At Salon, Alex Pareene has a well-observed piece on the latest developments and the broader context of Fox's war on NPR ("House GOP fails to defund NPR 'Nazis'"), which begins:
Phew! NPR will not have some minuscule fraction of its budget endangered by angry Republicans. For now. The vote to defund NPR -- which is not really funded by the federal government -- failed in the House of Represenatives 239-171.
But this isn't the end of it! Don't the Democrats know that the midterm elections were a referendum on Nancy Wilson's "Jazz Profiles"?
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said the vote demonstrates that Democrats "just don't get it" and "are still not ready to listen" to the American people after getting thumped on Nov. 2. He suggested that House Republicans will pursue another vote on the matter when the new Congress convenes next year, when the outcome is likely to be different. "If the Democrat majority wants to continue to ignore the will of the people that's their prerogative, but the new Republican majority will not follow suit next year," he said.
Democrats just don't get it. Republicans know the American people want Congress to defund NPR because defunding NPR won an online poll, the modern equivalent of a Constitutional Convention.
Why did it win that silly poll? Because it's a dumb thing that Fox won't shut up about, and that is all the House of Representatives will tackle for the foreseeable future.
The piece goes on to note:
Fox hates NPR for cultural reasons -- one strives to present an objective view of world events in as fair a style as possible, while the other one is a media experiment in infusing everything from a relentlessly mindless morning show to a psychotic Bircher's revival show with Republican propaganda (with one hour set aside for car chases and bear sightings) -- but the event that led to the pointless foofaraw was NPR's long-overdue dismissal of official Fox Liberal Juan Williams, who explained that he was scared of "Muslims" in their Muslimy clothes, and then refused to actually apologize when told that that offended his Muslim co-workers at NPR. Fox gave him $2 million to sit around being a symbol of the culture wars.
Rupert Murdoch, Fox's owner, has waged war against public broadcasting in every nation where he has a media presence. (His father, Sir Keith Murdoch, began the campaign by complaining that Australian Broadcasting Corp. -- their BBC -- would be "improper competition" to his newspapers.) His newspapers and his son are currently battling the BBC.
And, of course, proceeds to Roger Ailes most recent ranting:
"They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don't want any other point of view. They don't even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive."
But, you know, he sort of has a point. NPR sorta is like the Nazis--the Soup Nazi, that is. Except with facts (relative to Fox, that is.) This was proven quite decisively seven long years ago, when the Program on International Policy (PIPA) at the University of Maryland published a report, "Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War".
The report focused on three fundamental "misperceptions" (AKA lies)--that Irag had WMDs, the Iraq was connected to al Qaeda and that world opinion favored the US invasion of Iraq. Unsurprisingly, it found that Fox viewers were the most likely to believe these lies, and NPR viewers were the least likely. Furthermore, belief in the lies was related to support for the war. Details in charts on the flip.
The recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR for comments made on the Fox News and his affiliation with that network has created an interesting sidebar to this now all too familiar affair. The renewed scrutiny of NPR for its alleged liberal bias has resulted in an interesting byproduct. That byproduct is an increased level of attention now being paid to Fox, its parent the News Corp., and its wealthy conservative CEO, Rupert Murdoch.
The practice of allowing candidates to solicit campaign contributions while appearing on Fox News is a significant departure from what is generally considered television news broadcasting. Mr. Murdoch has abided this practice along with his own well-publicized million dollar contributions to Republican campaign organizations and other efforts to promote positions on the far right. That raises a fundamental question: Is Fox a legitimate news organization or has it morphed into something between a news organ and a political action operation even to the point of being considered a shill? A shill is defined as: "a person who publicizes or praises something or someone for reasons of self-interest, personal profit, or friendship or loyalty." A political action committee is defined as:"a type of political committee organized to spend money for the election or defeat of a candidate." Mr. Murdoch has a record of promoting conservative ideas no matter what the cost. He has continued to prop up the conservative "The New York Post" in spite of its staggering losses to the tune of between $15 million to $30 million. According to Business Week magazine: "The Post has lost so much money for so long that it would have folded years ago if News Corp. applied the same profit-making rigor to the tabloid as it does to its other businesses." What then is the purpose of the continued support of a newspaper the commentary of which often resembles old-fashioned agitprop? There can only be one logical explanation and it's because the Post represents Mr. Murdoch's primary organ for presenting the conservative line in what is one of the bluest regions in the country and he is willing to spend whatever it takes to do so.
