in the great 1974 film godfather ii. there’s a scene about halfway through wherehyman roth and michael corleone and all the american gangsters are gathered in a patio in havana and it’s hyman roth’s 67th birthday, and he’s giving a slice of caketo each gangster got - louis from chicago you run the copacabana,frankie you get the prostitutes, he’s dividing up the islandamong all the american gangsters and appropriately enoughthe birthday cake has an outline of cuba on it, he’s giving them a sliceof cuba. and while
hyman roth is doing this he says: “isn’tit great to be in a country with a government that respectsprivate enterprise?†and that’s how media policieshave been done in the united states for the past 50 yearsand it’s increasing in the last 20 years. extraordinarilypowerful lobbyists duke it out behind closed doorsfor the biggest slice of the cake. the public knows nothingabout it, it doesn’t participate. and that’s the problem we face.
media is the nervous system of a democracy.if it’s not functioning well, the democracy can’t functioning.we’re heading towards an election where most peopleare never going to be in a room with kerry or bush.what they learn about the candidates is what the media showsthem or tells them. decides not to show, not to tell. people are faced with critical choices aboutthe future of the country when they go into the voting booth. and i go in. and i have been, through thecourse of a
campaign cycle subject to false, distorted,caricaturing, and i may not even know where it’s comingfrom because often there’s an echo effect off placeslike cable and like radio and those wrong pieces of informationare repeated and repeated, by the time it reaches me, i don’teven know what the source was. this is the environment we’re living inand it’s really, it’s fundamentally undermining democracywhich is based on knowing some good and solid information soi can make an
informed choice. when you see the properties rupert murdochowns around the world, the strong, conservative point-of-viewthat those properties often reflect, it’s differentthan abc or cbs or nbc. sure, they reflect a point-of-view but not nearly as strong orconsistently strong from one ideological perspective. murdoch actually bought the station in 1985. and actually left us alone for at least thefirst three years of his ownership, partly because wewere so successful and prosperous that there
was no reason to monkey with us. at wttg our success insulated us to a certaindegree. and it was kind of like being in an officeand seeing people come down with the flu around you.we knew the flu eventually might reach us, but we were hopingif we took enough vitamins that we’d never catch theflu. it was clear during those years that murdoch,who had absolutely adored ronald reagan, adored him,had a lot of admiration for the group of republicansthat controlled congress
and certainly on capitol hill. we received an order from one of murdoch’sapparatchiks, if you will, that we should cut away from ournewscast and start carrying a fawning tributeto ronald reagan that was airing at the republican convention. we were stunnedbecause up until that point we were allowed to dolegitimate news. and suddenly we were ordered, from the top, to carry propaganda;carry republican right-wing propaganda. there was a cultural underpinning to whatmurdoch wanted.
race issues, aids. i constantly remember complaintsthat there was too much being done on aids. healso couldn’t stand the kennedy’s. ted kennedy, who was a long-time opponentof rupert murdoch, and, and one celebrated occasion,we were ordered to run a long uncut piece from a current affairthat was rehashing the whole matter of chappaquiddick. it had zero news value. we were told, ‘youhad to run this thing uncut’. you could not even edit itdown and just run a snippet of it.i think they evolved in later years and especially
afterroger ailes took over and, and really got the fox newschannel up and running into a far more sophisticated kindof operation. what we saw, in my era, was, was really the,the birth of this sort of thing and the roots of what camelater. i’d just like to say how delighted i amthat we’ve now reached this moment, when we can firmly announcethe starting of a fox news channel and a muchgreater effort on a build up of fox news in every area.
we’d like to be premier journalists. we’dlike to restore objectivity where we find it lacking and ah,certainly there could be that interpretation because of mybackground but i left politics a number of years ago andhave running this organization for the last two years. sowe just expect to do fine, balanced journalism. i was a fox employee for 3 years. i workedin the news. on air or behind the camera? i’d rather not answer that. i think i’drather keep myself anonymous. you’ll disguise my voiceright?
larry johnson former fox news contributori’ve heard directly from folks, both as correspondents andas bookers, who have expressed very grave reservations,almost as if they’re being monitored by a stalinist system,afraid to be seen talking to the wrong person or having thewrong kind of email exchange. you’re either one of us or one of them,and in leaving fox news, for example, there were a number ofpeople at the organization, at the head of the organization,tried to ruin my career simply because i was leaving,because i
didn’t leave on their terms, because i refusedto sign a confidentiality agreement, that was anotherreason for them americans trust only one.the only place. american’s newsroom. fox news.†it’s very much a, an environment of fear. it was made very clear to us that our activitieswere being monitored and if someone wasn’t watchingit live they were at least recording it and they would reviewit after the fact to see what we did.
we weren't necessarily, as it was told tous, a news gathering organization so much as we werea proponent of a point-of-view. anonymous 2 former fox news reporterfox has already been successful in sort of branding me assomebody who can't be trusted. and as a result, i'malready sort of on thin ice regarding my current employer. i’d been warned by people. there were anumber of people who pulled me inside and said, “look, youknow, i don’t
know, i mean, i know that you want to workand i know that you need a job, but you might want to thinktwice about taking this job because, really, it is a veryconservative news network.†now that i’ve learned comedy writing atthe fox news channel i guess i should be doing stand upin the clubs.’ i think that if you don’t go along withthe mindset of the hierarchy in new york, if you challenge themon their attitudes about things, you’re history.
i suspect your research has discovered, thememoranda that were written by john moody and by roger interms of setting the tone for the day. the message of the day is a verypolitical device. date: 5/9/2003 from: moodylet spend a good deal of time on the battle over judicialnominations, which the president will address this morning.nominees who both sides admit are qualified are being heldup because of their possible, not demonstrated views on oneissue – abortion. this should be a trademark issue for fnctoday and in days to come.
there was nothing covert about the way themanaging editors in new york or washington operated. they madeit perfectly clear what they expected from us. the so-called 9/11 commission has alreadybeen meeting. in fact, this is its eighth session. the factthat former clinton and both former and current bushadministration officials are testifying gives it a certaintension, but this is not, “what did he know and when did he know itâ€stuff. don’t turn this into watergate. every morning there was a detailed list ofsubjects to talk
about and not talk about. kerry’s speech on the economy at georgetownis likely to move onto the topic of iraq. we should takethe beginning of kerry’s speech, see if it contains newinformation (aside from a promise to create 10 millionjobs)and see if other news at that time is more compelling. itis not required to take it start to finish. they were just actually issuing edicts tothe reporters to control what they could say and how they couldsay it. let’s refer to the us marines we see inthe foreground as
“sharpshooters†no snipers, which carriesa negative connotation. when headquarters sent the memo every morningand said, “we want to touch on the following issues, wewant to cover the following stories, we want to do them in thisparticular wayâ€, our job and our objective then wasto execute the plan. the pictures from abu graib prison are disturbing.today we have a picture – aired on al arabiyn– of an american
hostage being held with a scarf over his eyes,clearly against his will. who’s outraged on hisbehalf? the real revolutionary breakthrough of foxhas been its eliminative journalism. that’s the thingto understand. what fox news channel has done is it’s strippedout any notion of journalism as we’ve traditionallyunderstood it from its product. there is no journalism atthe fox news channel. o’reilly: quiet!
