{"id":49,"date":"2009-09-22T03:01:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T11:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2009-09-22T03:01:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T11:01:00","slug":"is-this-fair-or-balanced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2009\/09\/22\/is-this-fair-or-balanced\/","title":{"rendered":"Is This Fair or Balanced?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two of the key lies told by attendees of the astro-turf protests of late is that nobody is telling them what to do.  This makes it clear that they were professionally directed. <\/p>\n

\n

\"Fox-sheep\"<\/a> On Friday, Media Matters released a video showing a Fox News producer stage-managing a 9\/12 protest crowd. <\/font><\/p>\n

The video –  which shows a producer waving her arms in the air, encouraging a crowd of 9\/12 protesters to make noise for a live shot — provides some of the clearest evidence yet of Fox’s central role in manufacturing anti-Obama dissent.<\/font><\/p>\n

The video isn’t really a surprise: anyone whose watched coverage of protests can see that Fox is sympathetic to the protesters, but this video offered a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of Fox actually fueling the fire of the very same crowds they claim to be covering.<\/font><\/p>\n

By any sort of journalistic standards, the producer’s behavior was unethical in the extreme, yet Fox has refused to fire her. To mitigate any potential damage from the tape’s release, Fox did claim that the producer had been "disciplined"<\/strong> [If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you<\/font><\/em>]– but she still has a job\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the video:<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object> <\/p>\n

Note that while she\u2019s leading the protest, she\u2019s talking on her cell phone.  I have no doubt that on the other end of that call was a Faux Noise executive, telling her to whip up the crowd.  What do you want to bet that her \u2018discipline\u2019 was a bonus?<\/p>\n

Although Faux Noise, the official Reichsministry of Propaganda for the GOP is the worst, other networks aren\u2019t fair and balanced either.  Do you remember when Dan Rather dug up the dirt on GW ChickenHawk\u2019s bogus Guard service, and CBS News effectively canned him for it?  He just got some good news.<\/p>\n

\n

\"DanRather\"<\/a> A New York judge on Monday rejected CBS Corp’s (CBS.N) bid to dismiss former TV news anchor Dan Rather’s $70 million lawsuit claiming he was fired over a controversial election-year report on former President George W. Bush’s Vietnam War-era military service.<\/font><\/p>\n

New York State Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman set a Dec. 22 hearing in the case and directed that testimony be taken from witnesses including Sumner Redstone, the 86-year-old chairman of Viacom Inc (VIAb.N), which once controlled CBS.<\/font><\/p>\n

"Let’s get this case moving," Gammerman said. "I would really like to get this case ready for trial."<\/font><\/p>\n

Rather, 77, sued CBS in 2007 and has filed a separate fraud case against CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward over his firing from the network, his home for more than four decades.<\/font><\/p>\n

CBS has acknowledged it could not authenticate documents used in the Sept. 8, 2004, report on Bush’s National Guard service, which aired two months before Bush won a second term in the White House.<\/font><\/p>\n

Rather accused the network in his lawsuit of breaching his contract in part by not giving him enough on-air assignments following his March 2005 removal as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," a job he held for 24 years\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Reuters<\/a>><\/p>\n

I hope he gets every penny.  The media, as a whole, has a decided right wing slant, because they depend on corporate advertising for their business.  Furthermore Republicans support and Democrats oppose further concentration of the media into fewer and fewer hands.  The vast majority of what you see, hear, and read (Internet excepted) is controlled by a small cartel of giant corporations, and they want to grab the rest without regulatory hurdles.  In very rare cases, a few editorial writers, Keith and Rachel on MSNBC, Bill Moyers on PBS, and a few more, integrity trumps corporate interest. These few are arrayed against a hoard of right wing ideologies.  And thank goodness for those few.<\/p>\n

Now who is going to sue Faux Noise?  Rupert Murdoch has deep pockets. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two of the key lies told by attendees of the astro-turf protests of late is that nobody is telling them what to do.  This makes it clear that they were professionally directed. On Friday, Media Matters released a video showing a Fox News producer stage-managing a 9\/12 protest crowd. The video –  which shows a […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}