Fox News Accuses NPR of Offensive and Biased Coverage

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Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 04:58 pm

Today on Fox and Friends Fox News continued the right wing attack on NPR, as they now claimed that George Soros got Juan Williams fired because he recently donated $1.8 million to NPR. Steve Doocy claimed that, “NPR has a bone to pick and an axe to grind with Fox News.” Brian Kilmeade accused NPR of, “a history of biased and offensive coverage.”

Here is the video from Media Matters:

The hypocrisy and hilarity ensued when Steve Doocy of Fox and Friends accused NPR of firing Juan Williams because Juan Williams was fired for saying what he felt, and asked,”Wait a minute. All he was doing was saying what he felt. How can feelings be dangerous to a democracy?” Gretchen Carlson blamed George Soros for Juan Williams being fired, “One other really important point that the general public should know about is that George Soros a very left Democrat has just recently given NPR $1.8 million, so today and yesterday many people were asking questions about how that donation and that influx of cash into NPR factored in, if at all, to the firing of Juan Williams, so no doubt there’s going to be a big investigation looking into that now.”

Doocy made the attack painfully obvious by saying, “He said it on Fox News, and I think that’s really it. They got a bone to pick and an axe to grind with Fox News.” The Fox and Friends crew then gave their laundry list of NPR bias. Their list consisted of four examples. First, Terry Gross pointing out last week that there appears to be a lot of extremist candidates running in the GOP this year. Second, they claimed that the Israeli opinion was not represented in a July panel discussion about the flotilla incident. Third, they mentioned a comment by an NPR commenter calling the rapture crap, which Fox and Friends characterized as a call for Christian genocide. And lastly, they listed Nina Totenberg’s 15 year old comment about Jesse Helms getting HIV.

I can provide more examples of Fox bias than Fox and Friends about NPR from yesterday alone.

Here is Sean Hannity on his Fox Radio show campaigning and fundraising for PA Republican Pat Toomey:

Here is Fox and Friends’ own Steve Doocy calling agreeing with Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle on abolishing the Department of Education:

Here is Neil Cavuto hosting Republican Freedom Works’ Dick Armey who fear mongered about Democrats and early voting:

Here is Newt Gingrich promoting his Republican fundraising website on FNC:

The fact that Fox News would accuse NPR or any other network on this planet of bias is hysterical. Fox News is television channel that exists solely to promote the Republican cause. Notice that I did not have to go back 15 years to find evidence of offensive and biased coverage on Fox. One day was more than enough. Gretchen Carlson was correct about something. NPR is partially funded with taxpayer money. Exactly two percent of NPR’s budget comes from the federal government.. NPR is really an outstanding example of free market principles as most of their funding comes from programming fees and advertising.

What Fox News does not tell its viewers is that DeMint’s proposal is not just about defunding NPR. The right is also out to defund Big Bird, Elmo and PBS. In this respect, Juan Williams is nothing more than a cover story for the GOP’s latest attempt to privatize public television and radio. Richard Nixon tried to get rid of public radio and television in 1971. The Reagan administration tried in 1981. Bob Dole pushed for it in 1993. Newt Gingrich and the Republican Revolution House tried in 1995. The Republican controlled House tried again most recently in 2005, and now we have Jim DeMint, Eric Cantor, Sarah Palin, and Fox News trying again in 2010.

Notice that the right tries to get rid of public TV and radio every 5-10 years, and also notice that the figures leading the movement are getting weaker. We have gone from two presidential administrations, Nixon and Reagan, to two Republican controlled Houses to a senator in the minority party, a member of the House minority leadership, a failed VP candidate/reality TV star, and the GOP propaganda cable television channel. Despite the flap over Juan Williams, this movement is fading.

The reason for this is that the vast majority of politicians on both sides of the aisle know that PBS and NPR are very popular with the American people. Campaigns against Big Bird and Elmo never end well for the GOP. Fox News has been using NPR as their liberal media bias boogeyman for years, and right now they want revenge because NPR fired one of their own.

It is ridiculous to the rest of us that FNC would “expose” the bias of NPR while ignoring their own, but to the audience who watches only Fox the message of media mistrust was reinforced. The brainwashing continued with FNC telling their viewer that NPR is an evil liberal conspiracy run by George Soros. Look at what NPR did to poor Juan? They are your enemy Fox News viewer, stick with us where you get the real facts and are safe. While their campaign to defund NPR will certainly fail, Fox News will succeed in keeping their viewers paranoid, uninformed and scared, and that is the secret to the News Corporation profit model.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

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