cut hismic. chad, stop, stop, stop, stop.let me finish. let me finish. chad. i want to test if you’re an honestindividual. i’m sorry cut you off i know we’re insome controversial stuff here but my religion didn’tteach me that. but thank you very much for being here.it’s not fair. i know it’s a right-wing network and you don’t want to hear thisstuff. it’s not about the kids, it’s about youjamie.
i’m doing,i’m doing… thank you jamie. thankyou. good night. thank you jamie. good night. don’t take your cheap little pathetic shot.i am telling you that that’s what it is.you’re taking cheap little pathetic shots. i’m trying to tell you whatthe truth is. i’m just giving you his record.no you’re misrepresenting his record. i’m telling the truth, sir. that’s thetruth about his record.i understand what your position is but it’s not correct.it’s probably why you’re on
satellite radio?i’d like to hear one single, one single…because you can’t get on regular radio. bill, if you are so concerned aboutpublic figures being bad role models for children pleasestop rudely interrupting your guest and telling them toshut up! well the “shut up†line has happened onlyonce in six years, miss evans… i think that asking a student to stay in thecloset in order to go to school… i’m asking you to shut up about sex… shut up. shut up.father killed at wtc. jeremy m glick
you want to know what i was doing. pleasedon’t tell me to shut up.as respect. as respect… why did you have to tell them you were anatheist if you didn’t have any trouble reading, why didn’tyou just shut up? what jimmy carter should do it privately givemr. bush his opinion and shut up publicly. that would bebest for the country. and it is our duty as loyal americans to shutup once the fighting begins. once the war against saddam begins we expectevery american to support our military and
if they can’t dothat – to shut up. all he’s got in 6 and a half years, is thati misspoke, that i labeled a poke award a peabody.he writes it in his book, tries to make me out to bea hey shut up. you had your thirty five minutes.shut up. jeff cohen, former msnbc/fox news contributorthe techniques of odd, odd polling and odd graphics ofdemocrats and weird banners in the lower third of your screen, these are all pretty sophisticatedtechniques and they work
in collaboration with the most genius marketing slogan in history which is fair and balanced. so if you’re the graphics department andyou can put up a liberal flip flopper as the chyron, hey that’sgreat, because the next time the graphics department hasa discussion with management, management say yeah you guys havebeen doing a great job.
graphics are always moving in thebackground. they’ve sort of pioneered the use of theamerican flag as an icon of your news broadcast. anonymous 2 former fox news reporterso there’s a lot of stuff that people come up with on theirown, which in other news organizations you would never think of comingup with some of the stuff, much less even putting it on the air. but at fox news they’re sort of a, thatyou’re rewarded for pushing the envelope. the problem comes if you try to push the envelopeor, god
forbid, should put in some sort of similarsort of style or approach to republican, then you get yourselfin trouble. probably 1999 i created the fox news alert. we were striving to accomplish a sense ofurgency. urgency in the sense that what was about to be delivered after the foxnews alert was very important. quote, unquote, shocking news. specifically columbine. and all theother important news stories of that time but now, looking back, now that i’m notthere i find it interesting that i’ve seen thefox news alert
used for stories like “bennifer†j-loand ben’s relationship. i mean this, compared to a schoolshooting, and there’s really no relationship to meand i don’t understand why, based on what we originallycreated it for, ah, why they would choose to use it for anews story like that. cause the sound and the visuals is associated,or originally was associated, with things thatwere much more important. martha stewart leaves fed ct after probationmeeting
and this is a fox news alert. a very busyday for martha stewart. earlier today she met withher parole officer… no, they deliberately blur it and, i findit very hard to believe, you know, there’s no separationbetween bill o’reilly the interviewer and bill o’reillywith his talking points. i mean, there’s just noseparation at all. jimmy carter is making yet another mistakeand this time, there’s no excuse for it. andthat’s the memo.
now for the top story tonight. another viewon this. jeff cohen former msnbc/fox news contributorit’s very hard on fox news to separate news from commentarybecause it all blends together. that’s what makes it soridiculous, that slogan “we report you decideâ€, because there’s no tv news channel in historythat’s ever reported less. for example, a brit hume newscast, um, whichis presented as a newscast, um, i think you see a lot ofattitude and opinion, both from the anchor and the reports.
welcome to washington. i’m brit hume. therewas further evidence today that president bush’s days ofabsorbing john kerry’s attacks without counter-attack areover. fox blurs the line between using commentaryall over the place. we are to believe that brit hume isthe anchor of a news outlet, he doesn’t bringstrong politics to it, he just happens to anchor the newscast like peter jennings. on sundays, brit hume turns intoa rather caustic right-wing pundit.
look, this goes to murdoch too. he doesn’tbelieve in objectivity. he doesn’t believe, he hascontempt for journalism, i think, i mean, they wanted allnews to be a matter of opinion, ‘cause opinioncan't be proven false. and i think that’s very dangerousbecause if people don’t have a set of facts thatthey can agree on, i think it’s difficult to reach a consensuson, you know, what’s correct public policy. i think it’svery dangerous for elections as well.
it wasn’t so much a scripted design thatpromoted the offthe- cuff ad-libs that you see so often on foxnews channel, it was sort of a reinforcement. john kerry is jane fonda with a burberry scarftied around his neck. any ad lib that made the democrats look stupidand made the republicans look smart would get an ‘attaboy’,also a pat on the back, a wink or a nod. there’s an old pizza expression, you’vetried all the rest, now try the best. some people say,especially on
that panel there, those commissioners, thatcondoleezza rice might be the best and we haven’t heardfrom her publicly yet on this point.are you saying that the commission’s cheesy? youwouldn’t say that. they’re crusty on the panel. john kerry has kim jong il on his side. barbrastreisand. what could go wrong? north korea loves john kerry.really? there’s no sense of integrity as far ashaving a line that can't be crossed.
not having that sort of line becomes verytempting for somebody to self-promote by crossing the line,saying something funny that you would never daresay if you were stepping back and looking at it from the senseof a journalism school and is this the right thingfor journalism? it would never happen. other journalists use phrases like “somepeople say†or “officials say†when they’re tryingto insert anonymously information in a story that sort of advancesthe storyline.
fox does it a different way. ‘some peoplesay’ is fox’s cue that “i’m pretending to be an anchor,so i can’t say this is my opinion, or this is roger ailes’opinion but ‘some people say.’â€some people say it would be a pretty good choice…bring in the hispanic vote. some people say, “nah, he’s posturingâ€. some people say, and excuse me i’ll getto you joe in a minute, but some people say that youmay be setting up to be running against hilary in 2006 in thesenate.
journalistically it’s a very peculiar techniquebecause the idea behind journalism is that you’re sourcingwho you’re referring to. this is just sort of a cleverway of inserting political opinion when you knowit probably shouldn’t be there. some people say that this might underminewhat the us troops are doing there some people say john kerry has some similaritiesto an earlier massachusetts’s politician.some people say in light of what happened
to theoil for food program. some people say, ‘supported by iran.â€some say, i’ve heard a couple of people say…some say “it’s a sour grapes book.†some people say…some people say… some people say it’s just too violent. there’stoo much blood.some people say some people say…well, some people say… some people say. ah, some say.some people say.
