Media Matters: Conservatives' perpetual dishonesty machine
Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh regularly tout their supposed accuracy and often claim their critics never prove them wrong. Fittingly, this in itself is a complete falsehood. Limbaugh and Beck are wrong for a living, but have been rewarded for their perpetual wrongness by assuming the role of the two most important cogs in the conservative media.
Every day, the conservative noise machine -- Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh, and other prominent conservative talk radio hosts and bloggers -- hurl false accusations with the hopes of damaging the Obama administration, Democrats, and progressives politically. Make no mistake: this is the primary motivation for the majority of the stories they promote. Pesky things like "facts" and "reality" are, at best, a trivial concern.
Often, these attacks are baseless, easily debunked, and laughably absurd -- yet conservative media outlets rarely (if ever) offer corrections when they are proven wrong. Instead they either double down on their attacks or simply ignore that they were wrong in the first place and move on to the next overhyped bit of nonsense.
While it may seem like a minor story in the grand scheme of things, one example from this week perfectly exemplifies the utter lack of journalistic standards endemic to conservative media.
Early this week, conservatives were in their usual panic mode over what they claimed was evidence that the Obama administration "backed" or "preferred" the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the terrorist better known as the Lockerbie bomber. As we pointed out, reports -- often the same reports these conservatives were linking to in order to make their arguments -- indicated that the administration wanted Megrahi to remain imprisoned, with the stipulation that if he were to be released, he should remain in Scotland rather than risk him receiving an "extremely inappropriate" "welcoming reception" upon being transferred to Libya.
Fox News twisted reality to claim that the "U.S. Backed Freedom, Not Prison, for Bomber." Matt Drudge splashed a huge headline across his website announcing that the "White House Backed Release Of Lockerbie Bomber." Pam Geller -- whose deranged rantings have earned her frequent appearances on Fox News and bylines on Andrew Breitbart's "Big" websites, Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller, and the American Thinker -- called for a "special investigation" and a "charge of treason" for Obama.
Rush Limbaugh -- while bragging, as he often does, that he was "executing assigned host duties flawlessly" with "zero mistakes" --claimed that Obama "backed the release" of the Lockerbie bomber because he wanted to "make nice with the Muslim world."
Late Monday, when the State Department released the administration's correspondence with the Scottish Ministry of Justice, it confirmed in unambiguous terms that the administration was "not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail," and that "it would be most appropriate for Megrahi to remain imprisoned for the entirety of his sentence."
So, after this story completely fell apart, did conservative media figures correct the record and let their readers/listeners/viewers know that the administration did not "support" or "prefer" the release of the Lockerbie bomber?
Of course not.
Conservative blogger Jim Hoft -- whose ongoing popularity and influence in conservative media says a lot about their complete indifference to accuracy and credibility -- linked to the letter and proclaimed that the administration "preferred" his release. This was akin to pointing at the ground and saying "this is the sky."
Fox Nation, almost 48 hours after the story had completely fallen apart, still had the following headline and image on their front page:
And you can be sure that in a few months, whenever Sean Hannity or anyone else in the noise machine decides to twist a news story to claim that the Obama administration is "weak on terror," they'll point to the time the administration supposedly "preferred the release of the Lockerbie bomber" in order to buttress their point.
It's a perpetual dishonesty machine.
If this were an isolated incident, perhaps it would be possible to (partially) excuse conservative media outlets for their shameless performance "covering" this story. But as we detailed this week, the right-wing media routinely promote fake stories (for example, the epic freak-out over the imaginary Obama proposal to "ban sport fishing.")
For another good example of how the perpetual dishonesty machine works, have a look at this segment from Tuesday's Fox & Friends. In it, Glenn Beck, Steve Doocy, and Peter Johnson Jr. seized on reports of the U.K. supposedly "admit[ting] its socialized health care is a mess" in order to attack health care reform. They rehashed some old favorites from conservatives' misinformation campaign about health care reform, claiming that we "modeled" reform on the British system and fear mongered about imaginary "death panels." Neither of these attacks were true when they appeared last year, they weren't true this week, and they won't be true the next time Fox's hosts bring them up.
This pattern is undeniable, and at this point is just expected behavior for the conservative media. The larger problem is that "mainstream" outlets still frequently treat garbage from conservative media figures as newsworthy, and ombudsmen at major newspapers like The Washington Post regularly chastise their colleagues for not seizing on conservative nonsense faster.
It says a lot about the state of the media when Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and other prominent media conservatives can be caught pushing a blatantly false story, offer no correction, and have their behavior met with a collective shrug. Conservative media outlets retain their unfortunate power and influence over the public discourse because they are able to lie largely without consequence.
They did it all this week, they did it all last week, and they'll do it again next week.
Pam Geller is imploring her readers to listen to Sean Hannity! LOL. This pieceofshitwannabejournalistHannity on his July 30th show....
