Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 03:13 pm
Fox News has edited a clip from President Obama’s bus tour in order to claim that the president is attacking the wealthy.
Here’s the video from Media Matters:
An error occurred with the video embed.
Fox News played a clip of President Obama saying, “And middle class is also an attitude. It’s not just about income; it’s about knowing what’s important and not measuring your success just based on your bank account. But it’s about your values, and being responsible– and looking after each other.”
However that was wasn’t all of what the president said. In the unedited quote, Obama said, “Now, these past three and a half years have made it tough on everybody. We saw the middle class struggling and folks who were trying to get into the middle class — I want to say, by the way, when I talk about middle class, I’m also talking about poor folks who are doing the right thing and trying to get into the middle class. (Applause.) And middle class is also an attitude. It’s not just about income; it’s about knowing what’s important and not measuring your success just based on your bank account. But it’s about your values, and being responsible — (applause) — and looking after each other, and giving back.”
You’ll notice that Fox hacked out Obama’s message of personal responsibility. The full quote shows that the president wasn’t attacking the wealthy or saying that the wealthy have no values. In fact the wealthy aren’t even mentioned in the entire quote. The president said that these times have been tough on everyone.
This is how Fox News misinforms their viewers without saying a word. They edit video to fit their pro-Republican narrative. After the video clip, Charles Payne delivered the message that Fox News viewers are supposed to take from the video.
Payne said, “Let me tell you, this is what’s so disappointing about it and despicable about it. Talking about people doing the right thing. Imagine you go to college, you work your way through college, you get out and you meet your girlfriend there and you guys get married and you both come out of school and you’re saddled with a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of debt. You work your way through the corporate system and you have a couple of kids and you sacrifice, who knows, maybe 10, 20 years later, you have made it up the ladder of success. You’ve made all the sacrifices. You go to church but in the president’s eyes because you make a certain amount of money you don’t have values? You don’t have principles? That is sickening stuff right there. It’s divide and conquer and it’s also demonizing success. Why isn’t the job market moving? You’re demonizing success.”
It is clear that it is Fox News, not President Obama, that was pushing the class warfare message. They edited video of the president to create a completely false attack in order to advance their pro-Romney class warfare message that Obama the Socialist is punishing success.
None of it was true. It was all concocted to push a fantasy. It was a Fox News lie designed to attack the President of the United States, just another step in the never ending News Corp propaganda campaign against Barack Obama.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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