some are saying…some people say… there are some people who say something, ifnot has already happened.those are his words. some people say it’s “exploitiveâ€. whatdo you say to that? i was given a folder, a little binder,that had the names of all the fox news consultants, youknow, the people who were paid to come on the air to givetheir opinions. larry johnson former fox news contributorto be a fox news contributor means you’re
under contractand are getting paid a set amount. joining us from d.c. is larry johnson, formercia officer and former deputy director to thestate departments office of counter terrorism. my services were in great demand in decemberof 2001. the contract expired in january of 2003. and the first thing that i noticed was thati recognized all of the conservatives who were in the roster.they were very well known people who had come from,you know, talk
radio or from some sort of political background,and so i knew all of those people, and they were very,very strong people. i came in and was always, i was going to callit for example, the edict came down apparentlyto stop referring to suicide bombings in israel assuicide bombings, to call them homicide bombings.i thought that was stupid and i continued to call them suicidebombings because every bombing that kills someone isa homicide
bombing. but when i looked at the liberal roster, therewas only one person’s name who i recognize, which i recognized,and that was bob shrum, who is a very well known speechwriterand political consultant in washington. the otherones, though, were people i had never heard of.my entire background was in politics and politicaljournalism, so i knew pretty much all the players in d.c.and i had never heard of these people.
the question came up about the ability ofthe united states to fight two wars simultaneously.going into iraq is going to divert resources andattention that should be focused on. and sean hannity, being the right-wing cheerleaderthat he is, was just, you know, incensed that i was,had the temerity to suggest that we couldn’t. we do have the ability and the resources,we’re able to walk and chew gum, we can handle thesituation in iraq.
and we can still finish the job of protectingagainst and another attack. what happens is when the resources end upgetting diverted and particularly the airlift assetsrequired… facts don’t seem to have any effect uponhim. what was unusual is it was after that appearancethat, even though i was under contract to fox for another8 weeks roughly, they stopped using me. your government failed you. those entrustedwith protecting you, failed you. and i, failedyou.
and for that failure, i would ask, once allthe facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness. when richard clarke emerged it was obviousthis was a danger to the administration because he hadworked at the highest echelons of the bush administrationand it was almost like fox news was working off the playbookcoming out of the white house – that he had tobe torn down that he had to be turned into a democrat, a liberal,a kerryguy. he is bringing this up in the heat of apresidential campaign.
can you assume, from what he’ssaying, that he is now become a political operative?do you feel that there is a political payback component to mr. clarke’scomments? he is, as some have suggested, auditioningfor a job in the kerry administration.it is a fella who is sucking up to another administration with the hopes of being rewarded. when he came to me to ask for my support withtom ridge.he had been angling for a top job in the homeland security department and did not getit.
see one of the things that fox does and conservativesdo is they don’t have to win every argument butif they can muddy the argument enough, if they can turn it intoa draw, that to them is a victory because it denies theother side a victory. well sean i, there is apparently two dickclarkes here.dick clarke has been on three sides of a twosided issue.he’s totally contradicted himself. his statements are contradictory.but there is a lot of information that contradicts
clarke and some. but aren’t there sufficient contradictions.he has written a book. and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book.is he just out to sell a book. this is a fella who is out to sell his book. did he have a motive behind writing the bookand going out on 60 minutes and criticizing the bushadministration. obviously this guy’s hocking a book.unveiling his book. an appalling act of profiteering.this guy rakes bush over the coals and gives clinton a pass.and the book gives clinton a complete pass.
i’m struck by how easily clarke treats thebill clinton era. but there are still some real concerns aboutwhere the truth lies in what richard clarke wassaying. they launched a major smear campaign. andin some ways it worked, i thought, number one, he was extremelymelodramatic and he was intoning with great pathos. imean, i, it seemed, it almost seems like it was aperformance. and it was just attack-politics on a tv channel.usually
you leave attack-politics to a political campaign. carl rove and company are quite good at characterassassination. you know they are all these people, dozensof people in the white house paid for by you and i. paidfor by our taxes, right, writing talking points, calling upconservative columnists, calling up talk radio hosts,telling them what to say. it’s interesting. all the talkradio people, the right-wing talk radio people all acrossthe country, saying exactly the same thing. exactly thesame words.
i noticed that. i was watching a 24 hour newsnetwork, and i’m sure it’s just a coincidence, but theywere saying, was remarkably similar to what the white house was saying and i couldn’thelp but thinking, “how funny that was.†we are bringing diversity of opinion.ah, we are, there is diversity of opinion on fox news. youmay disagree with that. we have many liberals there, manyliberals are invited, we have liberal commentators. as wehave conservative ones. who are your liberal commentators?alan colmes for one.
greta van susteren.you know. it’s in the eye of the beholder i guess. what they’ll try to put on the appearanceof being balanced, but really kind of a mismatch. you’llhave a hannity and colmes show where hannity is areally, a good-looking, kind of clean-cut all-american kind of guy and, and his counterpartis a little squirrelly looking, frankly. and you kind of say he’s the liberal?well, maybe he’s not so smart after all and it,and it, and it sends a subtle message, i think. you’re a good liberal.good liberal. good liberal.
a lot of the times the liberals that theyget to appear on are either, you know, faux-liberals, like,i would use susan estrich as an example of that, a personwho was brought on, who essentially agrees with theperson on the right in a lot of cases.i am your biggest liberal friend. i do take alittle heat. people some times say to me, “do you reallylike sean hannityâ€. what’s not to like?i thought i was sean’s biggest liberal friend. i love you all.or they would just bring on people who were
very weak, youknow, people who were not well-known people. we can learn from history because if we don’twe’re condemned to repeat it. you’re onto going to get the truth in afacts. you’re going to get one guy, clarke, accusingbush saying, “clinton really†giving him a pass. thenyou’re going to get the bush administration attacking clarke.you’re not going to get the truth, mary ann. you weren’tthere. you don’t know.you’re probably right about that. even the people that are supposedly liberalin those panel discussions
they know that to challenge the guests andthe other hosts too forcefully, they’ll certainly find someoneelse to stand in your place if that’s the case. you’re spinning now. i’m not right-wing.i believe in global warming. we looked at “special reports†one-on-oneinterviews, their once a daywe studied 25 weeks of the one-on-one guest who appeared on special report fromlate june through mid december of 2003. republicans appeared 5 times as often as democratson one-on-
one newsmakers interviews. that means thatrepublicans made up 83% of the partisan guests while democratsmade up just 17%. in addition the few democratsthat were interviewed for the show tended to be centristsand conservative democrats often brought on to affirm bushadministration policies. so what does this all mean. well if fox were the bastion offairness and balance that it claims to be we’d see alot more balance in this prominent interview segment on the network’smost prestigious show. instead the numbers indicatethat brit
hume and special report choose their guestbased on political considerations rather than newsjudgment. that’s here, on the fox news channel. thenetwork america trusts for fair and balanced news. my criticism of fox news isn’t that it’sa conservative channel.it’s the consumer-fraud of ‘fair and balanced’. it’snothing of the sort. stories they coverstories they ignore you pitch a story in any given editorial meetingthat didn’t meet the criteria that they
hadexplained to you, and you got a thumbs down. when you have this executive vice presidentand those around him, who are consistently saying, “nowe’re not gonna do that story, no this story’s bad,this story’s goodâ€, and it becomes very clear to allthe bureau chiefs, to everybody involved who have been thereover a period of years, there are certain kinds of stories,it’s not even worth bringing up, there are other kinds ofstories that you know management’s gonna love.
