Fox Propaganda TV

The Fox News Channel is reeling a bit from the Dems pulling out of the Nevada debate that was to be hosted/televised by Fox later this year (for more on this see here and here for a bit of background). The first salvo in this battle came when John Edwards made his principles clear and pulled out of the debate (while Clinton, Obama, and Nevada's Senator Reid stayed mum), but the straw that broke the camel's back was this monologue from Fox News chief Roger Ailes doing some schtick while accepting, as noted by TPM Cafe, the Radio-Television News Directors Association and Foundation's First Amendment Leadership Award. Here's the video with Ailes' comedy routine:



If you can't stomach watching, Tim Grieve at Salon's War Room sums up the most grievous jokes about the Democrats:

First, there was a joke about Bill Clinton, the philanderer. "It is true that just in the last two weeks Hillary Clinton has had over 200 phone calls telling her in order to win the presidency she must stay on the road for the next two years. It is not true they were all from Bill."

And then there was a joke about Barack Obama, the terrorist. "And it is that Barack Obama is on the move. I don't know if it's true that President Bush called Musharraf and said, 'Why can't we catch this guy?'"

Oh yeah, there was also one about France thrown in as well, completing the trifecta of Republican bogeymen.

So now Fox and the Right Wing Noise Machine (Drudge and the lot) are blaming this on fringe, extremist liberals who can't cotton to having open debate and free speech (check out Fox's Morton Kondracke referring to blogs like Daily Kos and MoveOn as "junior-grade Stalinists" over at ThinkProgress -- now that's a badge of honor!). But despite Fox's yearnings to be taken seriously as a news organization, the evidence has been plainly in sight for years that Fox cares not a white about journalism but rather propping up the Republican party and amplifying the RWNM echo chamber whenever possible. Be sure to check out this post over at Larry Johnson's No Quarter that's chock-full of screenshots that say it all.

And if you haven't seen the Robert Greenwald documentary Outfoxed, give it a viewing -- it's nothing you don't already know deep inside, but it explains all the little touches that Fox News uses to create is world of propaganda. Here's a clip: