My FOX News Experiment

America has a real problem. Most all news is now controlled by only 6 corporations. It’s a very big deal. The news used to be the watchdog of Democracy, “The Fourth Estate”. Today it has a very singular goal. To benefit it’s corporate overlords. And Fox News seems to be the getting most of the publicity for being outrageously inaccurate. I know they all are, but I wanted to see what made FOX stand out. So I devoted months to watching only FOX News, day and night.

I suspected I knew what I would find. I would find that Ruepert Murdoch found a formula to make big profits by serving an underrepresented viewership of Conservatives. Capitalizing on people who tended to be older and more fearful of change. It seems to be part of the psychology of aging. It is all very rational according to science. So if all news is Bull Shit why does FOX get more publicity.  I don’t buy that everyone else is so Liberal that they single them out. There is nothing liberal about American News. They take talking points directly from the Pentagon, sell us on wars, distort, sensationalize and ignore most real news or anything that may harm the profits of the corporations that own them. So there must be more to it.

I found it brilliant that they use attractive women.  I especially appreciate the ones who appear to also be really smart. And on FOX, as in life, not all are. There was a particularly telling incident (one may be able to google and find the video) where it became obvious that a producer was talking to the host through the earpiece and she was told that her laptop was blocking the view of her exposed legs. She re-positioned her laptop but not enough. (This is when it became obvious) as she continued to listen to the voice in her ear, moving her computer until she just finally closed her laptop completely, finally giving the audience the calculated view of her long attractive legs. I aint mad at 'em..."Sex Sales". If only they, or any other channel, could do the same while delivering actual news instead of corporate propaganda, fear and fluff.

In full disclose, I am not a Conservative. I am also not a Liberal. I am an “Informed Moderate” who did not vote for Obama. I’m an Independent who believes Bush, Cheney, Rove AND Obama should likely have criminal charges brought up against them. Obama has done more to put down “Whistle Blowers” than any President in history and he continues to support “The Military Industrial Complex”, “The Drug Wars”, “The Industrial Prison Complex”, shady “Free Trade” agreements and Corporations. He continues the trend of having “Wall Street” entrenched in his Cabinet and he let Insurance Companies write our “National Health Care”. So not only am I not a Liberal, it seems obvious that neither is Obama.

So when I go on to reveal that Fox News really is a hideously dangerous propaganda machine, you will know I came to that conclusion by investigation. Not through “conformation bias” or personal ideology.

First I did my homework. Actually not first, but while immersing myself in Fox News. And I learned that there was so much more driving the channel than profit. A more insidious ideology. Helmed by Roger Ailes, the 74 year old president of Fox News. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Nixon impeached for his crimes -  Bush, the CIA/Oil guy who ramped up the Drug Wars and is all too cozy with the Dictators of Saudi Arabia (the country of Bin Laden and most of the 911 attackers) - Reagan the “Conservative God” who today would be too liberal to get nominated, who got away with the “Iran Contra” crimes, gave weapons to our enemies, sold drugs through the U.S. Air Force,  blew the chance to end Nukes, made deals with Iran to keep our hostages until after he was elected and single handedly gave us the financial and social crisis of today through his deregulation and tax cuts known as “Reaganomics”… Yes, THAT Roger Ailes!

A new biography of Fox News Chief (and founding CEO) Roger Ailes suggests that he actually believes a lot of the anti-science, anti-clean energy nonsense he puts on the air. The book, “The Loudest Voice in the Room” explains that Ailes would rail against Obama to his neighbors in upstate New York with bizarre arguments, claiming for instance:

… climate change was a “worldwide conspiracy” spun by ”foreign nations” to gain control of America’s resources.

 “I want to elect the next president,” he told Fox executives in a meeting in 2010…. “Every single candidate has consulted with Roger,” one top Republican said.

