Tags
ACORN, Al Smith dinner, Ayers, bias, debate, Fox News, New York Times, Obama, Rupert Murdoch, Wednesday
Something that has gained little attention lately, as much of the media has been focused on all the “Plumber” hoopla, is that Barack Obama has been aggressively going after Fox News. He made reference to Fox’s bias in the debate on Wednesday night, saying this:
In his remarks at the Al Smith dinner last night, he again mentioned Fox and Rupert Murdoch. In an article in the New York Times, Obama made this observation:
“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told me. “If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?
“I guess the point I’m making,” he went on, “is that there is an entire industry now, an entire apparatus, designed to perpetuate this cultural schism, and it’s powerful. People want to know that you’re fighting for them, that you get them. And I actually think I do. But you know, if people are just seeing me in sound bites, they’re not going to discover that. That’s why I say that some of that may have to happen after the election, when they get to know you.”
Obama’s campaign manager David Ploufe has also recently referred to Fox News as the “24-hour ACORN channel.” With apologies to Mr. Ploufe, and in my own effort to be “fair and balanced”, that’s not entirely true. Better said, Fox has become the 24-hour ACORN and Ayers channel.
Don’t believe it? Take a look at the number of times the words Ayers and ACORN have been mentioned on Fox and their competitors at MSNBC and CNN since Sunday, versus the number of times the economy has been mentioned.
Fox MSNBC CNN
Ayers 525 340 279
ACORN 706 67 112
Economy 826 1032 954
For the mathematically challenged, that comes to 1,231 times the words Ayers and ACORN have been said on Fox, as compared to 826 times the word economy has been mentioned. That is nearly 50% more.
MSNBC and CNN combined have used the words Ayers and ACORN 798 times, as compared with 1,231 by Fox News alone. In contrast, MSNBC and CNN have each used the word economy more times than Fox.
Somebody remind me, which issue was it that 60% of the people said was the most important in the campaign. Was it the economy or was it Ayers and ACORN? I don’t seem to recall.
Desperado's Outpost 
averagetodd said:
Fox “News” has long been a propaganda arm of the GOP. We have top White House officials who have acknowledged this and even Rupert Murdoch has spoken of his ability to influence the public perceptions through his “reporting.” I wish it wasn’t so popular, but the bigger issue is that Murdoch owns the Wall Street Journal too. And though he has claimed he will not meddle with the reporting, he has not made the same assertions regarding the OP/ED portion. This is dangerous because, like Fox “News,” a significant portion of the readership of the WSJ uses the paper as their sole or major source for current events. This gives Murdoch an enormous amount of power, particularly because his standards of journalistic integrity are so lax. It is going to be significantly more difficult to convince my father that the WSJ is propaganda than it was to tell him about Fox.
Noonien said:
I think the questions you should ask yourself are:
How many times should ACORN and Ayers be mentioned?
What would be a fair number?
Also, CNN and MSNBC are obviously pro-Obama networks. Any network that is not overtly pro-Obama might appear anti-Obama, if they present information that could be damaging to Obama, when other networks don’t.
What should be examined is your “baseline” or “starting point.” What are the assumptions you’re making? I think you’re assuming that CNN and MSNBC are fair, and judging FoxNews on that standard.
Of course, an equally valid, but opposing, point of view would be that FoxNews is fair and balanced, and (by comparison) CNN and MSNBC are left-leaning, pro-Obama networks.
Given the obvious support of various pundits, anchors and corporate officers at CNN and MSNBC – epitomized by Keith Olberman – for Barack Obama, I think the latter point of view is closer to reality.