From Ben Dimiero at MEDIA MATTERS:
Is anyone in charge at Fox News?
This week was a bit of a mixed bag for the journalistic ethics of Fox News.
On the upside, we confirmed that News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch is familiar with the idea of journalistic standards. On the downside, Murdoch appears to be completely unaware that his news network doesn’t have any.
Responding to a question from Media Matters VP Ari Rabin-Havt about whether Murdoch thinks it is appropriate for a news organization to aggressively promote the tea party movement, Murdoch stated that Fox shouldn’t be “supporting the Tea Party or any other party.”
…snip…
Since he is apparently too busy to keep an eye on his own news network, we offered some assistance with Murdoch’s “investigation.” Some lowlights:
- Fox Business anchor and “business journalist” Stuart Varney on April 13, 2009: “It’s now my great duty to promote the tea parties. Here we go.”
- In the 10 days leading up to the Tax Day Tea Parties last year, Fox News aired more than 100 commercials promoting the protests and Fox’s coverage of them.
- Glenn Beck encouraged viewers to “please go” to “FNC Tax Day Tea Parties.”
- Fox Nation hosted a “virtual tea party” that was promoted on-air by news anchor Megyn Kelly, news host Bill Hemmer, and Fox & Friends co-host Gretchen Carlson.
- On April 3, 2009, Hannity directed viewers to his website to “get all the details about our special ‘Tax Day Tea Party.’ ” He later added, “We hope you’ll join us.”
Murdoch didn’t even need to watch Fox to learn of the network’s promotion. After the tea parties, dozens of articles on local tea parties reported that Fox News helped to promote turnout at the events.
And all of those examples are just from the lead-up to the Tax Day Tea Parties last April. Since then, Fox’s promotion of the tea party movement has continued unabated.
In fact, just two weeks ago Fox spent an entire day promoting “Conservative Woodstock.” It was just like the real Woodstock, except it was an anti-Harry Reid tea party protest in Searchlight, Nevada, featuring the musical stylings of former Saturday Night Live cast member Victoria Jackson instead of Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane.
If Murdoch wants an even more recent example, this week Neil Cavuto started running ads promoting his coverage of an upcoming tea party protest that “some say could be a very, very heated rally.”
…snip…
Unfortunately for Murdoch, his comments about Fox’s tea party promotion may not have been the most laughably absurd thing he said during his appearance at the National Press Club. After Murdoch called out the other networks for a perceived lack of balance, he was asked to name the Democrats at Fox News. Murdoch responded:
I could give you a couple of names but they’re certainly there. Uh, if Roger [Ailes] were here he’d certainly spit them out very quickly. I think probably every night Greta Van Susteren is certainly close to the Democratic Party.
…snip…
Let’s have a look at who Rupert Murdoch describes as “probably every night … certainly close to the Democratic Party.”
Between March 21 and April 6, Van Susteren continued Fox’s promotion of the GOP’s efforts to overturn health care reform, hosting 15 guests who said that the health care bill is unconstitutional, and only one who called it constitutional.
Her roster of guests attacking the health care reform bill as unconstitutional included Republican attorneys general from seven different states, as well as four different Republican governors. Van Susteren’s nonstop promotion of the GOP’s efforts to overturn health care reform led the Republican attorney general from Michigan to praise her coverage of the issue.
This was after his third appearance in eight shows.
…snip…
Back in November, Media Matters senior fellow Eric Boehlert wondered why Rupert Murdoch is “so clueless about Fox News.” This came after Murdoch, among other outrageous statements, called Sean Hannity an “academic” and falsely claimed that nobody at Fox News had compared Obama to Stalin.
In light of his performance at the National Press Club, we are left with two options: either Rupert Murdoch can’t be bothered to watch his own network, or he isn’t interested in telling the truth.
HYSTERICAL RAISINS 
I shook my head when I heard this. Granted, it’d be a Herculean task to keep up with the rapid-fire bullshit Fox disseminates. But it’s not like it hasn’t been going on for months!
and it’s not like this wasn’t the plan from the beginning. once he hired roger ailes to run faux news, old uncle rupie should have known that subtlety would not be the order of the day.