fox news channel’s stated practice was toembarrass, humiliate, challenge, or disrupt whateverjesse jackson did. we were told on many occasions thathe was one of our targets. anything we could do or say that would embarrass him, discredit him, we were encouraged to findthe information and we were encouraged to report the information. i did a piece on immigration, and i thoughtit was poignant to tell the stories of these peopleand all of the things that they had to go
through to getcitizenship and how we take for granted how really blessedwe are, to be born with it. and the line that i used indescribing their efforts was, “folks seeking citizenshipearned, not bornâ€, suggesting that hey they really wantcitizenship because they’ve gotta go through all thesemotions. well, the managing editor was very angry, says,“what have these people earned? they haven’t earned athing. they’re just here for a free ride, they’re justhere trying to take advantage of all of our,
freebies and,andâ€, i mean, it was just a, he just laid waste to the ideathat these people were hardworking. it was very specifically said, we need tobe fair to the bush administration or to the republicansthan anybody else in the media would be. but that was alwaysthere was always understood a sort of a code for “layoffâ€. i have firsthand knowledge of a reporter whowas, basically, yelled and screamed at by executivesbecause because that reporter was asking tough questionsof james
baker at a news conference. it was a newsconference that was being carried live, and james baker wassaying, “we want to count every vote†and the reporter was peppering with questionslike, “well, wait a second, if you want to count everyvote, why not go back and findthe votes that were not counted because of problems withthe chad?†the reporters in new york thought that this wasa little too confrontational the style, never mind thatwhen warren christopher got up there for gore, thequestions were equally tough, there were no
complaintsabout the questioning of christopher, but becausethe questions of james baker were so tough that reporterwas pulled off the story and said, “we can't trust youanymore, you didn’t handle this story very well, go back towashington.†ronald reagan’s birthday wasfor fox news channel viewers, something akin to a holy day. this was ronaldreagan’s birthday. so my assignment was to go to thereagan presidential library in simi valley california,and to do
live shotsbefore dawn until dark. there weren’t very many people atthe presidential library there wasn’t a celebration in any organizedway going on. you know there was a classof fourth graders who came to the library that day to takethe tour and they were lined up and they sang happybirthday. but that was pretty much the extent of thecelebration. they saw myfirst three or four live shots and mr. moody called in tosay
“what is he doing out there?â€apparently my live shots weren’t celebratory enough. and i was frankly at a bit of a loss as towhat to say, or do to make it seem like there was a big celebration. since dawn they’ve been streaming in fromall over the country and even parts of canada and mexico,admirers… so i got in trouble for that one. i got inbig trouble for that one, in fact i was suspended. what you will see, of course, is intensivediscussion about
what we call “the wedge issuesâ€. you’llhear, you know, affirmative action. you’ll hear abortion.you’ll hear certainly gay rights, god in, in separationof church and state issues will be on television every singleday. i think this gay marriage thing is going tobe an enormous presidential issue. but there again, we haveto be fair and balanced. we can’t run with that. the stampede of same sex couples to the altarhas accelerated.
president bush says he’s ‘deeply troubledby the hundreds of… 2000 same-sex couples… 2300 and counting that’s the number… same sex couples hoping to get married… same sex couples wanting to… same sex marriage. their job, which is what the right wing republicanswant to do, is to divide america up, ignore the importanteconomic
health care and environmental issues and theydo that extremely successfully. they did start it up on gay marriage but ithink that they got sort of blindsided. they all of a suddencouldn’t show the usual footage they used to show, becausethey used to love to show the footage, of course, theparades and the black leather and, you know, the dragqueens. then they had, you know, very kind of normallooking, dumpy, middle age couples getting married andsmooching on the steps of city hall. so i,
i’ve noticed acertain kind of zest going out of the gay marriage thing.but that, the opposite, of where they’ve picked up theslack, is on anything to do with religion, anything to dowith the 10 commandments, anything to do with god. why is jesus so popular right now?well i think it depends on who you talk to. i think a lot of people wouldsay that one of the reason that he’s very popularis that mel gibson’s movie has come out.george w bush, because of all this, he wants
to seeit, and i’m sure they’ll set up a special screening at thewhite house. oh sure. he is a devout christian. apparentlyhe prays daily. â€did they think it’s about just a movie, justentertainment, or do they think that there’s somethingbigger at work? well i think they thinkthere is something bigger at work. september 11ththreatened people and people looked to jesus for comfort.but number
2, a line was drawn around the world betweentwo kinds of religions. two kinds of societies. freedom is not this country’s gift tothe world. freedom is the almighty’s gift to every man andwoman in this world. boy, couldn’t you see the elite mediatremble over that one. the president knows evoking the deity willanger the secular media – he doesn’t care.talking points applauded. they’re gonna push god very, very hard,particularly going up into bush’s re-election.
all of us, working together, can change american,on soul at a time. the christian fundamentalist movement believesin “we’re right, you’re wrong, no matter what.â€and i saw a lot of that at fox, “we’re right, you’re wrong, nomatter what.†the o’reilly factor is probably the perfectexample of everything that’s wrong with fox news channel.they have stories that are selected primarily to upset liberals anddemocrats and prop up republican party. you have a hostilitytowards
guests that disagree with the host and youhave a host who in service of his conservative politics willdistort facts, will misrepresent things, and will in somecases, just fabricate. in a personal story segment tonight we weresurprised to find out that an american who lost his fatherin the world trade center attack had signed an anti-waradvertisement that accused the us itself of terrorism. jeremy glick is the son of a port authorityworker who died
in 9/11 and he had signed an anti-war petitionand o’reilly had to have him on. and they were so persistent about gettingme on the o’reilly show, because they found out iwas on the advisory board and signed a statement that was againstthe war and that i was directly impacted by 9/11. the success that i had on the o’reilly showhad to do with just practice and preparation. i taped theshows, and what i did i took a stopwatch that i used for runningsprints in
high school and i would see when he has ahostile guest and i would time how long it takes for himto cut them off. i was surprised and the reason i was surprisedis that this ad equate the united states withthe terrorist. i said “i’m shocked that you’re surprised.â€and basically just made the only point that i wanted tomake. our current president now inherited a legacyfrom his father, and inherited a political legacythat’s responsible for training, militarily, economicallyand
situating geo-politically the parties involvedin the alleged assassination and murder of my fatherand countless of thousand of others. so i don’t see whyyou think it’s surprising for you to think that i would comeback and want to support .. it is surprising and i’ll tell you why it’ssurprising. you are mouthing a far-left position that isa… it was extremely intimidating sitting downin the studio because he’s really tall. he lords over you.
