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Ron Radosh

by Ron Radosh
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Blame It on Fox News: The New Liberal Campaign to Close Down the Network

August 4th, 2011 - 2:17 pm

If that is the case, Massing should also be calling for an investigation of MSNBC. Its roster of “objective” anchors includes the ultra-liberal group which includes Chris Matthews, the just hired Al Sharpton, the just hired Chris Hayes of The Nation, Ed Schultz, and of course, the indomitable objective commentator Rachel Maddow. One of his charges is that Fox gave attention to “Climategate,” which he calls a “faux controversy.” As readers of PJMedia know, it was anything but that. But one is supposed to take Massing’s word for what is true, and what is false. After all, his words appear in The New York Review of Books. How could anything written in their imprimatur be anything but the truth?

Another thing he accuses Fox of  is perpetrating during the 2008 campaign “troubling excesses and outrages,…which repeatedly sought to tie Obama to Bill Ayers, Louis Farrakhan, ACORN, and the like.”  Somehow he omits Rev. Wright, since even Massing cannot fail to admit that tie. Let me take one of Massing’s examples, that of ACORN. Was Obama tied to the radical activist group at all? Let me cite what a sympathetic history of the group, written by one of its major admirers, says:

Using TV ads, accusations by local Republican officials, and the national debate, the McCain campaign took the opportunity to link its opponent to what it called an outlaw leftist group. Despite ACORN’s endorsement of Obama, he immediately distanced himself from the group. “The only involvement I’ve had with ACORN,” Obama told the media, “is I represented them alongside the U.S. Justice Department at DMV’s.” Dismayed, Bertha Lewis [ACORN’s then chief ]  knew that Obama had failed to disclose the full story. For example, he had worked with ACORN on voter registration in Chicago. In addition, while he served on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which funded antipoverty activism, the group had channeled $75,000 in 2002, to ACORN’s Chicago office. Before a television audience of more than sixty million, however, Obama had separated himself from ACORN, which had endorsed him in the primary election and helped him get votes.

So whom do you believe, ACORN’s sympathetic historian, or Michael Massing, who believes Obama’s own obfuscations?

So what Massing asks for is that the major media, not only outlets like The Nation and the NYRB, join him in going after Fox News. He is upset that media critic Howard Kurtz, now with The Daily Beast, has defended Fox and its aggressive stance in going after targets, including 60 Minutes style of TV ambushes. When Fox does it, Massing is mad. He quotes Kurtz as saying that news organizations are “not supposed to get along with these people….We’re supposed to hold them accountable.” Isn’t this supposedly the job of the press? Is Massing upset that Fox is doing that to a Democratic president whom he supports? Would he be as upset if a news network did that to Richard Nixon during the Watergate investigations, or would he say the same thing as Kurtz?

So Massing asks that the press investigate Fox’s programming, its ties to the Republican Party and the Tea Party, and to conservative think tanks and organizations. Does he also favor investigating NBC’s corporate contributions, how they affect MSNBC’s programming and the like? Is he upset that Morning Joe was forced to suspend journalist Mark Halperin for weeks, because of an inept word he used to describe President Obama’s political tactics? Or does he wish that he had been permanently fired? If someone used that term to describe George W. Bush when he was president, would Massing have argued that Halperin be given a Pulitzer Prize for telling the truth?

Yes, Massing is beating a dead horse. We don’t need him to tell us that Bill Sammon, Fox’s DC managing editor, is a conservative. We know that from checking out the book he wrote on George W. Bush. Yet Massing ends by saying the press should investigate Sammon’s “part in shaping the channel’s strong conservative slant.”

What Massing does not get is that Fox — which does have liberals regularly on its programs and does present their views — is obviously conservative. MSNBC has some conservative voices — particularly on Morning Joe — but its prime-time schedule and anchors are largely on the far liberal/left. Viewers, therefore, have a choice as to what shows they wish to watch. Massing wants Fox News off the air, because people choose to watch it, and they do not choose to watch MSNBC, whose ratings continually are far below that of its competitor. His answer is a federal investigation, leading to the network’s suppression.

This is the liberals’ real agenda, and that of Michael Massing, the media critic. It is to close down Fox News, and prevent people from hearing alternative views to those he subscribes to.

Decades ago, when the singer and actor Kris Kristofferson put out his first album, it contained a song he titled “Blame It On the Stones,” referring to how anger at the new youth culture was blamed by many people on the success and record sales of The Rolling Stones. Now, the Left has an easy answer why Barack Obama is falling daily in the polls: Blame It on Fox  News. After all, why else would the electorate sour on our great charismatic president?

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