Even Rupert can’t stomach Fux News. Too funny.
he’s too busy trying to convince himself that his wife married him for love. that’s a full time job, so he doesn’t have time to watch tv.
*snicker*
You and I have gone around about her before. It doesn’t help that she and I went to the same college. In fact, I think our time there overlapped.
you never told me you went to college with her. did you ever meet her? if you ever shook hands with her, i hope you counted your fingers afterward.
Yes, I went to college with her. Here’s the relevant section of her biography.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendi_Deng#Early_life
“In February 1988, Deng abandoned her medical studies and travelled to the US to study, with the Cherrys sponsoring Deng’s student visa and giving her accommodation in the family home. Deng secured a place studying economics at CSUN (California State University, Northridge) and married Jake Cherry in February 1990.”
I graduated from CSUN with my M.S. in Geology in 1989, so we overlapped for a year. Fortunately, I didn’t meet her. I was also taken at the time, and it seems that she was, too.
Also, I thought I told you that I went to school with her, so I checked the comments to the following post.
I wrote something like “she’s an alumna of one of my alma maters” which is a fancy way of saying we went to the same college. It turns out that I didn’t exactly make it clear we were there at the same time. We were.
see? that’s what you get fer usin’ all dem fancy werds! i ain’t all dat brite, y’knowe.
good thing you were both taken. you dodged a bullet, neon vincent.
I dodged *that* bullet. I didn’t dodge my ex-wife. Besides, I wasn’t rich enough for her.
and you weren’t almost 40 years older than her.
“journalistic ethics of Fox News”
You had me laughing out loud with that!
But, honestly, can you blame Murdoch? I mean, I wouldn’t want to watch FNC, either.
oh, wken, thank goodness you showed up. there’s a ken that was here who was stinkin’ up the joint, and we needed a good ken to make us all feel better.
Conservative Woodstock? What a picture that paints.
I think it might have been easier to say “It was just like the real Woodstock, except it was boring, predictable and bland. Just a lot of old white men slinging mud – not sliding around in it having fun.
hey don! you’ve haven’t been over here in a long time.
conservative woodstock would be like a burlesque show with fully clothed people or a comedy show without the jokes.
You can’t be too surprised Ruppert Murdock doesn’t watch Fox News. A person in his position needs to know what is going on in the world.
ahnodt! what a nice surprise! 🙂 it’s been ages since you commented over here. are you still running for president? you know that you have my vote. 😉
I read “either Rupert Murdoch can’t be bothered to watch his own network, or he isn’t interested in telling the truth.” and the answer is “Yes. Both.”
But I’m sure it’s doing just what he wants regardless.
sar! it must be infrequent commenters coming to visit night here! 🙂
maybe it’s ‘uncle rupie wants to have plausible deniability so he doesn’t watch his own network or read his own newspapers.’
too bad it’s so implausible. he knew exactly what he was doing when he hired roger ailes.
Journalistic standards @ Fox news?
What is this a late April Fool’s Prank?
journalistic ethics was even funnier! 😆
Yea, some Woodstock. “People, please, stay away from the brown debentures!” Great image Nonnie. Can almost get the old man smell coming through the screen. Evil Rupert and his drouges make it quite clear, it’s about money. More money. All the money! Why does he confuse scientology with being a dem? He needs to start spending that vast fortune of his building a floating fortress (like in the Bond movie) so he can take over the world, if it’s OK with the wife.
funny you should say that, jerry, because i had to deodorize and de-cootie my computer when i got done with that poster.
I knew there was something I didn’t like about Bill Hemmer when he was on CNN. He always would put those glasses on and he would have those little beady eyes. What the hell was he doing on CNN for anyway?
i always found him a little creepy when he was on cnn, too. i had no idea until a couple of months ago that he went over to faux news. i thought he had just disappeared.
conspiracy theory
rupert choose those words carefully – he knows exacrtly what goes on at fox
but as long as the money keeps rolling in
i don’t think he really gives a damn enough to word anything carefully. he just says something fairly generic, and he lets his lawyers and p.r. people clean up after him. after all, if he says anything wrong, it won’t be heard on faux news or be reported in his papers, so he won’t lose any viewers or readers as a result.
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