Fox News is Biased and Inaccurate Reporting

Megyn Kelly to Bill Burton:

"You attack, I'll defend."

"You save that for your friends on the other channels."

"Fox News has it fair and balanced, as always."

This interview / clash is a perfect example of why Fox News is most certainly not a bipartisan source of news.

Kelly literally shouts-down Burton as if it was talk radio, and then repeats the corporate motto like a good little Fox-minion.

I have been a long-time viewer (on and off) of Fox News and they have never been "fair and balanced." Recently they have become nothing more than the media-wing of the GOP; these people make up the “news” to suit their now very obvious political agenda.

I love how they all try to excuse their lack of evidence by the fact that their are a million-plus viewers of Fox.

As if their credibility record and their ratings scores are one and the same. It's just pure comedy to this as the retort from the Fox News Loyalists.

Almost everything Megyn Kelly said in fact applies were I to be speaking to the network-at-large:

You just keep attacking the truth, I'll just keep defending the truth.

You save this racist code language & these fearmonger-screeds for your friends in the White Supremacy movement and the zany antics of talk radio, where it belongs.

No element of Fox News, Fox News Talk, & the NY Post is in any way "fair and balanced." False advertising from the top-down. The network can repair it’s image by simply stating itself to be in favor toward the anti-Obama movement and in disfavor of the liberal-progressive movement. It is that simple.

And you guys just can't help yourselves, you just can't stand to ethical when being unethical is just so much more provocative!

Fox News has a long way to go before it can say it does anything but promote preconceived notions as reality and sell a pro-conservative, anti-Obama narrative.

These neoconservatives always talk about the "media is in the tank for Obama" but not one of them is willing to address just how heavily Fox News is in the tank for Palin / McCain / Bush / Cheney. They won't even address all these times when clearly, under review, Fox News failed to cover the story with the widely available credible evidence and footage.

Dishonesty and misinformation are the currency Fox News chooses to deal in.

Partisanship and political pandering is all the other networks are guilty of.

Add to that the matter of the New York Post being taken to court over allegations of promoting a hostile environment toward African-Americans and promoting a workplace environment friendly to sexual harassment and you have some of the final elements of this puzzle that the people at Fox Broadcasting are trying their hardest to scramble up before anyone takes a close look.

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If I spread enough American Flags and say "God" enough times on this weblog, will I also be unchallengeable in the value in all of my blog-content and all of my internet-claims?

I'd like that very much.

If that were so it would be pure statement of fact to say that TEA Party members mainly did not vote in the Presidential 2008 Election.

I like where this is going…

Drudge is no good! (Then everyone just ignores Drudge from here out because I said so.)

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Who the heck started The News Wars, anyway?

Oppositional Research certainly didn't start with Fox News, but they most certainly fired the first shot in this "war" of the commercialized-news.

What I detect is the same thing again and again that I heard expressed by Keith Olbermann of MSNBC:

"When we do, we're cool, but when you do you're Hitler." (In regards to some of Glenn Beck comments)

When they bring in oppositional researcher--Inside Edition smear merchant--Bill O'Reilly in and start letting him call himself a "journalist," the dam began to crack and when a Democratic President took office we then finally saw the true colors of Fox Broadcasting Company.

They will use any tactic they see fit to push through their political-social agenda and when called out on their actions they intend to label all who point out their inaccurate & biased coverage as the source of the problem instead of focusing on the issue.

An example: When I used a Beck-tactic on my weblog, and clearly labeled it as "satire," some people took huge offense and some tried to claim I was using the very tactic of "defamation" that I was decrying so often.

But it's a "comedic roast" on Glenn Beck, nothing more.

It was a "joke" when I said you should tell everyone.

The only reason I did it, is to show how very easy it is to just throw around wild rumors and place anybody you want on the “hot-seat” to explain themselves.

Some people were trying to say to me in course of throwing up red flags as Glenn Beck crusades against America that it: “doesn‘t matter.”

Oh, it matters. Who will they come after next? Who is the next target for them to demonize and spin? Maybe tomorrow it will be just everyone who is not in a “tea party” who is a “racist,” trying to “destroy” this nation with “socialism / communism.” If one dares to even call themselves a Republican instead of TEA Party or Conservative Party then they will have the attack-dogs unleashed to sew fear about them?

Opinions are great, but pure political-extremism combined with the bitter rejection of looking at the issue from multiple sources of information gathering is just plain willful ignorance. Not an opinion. Glenn Beck is an enabler for fringe anti-government groups, anti-black groups, anti-liberal groups and other hate-based organizations.

