Fox News

The Fox that Tried to Eat the Nuclear Acorn

April 14, 2010 - Fox News is the only good conservative media outlet where its moderators consistently hit hard against liberals. Fox also has the most spirited debates with both conservatives and liberals participating. Its award winning programs have put its ratings on top of all cable news outlets. However, there is a fly in the ointment – read on.

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) is an organization that, until April 1, 2010, worked for the benefit of poor and politically under served citizens.

Conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe in September 2009 released on Fox News selectively edited videos from a hidden camera that purported to showed ACORN employees advising them, a couple posing as a prostitute and her boyfriend, how to set a up a brothel with underage girls. They had made visits in 2009 to ACORN offices in Brooklyn; Baltimore; Washington, D.C.; California and elsewhere.

The videos created a political and media firestorm when they were released on Fox News, adding to problems the organization was facing over allegations of voter-registration fraud and embezzlement. In September, Congress blocked previously approved funds from going to ACORN based primarily on O'Keefe’s investigative reporting.

On March 1, 2010 Brooklyn District Attorney's Office released findings that ACORN employees caught on video did not commit a crime. Then on April 1, 2010 California Attorney General Jerry Brown issued a report stating that employees of ACORN did not break state laws. Attorney General Brown wrote: "Things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality....Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." The investigations revealed that the tapes were doctored and that O'Keefe arrived at the office in khakis, shirt and tie, not pimp clothes. Then, according to O’Keefe and Giles, their tape shows an ACORN employee advising them on how to smuggle underage prostitutes into the country. But actually the ACORN employee was trying to get information out of the two for this illegal activity as evidenced by the fact that he called the police once the two had left the office. In another edited taped conversation an ACORN employee looks like she is helping Giles to start a prostitution business. But the unedited tape shows O’Keefe and Giles inquiring about financing for subsidized housing, not pimping. The initial introductions were cut, and during the conversation O'Keefe drops the word “prostitution” to make it appear as though the conversation is about prostitution, not financing.

This latest episode has exposed Fox as grand manipulator of the facts. What a shame, because this cuts to the core of conservatism – honesty! Fox News went on to play this false story with wall to wall coverage on Hannity, Beck, and Fox and Friends. In September 2009, Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace named O’Keefe his “Power Player of the Week,” calling him an “undercover reporter” and a “fascinating character.” Glenn Beck and Fox and Friends went out of their way to promote O’Keefe as a hero. People thought they were getting straight up coverage about a corrupt organization, but in fact it turned out to be a dishonest political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism and no resemblance to the facts. Fox News did not tell its viewers that the tapes were heavily edited or that O’Keefe wasn’t dressed as a pimp at ACORN offices (though he did deceive Fox viewers by wearing the outfit on air).

As a consequence of Fox’s coverage of this organization that served poor people, registered thousands of voters, and advocated higher minimum wage; was shut down on April 1, 2010. The motive behind Fox’s skullduggery was to kill an organization that registering poor black people who have been voting Democratic 90% of the time. Fox was hands down successful in their campaign to throw ACORN under the bus. But ACORN had multiple problems and had become an ineffective organization with no need for Fox to trump up accusations. Fox could have instead hammered ACORN on their actual dishonest dealings.

Even Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, a staunch conservative from Oklahoma urged his audience to "stay informed on the issues" and not "just watch Fox News or CNN -- watch 'em both." He says he reads the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal every day to "get a perspective" and "know what other people's thoughts are -- not just what I hear through a pipe channel." http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001827-503544.html

When Fox lies to its listeners, those listeners should be a bit concerned, that is if they want to participate in real National discussions on the issues. The problem herein is that Fox lies so much, that honest partisan debate is drowned in a pool of deception, and Fox induced “talking points” make repeating them embarrassing in front of a well informed and scholarly audience. Fox has provided so many falsehoods that their faithful conservative listeners have taken on a skewed opinion of the opposition, an opinion that can be dangerous in the minds of some of the less intelligent.

They have been so successful at deception that Fox could easily promote itself with China. While that country has outlawed Google and other honest media sources, all they need to do is employ Fox. If their twisting of the truth works here, it’ll go over big with the Chinese communist government and keep the masses quite well misinformed.

To think, this kind of skullduggery is totally unnecessary. Conservatives need straight facts in order to right the country, but by going forward armed with FOX false talking points, conservatives can unwittingly damage the country and, worse, be the undoing of the conservative cause. Yes, bash liberals, but do it with hard honest facts. That’s so, so easy. Fox doesn’t need to lie, and their playing loose with the facts has put them on a slippery slope that they seem unable to pull out of, a slippery slope that in the end could pull the whole conservative cause down.


Here are some reports concerning Fox and their misinformation.

