It’s a holiday weekend, and we’ll be spending time away from the computer. So rather than skipping the FHWiR, we welcome guest blogger Chris Golas of Just My Opinion. After his contribution we’ll have a few comments of our own.

Chris Golas: Pin-Heads and Plagiarism

Steve runs the anti-o'reilly blog oreilly-sucks.com, which is kept on the Internet because Steve solicits donations to keep the site going. (I guess he is unaware that he can have a blog online for free with blogger or wordpress, so he doesn't have to pay.) Anyway the last time I visited the site I caught him being dishonest and it continues.

He has a post up about how the Tea Party would be a complete failure without Fox News. Well I guess Steve thinks that right wing radio, right wing blogs, and other right wing media have no influence. In the very first paragraph Steve lies saying:

Ask yourself this, if there were no Fox News Network would there even be a Tea Party, would anyone know who Glenn Beck is, and the answer is no.

Really? Fox news did not start the tea party. CNBCs Rick Santelli did. No one would know who Glenn Beck is? Beck started in radio and has is own radio show which has about 5-8 million listeners, then went to CNN headline news where he had his own show. CNN must have heard about him to give him his own show. I swear in the contest of who’s dumber, Steve or Media Matters Eric, Steve will win by a mile everytime. There is yet more:

The point is Beck used Fox News air time for months promoting and marketing his rally. Beck used his Fox News platform incessantly to pitch the rally and at times to practically beg people to attend.

Well duh, the name of his show on FNC is ‘Glenn Beck’, and I'm sure FNC doesn't restrict what Beck can and can't do--and never mind the fact that Beck has his own radio show. Steve goes on:

So the Beck 8/28 rally was basically co-sponsored by Fox News, thanks to the air time Beck set aside on his cable show to hype the event.

Really? Fox News co-sponsored the event? The same FNC that refused to air the rally?

FNC’s Executive Vice President of Programming for FOX News Bill Shine tells Mediaite, “FOX News has nothing to do with the rally – we will cover it as a news event alongside other news throughout that day.”

I didn't know that FNC forked over the money for the event--if that was the case then why did Beck need the SOWF? Steve claimed that:

This is a scam folks, because Beck is using their name (SOWF) to raise money to pay for his political rally.

and:

Beck is basically using their name to fund his rally.

That makes sense--not! The one thing that Steve leaves out in his post and in every article about Beck's rally is how MSNBC was so obsessed with it. According to Mediaite:

Using the past six days (Sunday morning at 12 am to Thursday night at 11:59 pm) we checked for references made to the rally or Beck on both networks. At first we searched for the phrase “Restoring Honor” and found that, in that time period, it had been referenced 15 times on Fox News and 11 times on MSNBC which makes sense. Then we remembered that MSNBC rarely references the rally by its name; frequently speaking of it as “Glenn Beck’s rally” or “Glenn Beck’s event.” When we broadened our search accordingly, the results were surprising...

Mediaite found that MSNBC mentioned the rally 101 times while FNC only mentioned it 50 times. I have no idea how often Beck mentioned the rally on his radio show. However to claim that Fox News heavily promoted the event is wrong and just plain dumb. One more thing: when I did put on FNC on Saturday their main focus was the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

The funny part is that Steve's blog is called o'reilly-sucks.com but yet he is complaining about Glenn Beck. I guess his other site isn't doing so hot. Wait, he has money for two sites?!? Yikes.

It's not just Steve peddling this line. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters writes:

The point is Beck used Fox News air time for weeks (months?) promoting and marketing his rally. Beck used his Fox News platform incessantly to pitch the rally and at times to practically beg people to attend. So in that sense, the 8/28 rally was co-sponsored by Fox News thanks to the invaluable air time Beck set aside on his cable show to hype the event.

Like I said before: duh! Glenn Beck has his own TV show and radio show to promote the event with no interference from FNC--and MSNBC mentioned the rally 101 times to FNC’s 50. I want to know how FNC sponsored the event. Really I do. FNC gave Beck no extra money for the event. If they did he had no need to fund the event nor did he need SOWF to co-sponsor the event. Also the definition for sponsor is:

1. One who assumes responsibility for another person or a group during a period of instruction, apprenticeship, or probation.
2. One who vouches for the suitability of a candidate for admission.
3. A legislator who proposes and urges adoption of a bill.
4. One who presents a candidate for baptism or confirmation; a godparent.
5. One that finances a project or an event carried out by another person or group, especially a business enterprise that pays for radio or television programming in return for advertising time.

