Conservative Idol: Health Care & the Fox News Incentive
To understand how Fox News crosses the line from right-leaning news outlet into partisan propaganda machine (and there is a difference between the two), look no further than exactly how the network is driving (or at least trying to drive) the health care debate via the congressional town hall meetings.
As a PR tactic, Fox's three-tiered formula is absolutely ingenious:
1. First, Fox has given a huge amount of airtime to covering the lobbyist-organized protests at the town hall meetings, without, of course, mentioning that many of the protests are organized by lobbyists. Mind you, we know this interest in protest and "democracy" is completely politically motivated because we know it is completely new -- it's not some ongoing Fox News principle. This is the same network that regularly pilloried anti-war protests during the Bush administration, and gave them almost no coverage, much less positive, whatsoever. So it's safe to assume that Fox is only now interested in protest and democracy because it might hurt President Obama, Democrats and the progressive agenda.
2. Whenever one member of the protesters in the Khaki Pants Offensive makes an especially circus-like scene, Fox then has that particular protester on for an interview -- all under the pretense that the protester has made him/herself "news." In the last two days alone, I've seen Fox aggressively promote "exclusive" interviews with screaming protesters from Rep. John Dingell's (D-MI) and Rep. David Scott's (D-GA) town meetings. Fox dutifully promotes these people as persecuted martyrs, and their actual claims about health care are barely -- if ever -- explored for their veracity (or lack thereof).
3. Finally, after helping create the media image of mass protests, Fox has manufactured a reason to continue covering the supposed mass protests. And the cycle starts over.
What this does is create a vicious cycle whereby the small group of conservative activists who are terrorizing these town halls have an incentive to be more and more aggressive. They know that if they can go further than the last supposed martyr, they might get their mug on Fox News. In that way, it's a little like American Idol - only it's Conservative Idol. And so from protesters trying to shut down town hall meetings with screaming we get protesters shoving matches and then protesters arming themselves and then protestors making death threats. This is the Fox News Incentive System at work.
Let's be clear: I have absolutely no problem with conservative protesters -- even those organized by corporate lobbyists -- expressing their strong opposition to health care reform. While I happen to think most of these people are motivated from raw selfishness, and while polls show these people represent a tiny minority of Americans, I sincerely believe they have every right to make their voice heard. Indeed, my personal email signature is a Teddy Roosevelt quote which says, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
However, just because you have a right to speak, doesn't mean you have a right to block/intimidate others from speaking or a right to shut down town hall meetings. That's what the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd is trying to do in starting its World War Z. And the Fox News Incentive System is rewarding them for it.
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Joan Walsh
Kerry Lauerman
Salon.com
Comments
I am sure you meant include that this also applies to the union goons who showed up in St. Louis to do a little intimidation of their own.
A little perspective, please. Ignorant ranting and violence are not democracy. They are third world banana republic politics.
As you can see in the link below most of our health problems are self inflicted by smoking, over eating, not exercising and eating crap instead of food.
Why do you want us to pay for your failure to control yourself? Is there no pride left, the guy in NH has a picture of him holding a sign wearing a tee shirt to show his 40 belly clearly. He thinks it is the government he has to worry about, look in the mirror fatso, you will see the enemy clearly, or at least as much that can fit in front of a mirror.
http://tinyurl.com/q9fm4h
If we dont wind up with a public option at the end of this, we need to replace those pol's who prevent it, fox or no fox.
We pay for cable, then we are forced to watch adverts on cable, now we get programming that is bogus as well. In this case we also pay a premium for health care in order to fund this propaganda.
For Blackflon and Deborah Young: You point at one--ONE--occurrence that you argue had Democratic support (although you neglected to show that the "union thugs" were "brought in" by a fake popular front set up by Democratic lobbyists). But you do not mention the many many thuggish incidents by wingnuts at Democratic town halls. I suppose in your ratiocination one dubious citation equals a record of continuing disruption. Oh, and where are the elected Democrats who have vowed to make town hall meetings "town hells," or made jokes about lynchings and murders? Does that sort of language not show intent? I'm not a doctrinaire Democrat, but I can sure tell the difference in behavior.
Most other people can too. You're not fooling anyone. You're just allying yourself with the creeps and the bullies, and in this case, the losers. Good luck with that strategy.
Obama's popularity is slipping daily, largely as a consequence of this horrendous power grab a/k/a health care reform.
Spector's town meeting was devastating for the Dems--serious, politely put questions that had the Senator either granting concessions that will be retracted later (like most of Obama's campaign promises) or mumbling in his beer.
And if the polls and town meeting results don't convince you, take a gander at The New York Times non-fiction best seller list. Four of the five are violent attacks on the Obama Administration and all of the collectivist garbage that it represents.
