Barack Obama has the right idea. According to The Sleuth, a Washington Post.com column, Senator Obama is "freezing out" reporters from Fox News, the network which unapologeticly aired the right-wing smear against him in the last week. Since the incident - which right-wingers have attempted to blame on Hillary Clinton's campaign, in an effort to smear two Democratic candidates at once - Obama has given interviews to nearly every other major broadcast news channel, except Fox.
Obama's not the only one being attacked. Former Senator John Edwards is fielding questions on the campaign trail about his residence in Chapel Hill, N.C., and whether it is "too nice" for someone who is talking about poverty issues. The absurdity of such an attack shows how ruthless - or desperate - the right-wing is to take the public's attention off the actual issues.
Even what were once thought of as traditional news sources are being overcome by the right-wing propagandists. ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, recently hired right-wing talk-show personality Glenn Beck to be a regular commentor on Good Morning America. Several Muslim groups have complained to ABC that because Beck has demonstrated a bias against Arabs, he should not be included in their programming.
ABC's senior news correspondent Jake Tapper recently used quotes from the defender of the right-wing faith Rush Limbaugh to augment a story about the racial implications of Joe Biden's comments on his fellow Democratic presidential candidates. Limbaugh is someone who is known for making racially insensitive comments, so why would ABC choose to reference him? What could they have expected him to say?
Last week, Tapper questioned the authenticity of Democratic candidates, but not Republican candidates. The reporter has a history of favoring Republicans and questioning the integrity of Democrats in his reporting. It's sad to see the former home of a fine journalist like Peter Jennings become a forum for Republican propaganda.
On Fox News recently, smug right-wing poster boy Sean Hannity aired scenes that were cut from the ABC telefilm Path to 9/11 which were removed from the original broadcast because of complaints that they portrayed events that never happened. That didn't stop Hannity from telling viewers he was going to present "both sides." Presumably, he meant fact and fiction, along it remains to be seen how many actual facts were not obscured by Hannity.
Fox News was created by Roger Ailes, who was a paid political consultant for the Republicans in the 1970s, 1980s, and the early 1990s. Fox has had an unapologetic conservative emphasis from the beginning, despite its corporate slogan of being "fair and balanced." It was owner Rupert Murdoch's contention that the news media was "liberal" and he and Ailes intended Fox to offset that perceived imbalance. In fact, substantial research has investigated this, and concluded that there is no liberal bias in media. But conservatives persist in saying there is, which is a convenient way for right-wing extremists to get their opinions heard, and more dangerously, have their skew with the news.
Here is the definition of propaganda: "A type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda is often deliberately misleading, using logical fallacies, which, while sometimes convincing, are not necessarily valid."
In an up-to-the-minute and egregious example of the right-wing's attempt to inject propaganda into the culture, the American Enterprise Institute - a right wing think tank funded by the likes of companies like Exxon Mobil - is offering scientists and economists $10,000 to dispute the United Nations' climate change report (referenced below). The Institute is looking for articles that cast doubt on the U.N. report's findings. You can be sure that if anyone takes the bait, the right-wing media will report on it, since groups like AEI and the Heritage Foundation often place people in the editorial staffs of news organizations. Nothing less than life continuing on the planet is at stake, and the right-wing wants to cast doubt on the report -- so that companies like Exxon will not have to change their ways and stop polluting the atmosphere. It's insanity.
We won't even get into the absurdity of Fox's smugness incarnate, Bill O'Reilly, who spins more stories and twists more truths than anyone can keep track of. He'll tell you he's an "independent thinker" but then recite Republican talking points and disparage Democratic personalities. The goal of propagandists like O'Reilly and the people behind Fox is to keep telling viewers they are getting impartial news, when that's the last thing they are getting. The Nazi propagandists used the same trick back in their time. In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman paid tribute to Molly Ivins, who passed away this week, citing her 1995 column about Rush Limbaugh, in which she wrote ''Satire has historically been the weapon of powerless people aimed at the powerful. When you use satire against powerless people it is like kicking a cripple.''
It's also a powerful political tool. Be smart; don't believe the right-wing media. They exist to serve corporate and neoconservative political interests, not to serve truth.
More info: Propaganda Techniques
