{"id":3589,"date":"2010-12-10T02:18:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T10:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=3589"},"modified":"2010-12-10T02:18:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T10:18:20","slug":"proof-i-was-right-about-fox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2010\/12\/10\/proof-i-was-right-about-fox\/","title":{"rendered":"Proof: I Was Right About Fox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nobody in their right mind believes that Fox is really fair and balanced.  But they\u2019re so much worse than that.  Several years ago I started referring to Fox as the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda.  Leaked email has now proved it.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"Fox-sheep\"This will come as a shock to you, I know, but there’s now pretty much incontrovertible evidence that FOX News is little more than a propaganda unit of the GOP, a <\/font><\/font><\/span>leaked e-mail<\/font><\/a><\/font> in which Fox News’s Washington managing editor Bill Sammon issued a memo directing his news staff not to use the phrase "public option."<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox’s reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases — wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats’ reform efforts….<\/font><\/p>\n

Sources familiar with the situation in Fox’s Washington bureau have told Media Matters that Sammon uses his position as managing editor to "slant" Fox’s supposedly neutral news coverage to the right. Sammon’s "government option" email is the clearest evidence yet that Sammon is aggressively pushing Fox’s reporting to the right — in this case by issuing written orders to his staff.<\/font><\/p>\n

As far back as March 2009, Fox personalities had sporadically referred to the "government option."<\/font><\/p>\n

Two months prior to Sammon’s 2009 memo, Republican pollster Frank Luntz appeared on Sean Hannity’s August 18 Fox News program. Luntz scolded Hannity for referring to the "public option" and encouraged Hannity to use "government option" instead.<\/font><\/p>\n

Luntz argued that "if you call it a ‘public option,’ the American people are split," but that "if you call it the ‘government option,’ the public is overwhelmingly against it." Luntz explained that the program would be "sponsored by the government" and falsely claimed that it would also be "paid for by the government." <\/font><\/p>\n

Form the leaked e-mail, with the subject line "friendlly reminder: let’s not slip back into calling it the ‘public option’":<\/font><\/p>\n