johnny dollar's archive: nov-dec 2009

Another week, another deceptive screengrab, plus lies, lies, and more lies. We name names in the latest action-packed edition of Fox Haters Week in Review!

The Deceitful Option:
It's funny how the same dishonest tricks of the trade somehow find their way across the Fox haters echo chamber. We've seen the screengrab ploy before, from the newspoodles and MSNBC, as well as from Think Propaganda. So it's not a shock to find the discredited Media Matters crowd pulling the same trick. They published outrageous screengrabs showing Fox News chryons referring to the "government option" in healthcare legislation:

The Live Desk aired a caption referring to the "govt [government] option," a term right-wing pollster Frank Luntz suggested Sean Hannity use on his program because the term doesn't poll as well as "public option." Featuring captions that use language endorsed by a Republican strategist is only the latest evidence that Fox News is actually a conservative political organization.

What Media Matters wants is for Fox, in fact for all channels, to use the term "public option", a phrase poll-tested by Democrats and "endlessly, relentlessly, robotically pushed" by Obama supporters. Media Matters is fine with that! They have no problem with every news outlet featuring captions endorsed by Democrats, making them "actually liberal political organizations". Their only problem is with one news outlet that treats the issue in a fair and balanced manner.

That's something else Media Matters didn't tell you. Just as their news people do, the FNC producers use both phrases: sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes both. Here are some of the screengrabs Media Matters doesn't want you to see:


The Loony Bin:
Is there any site as disreputable as o'reillysucks.com? We don't know, but we can say there are few that--pound for pound--offer as many preposterous lies as the sucksters do:

Since July (3 months ago) the Factor ratings have not went [sic] up at all, no increase, none. He averaged 3.4 in July, and he averaged 3.4 in October, earth [sic] to O'Reilly, that is not an increase. Billy has such a giant ego he has to lie about his ratings, even though he already has the #1 rated show on cable news.

The sucksters give no sources, for obvious reasons: their numbers are made up! O'Reilly's 8:00 pm in July: 3,075,000 viewers. O'Reilly's 8:00 pm in October: 3,390,000 viewers. Hey Stevie, 3,390K is more than 3,075K. The rise in ratings is graphically demonstrated in this chart:


But wait, that's not the only thing Stevie lied about. The sucksters quote Mr Bill:

We're real close to Katie Couric numbers. We beat everybody else. Good Morning America. Nightline. I think the Today show is a little bit ahead of us, but it's close.

No way is Stevie going to let that stand:

O'Reilly lied once again about his ratings. He gets about 3.4 million viewers a night, and that is total viewers. Katie Couric gets anywhere from 5.2 million to 5.9 million, so O'Reilly is a liar when he says he is almost beating her.

And again:

O'Reilly does not beat Good Morning America. Nightline, or the Today show. Setting aside the fact that these shows do not even compete with O'Reilly, he still fails to beat them. In fact, the Today Show nearly doubles O'Reilly's numbers.
Total Viewers: Good Morning America: 4.0M
Total Viewers: Nightline: 3.9M
Total Viewers: Today Show: 5.5M
...And this is just a small sample that shows O'Reilly is a biased liar.

Once again it's the sucksters who are lying. They are comparing two broadcasts of GMA, Nightline, and Today (all of which air a second time for West Coast viewers) with just one showing of O'Reilly. When you count both showings of all programs, The Factor's 8:00 + 11:00 pm audience of 4,888,000 clearly tops GMA and Nightline, and is closing in on Couric and Today. And then he claims this:

There are never any Reality Checks on Conservatives.

Another lie. And there's more:

Notice that O'Reilly never does an ambush on any Republicans, ever, he just does it to liberals and Democrats. While claiming to be a nonpartisan independent, which is just laughable.

Stevie lies again. Is there no end to his blatant dishonesty? No wonder this is one of the top five favorite blogs of the newshounds. You will recall that the hounds got burned by printing a suckster lie and believing it, until we posted audio exposing the lie. It was shortly after that embarrassment when Ellen Brodsky rewarded the sucksters with her "top five" recommendation. Birds of a feather, and all that.

All Bark, No Bite:
This smear began with Talking Points Memo, who complained that Fox was "pushing" the "death panel" meme, because legal analyst Peter Johnson asked John Cornyn: "With regard to the death panel, has anything changed?" Actually, in the introduction he called them "so-called death panels", attributing the phrase to Sarah Palin, explaining that the reference was to end-of-life counseling. Media Matters chimed in, trimming a 1:29 clip to 1:14 by leaving out the explanatory intro. Clarence Page reduced it all to one sentence, while the newspoodles simply reposted TPM's clip, adding:

Watch Peter Johnson say death panel as a statement of fact: "With regard to the death panel, has anything changed?"