Let's go thru the definitions: Did FNC assume responsibility for another person or group? NO. Did FNC vouch for suitability? NO. 2, 3, and 4 don't apply to the event. As for the 5th: One that finances a project or an event carried out by another person or group, especially a business enterprise that pays for radio or television programming in return for advertising time: NO, NO, NO!

Beck was on his own. FNC had no part in the event. They didn’t even air it. And on the day of the rally, MSNBC (well, up until they decided to go to tape) and CNN had extensive coverage. Think about it: if FNC really did fund the rally, you know how much that would have been covered? Seriously. What is Eric drinking or smoking? And Beck has a one hour show on FNC, but on radio he has three hours each weekday to talk about whatever he wants. So on the radio: 15 hours and on FNC: 5 hours (plus other appearances he makes on FNC). Like I asked before: How dumb is Eric Boehlert?

One more thing: Let’s look again at that quote from Eric Boehlert’s piece:

The point is Beck used Fox News air time for weeks (months?) promoting and marketing his rally. Beck used his Fox News platform incessantly to pitch the rally and at times to practically beg people to attend. So in that sense, the 8/28 rally was co-sponsored by Fox News thanks to the invaluable air time Beck set aside on his cable show to hype the event.

Now let’s compare that with a quote from oreillysucks:

The point is Beck used Fox News air time for months promoting and marketing his rally. Beck used his Fox News platform incessantly to pitch the rally and at times to practically beg people to attend. All the right-wing groups, websites, and media outlets also promoted the rally, with ads in their magazines, writing about it, etc.

Amazingly similar. And Boehlert’s article was posted before Stevie’s. We poked around Media Matters and came across a post called ‘O'Reilly ignores Beck's own words in defending him’. It was written at 12:18am on August 31, 2010. At 9:30am on O'reillysucks.com a post went up called ‘O'Reilly Misleading As He Pledges to Defend Beck’.

By the headlines it might be two different articles, but you would be wrong. I will again demonstrate on how similar the two posts are. Keep in mind that Steve never credits or even mentions Media Matters in his post. The first paragraph from Media Matters:

Earlier tonight, Bill O'Reilly pledged to defend his Fox News colleague, Glenn Beck, against "the people generating the attacks" against him -- which, they both agreed, "are gonna get worse" -- saying, "I have your back." Well, later on in the show, O'Reilly proved true to his word and did defend him -- by obscuring Beck's own statements that his rally would "reclaim the civil rights movement," which he said has been "corrupted" by progressives.

Now oreillysucks.com:

Monday night Bill O'Reilly pledged to defend Glenn Beck, against the people generating the attacks against him, which they both agreed, "are gonna get worse" saying, "I have your back." So then later on in the show, O'Reilly did defend him, by spinning Beck's own statement that his rally would "reclaim the civil rights movement," which he said has been corrupted by progressives.

Both use almost the same exact language. Sure Steve changed a few words but the language is very similar. There is more. Media Matters:

While Beck has repeatedly asserted that "Whites don't own Abraham Lincoln" and "Blacks don't own Martin Luther King," it is not the "whole theme," as O'Reilly suggested. Beck hasn't simply said he wants to share or join the civil rights movement -- he has said he wants to "reclaim" it, and that him and his followers are "the inheritors and the protectors of the civil rights movement," while people like Sharpton "are perverting it.

"Oreillysucks:

While Beck has repeatedly said that "Whites don't own Abraham Lincoln" and "Blacks don't own Martin Luther King," it is not the whole theme, as O'Reilly implied. Beck has not just said he wants to share or join the civil rights movement, he has said he wants to reclaim it, and that him and his followers are "the inheritors and the protectors of the civil rights movement," while people like Sharpton are perverting it.

Media Matters:

O'Reilly wanted to discuss solely what happened at the rally.

O'reillysucks.com:

O'Reilly did not want to talk about any of that, he only wanted to talk about what happened at the rally.

Again more of the same language. If Steve wanted to use material from Media Matters than he should have credited them. Readers of O'reillysucks.com would think that the words were Steve's and Steve's alone.

This throws in doubt every article Steve has written about O'Reilly and his ‘reviews’ of The O'Reilly Factor. If Steve will steal from Media Matters, does he steal material from billoreilly.com for his ‘reviews’ of the shows? Does he even bother to watch the programs? If this is just a coincidence it's a very strange one. Steve could have credited Media Matters and done some sort of comment beyond just rewriting their words.