15 comments:
The following quote by Voltaire describes my opinion of the unhinged bloggers you mentioned as well as GB, RL, and that supercilious coxcomb, Hannity:
"I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it."
This is why we need people like you blogging the truth.
About a year ago I wrote a blog entry I think may give some insight to Fox News, Ditto-heads, birthers, and conspiracy theorists of all stripes....with your kind permission, Ms. Sue.
Very briefly, The Cardiff Giant was a hoax that was pulled on the American people 1n 1869. But the most curious part about the hoax was even after it was exposed as a fake, people continued to pay to see it.
PT Barnum, who entered the picture to make a few bucks on the Cardiff Giant, said something that everyone should remember because 140 years later it still rings true...."The American people love to be humbugged".
The lesson I got from writing the piece, my alltime favorite, was that most people have a built in belief system, and no matter what you say to expose those beliefs to be false it's pretty hard to get them accept the truth.
FOX News has a built in audience, 95% of which are hardcore conservatives, with their slant on the news and commentators that spout off that liberals, progressives, socialists, commies, Democrats are all about the same and they are destroying America. They even have their own version of Howard Beale in Glenn Beck's nightly freak show (PT Barnum is looking down and smiling now). Many viewers of Beck's show believe the insanity coming from his mouth is political gnosticism...hidden knowledge meant for his followers alone.
The bottomline....no one is going to change Fox News and what they do and say, or the people who tune in.
To paraphrase Yogi Berra, if nobody wants to accept the truth, nobody can stop 'em.
that's a good one Shaw! Yes I could have made the list longer, much longer, they are all around us and they talk such shit just like their beloved Fox "entertainers".
Thanks Tom, I do try and contribute ;-)
Hugh they are great points you make, the 95% hardcore conservatives who don't venture away from Fox are being duped. You have to get both sides of a story and then make a decision. I watch Fox all the time, that's how I came to realize they are just entertainers, fabricators and partisan hacks. The righties like to complain about MSNBC hosts being partisan but they are not. from Ed Schultz to Rachel Maddow, they all have criticized Obama when he deserved it and I have too. But in all honesty I have never heard one of them baldface lie about something.
I enjoyed your post and agree with you 100%.
What I dislike is what once was available to us in this country, was news REPORTING - just the facts and just the news/events of the day.
Now we have noisy, loud, rude and crude people distorting not only the news, but setting a bad example for our children as they witness adults screaming and yelling abusively.
How could you ever tell a child not to act in such a way, when you're got channel after channel of 'noise' on the TV and also on talk-radio shows.
This is another way of undermining not only our country, but our children and then we wonder why they don't show respect for adults; for rules, for authority, and for the truth.
Whoops, didn't complete a sentence:
What I dislike is what once was available to us in this country, was news REPORTING - just the facts and just the news/events of the day, is now gone from prime-time reporting.
Ah, Voltaire's words live on over 300 years after he was born. Wonder if our Constitution will make it that long - you know, what with all these Constitutional scholars we hear on Fox.
Happy (Gosh, I'm glad someone is these days): Fox is not a news channel. It is a propaganda arm for the Tea Party which is a tool of the Republicans.
And Sue, keep that aim on the target. Great job.
Hi Happy, thanks for the comment. I hope you'll stop back and tell us whats happening with Harry Reid, got any inside scoops??
Leslie, thanks, and thanks to Media Matters especially!
Good job Sue, however you notice your trolls and conservative friends have chosen not to comment... and if they do it will be something off the wall or to try and say "the others do it too" without any back up....lol
Hmmmm you are right Annette, maybe they are all on vacation or something. It has been kinda quiet! lol
Happy...PBS had a great documentary on several years ago exploring what happened to TV journalism.
Briefly, for years the then Big Three Networks covered news because they were required to as a provision of their FCC licensing. The networks routinely lost money covering news, but they did it, and did it well for the most part.
Two events changed everything. In the 1970's 60 MINUTES became a huge hit. And in the early 1980's CNN succeeded beyond anyone's dreams.
News became a moneymaker....and everybody got into the act. Journalism became entertainment. And that's where we are today.
I wish PBS would run the show again, I'm sure most people who read this blog would be fascinated by it.
And also we have to say, 24/7 news cycles are ridiculous and have to be filled with so much nonsense because of it! That's another reason why there is so much emphasis on the negativity and not so much the good stuff that happens around the world. Sensationalizing the news draws viewers.
Thanks for blogging about this. It nauseates me beyond belief that they can get away with this garbage day in and day out.
And sadly, there is a huge uneducated mass who buy into it day in and day out.
Where's Silverfiddle's response? Do you think he could be one of those who, "no matter what you say to expose those beliefs to be false it's pretty hard to get them accept the truth" that Hugh Jee referred to in his post?
the few righties commented under anonymous cuz they fear showing their stupidity I guess! LOL
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