you see. i’m sure your beliefs are sincerebut what upsets me is i don’t think your fatherwould be approving of this.well my father thought that bush’s presidency wasillegitimate. maybe he did but i don’t think he’d beequating this country as a terrorist nation.well i wasn’t saying it was necessarily like that.yes you were. you signed and it absolutely saidthat. jeremy was pretty cool during it uh, and hewas giving
his political views which were very to theleft of o’reilly’s. and he said, “i don’t really care whatyou think politically.†i said, “obviously you docare because a, you brought me on your show and b, i’vetold him that he uses 9/11 and sympathy with the 9/11 familiesand the lives lost to rationalize his narrow right-wingagenda. you evoke sympathy with the 9/11 familiesso… that’s a bunch of crap. i’ve done morefor the
9/11 families, by their own admission, i’vedone more for them than you will ever hope to do. so youkeep your mouth shut when you say that i’m exploiting them…you don’t represent me. and i’d never represent you, you know why?because you have a warped view of this world and thiscountry. let me give youi don’t want to debate this with you. let me give you an example of parallel experience.september 14th. here’s a record. you didn’t support theaction against afghanistan to remove the taliban.you were
against it.why would i want to brutalize and further punishthe people in afghanistan? who killed your father. who killed your father.the people in afghanistan didn’t kill my father.sure they did. the people were trained there. the people? what about the afghans?i’m more angry about it than you are. and what about george bush?what about george bush? he had nothing to dowith it. the director, senior, as director of the cia.he had nothing to do with it. so the person who trained 100,000 muhad jadinei hope your mom isn’t watching this. i hope
your mother is not watching this. it was unfair for o’reilly to evoke bothmy mom and my father in the interview, especially wheni wasn’t. my mom is a grieving widow prematurely for aviolent, horrific turn in their lives. my dad was only 55.they were working people, working class, middle class.they were not retiring for a while and their life isbasically destroyed. their life together is destroyed anddestroyed in circumstances that i wouldn’t wish on my worstenemy, including bill o’reilly.
because you. that’s it, i’m not goingto say any more. in respect for your father…september 14th. do you want to know what i wasdoing? shut up. shut up.please don’t tell me to shut up. in respect for your father who was a portauthority worker. a fine american who got killedunnecessarily by barbarians. by radical extremist who were trained by thisgovernment. respect for him.not the people of america, the people, the rulingclass. the small minority.
cut his mic. i’m not going to dress youdown any more. out of respect for your father. are we done?we’re done. you see him gesturing to security guards andthen came the after film performance. after they were off the air, [he said to the kid something to the affect, “get out of mystudio before i f**king tear you to pieces!†so jeremy,and i’ve talked to him since, went, actually went to thegreen room to get a cup of coffee.
and the executive producer and the assistantencouraged me to leave the building because they were quote“concerned that if o’reilly ran into me in the hallwaythat he would end up in jailâ€. the next day… this is our house here. if somebody comesto your house and begins spitting on the floor,you’d remove them. glick was out of control and spewinghatred for this program and his country using vile propaganda.
the next day i just turned on and watchedthe follow up and saw my views totally distorted. next thingi know was saying bush planned 9/11. glick was saying without a shred of evidencethat president bush and bush the elder were directlyresponsible for 9/11. now that kind of stuff is not onlyloony, it’s defamation. that paints me as a fringe conspiracy nut. this kid said nothing, nothingabout president bush and his father, bush
the elder,orchestrating the attack on their own country. so o’reilly is just lying here. he came on this program and accused presidentbush of knowing about 9/11 and murdering his own father. glick said, “can i sue him?†and so icalled the lawyer who was in my case of, “fox versus duttonand frankenâ€, and he says, “well, the kid has to prove thato’reilly knew he was lying, and o’reilly is so crazy, helies so pathologically, that’s it’s harder toprove that o’reilly
knew he was lying.†so oddly enough, ifsomeone has a record of crazily lying it is harder to suethem for defamation. “your plane is hijacked by terrorists.†“you’re caught in a dirty bomb attack†an anthrax vaccine for 25 million… “you’re face-to-face with a suicide bomber†:don’t be inhaling. don’t be ingesting. don’t be suckingparticles into your body that could get the
radiationinside. first your advice is stay inside. don’tdrink or eat anything… many of the themes that are emoted on thefox news channel have to do with generating fear. whether that’sfear of immigration, a fear of racial difference. when you pander to fear, it’s a great motivatorand organizer. you’ve got to keep people alarmed. they really love this sense of fear and dangereven when
it’s not there. and so when something isactually dangerous, some things are, they go completelyoverboard and all sense of perspective is lost. so thatanthrax which, i guess, affected four or five people,adversely, no question about it, is far more dangerous that, you know,the poisoning of our air. the way we deal with them is the way presidentbush is dealing with them you cordon the area, you search for them andyou shoot them. larry johnson former fox news contributorthe motivator is fear and then the pay-off
is, you know,“we’re going to go out and kill the bad guys.†and, youknow, it’s a very simple black and white world that they,ah, paint and portray. terrorism has become the all-purpose fearweapon because now everything is converted into terrorism. and,of course, if you have a constant sense of uneasethen you’re gonna look to the government to protect you.you’re gonna look to strong government. we’ve removed from power enemies of thiscountry. we have made america more secure.
there are these enemies out there and it’san ill-defined enemy, but as long as we’re fighting themand killing them and he’s looking presidential, then nothingelse, again, is discussed. what was interesting is in the climate ofthe bush administration that much of that fear, theemotion was purposefully misdirected by the right-wing,ah, into, ah, the war in iraq. the type of coverage fox offers and all ofthem offer but fox is probably the most pristine versionis completely
consistent with bush’s, um, with the strategyof the bush administration. a, to, ah, prevent discussionof things that are not going well, like, for instance,the economy or the medicare bill. there’s not doubt the war against iraq,a country that did not attack us, could only proceed based onfear. tonight it’s a special 2 hour block. “war is my last choice… but the risk of doing nothing is even a worseoption as far as i’m concerned.
the president’s war on terror. when willhis military plans get put into action. no spin on iraq. depend on “the factorâ€for the trust about the impending war with iraq.we hope you depend on us for the truth, because we’re going to report the situation in iraqwithout an agenda or any ideological prejudice. that you gotta take what comes. not that wehate you martin sheen, but that we may not wantto watch your television program anymore, because we’reidentifying you with being
against what we believe in. once the warbegins, i’ll consider those who actively work against ourmilitary once war is underway to be enemies of the state.americans, and indeed our allies who actively work against our military once the war isunder way will be considered enemies of the state by me. but first, are the americans, who went overthe baghdad to act as human shields, well, arethey more than just protesters, are they traitors?
harry belafonte, he’s at it again, he says“the bush administration is possessed of evil.†has the“calypso king†gone bonkers? you have a right to say what you want, butwe have a right not to buy your records. anyone who hurts this country at a time likethis will be spotlighted. just fair warning to you barbra streisandand others who see the world as you do. we don’twant to demonize anyone but anyone who hurts thiscountry in a time like this, well, let’s just say you willbe spotlighted. certainly television, and perhaps to an extent,my station, was intimidated by the administration
and itsfoot soldiers at fox news. and it did in fact, put aclimate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in termsof, of, of the kind of broadcast work we did. bob mcchesney founder of free press/authorof “the problem of the mediaâ€first rule of being a great propaganda system and why oursystem is vastly superior to anything in the old sovietunion, is not that people think they’re being subject topropaganda. if people don’t think that, they aren’tlooking for that, they’re much easier to
propagandize. andthat’s the genius of our media system; a system ofideology, of control compared to an authoritarian system. look we’re making good progress in iraq.sometimes it’s hard to tell it when you listen tothe filter. tremendous progress in iraq. the kids areback at school, 10% more than when saddam hussein was there. there’s 100%more fresh water. it’s a fresh start for iraqi athletes.so far 2500 schools have been renovated. are iraquis better off than they were a yearago?