There might be another explanation for it, but it's hard to believe that this is anything other than plagiarism.

Portions of the above appeared on Chris Golas’s blog Just My Opinion.

Around the Interwebs

There’s never a lack of Fox Hater fodder on the world-wide web. The premier source remains the newshounds, where Ellen Brodsky is now attacking Joe Trippi. What’s the beef? She’s upset that Joe isn’t lying enough!

I first saw him on America Live bemoaning the fate of Democrats in the upcoming mid-terms.

What? How dare he! Never mind that the latest nonpartisan projections show the Republicans taking over the House, with the Senate ‘on the bubble’. Of course Brodsky insists she isn’t exactly asking him to lie:

Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone should ever be untruthful but there are certainly ways of being truthful without being a stooge for your opponent.

Right. Now how exactly does Mr Trippi tell the truth about Democratic prospects without being smeared by Ellen? What are those ‘ways’ she’s talking about? Funny, she doesn’t say. We strongly suspect they involve something Brodsky is most adept at: making stuff up!

Just what is going on at TV Newser? Today they ran a story about the hurricane coverage, and the headline blares:

Cable News Channels Fail to Cover Hurricane Earl Overnight

As you can see, Alex Weprin insisted that nobody was doing overnight coverage. There’s just one thing wrong with that: it ain’t true. FNC had live coverage from 1:00 am to 3:00 am, regular live updates afterward, with full coverage resuming at 5:00 am. It’s not like this was a secret. It was listed on FNC’s online schedule for Thursday. Eventually Mr Weprin added a one-sentence update noting Fox’s coverage, but as of 8:00 pm the misleading headline stubbornly remains. The question is: how did this piece even get published? Did Mr Weprin concoct the whole thing without having seen the coverage for himself? Did he fact-check anything before hitting the publish button?

The last time we met Bob Cesca he was regurgitating the line that Prince Al-Waleed ‘helped to fund Park51’. He’s moved on to Glenn Beck with a lengthy HuffPo screed about the 8/28 rally. It hits all the requisite talking points: attack Beck’s sponsors, smear the attendees as ‘angry, naïve, paranoid white people’, and of course accuse Beck of being a con-man:

Like any faith-healer, though, it's the money that ultimately lights a trail to the con-man behind the curtain. Until Saturday, when he, like any faith-healer, tearfully begged his audience for more cash to finance the revival concert, Beck never explicitly passed the collection bucket.

You wouldn’t recognize it from Cesca’s twisted misinformation, but what happened was that Beck asked those at the rally to text $10 to the Special Operations Warriors Foundation. That’s where the money went: the SWOP. Mr Cesca apparently has a problem with that.

Both Beck and SOWF report that the concert raised $5.5 million, but it's unclear how much of that money is actually going to be paid to the charity.

No, it’s not unclear. Beck gets none of the money. All of it goes to the charity, because the rally was their event:

All contributions made to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) will first be applied to the costs of the Restoring Honor Rally taking place on August 28, 2010. All contributions in excess of these costs will then be retained by the SOWF.

The contributions go to the SWOP, and once costs are met the excess will be retained by the SWOP. Got that, Bob? Retained. You can’t retain something you don’t have, and the SWOP gets all the money because they’re the ones paying the costs. Everything after that goes to families of Special Operations soldiers. Does Mr Cesca have a problem with this too?

So SOWF gets leftovers. If the event indeed grossed $5.5 million, it's not necessarily accurate to say that all of that money was paid to the SOWF like Beck's website claims.

Um, the texts went to the SWOP. Checks sent to Beck were made out to the SWOP. Donations on the online page went to the SWOP. Just how would the money not be paid to the SWOP? Back to Bob Cesca’s fantasies:

Unless, of course, the concert managed to raise significantly more than $5.5 million to cover the overhead. And the overhead is massive.

Since the overhead costs were exceeded a month and a half before the rally was ever held, what is Cesca’s point?

How much did fellow grifter Sarah Palin earn? And why, if this was a charity event to honor Jesus and the troops, would she take any money at all? We know her rate alone is $75,000, plus expenses and riders.

It took us all of 20 seconds with the Google Machine to ascertain that Palin didn’t get a speaking fee. Sheesh. Cesca is either a hopeless nincompoop or an inveterate liar. We report, you decide.

Spot something you’d like to see in the next Fox Haters Week in Review? Like to try your hand at being a guest blogger? Send us an email! And best wishes for a fun Labor Day weekend!

Tags: mediamatters, huffpo, boehlert, newshounds, beck