That's the EXACT description of what a bully does. I know. I experienced a couple of bullies recently. These town hall meeting disrupters are bullies, and Fox News is a bully for promoting these thugs. Of course, Fox News will say "tsk, tsk, what a shame!" if one of those wingnuts shoots someone. Then FN will "report" some minor flaw of the person who dies endlessly as if that person was to blame for their own death. It's racially motivated. It's facism. It's wrong.
Where is the evidence that the Town Hallers were sent by the Republican machine?
Yes, some of it may have been organized by outside groups. So what?
I guess the protests about the Vietnam War and the protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention were simply spontaneous.
And yet you complain about a few shouting voices.
Gordon: Limbaugh's "The Way Things Ought to Be," hitting #1 didn't mean "the American people" as a whole agreed with him anymore than Franken's "Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat Idiot" ALSO reaching #1 indicated the same regarding Mr. Franken. There's always an audience for these books.
But it's telling that you savor the "violent attacks" these books provide on the president of this great country. Very significant that you apparently get a charge from such a description.
I remember how conservative David Brooks BLASTED Bobby Jindal's speech awhile back, correctly pointing out that Jindal was rehashing the same tired attacks upon liberal/progressive ideas. And here you use the buzzword "collectivist." Why, we're all going to become commies!
Republican conservatism is an utter, spectacular shambles, and your type of rant indicates you people will be consigned to the political wilderness for a long time to come.
And who needs "public schools"? I say, food safety is highly overrated. We can trust the insurance companies to provide quality affordable health care as much as we can trust big corporations not to pollute our air and water.
I concur.
With you.
Fox is also burying, but burying, the left-wing dominated networks and cable stations in the ratings. Vox populi rides again. A real tribute to the First Amendment. Capitalized and one "m" please.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder. This reminds me quite a bit of Pelosi taking impeachment "off the table," or Obama not going after the torture sanctioned and performed by the Bush administration because he "wants to look ahead." If the other side is playing dirty, we put ourselves at a terrible disadvantage by playing "clean."
I don't know the answer. No, of course I don't want to send screaming morons to Republican town hall meetings. On the other hand, I think this quote is very true: "if you use sportsmanship on a known scamp, you put yourself at a terrible disadvantage.’"
Also when Fox cut away I simply changed the channel. It's that little clicker thingy that you use when you don't like what you see on the TV.
A long time ago, I wrote on my own blog how big a throwdown I expected it to be. Millions of people have their skin in this game, and unless it gets really, really contentious, we are not going to see a resolution. I think we need to have it out, blood, guts, and all, right now.
Let Fox do its worst. The Republicans have already said they want to break Obama over this issue. But as everyone can see, the left isn't hiding this time. So now the tables are turning and conservatives realize for the first time that they also have their necks on the table.
I say let them roar. The louder they roar the more the public will realize it really wants health care reform. Remember conservatives tried to control civil rights marches with tear gas and fire hoses, and what they ended up doing was turning the public against them once and for all.
I have a feeling these overheated town hall meetings are the firehose images, all over again.
As far as your polls go, what most surveys do not tell you is that much of Obama's fall in approval and in his handling of health care comes from people on the left who think he has caved in too much to the right. The public option is still more popular than not, and in every poll ever taken, when single payer is described (not just labeled) it gets massive support. Your side is apparently getting a lot of support from people who don't even know that Medicare and Social Security are government programs.
Blackflon: Liar. When Obama asked for opponents' questions, two people responded at the end. Throughout, the president demolished every argument against health care reform in general.
auwe
It also struck me that CNN is beginning to sound a lot like Fox. I had to make sure I was indeed watching CNN and not the Fox Network.
Why do I have so much time to watch the nuts on all cable channels? I am busy electronically entering health records, which I have done for 23 years now, and I am thoroughly acquainted with the plight of the uninsured, the revolving hospital door, the high cost of meds, the doctors who order tests to protect themselves from lawsuits, and the responsible practitioners who are finding it really hard to love their work in this climate. Tort reform is only a gift to the insurance companies; they do not proportionately lower their rates in relation to the savings they reap. The insurance companies were not always as evil as they are now. They got drunk on Wall Street with the investment bankers, and they have never been the same since. Pres. Obama is about to perform an intervention on these folks, with the aid of our elected representatives, and I couldn't be happier about it. Elections have consequences, folks. I wish I could have dictated to my government that not one dime of my tax dollars should go toward the war in Iraq, but I guess only the anti-abortion people get to dictate how their tax money is spent.
When one is referring to a specific amendment, e.g., the First Amendment, it becomes a proper noun requiring capitalization, as in melissa souza.
It's good that some network is around to record Obama's lies about AARP endorsement.