So yes, Ailes appears to have been driving Fox News by his own extremist orthodoxy even at the expense of the Republican party.
Consider Fox News’ drumbeat attacks on federal support for solar energy, one of the most popular government programs in the country across the political spectrum. A book excerpt on TPM explains why Ailes pushed the attacks during the 2012 campaign, which saw more than 600 Fox appearances by GOP presidential candidates in 2011 alone:

But as Fox’s pundits and anchors pushed the candidates into the conspiracy swamps of … Solyndra, the bankrupt solar panel company, Fox risked alienating independent viewers—and voters.

It was a case of Ailes being unable to put his party’s goal of winning independents ahead of his personal views. “He doesn’t like green energy—period,” a senior producer said. “He says all the time that no one in America has died from nuclear power, but fifteen people have been chopped up by those damn windmills.”

For the record, the windmill claim “is absurd and baseless,” according to the American Wind Energy Association. On the other hand, Americans have died from nuclear power, most notably uranium miners.

But here’s the point — even lots of people in the Tea Party like and want Green Energy! Roger Ailes, however, doesn’t and so neither does Fox News. Fox News ending up giving Solyndra more than 8 hours of airtime — almost three times that of CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS combined.”

For all those who thought that the extremism of Fox News was a purely cynical effort to win elections, the case is made that Roger Ailes, at least, is a true believer.
Ailes is credited with the "Orchestra Pit Theory" regarding sensationalist political coverage in the news media, which originated with his quip:

“If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, 'I have a solution to the Middle East problem,' and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?” 

On January 20, 2009 Republican Leaders in Congress literally plotted to sabotage and undermine U.S. Economy during President Obama's Inauguration.  Known as “The Caucus Room conspiracy” 

     In Robert Draper's book, "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives" Draper wrote that during a four hour, "invitation only" meeting with GOP Hate-Propaganda Minister, and FOX Favorite, Frank Luntz, the below listed Senior GOP Law Writers literally plotted to sabotage, undermine and destroy America's Economy.

The Guest List:
Frank Luntz - GOP Minister of Propaganda
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA)
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA),
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX),
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX),
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI)
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA),
Sen. Jim DeMint (SC-R),
Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ-R),
Sen. Tom Coburn (OK-R),
Sen. John Ensign (NV-R) and
Sen. Bob Corker (TN-R).

Non-lawmakers present Newt Gingrich

   During the four hour meeting:
 The senior GOP members plotted to bring Congress to a standstill regardless how much it would hurt the American Economy by pledging to obstruct and block President Obama on ALL legislation. 

    These Republican members of Congress were not simply airing their complaints regarding the other party's political platform for four long hours.  No, these Republican Congressional Policymakers, who were elected to do 'the People's work' were literally plotting to sabotage, undermine and destroy the U.S. Economy.  

The Caucus Room conspiracy had three major objectives.

The first was to use obstruction - knowing the corporate media would call it "gridlock" as if the Democrats were responsible, too - to prevent President Obama from having any legislative success.

The second was to sabotage any legislative victories that the president did manage to win - like Obamacare - and convince US citizens that they were actually failures.

And the third was to blame all the economic damage caused by Republicans on BOTH parties and then come out in a critical election like 2014 and say that Republicans are the party that will make things right in Washington as if the state of the economy was the Democrats' fault.

Mitt Romney, who has hired most of Bush/Cheney Policy Advisers, and the GOP party believe they can defeat President Obama, take control of the Senate and maintaining control of the House of Representatives so long as the economic recovery stalls. So they are actively trying to make it happen ... and that's what hate-propaganda Minister Frank Luntz had in mind when he organized the January 20, 2009 covert meeting.

Here's how they all voted:
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney January 2008 Stimulus
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney bailing out Bear Stern
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney bailing out AIG
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney TARP (sept 2008)
-- "Yes" to Bush/Cheney TARP (oct 2008)

Filibustered more Bills (over 300) than any Congress combined in US History.  - Voted NO on every single piece of Legislation brought to the Floor

Luntz has been the Republican Hate-Propaganda Minister since at least 1993 and his list
of words to stop policies that help America are vast:

Don’t say “oil drilling”. Say “energy independence.”

Don’t say “inheritance tax”. Say “death tax.”

Don't say "Capitalism." Say "Economic Freedom."