yes they are definitely better off.and these brave athletes look forward to making olympic gold. there are so many positive developments. fox has made a decision to present the iraqwar as a success and as an ongoing success.fox report iraqis get a welcome diversion at the racetrack the baghdad equestrian club is open forbusiness. and yes, you can play these ponies. it’s the iraq you don’t hear about. fallingunemployment. rising wages. interest rates down, foreigninvestment up.
life for 95%of the iraqis is alreadyimmeasurably better than it was under the decades of saddam’s rule,there’s no question about that.and that’s what’s the least reported story over there. yougo to the markets, they’re thriving. big fat fish comingout of the tigris and euphrates river. young men in baghdad blowing offsteam with their cars. the guys gathered to put theirwheels through the paces about once a week, something theysay they were not allowed to do under the
the senior producer told the two or threewriters for her news hour, she told us, ‘now just keepin mind, it’s all good. this is such a fair and balanced issue. don’t write about the number of dead ortroops being under fire or under attack. not that somebody mighthave died, you know, keep it positive. we’ve got toemphasize all the good that we’re doing.’ she, at that point, made a reference torebuilding schools, bringing democracy to iraq, and thenshe said, ‘see.
big progress. yoo hoo for us.’things were actually, at that point, going quite badly. many more american soldiers were dying eachday and god knows how many iraqis. 277 us soldiers have now died in iraq whichmeans that statistically speaking us soldiers haveless of a chance of dying from all causes in iraq thancitizens have of being murdered in california which is roughlythe same
geographical size. the pipa survey is interesting becauseyou’re looking at questions of, of basic true-false kind offactual nature. “did we find weapons of mass destructionin iraq?†these are very simple questionswith very simple answers and what the survey found was thatthe more likely you were to watch fox new channel the morelikely you were to have completely incorrect assumptions aboutthese things.
all the research shows a very highcorrelation in the case of fox news with people watching itwith having a very confused notion of the world on onehand, especially with foreign policy and the middle eastand also being strongly supportive of the government andpower. and this is an extraordinarily disturbingtrend for the mediai mean for any self-respecting journalist. if you’re told,the more people consume your media, the less they’ll knowabout the subject and the more they’ll support
governmentpolicy, then that’s, that’s exactly the worst thing anyjournalist would ever want to hear, or should want to hear. in terms offox overall i, i think we have got to appreciate, and whenwe look at them is to understand that this is an adjunct ofthe republican party. what fox specializes in, is punditry. basicallygetting marching orders from the republican nationalcommittee or some political operative and then having peoplepontificate
about it, have guests come on to talk aboutit, have pseudo experts come on and discuss it. their main allegiance is, i’m talking aboutthe people at the top, is to the republican party. murdoch is, absolutely to his core, a partisan,and ah, he makes no secret about that. george w bush sat for an interview in austinwith fox news channel’s carl cameron, who joinsus now with highlights. hello carl.hi brent
it was well known in the summer of 2000 thatfox’s lead political correspondent covering the bush campaign, that his wife was campaigningfor bush. tell me when you’re ready guys.and things are good. your family? very well. my wife has been hanging out withyour sister. yeah good. my county… dorothy has been all over the state campaigningand pauline’s been constantly with her. umyeah doro’s a good person. oh, she’s been terrific. i mean, to hearpauline
tell it. when she first started campaigningfor you she was a little bit nervous.she getting her stride. now she’s up there. she doesn’t need notes.she’s going to crowds and she’s got the whole riff down. she’s a good soul.she’s having fun too. she’s a really good soul. and in any other news organization, in fact,in cnn that very summer there was a producer whose husbandwas a lawyer for the gore team. and this was a producerwho would’ve
naturally covered gore, who was immediatelytold you’re not to have anything to do with campaign coverage,either covering bush or covering gore because ofthe possible conflict of interest, or the perception ofa conflict of interest. at fox, they didn’t care. thefact that the, you know, the senior political reporter, hiswife, is actually campaigning for the bush campaignat a time when this guy is covering them, that didn’t evenregister. it never would’ve occurred.
ok you guys ready.that’s great. see, it’s the little things that get disclosed.i like that. thanks for joining us sir.yes, sir, thanks carl, it’s good to see you again. that’s their lack of having some sort ofbasic journalistic integrity that is just missing from that organization. first person who made the call to say thatgeorge w. bush had been elected president of the united stateswas the person who was in charge of fox news’ electionanalysis
division, the people who crunch the exit pollingnumbers. that person was a gentleman named john ellisand he is george w. bush’s first cousin. at around 2 in the morning, on election night,the, a new set of data had come in and it was complexdata from precincts all over florida. the proper answerin analyzing that data unquestioningly was: you couldn’t’tell, it was too close to call, there was simply no clearwinner. instead, john ellis called it as a clear win forgeorge bush. fox news then interrupted its
ongoingelection coverage and announced that george bush had beenelected president of the united states. fox news now projectsgeorge w. bush as the winner in florida and thus it appearsthe winner of the presidency of the united states.now what’s significant about that is not the interventionof the president’s cousin to declare his relative the newpresident of the united states it was the fact that withinminutes, abc, nbc and cbs also fell right in line callingbush as the winner.
george bush is the president elect of theunited states bush winsabc news is now going to project that florida goes to mr. bush. there’s no way that they could have crunchedthe data in that time to come to that conclusion.in fact quite the opposite. they should have come to theconclusion with the associated press came to which was that you couldn’tmake the call. when fox made the call, that bush had won,and the other networks followed on, that created
theperception that bush was the winner, when in fact hewasn’t. but that perception was what really held for the next 37 days andi would suggest to you that that call on election nighthad more to do with making george bush president than anyrecount or ballot design issue. we gave our audience bad information. ourlengthy, critical self-examination shows that we letour viewers down. i apologize for making those bad projectionsthat night. it will not happen again.
in the old soviet union you’d hearing aboutthe party-line shifting 180 degrees. watching fox news atthe end of clinton, where it was all attack mode wherethey were just vicious watchdogs, and then bush takes powerand they’re like little lap dogs.it was like night and day and it’s a party-line shift.the president has the direction and the vision to take usinto the future boldly and with, with courage and optimism. he is an extraordinarily straight forwardleader.
he says what he is going to do and he doesit. the president stands for steady leadershipduring a time of enormous change. but the president is on air force one andthe plane has now touched down in new mexico. this is as strong a pro-national securityconservative president as i have ever seen. this is a guy who says what he means and meanswhat he says. but the president is a gentleman. he set adifferent tone for his campaign. super tuesday lived up to its word. and thiswas a super night for our candidate john kerry and a supernight for
the democratic party. he’s a super nominee. i believe, i believe, that in 2004 one uniteddemocratic party we can, and we will win this election. what would you say would be senator kerry’sone or two major weak points that could be exploited? the presidential hopeful, john kerry has missedevery one of the 22 role call votes in the senate this yearbut hasn’t missed a paycheck. he talks about trying to protect the taxpayersevery single day and here he is fleecing the taxpayers outof $150,000 a year
so do you think he should step down, dominic,when he’s running for president? the controversy and his vietnam war medalshas just gotten worse. he said he never suggestedhe threw them away but videotape does not lie.ribbons or medals? which did john kerry throw away afterhe returned from vietnam? this may become anissue for him today. his perceived disrespect for the military could bemore damaging to the candidate than questions about hisactions in uniform.
