Friday Fox Follies – Fake News, Fake Tears

The big news this week was about fake newsmen Brian Williams and Jon Stewart and — wouldn’t you know it — Fox “News” had fingerprints at both scenes of the crime.

As last week’s FFF was being forged, the Fox “News” Channel’s sudden obsession with tee vee falsehoods, but only those of Brian Williams, was turning into a torrent. By the time NBC benched the liar, we were drenched. It was deemed so important — and Fox “News” had devoted so much air time to the story — that, as Josh Feldman tells us in Fox’s Kurtz: NBC Suspended Williams to ‘Stop the Hemorrhaging of Its Credibility’:

Fox News cut into The O’Reilly Factor tonight with the big news that Brian Williams is getting a six-month suspension from NBC News without pay. Shepard Smith read the entire NBC announcement on-air before bringing on Howard Kurtz for his reaction.

Kurtz said, “This is nothing less than an attempt by NBC Universal to stop the bleeding, to stop the hemorrhaging of its credibility caused by the fabrication of its star anchor.”

The words “fabrication of its star anchor” were said without a sense of irony considering whose show was being interrupted for this IMPORTANT FOX “NEWS” ALERT! According to George Costanza, it’s not a lie if you believe it and Kurtz, the Fox “News” Media critic, seems genuinely unaware that both he and Fox “News” were holding Brian Williams to a higher standard. As Leonard Pitts, Jr., notes in Brian Williams, Fox News and journalism credibility:

Fans of Fox News, at least to judge from my e-mail queue, are having a ball with all this [Brian Williams news]. I wrote a column a few weeks back blasting Fox for its habitual, ideology-driven inaccuracy. Attacking Fox is not for the faint of heart. Its viewers (like Rush Limbaugh’s listeners) tend to take it personally, responding with such a nasty, visceral outrage that a body might think you’d blasphemed their deity rather than criticized their news outlet. I savaged CNN in this space last year and while some folks took issue, no one called me a “bleephole” or invited me to “bleep” myself. With most Fox fans, that’s the salutation.

So this latest news brings a flood of e-mail crowing over Williams’ troubles and demanding I give him equal treatment.

As I wrote in the aforementioned column, serious people do not take Fox seriously. Indeed, consider the level of angst, the sense of expectations betrayed, that has attended Williams’ failure and ask yourself: Would there be a similar outpouring if someone at Fox had told this whopper?

Unlikely.

Pitts is exactly right. Even though Bill O’Reilly Defends Brian Williams from ‘Sewer’ of the Internet that didn’t stop wags from asking When Will Fox News Fire Bill O’Reilly For Lying About Combat Duty? With no sense of irony: O’Reilly [says]: Brian Williams Should Get Us Questioning Other News ‘Distortions.’ A damned good idea. Let’s start with these Fox “News” “distortions” in just the last 7 days:

Fox’s Bolling: ‘Zero’ People Have Been Killed
in the Name of Every Religion But Islam

Fox’s Tucker Carlson: ‘We Don’t Have Slavery
In The World Today’ Because Of Christianity

Watch:

Fox Business Host: Food Stamp Program
Is A “Deliberate” Effort To Buy Votes

Watch Fox News Turn Great News About Jobs
Into Bad News About Obama Before Your Eyes

However, the most egregious Fox “News” Lie of the Week [F’N’LotW]: Fox Host Twists Obama’s Words To Create Parallel Universe On ISIS Strategy. As MMfA‘s Emily Arrowwood reports:

[…] Fox viewers heard a much different description of Obama’s sentiment the next day on The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson. According to Carlson, “The president said we have no national security interest in this fight.” After airing a short video depicting a portion of his remarks (but omitting Obama’s statement about destroying ISIS), Carlson asked Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC), “What did President Obama mean yesterday when he said that it’s not in our interest to defeat ISIL? Huh?”

Huh is exactly right.

Ask yourself, what’s more dangerous to our national discourse? When Brian Williams exaggerates on a talk show or when Fox News Plagiarizes RNC’s Hillary Clinton Attack Campaign? One is self-aggrandizement, while the other is being the propaganda arm of a political party. What about when Fox Gave Defense Lobbyist An Undisclosed Platform To Slam Obama On Client’s Behalf? Or when a Fox News Guest Calls Obama’s Christianity Comments ‘Verbal Rape’?

Where would you put Fox’s never-ending Climate Change denial? Right now a Fox Promo Promises to Explain ‘Why Global Warming Isn’t Stopping the Snow’ on a show tomorrow, as Fox News’ Special Report Advances Debunked Claim That Climate Change Data Is “Cooked” and Fox host [scare-mongers]: ‘We had to give up our freedom’ during snow storm because climate change is a hoax.

Afraid yet? Fox’s Tantaros: Schools Should Teach Islam So We Know ‘Who We’re Fighting’:

“I don’t think we know enough about Islam,” Tantaros said. “There’s a lot of people in the country now that could stand to learn: who are we fighting over there? How did this religion get perverted? What do they believe? I don’t think it’s a bad idea — as long as they get the 100 pages on Christianity and Judaism as well.”

You know who is scared at all this crazy rhetoric? Friend of slain Muslim students rips GOP and Fox News: Stop dehumanizing Muslims.

And, all these headlines were in the last 7 days.

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Turning to our other big story: Before Announcing Departure, Jon Stewart Mocks Fox News’ Newfound Love For Muslim King. While he’s probably more relieved than anything else O’Reilly Pays Tribute to Stewart with Montage of Their Best Moments Together. Other tributes like Classic Flashback: Jon Stewart’s Epic Takedown of “Lying Dynasty” Fox News, That Time Jon Stewart Destroyed Tucker Carlson And Got A Show Cancelled, and Jon Stewart vs. Fox News: 10 brutal takedowns that have us missing him already prompted Jon Stewart on Media Coverage of His Announcement: ‘Did I Die?’

But even Stewart ‘Victim’ Josh Earnest [said]: White House ‘Sad to See Him Go’ as Terror Spreads Through Fox News As CNN Wants To Hire Jon Stewart, which would be a great advance for fake news. As our own Jason Easley reports:

Jon Stewart is the one person in media who could knock Bill O’Reilly off of his perch as the top rated cable news host in the country. CNN now has the youngest audience in cable news, and has been the one network that is steadily on the rise.

The odds are though that Jon Stewart won’t be trading in four nights a week of television on The Daily Show for five nights a week on CNN. Stewart next project most likely will not be another nightly television show on any network.

CNN’s interest in the retiring Daily Show host is a sign that CNN is serious about dethroning Fox News, and that alone should make Fox very afraid.

The best reaction, by far, to Stewart’s upcoming retirement was by over-aged Frat Boy Greg Gutfeld in Fellow Fox Hosts Laugh At Eric Bolling As He Whines About Jon Stewart. Watch, but you’ll have stay right to the end of the clip to see Gutfeld give the game away. Watch:

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FOX BYTES: Paris City Council Votes to Sue Fox News • Tucker Carlson Says Obama Should Promote Marriage! • Eric Bolling: Brown U Student Who Opposes ROTC Is America Hating ‘Jerk’ • Dr. Ben Carson Removed From SPLC’s Extremist List – Bill O’Reilly Takes Credit • Bill O’Reilly Brings Extremists In To Defend Extremists • Fox & Friends on Obama’s AUMF: We Get It, You’re Not George Bush • Dana Perino: Obama ‘Owes the Jews of Europe an Apology’ • Howard Kurtz And The Double Standard For Female Interviewers

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Headly Westerfield writes seriously about issues of race and local corruption in Coconut Grove, Florida, at the Not Now Silly Newsroom.