Employees Expose FOX NEWS Distortions

[prince-in-jail]

FOX News: "Fair and balanced" because they say so!

As Rupert Murdoch's 'war on journalism' hits new lows, droves of disgruntled employees are confessing their many misdeeds, brought upon by the systematic oppression they faced at FOX News. Watch how FOX executives dictate their bias by forcing reporters to follow memos that predetermine "what they could say and how they could say it.

Rupert Murdoch has decided that the best approach to journalism is to parade opinions dressed-up as News. The reason is simple: No one can disprove an opinion, and therefore, credibility is easier to maintain. Should they ever get caught lying, the legal process affords them protection under the First Amendment. All this, thanks in part to Congress who had the bright idea of passing a rider(hidden) Bill to deregulate the News Media. That's right, Corporate News entities can tell lies and distort the news if they so choose, and it's all perfectly legal.

To the best of my knowledge, no country can have or maintain democracy without an honest Press or, at least, one that can be held accountable. But where is ours?

Not convinced? "Florida Appeals Court ruled that there is absolutely nothing illegal in a major media organization lying, concealing or distorting information": http://www.netfeed.com/~jhill/RupertMurdoch.htm

 

[BSD]

We report, you get it wrong
By Jim Lobe

2003
WASHINGTON - The more commercial television news you watch, the more wrong you are likely to be about key elements of the Iraq War and its aftermath, according to a major new study released in Washington on Thursday.

And the more you watch the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News channel, in particular, the more likely it is that your perceptions about the war are wrong, adds the report by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA).

Based on several nationwide surveys it conducted with California-based Knowledge Networks since June, as well as the results of other polls, PIPA found that 48 percent of the public believe US troops found evidence of close pre-war links between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist group; 22 percent thought troops found weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq; and 25 percent believed that world public opinion favored Washington's going to war with Iraq. All three are misperceptions.

The report, Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War, also found that the more misperceptions held by the respondent, the more likely it was that s/he both supported the war and depended on commercial television for news about it.

The study is likely to stoke a growing public and professional debate over why mainstream news media - especially the broadcast media - were not more skeptical about the Bush administration's pre-war claims, particularly regarding Saddam Hussein's WMD stockpiles and ties with al-Qaeda.

In general I'd say this applies:

Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship
CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of fear and self-censorship."

As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administrationline in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind the invasion.

On last week's Topic A With Tina Brown on CNBC, Brown, the former Talk magazine editor, asked comedian Al Franken, former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and Amanpour if "we in the media, as much as in the administration, drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the war."

Said Amanpour: "I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."

In the runup and early stages of the Iraq war almost the entire US media stopped functioning like a free and independent press acting as a watchdog on government and instead turned into a state propaganda instrument that played a pivotal role in spreading Bush's lies, deceit and fabrications .