many are angry over kerry’s post-warprotest. the bigger issue here: is kerry’s involvementin a group that’s inherent inherently violent. presumptive democratic nominee was scaringold people, as usual, with the predictable democraticline he said, “president bush willcut off their entitlement checks. it isn’t true but thelie has worked well for democrats in the past. assuming that the unthinkable happens, andthat senator kerry becomes president…
you’re watching fox news. real journalism.fair & balanced. james wolcott former staff writer for thenew yorker/cultural critic for vanity fairthey will give you the, almost the full bush stump speechno matter where it is and no matter how many times they’veshown it. they’ll cut liveto these campaign rallies as if there was gonna be real news in them, as if bush was gonnasay anything, you know, earth shattering. and your, ah, ability to make good decisionslike,
marrying your wife carolyn. fox portrays his every action as a heroicmove. as, you know, something dramatic and significant. i imagine it’s pretty hard for the fox producers.some days george bush doesn’t do anything interestingand yet, they’ve got to find something that makeshim heroic that day. most people just started waking up and saying,“oh you mean we don’t have the fairness doctrine anymore?â€i can't tell
you how many times, when i was a politicalcandidate running for office, i would have somebodycome up to me on the street and say, “now i saw your opponenton tv the other day. aren't they supposed to give youequal time?†and i didn’t even know for years that welost that in the reagan era, that for years we haven't hadthe ability to expect both sides to be adequately covered. clearly on the republican side what we doknow is that for years they have coordinated what they calltheir “message
of the dayâ€. so you’ll hear on the floorof the house, you’ll hear on rush limbaugh, you’ll hearon fox and rupert murdoch’s network, “the issue of the dayâ€,which they will pound away at, which then creates the echochamber, which resonates through america. here’s what he said, “i actually did votefor the 87 billion before i voted against it.†senator kerry recently said, quote, “i actuallydid vote for the 87 billion dollar before i votedagainst it.â€
end quotekerry, starting to feel the heat for his flipflop voting record, is in west virginia. is president bush doing a good job of definingkerry as a ‘flip-flopper’… and you’re saying he flip-flopped onthe issue of this. and he does seem to agonize and flip-flopover and over and over again. he’s flip-flopped on all these issues…beneath kerry’s flip-flopping he’s an opportunistic flip-flopperyou’re talking flip-flops a new brand of summer footwear: john kerryflipflops.
they say that he flip-flops a lot. and he’s flip-flopped now on every majorissue. would those be the flip-flops.‘cause he’s flip-flopped on everything else. is senator kerry guilty of flip-flopping onthe issues?he flip-flops like crazy. first of all flip-flop…you’ve seen him flip-flop on a whole variety ofissues. an opportunistic flip-flopper who doesn’thave any
principles. is that a little harsh? i think um, it shows one thing. the weaknessof john kerry. just 263 days until you get to cast your voteand decide george w bush deserves a second term. john kerry may wish he’d taken off hismicrophone before trashing the gop. his coarse description of his opponents hascast a lurid glow over the campaign. presidential hopefully, john kerry, got caughton
tape in some candid remarks that he didn’twant everybody to hear. but we did. john kerry has been lashing out at presidentbush and by extension republicans for a long time. nothingnew there. you see a picture of george bush and you expectto see, hear organ musicthat would come out of a church, swelling, the backlithead, the madonna look and john kerry flashes and you hear thedevil’s voice, “this is the devil. he is evil.â€
is it true the reports that we’re seeing?did john kerry on the slopes cursed out a secret serviceagent? is that true? i think kerry needed this vacation. he wasshowing some fatigue. only 217 days and counting until bush is reelected.they’re saying john kerry looks french. john kerry looks french.john kerry, the man who would be america’s first french president. when you’re at war, there are the twomodels. you have the churchill, reagan, thatcher, tonyblair, george bush model. or you have the mcgovern, jimmycarter, french, john kerry model.
are the republicans effectively going to beable to make john kerry french? good afternoon every body or as john kerrywould say, “bonjourâ€. french are thinkers. and that doesn’t gointo the code of the american presidency.i mean, you know the french are the thinker, le pont rodin. i mean, theythink, they think, they think and they never do anythingwith their thinking.i believe that mr. kerry has to get away of this image ifhe wants to win.
right now, he is not in the american archetype.why? he’s on vacation. if the archetype is to take action and youare taking vacation, i mean you are definitely not,you don’t fit the code. you are “of-code†mr. rapaille?yes. thank you very much. you are herebyinvited back. every week there’s so many ways you canplay the economic story. at fox news it’s only the upbeat.they select statistics that prove the economy’s movingup and thank god for president bush for doing it.
the economy of course shaping up to be oneof the hot button issues in this presidential campaign. polls show the economy shaping up to bea major issue of the presidential campaign. they’re all amazed at the strength of theeconomy and how it’s picking up day by day. i think the economy is growing and ah, i thinkit’s going to get stronger. the economy is very, very strong right now,it continues to get stronger.
the latest reading on the nation’s grossdomestic product confirming it rose at a healthy 4.1% sales of existing homes up 2% last month. the economy is behaving like it’s on steroidsat the moment. the fact is that the economy is improving. the economy will roar in ’04.roar in ’04. that sounds like a bush slogan. 204 days until george w. bush is re-elected. we’re creating jobs. good, high-paying jobsfor the
american citizens. the president goes to charlotte to talk aboutjob training. buoyed by the 300k job figure last week, hecan boast his policies are working. job grew last months at the fastest rate infour years. i would say the news this morning, 308 thousandnew jobs were created last month, they’re drinkingthe malox right out of the gallon bucket at the kerrycampaign.
what this kerry plan will do is punishsuccessful companies and that’s bad. if you want to destroy jobs in this country– you raise taxes. john kerry’s plan to bring millions of jobsback to america well some one here says, “watchout. kerry’s plan will end up killing more jobs instead.†i said previously that the market was neutralon john kerry, i think that was utterly wrong, i think themarket is down on john kerry. when the market goes down one of the thingsyou often hear
is the market is worried about a kerry victory. then out comes a poll showing kerry with a4 or 5 point lead, down goes the market bigtime. and how they know that the market went downbecause everybody had kerry on their mind, as opposedto everyone was worried about interest rates, oreveryone looked at the earnings figures and thought theyweren't as good as projected. but they love to pretendthat they’re carnac the magnificent and they can read themind of the market.