The argument that Fox News has become somewhat of a political operation is more than apparent when one examines the following evidence. Former Ohio Republican Congressman and now candidate for Governor, John Kasich, appearing during prime time on "Hannity" was given time to solicit campaign contributions while on the air saying:" If you have extra nickels or dimes, please send it our way." According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times this is not the first time Kasich has used an appearance on Fox to raise money for his campaign. Quoting Stelter: "The channel was the subject of an election complaint in Ohio because Mr. Kasich was able to ask for money and display his Web site address during an interview in August on "The O'Reilly Factor," Fox's biggest prime time talk show. Mr. Kasich used to host a weekend show on Fox, and Mr. Murdoch has called him a friend." Moreover Stelter points out that Fox employees have engaged in more direct political action both on and off the air: "Sometimes the most outspoken of the Fox hosts go out and raise money directly. Mr. Hannity has headlined several fund-raisers for Republicans this year. And just last week, Mr. Beck donated $10,000 to the U. S. Chamber of Commerce to defend it against criticism from President Obama - and challenged his radio listeners to donate as well." Beyond these various forms of political action is the fact that several likely candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination are presently on the Fox payroll or regularly appear on the network, including Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich.
When you look across the political spectrum to Fox's chief rivals: MSNBC, CNN and NPR you see several object lessons in how competing news organizations have different values. Political action at MSNBC, for example, is much more constrained, to the point that there is very little deviation from what could considered legitimate news reporting and commentary. Again quoting Stelter: "All this political activity has spurred at least a little bit of hand-wringing at the channels. NBC News, which operates MSNBC, recently reiterated its rule that employees may not engage in political activity, but said it had carved out an exception for some MSNBC hosts." To date whatever exceptions exist at MSNBC, they are not even remotely close to the on the air solicitation of funds, public activities related to fund raising by network commentators or the employment of prospective presidential candidates on the network's payroll which is presently the case at Fox. At NPR political activity of any variety is virtually nonexistent. In the final analysis what we have witnessed at Fox News is the evolution of a news organization into something beyond what is commonly considered political reporting and commentary into something short of a political action committee, a sort of quasi-political news organ if you will. That said shouldn't the Fox News Network scrub the subtitle of "Fair and Balanced" from its headline banner seeing as it can no longer legitimately make that claim in light of the fundamental transformation that has taken place within the Fox organization?
Here at The Opportunity Agenda, we talk a lot about values, and the importance of building communications around them. In fact, we built a whole organization around six core values that drive our work and the way we talk about it. We do this, of course, because these values matter to us. Seeing them realized and supported are central to our goals. But as NPR explained recently, leading with values is also a savvy communications strategy. In a story on people's beliefs about climate change, reporter Christopher Joyce describes findings from Yale's Cultural Cognition Project that people form their views about climate change, among other things, based more on their existing worldview - and values - than on the facts presented to them.
As reported yesterday on NPR, current efforts by telecom providers threaten access to information and applications on the Internet. Possible changes by the Federal Communications Commission highlight these efforts, which pertain to what power Internet service providers have in restricting access that conflicts with their own interest. What is at stake are the values of opportunity, something that should be examined as the FCC released the proposed regulatory changes for public discussion.
Restricting the use of Internet based alternatives to telephones, such as Skype and other voice over Internet applications, is just one example of what changes could take place. As telephone and cable providers aggressively market often monopolized products, bundling Internet and telephone packages into one service plan, services that are free over the Internet jeopardize telecom companies own share in person to person communications.
On March 17, NPR published a poll under the innocuous headline "More Voters Think U.S. Is On Right Track." That poll had a rather surprising result on the question of generic Congressional ballot preference, with Democrats and Republicans tied at 42, and 15% undecided. Whoa. Is that true?
Well if you check the pollster trendlines, this seems entirely plausible:
Today, driving home from work listening to NPR on my satellite radio, I was delighted to hear House Majority Whip Clyburn confront the conservative anti-government ethos head on.
Republicans want to work with President Obama. We appreciate his message of hope -- but sometimes it seems we look for hope in different places. Democratic leaders in Washington place their hope in the federal government. We place our hope in you -- the American people.