* December 17, 2008 - Media Matters awards Fox News’ Sean Hannity “2008 Misinformer of the Year.” http://mediamatters.org/research/200812170007

* Dec 21, 2009 - Media Matters awards Fox News’ Glenn Beck “2009 Misinformer of the Year.” http://mediamatters.org/research/200912210015

Fair and balanced? There should be no question that Fox has taken off their sheep’s clothing and come out gunning for the socialist left as the conservative Lone Ranger of news. “FAIR – Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting” agrees on this issue (see http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1187) saying that Fox lists “right—heavily favoring conservative and Republican guests.” All the same, fairness and balance are not the issues. Read what the critics have to say about Fox and honesty, then “you decided.” “Media Matters,” and “PolitiFact” say they are impartial judges of the media. Here then is what they have to say about twelve months of Fox News reporting.
* May 6, 2009 - http://mediamatters.org/research/200905060016
* Sep 29, 2009 - http://mediamatters.org/research/200909290040
* Oct 13, 2009 –http://mediamatters.org/research/200910130047
* Dec 18, 2010 - http://mediamatters.org/blog/200912180041
* Feb 8, 2010 - http://m.factcheck.org/2010/02/tea-party-fact-checking/
* Feb 9, 2010 - http://2m.factcheck.org/2010/02/obama-at-columbia-university/
* Mar 30, 2010 http://www.factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-expansion/
* Apr 7, 2010 http://factcheck.org/2010/04/obamas-private-army/

ACORN was small potatoes for Fox News. The big prize lies ahead and that’s winning back both congress and the presidency from the Democratic Party. Fox is doing an admirable job on that front, that is, if the Tea Party movement they have created doesn’t split off into a separate party. But there is another fly in the ointment. Read on.

The president said, “I believe we’ve come to the point that we must go at the matter of realistically reducing… if not totally eliminating, nuclear weapons - the threat to the world. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth."

In that everything uttered and done by President Obama is cast in an extremely negative way, Fox didn’t waste any time in demonizing Obama’s resent nuclear policy review statement that would limit the role that nuclear weapons play as a deterrent, claiming that Obama was "undermining our national defense" with a "dangerous" policy.

Fox News Glenn Beck said, "The most dangerous thing I think I've ever heard a president say."

Fox News Frank Gaffney said, “Most Americans will be horrified that President Obama is compromising our deterrent to chemical and biological attacks on this country."

Fox News Pamela Geller said, “Obama is removing nuclear defense at a time when Iran's devout mullah crazy is building their nuclear arsenal with the global objective of a universal caliphate.”

Fox News Sarah Palin said, “Only a leftist liberal would want to reduce nukes. It’s like a child in a playground who says 'punch me in the face, I'm not going to retaliate.'”

Right on Fox! Arm your loyal constituents to go out there with great talking points. But here’s the problem. In their zealous effort to turn everything Obama says or does into a bunch horse hockey, Fox, on occasion, leads their listeners into an embarrassing trap when confronting liberals. After all there are some issues that both liberals and conservatives agree with and nuclear disarmament happens to be one of them. The quote above is worth repeating, “We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.” That was not from President Obama but from none other that the great conservative communicator Ronald Reagan in his Second Inaugural Address on January 21, 1985. Reagan issued similar statements over 150 times in his 8 years as Commander-In-Chief. Fox has unwittingly aligned their constituents against not only Ronald Reagan but
- Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard Jr., Senior Military Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation;
- Charles D. Ferguson, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology;
- Richard L. Garwin, author of the actual design used in the first hydrogen bomb;
- Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
- Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense – a Bush holdover,
- and a preponderance of military leaders, nuclear experts, and scholars who strongly support President Obama’s three pronged April 2010 initiates, i.e.,
- his April 6th Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) where the U.S. will take the lead in achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. This is the third review since NPR’s were initiated by President Clinton and differs from President Bush II’s NPR in that it reverses his rejection of previous arms control agreements such as the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
- his April 8th Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia where the U.S. and Russia will both significantly reduce their strategic nuclear arsenal, and
- his April 12-13th Nuclear Security Summit with 47 countries to discuss keeping nuclear weapons out of terrorist hands.
http://mediamatters.org/research/201004060066
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/838536/posts
http://lasvegas.craigslist.org/rnr/1685093993.html

Fox walked into a buzz saw on this one and has thus reduced its credibility a notch or two because one of Obama’s strong suits is defense. But hitting Obama in the area of world nuclear weapons reduction that Ronald Reagan first championed is the wrong bone to chew on. Bashing Democrats is so, so easy, but in an effort to turn Obama into horse hockey on each and every issue without doing the research, Fox is losing intellectual high ground. Fox must pick and choose its battles and be ready to jump in where Obama falters.