Don't say that the government “taxes the rich.” Say Government "takes from the rich."

Don't admit Lobbyists are Collective Bargainers for Corporations. Say "Union Collective Bargaining steals your tax dollars."

    Luntz says people hate government so:

Don’t say “healthcare reform.” Say “government takeover.”

Don't say "Public workers." Call them "Government workers."

THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT:  Mark Fuhrman, Remember him from the ole O.J. Simpson Trial. He was the blatant racist who plead “No Contest” to perjury.  

Oliver North, The engineer of President Reagan’s Illegal Iran Contra affair. Dealing drugs in America, making deals with our enemies, giving guns to death squads, etc.. 

And an oldy but a baddy, G. Gordon Liddy who plead guilty to conspiring to commit murder but most infamous for being the Burglar from the Watergate Scandal that brought down President Nixon.  

To be fair… (and balanced) some of these moral midgets have also worked for CNN but that was wrong too.  They deserve a second chance, well at least the ones who paid for their crimes, unlike Oliver North, but they cant expect to comment on the transgressions of others without seeming hypocritical.  There is plenty of other ways they could contribute. Through analysis or doing the weather. But shut the hell up when it comes to associating an innocent American to any unproven crimes. Especially one, that even if it were true, would be less egregious than the ones they themselves committed.  

While FOX, in general, has a clear M. O., the individual shows are not all alike. And I had to watch them all to have an informed conclusion.

The Morning Show “FOX and Friends” was often outrageous, inaccurate, bias and sort of stupid in general.

Megan had her better moments but one could tell she was following her “Marching Orders”

“Shep”, (Shepard Smith), was the single most refreshing personality on the entire network. He seemed to have a good combination of honest journalism and being candid with his opinions. Which included Re-Legalizing Cannabis. 

The Big Dog, Bill O’Reilly, was the most interesting. I take him at his word that he is an “Independent”. But he has a bit of a credibility problem. Not counting his latest, blatant lies about his “combat reporting” when I was watching he would too often cut off those with dissenting views. I’m not talking about stopping people from ranting, but shutting them down while making brief valid points. He aired a clip of Chuck Norris that had been making the news, but stopped it the second before Chuck’s bizarrely outrageous statement. Then concluded Norris was being unfairly singled out. He denied referring to the President as a “Pin Head”, claiming “Book cover do not relate to the books content”. What?  That was a doozey. ALL Covers, including all his others, obviously do relate to the contents. And no one would care if he called the President a “Pin Head”, so why lie? Finally, his stance on “Drug Prohibition” even Cannabis, is not only on the wrong side of history, the way he deals with those that disagree with him on the issue, seem to bring out the worst in him.

I saved the Worst for last… Sean Hannity.  I never could quite figure him out. Is he a disingenuous blow hard, who learned the way to profit on the side, big time, by writing books and selling commercial time to overpriced fear mongers selling Gold and other apocalyptic goods? Or… is he a “True Believer” with a least a little paranoia or other mental disorder?  He is the single worst person on the network.  He has knowingly ran fake video to make his point, he will, oddly and inappropriately, wine about Bill Clinton getting a Blow Job if someone calls him out about Conservatives. I have even seen him called out by GOP guest on his own show. When he disagreed with Ron Paul he told him, “Polls mean nothing”, Paul pointed out he was referencing his own FOX news poll. Yikes! All that in just the time I watched. Seems a lot of the heat they take for mixing “Journalism” with “Opinion” is his fault.

So yes, FOX seems to have earned its reputation. But I think there are two points that need to be mentioned. First, they cater to an aging demographic. It’s simple biology that as we age we are less open to change. So they play on that. And every day they lose more audience by death than do their competition. 

And while they may be doing real damage with all their misinformation, I argue that the bigger problem is the state of ALL “Journalism” in America today. As long as News is Entertainment, News is for Profit, News is Censored by the Corporations that own them, News is fluff, News takes Talking Points from the Pentagon and can get us into illegal Wars… We, America, The World… has bigger problems than any single “News” Channel. Even one as simultaneously overt and insidious, and big as FOX.