Kennedy told HuffPost Live. "It's divided our country in a way that we haven't been divided probably since the Civil War, and its empowered large corporations to get certain kinds of politicians and ideologues who are in the United State Congress elected -- the Tea Party ideologues who control the Republican Party."

Kennedy, who is the nephew of John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy and attorney specializing in environmental law, also spoke about the hydraulic fracturing -- or fracking -- and the health risks and associated costs the practice represents for the country.

Watch Kennedy's comments on fracking in New York state below, and watch the full segment on HuffPost Live.

Joe Bastardi

Joe Bastardi is a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, where he provides weather forecasts for energy companies and other corporate clients. He also serves as an advisor to the American Tradition Institute and a Fox News contributor. Although he has no climate expertise, Fox regularly turns to him to analyze climate research. Bastardi, who has called manmade global warming "an obvious fraud," has often been criticized by scientists for his "utter nonsense" on climate change.

Bastardi is not the only dubious source of climate misinformation on Fox News. Fox anchors and contributors regularly mock the threat of climate change and suggest that winter weather invalidates global temperature records. Rather than talking to actual climate scientists, the network turns to industry-funded climate denialists -- including CEI's Chris Horner, the Manhattan Institute's Robert Bryce, Climate Depot's Marc Morano and JunkScience.com's Steve Milloy -- to mislead its viewers on climate science. Fox Nation, a branch of FoxNews.com, regularly cites the British tabloid The Daily Mail and distorts climate research to declare that global warming isn't happening.

November 27, 2012  |

When Fox News debuted sixteen years ago, it was crafted from scratch to be a partisan outlet for right-wing propaganda and a platform for advancing a conservative agenda. Its founder, Rupert Murdoch, was already an internationally known purveyor of right-slanted newspapers and broadcasters. Complimenting Fox��s television presence is its Internet community web site, Fox Nation. The statement of purpose posted on the Fox Nation web site says that it is“committed to the core principles of tolerance, open debate, civil discourse, and fair and balanced coverage of the news.” Needless to say, they have fallen wide of their alleged purpose by several light years.

Fox Nation is layered thickly with far-right extremist diatribes and links to disreputable articles plucked from the Internet’s fringes. And the notion that civil discourse can take place on Fox Nation is quickly dispelled by reading their user forums with their frequent use of the “N” word and juvenile references to the President as “Odumbo” and the First Lady as“Moo-chelle.” These sorts of comments are not anomalies. Fox Nation is deliberately catering to this caliber of audience who revel in overt racist and hostile dialogue. This is not the conventional, freewheeling online chatter that is found on comment boards and is particularly unusual for a site sponsored by a major national news network.

Not much is known about the operations of Fox Nation. Unlike other news enterprises that  identify their principle staff, Fox Nation treats their publishers, editors, etc., as if they were covert agents of espionage. There is no masthead or bylines or any other indication of who is responsible for the repugnant content posted daily on the web page. Requests for this information from Fox corporate communications officers went unanswered.

What follows are ten excerpts from my ebook, Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth [3]. The book chronicles more than fifty flagrantly dishonest reports by the Fox Nationalist team of faux journalists. These are not mere differences of opinion or discussions that might have varying degrees of perspective. They are obvious, provable, outright lies, and they are manifestations of a disconnect with the real world.

1. "Human Carbon Emissions Could Put OFF a Lethal New Ice Age"

According to the Fox Nationalists, the perpetrators of Global Warming are actually rescuing the planet from a frigid doom. They quote Cambridge University research published in the journal Nature Geoscience. The only problem with their conclusion is that the scientist they reference in the article, Luke Skinner, has a completely different conclusion. He says that he anticipated this response amongst climate crisis deniers and said that they are…

“…missing the point, because where we’re going is not maintaining our currently warm climate but heating it much further, and adding CO2 to a warm climate is very different from adding it to a cold climate.

��The rate of change with CO2 is basically unprecedented, and there are huge consequences if we can’t cope with that.��

Skinner told the BBC [4] that the results of the study point to the sensitivity of the climate system to “quite small changes in CO2, let alone the huge changes that we’ve been responsible for over the last 200 years.” Of course, none of that is included in the Fox Nation article. They deliberately neglect the obvious point that by the time the presumed ice age begins, in 1,500 years, global warming, if unchecked, would have already put half the planet’s current land mass under water. But these facts do not sway Fox from cherry-picking out-of-context soundbites to mislead their audience.

http://www.alternet.org/print/greetings-crazyland-10-instances-fox-nations-departure-reality

A History Of Dishonest Fox Charts

http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/10/01/a-history-of-dishonest-fox-charts/190225

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http://www.alternet.org/print/media/how-fox-news-created-new-culture-idiots