terror threats, gas prices sky high, but forbessays, “the economy is still strong and getting strongerevery day.†there you have it. 196 days tillwe reelected george w. wait, the election’s over?laughs thanks for letting me know.we’re almost there. i think fox news, of all our subsidiaries,had the best increase in profits. what makes murdoch particularly dangerousis that he’s foremost a politician and he will use hisimmense media
power to shape the content and especiallythe news that furthers his interest and those of his allies,including the conservative republican community. afterall, fox news is nothing more than a 24/7 political ad forthe gop. jeff cohen former msnbc/fox news contributorat msnbc i worked as a senior producer on the donahue, phildonahue prime time show. from the beginning they were saying to us wehave to be balanced. giving them instructions not to be too confrontational.don’t be too partisan. don’t be too angry.
now by the end, of out ten yearbalance wasn’t enough. and this is the “foxeffectâ€. they mandated that any time we had, if we hadtwo left-wing guests, we had to have three right-wingguests. if we had to had one anti-war guest, we had tohave two pro-war guests. and that’s how we ended the show.so, we’re trying to outfox fox. you cannot outfox fox.but msnbc and the others have tried. cnbc has tried tooutfox fox. since the corporate structures, corporateownership of the other channels did not allow
anyone tocounter-program against fox, you know, in television theinclination is imitation. i think the standard right now is fox.and i want to be as interesting and as edgy as you guys are. it’s influencing its competitors. ah, that’swhy, you know, msnbc hired joe scarborough. that’swhy cnn in recent weeks has taken to reporting prettymuch anything the bush white house tells it to report. there is a sense now
there is money in the flag. and fox knows that and its competitors knowthat fox is onto something. today news business is geared towards entertainment.it’s geared toward, in some cases, propaganda.it’s geared toward, ultimately, the bottom line of thebig corporations that owns the station that owns the news operation. it’s called the news business for a reason.ah, it is news but it’s a business.
they don’t like to spend money doing seriousstories. they like to do cheap, easy stories that will geta gutreaction. i think the thing that distresses me morethan anything else is that, a lot of the news content isnot coming straight out of the newsrooms, particularlyin television, um, but out of the promotion department. it’s expensive to spend time exploring theissues. it’s cheap. and everything now is a question ofmoney. if you go to the national association of blackjournalists,
or you go to national association of hispanicjournalists, you talk to asian-american journalists whoare on-air, you talk to native-american journalists; you’reseeing a diminution in the number of journalists thatare locally based because in order to save money and in orderto get economy of scale and scope, a lot of the broadcastersare shrinking their employee pool and they’reshrinking in the news section, sectors of their stations. so,a lot of the young, vibrant people who are getting experienceas on-air
talent in small towns, are seeing those opportunitiesincreasingly diminish. when you let a small number of companies havethis much concentrated power, they will always abuseit, it’s simply unacceptable in a free society. and if youdon’t change the system we can be having this conversationfor the next 50 years and be talking about rupert murdochthe third. just as health care and the economy and theenvironment are political issues that people are familiarwith, corporate control over the media is also a major politicalissue.
when you have one network that is so powerfuland so intent upon warping the dialogue, it limits thatdiscourse. it actually influences it to be a narrower discourseand that’s what i think citizens should be upin arms about. we can’t accept this anymore. if we do acceptit, we’re handing onto our children, and our grandchildrena less democracy than we inherited. and that’sthe one thing we don’t have a right to do. it’s ironic that it’s been, what, 30 yearssince paddy
chayevsky wrote network but i really believethat those prophetic words that were spoken by peterfinch when he finally got out of the chair and said: “it’stime. go to the window, shake your fist and say i’mmad as hell. i’m not going to take it anymore.†i think thoseare resonant words today. i think people are genuinelyupset. get off your rear end and become an activist.and if you see things that are biased, complain to theoutlet and say you won’t be watching anymore.
content has to change. power has to shift.and i think the only way we can shift power is the onlyway we’ve ever been able to shift power; directly confrontingthose who hold it and taking it back. policies have been made behind closed doorsby very powerful special interest without any publicinvolvement or participation. and what we’ve learned inthe last few years is when the public gets aware of thisand they start organizing, we can change these policies andwe can make a
system that actually responds to the needsof the people of this country. exec. dir. of center for digital democracyamerica’s digital destiny is hanging in the balance now.with the right activism, public outcry, we can shape amedia environment so that in every community there arechannels that will serve the public interest. if you are a citizen, at home right now, whenyou turn on talk radio all you hear is one right-wingnut, or another right-wing nut, why don’t you go to theradio station and
say, “i’m sick and tired of this. thereare progressive voices out there. we want a balance.†if a fox tv station in your town is broadcastingreports that you know to be inaccurate, that you knowto be warping the news.you, as citizens, have power. groups like code pink and other have actuallydemonstrated outside television stations and have made noiseabout it. we need to basically play the paul revererole. you know kind of,ride out into the night, alertingpeople that, ah,
there’s something bad going on here andsomething needs to be done about it. here’s what i’d love to have happen. familyfrom nebraska goes to washington for their family vacation.we’re going to visit the air and space museum. we’regoing to visit the mall. we’re going to visit the vietnammemorial. and we’re going to visit the fcc to see a commissioneror two to tell them about what we care about. whenthat happens, we might start to see a little more attention.but, you
know, it aint gonna happen if you don’ttry. we can actually win here. the whole strengthof the system’s based on people being apatheticand not thinking they can do anything about it. as soon aswe rise up it collapses like a house of cards. that’sthe extraordinary development of the last few years. it’s not an issue of the right or left.it is a populist issue about people finally saying it’s theirdemocracy and they aren’t going to let five companiescontrol the
airwaves for corporate convenience at theexpense of public necessity. i come from a community in the state of mainethat’s mostly fishing towns, small coastal communities andfor many years we were served by one radio station that everybodylistened to i mean, it was local radio. every time i debatedan opponent when i was running for office, everybodywould tune it in their cars or their home radioand they would
hear what we were feeling differently aboutand when clear channel bought it, that was the end. you couldn’teven count on somebody looking out the window and tellingyou if it was a good day or a bad day or if the fog was comingin. but what was really interesting to me wasthat people got angry, there was a local group that organizedand attempted to get low-power fm radio license. they had a hard battle, clear channel opposedthem, and they actually won and now there’s a littleradio station
operated out of a garage in that town, allvolunteers, anybody can play the music that they want,but at 5 o’clock every day, they tune into the dialogue ofwhat’s going on in that community. what we’ve been doing over the last decadeis to create alternative infrastructure so we now havean online audience of 10,00 unique visitors per day to our home page,plus the over the air audience of our new low power fm radiostation, and very soon we’re going to have public accesstv
in this community. so we’ve got three legsof a stool here of an alternative media infrastructurethat gives us a means of communicating among ourselves andnot just relying on the occasional letter to the editor ina corporate newspaper or almost no coverage in the broadcast mediabecause they’re all owned by clear channel and sinclair andfox. and when the news media council started, oneof our first projects was to recruitunorganized youth of color, teenagers. and have them studythe fox affiliate station in the bay area.
when we did the study we were able to do aneditorial meeting. it was the first time, in probablyten or fifteen years,that a constituency group locally had actually ever cameand demanded anything from them. they just get to dowhatever they want, nobody cares, nobody understands thatthey can demand anything. so it was a pretty momentous moment forus you know to both demand something and get itfrom a fox affiliate. but also to be one of the first, youknow, folks to come forward and that, that’s
something thati think is a trend that we’re trying to start now.marginalized people don’t have any concept that they can goto an editor in groups and demand something.
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