Sunday, March 22, 2009

fair and balanced?



Fox News seems to be spreading some dandelions of its own lately. First they defended Aaron Klein's fake Wikiepedia entry about Obama's birth certificate, and then last week they aired an old clip of Joe Biden that they tried to pass as new. This week, Fox News' Trace Gallagher said that the Dow was up 28 points when President Obama began his stimulus package speech and dropped to -28 by the time his speech was over. But, this just wasn't true.

The video from DailyKosTV shows that during President Obama's speech the Dow actually gained six points. After starting at -34, it ended at -28 points by the time he was finished. Never mind that it is completely ridiculous to tie Obama's speeches to our gyrating markets. What's most disturbing is Fox News' motto: "Fair & Balanced." Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of fair and balanced when it comes to Obama. I mostly see dandelions.

I guess this is what Stanford U's Robert Proctor meant by agnotology. I can only imagine that the next time I see my mother (a Fox fan and Sean Hannity devotee) she'll bring up this dandelion Dow as a way to say she told me so. And even if I tell her it just wasn't true, it will already have been too late.
Posted by tracy at 4:48 PM
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3 comments:

  1. A. K. BrownMarch 22, 2009 at 7:14 PM

    Ugh - dandelions for sure! My parents, while not FOX devotees, definitely use "evidence" like this to support their right-of-center approach. It drives me nuts because there is no arguing...you are just another lefty-media-infected lib who is using every opportunity to destroy tradition.

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  2. UnknownMarch 24, 2009 at 2:12 PM

    Fox news/Bill O'Reilly also went after Center for American Progress "Loons" recently:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/24/oreilly-producer-stalks-a_n_178468.html

    Sorry we have you students working with some left wing nuts for group projects! - Tom

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 24, 2009 at 9:07 PM

    Seriously, I'm outraged, Tom. How could you! It's not like there aren't valid criticisms to be made of most ideas, why does Fox feel the need to push things to accidental mistakes or hyperbole at best, and outright intentional misinformation at worst?

    ReplyDelete

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