The host asked a (meandering) question about the dim prospects of working with Republicans if they believe this, and Clyburn chose to instead cut at the (ideological) root of Jindal's attack on Democrats:
Driving home from work I endured NPR's inexplicable decision to give Jonah Goldberg airtime to admit that it is "more fun" for conservative pundits to be out of power (actually, I agree, it is more fun having Jonah out of power. Conservatives breaking the Planet isn't fun).
From my non-expert understanding of the subject matter, Alter does a fine job smashing up Shlaes' arguments throughout, but the highlight is the callers and emailers, who give me some sense and hope that conservative New Deal denialism isn't sticking with the public. In particular, at the 8:00 mark in the program, the very first caller actually attended FDR's inauguration and was 16 years old at the time, working as a Senate page. He makes a point of noting Shlaes' perception of history ignores that by 1935-36, things clearly had visibly improved. NPR's host stupidly insists on moving on to other callers in the too-quick manner of NPR, but Alter makes a point of getting contact info from the caller, so hopefully we will hear more from this man. There are very few people alive who were old enough to remember the New Deal in progress, never mind that actually worked in Washington and knew the players. The guy also has a good quip about the 20th Amendment (also from 1933) saving the country from 2 more months of Bush.
In the last diary, I outlined the ongoing collapse of journalism as we know it. My conclusion is that this is a public good, and a highly salutatory one (likely indispensable) for the kind of egalitarian and Just society we want. Since it evidently a market failure without a viable business model, government will need to provide it.
Fortunately, such institutions already exist. In America, PBS and NPR have survived (barely) a long era of government under leaders who really despise them. Now is the time to revive these institutions, and rebuild them for the 21st Century.
Chris' note that the big media sites were refusing to acknowledge Obama being above 270 EC votes by any reasonable polling analysis methodology was an important point. For whatever reason, reality is setting in with most of them, and they are being forced to update with Obama being over 270.
First, the non-corporate media projection sites updated counts:
A critical Republican campaign strategy is working when it comes to framing for the November election. Despite actual facts, media reporting increasingly reports that there is no difference of import between John McSame McCain and Barack Obama when it comes to the arenas of energy and Global Warming. Take David Kesterbaum's NPR report yesterday.
If you are trying to figure out whom to vote for in the upcoming presidential race, the issue of climate change may not be much help. This is one area where both leading candidates for president do not have a lot to disagree about.
Shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is about the most polite way to describe Kestenbaum's report which focuses solely on selected sound-bytes rather than the substance of the two candidates' positions.
There are fundamental differences between McSame's and Obama's positions and fundamental differences about the prospects for the future between President McSame and President Obama. Differences that Kesterbaum reporting will leave you ignorant about.
Our ever-evolving culture gave me a new verb, a new phrase, and a new acronym last week. The verb is "googlemire," and if you've ever been sucked into the Internet's virtual vortex, you know exactly what it means. Word maven Patricia T. O'Connor used it on NPR the other day, but, ironically, the word's so newly minted that you can't google it, yet.
The first time I got googlemired was December 19th, 2005. At the time, I was getting paid to blog about food for a "healthy living" website. With Christmas around the corner, I set out to write an innocuous post about low fat eggnog.
I googled around in search of the best brands, which led me to Horizon, which led me to the revelation that this supposedly organic dairy producer with the famously happy cows on its cartons was, in fact, becoming infamous for cramming its cows into open-air feedlots that totally violated the intentions of the organic standards. I got sucked into the Agribiz muck and have been stuck there ever since.
Which brings me to the sad new shorthand for battered bovines: "spent dairy cows." The Humane Society employed this phrase a month ago in reference to the Westland meat recall, noting that "15 percent of the hamburger meat in the United States comes from "spent" dairy cows."
An investigator for the Humane Society spent six weeks working in the outdoor pens at Westland/Hallmark, which used spent dairy cows to make ground beef.
Before you dismiss "Downergate" as last week's news, allow me to draw your attention to some details that beg for better coverage:
Downer cows are considered potentially unfit to eat because a cow that can't stand up may be (a) carrying mad cow disease, and (b) may have wallowed in E. coli-tainted manure which might find its way from the cow's hide to its carcass, and from there into our hamburgers.
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