Of course, that's an easy claim to make when you don't mention what he said just before. And it's made even easier when the newsliars, TPM, and all the rest of them leave out what else Peter Johnson Jr said before the interview began. It's that bothersome business of context, which Fox haters are all to happy to remove when it fits their agenda. They won't tell you about this, but we will:

JOHNSON: The tremendous percentage of dollars that we pay in the last months and years of our life--there is a determination by the House, to focus on those medical costs. No one is saying it's a 'death panel', but people have to understand that there is a tremendous interest in reducing costs in people's so-called later years of life...

Meanwhile, the mongrels did their echo chamber duty on another story, this time from the Huffington Post. Julie of course kicked it up a notch, quickly racking up a trifecta of untruths:

On Studio B Smith slapped down Shannon Bream’s lack of “fair and balanced” in her reporting on the campaign for governor in New Jersey. Bream, true to form, conducted an on-air interview with the Republican candidate, Chris Christie, but looked blankly at the camera for a moment when Smith asked her when she would interview the Democratic candidate, and current Governor, Jon Corzine. It probably hadn’t occurred to her that it would be a, you know, good, journalistic thing to do. Clearly flustered, and a little defensive, it seemed, Bream replied, “We have in multiple requests, and when it comes in, we'll let you know.”

Smith "slapped down" Shannon Bream? Lie #1. In fact the next day Smith confirmed what Bream said and repeated the offer to Corzine for an interview. "Looked blankly at the camera for a moment"? Lie #2. Satellite delay, the same amount that occurred at the beginning of the segment. "It probably hadn't occurred to her..." Lie #3. If it hadn't occurred to her, then how to explain the multiple requests for an interview that had already been filed? As it turned out, FNC did get an interview with Corzine, not pursuant to any requests, but rather by catching him at the scene of an event, just as had been done with Chris Christie:


Apparently it didn't occur to anyone that it would be bad journalism to air this interview with Corzine because his opponent wasn't standing ten feet away to respond! And it seems that none of the websites that made such a big deal out of talking to Christie has even mentioned that Fox did the same with Corzine. That of course would include the biased bassets.

The "guest blogger" (gb) who recaps Glenn Beck's program continues to embarrass herself. When Beck revealed he had news about a new job for Anita Dunn's husband, gb cackled:

I think Beck was so excited by this possible evidence of Washington Corruption that he promoted it all week as his BIG NEWS, but could never get the story nailed down. There were no facts. No goods on Anita Dunn or her husband. No declarative statements. Just this smear left out there about Anita Dunn’s husband.

We're not sure why Mr Dunn getting a job would be a "smear". And the claim that there is no story is not exactly truthful. Another "guest blogger" blasts a headline:

Fox Business As Usual - Attacking Obama

The article in question is a straight report on the disagreement with the Chamber of Commerce. Read it: Fox Business did not "attack" Obama. Another lie.

Ellen tells us that if anyone on Fox argues that health care mandates are unconstitutional, they are just repeating "right wing talking points" that have been "debunked". Her "proof" of the debunking? A link to Media Matters (no bias there!) citing "legal scholars". Any legal scholar (and that would not include Ellen) will tell you that a difference of opinion regarding constitutional law analysis does not constitute "debunking". Brodsky goes on to claim that "Fair and balanced Fox never told its viewers" about any of these differing analyses. What's her evidence for that? Why, nothing at all. She made it up! Never mind all the reports, debates, and discussions you may have heard on Fox. Ellen says none of that ever happened.

Brodsky returns with a complaint about reporting on possible voter fraud in New Jersey. There are 2,300 applications with mismatched signatures, but rather than explaining why this isn't news, Brodsky's only argument is: what about Ann Coulter!

Meanwhile, "fair and balanced" Fox continues to ignore the formal voter-fraud investigations that have been launched against regular guest Ann Coulter.

Yes, the tu quoque fallacy raised to a new level! Note Brodsky's "proof" that Fox "ignored" the Coulter charges: a search of foxnation.com. That's really clever, Ellen. Not. Fox Nation wasn't even in existence when the Coulter charges made news! Are you going to attack USA Today for not having filed a report on the Hindenburg disaster? This ploy is as transparent as Saran Wrap, but what else could Brodsky do? After all, even a cursory search of foxnews.com would prove her charge that Fox "ignored" the Coulter charges to be another hound lie. By the way, Coulter doesn't work for Fox News. Brad Blog (another hound recommended site) continues to lie that she does, but it was MSNBC that hired her.

Tolerance and Compassion:
Our moment of Fox hater zen comes to us from the newspoodles, who are up in paws because they spotted "anti-Semitic" comments at Fox Nation. Ah yes, you'd never find Ellen Brodsky allowing that sort of thing in her kennel. Right?

• I'm glad crooks and warmongering neocons like Jew-liani and yourself are NOT associataed with Dr. Paul anymore. Your a disgrace to true libertarianism.
• Hey Goldberg, how would you like it if we linked your boy McCain in with the ZOG machine, maybe a little ditty about taking down the ZOG Machine JEW BY JEW BY JEW will get the white people up in arms and against McCain and the ZOG machine.
• Morris is a paid global business lackey and a Likudnik Zionist Jew
• Jew me, sue me / Everybody do me / Kick me, kike me / Don't you black or white me

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