I once said I might sot down and talk broadcasting with him and other of the conservative-media feed. I take it back.

I have nothing to learn from these broadcasting-jackals that I could not learn reading Mad Magazine or listening to late-night AM Radio.

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The News Wars started before there even was such a beast as MSNBC to bite back at that wild dog of "Fox News."

The News Wars started with people like me, and much more importantly people like LiberalViewer, who spoke truth to network-power and demanded better coverage from any network that would make such a bold claim as to be "fair & balanced news."

It may not be clear to millions of Americans what a "fabricated conspiracy theory" is, exactly.

But it is perfectly clear to me.

Barack Obama is no more a "socialist," than George W. Bush is a "fascist."

If people in the public insist on extremist labeling then so be it, but no recognized network should be promoting this notion that extremist political labeling is an action of "fairness" or an element of "balance."

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The irony of satire...

I have put on my "Colbert-suit" for a blog post, or two.

They circulated (to the best of my knowledge) in conservative-internet circles rather quickly.

But if I mimic the vile tactics of their new poster-boy Glenn Beck, I am a naughty & vile person.

I believe my form of internet-satire has some small value only that I will admit outright that is satire thereby meaning entirely ambiguous information. However, I believe I will lean away from internet-satire in that it goes greatly misunderstood even when clearly declared as just pure hyperbolic nonsense.

Unbeknownst to them of course that the one they were linking to would much such statements as:

The monopolistic-corporate power structure in companies like Monsanto and Fox pose a threat to the public if left unchecked and buried with corporate dollars at every turn.

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I recently checked the pay-outs to Democrats versus Republicans in terms of Monsanto campaign slush-money, and while the totals are not significant the individual contributions to Congressmen are quite significant.

Two Democratic Congressmen took $500 each, one from my home state, and two Republican took $10,000+ each. Both in states where the corn market is more significant to the "big-agriculture" industry.

The fact remains that Canada has discussed banning the use of GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) in their food and Britain has a labeling procedure in place while North America continues to ignore the matter by and large.

Like many of a somewhat scientific persuasion, I believe further research is needed on the usefulness of GMOs and primarily concerned the matter of the repeated failure to disclose both sides of the story on the matter by major news outlets across the U.S.

I see now the great failing in alarmism and it more important to have a public making informed decisions on matters regarding our food, or even matters regarding our health care insurance, rather than being given misleading and omitted coverage from any news group.

It is important to note in a discussion of media-finance and corporate hush-money that the Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) recently started receiving corporate-donations from Monsanto. I am of the persuasion to believe that an entity like PBS would likely graciously turn down the money if only they had the public support in donations to do such a thing.

As it stands PBS remains a credible news source despite some amount of corporate funding and Fox (News Corp) is the least credible of any television broadcasting to date.

In Defense of All Life (Abortion)

Lila Rose is the President of a vicious anti-abortion group called Live Action.

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If I could insist that as long as bombings of innocent civilians are legal in the US that we show the results of these campaigns to the public through the imagery of the dead children and the dead bodies of unarmed civilians published in newspapers and televised in the media.

Until we were so sick and tired of seeing the injustice that we would do away with it altogether.

Maybe then we might value all life, like we value American life.

Maybe then we might hear angels signing as we dismantle our blood-soaked war machine.

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My request is illegal in the US.

You cannot show the bodies of the dead in US media.

I am convinced that if we changed that law, and had a free press in a country that grants Freedom of The Press, we would see an end to war-profiteering and an end to American Imperialism.

But that life doesn’t matter, not to Lila Rose.

All the corpses of those killed in the name of finding WMDs, don’t matter more than dirt to her.

All those murdered by contractors and tortured by interrogators, don’t matter more than spit to her.

The only life these sort of people care to protect is unborn life. And in the process they want to harm, imprison and in some cases kill anyone who does anything but resoundingly agree with them.

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Quoting from Live Action:

"Lila has since launched several successful undercover investigations exposing racism and statutory rape cover-up at Planned Parenthood. Her brave work has revealed new evidence to build a strong case against the abortion industry and lobby."

In other words she has waged a slander campaign like that of the one James O'Keefe waged against ACORN. Most likely she lied to people and targeted this group that she personally feels animosity toward until she found what she wanted to find. Exactly like the false campaign on ACORN.

These people in Live Action are nothing but McCarthy-ists and propagandists.

And there is no such thing as the "abortion industry" nor the "abortion lobby". That's just political spin to make it sound like groups that are Pro-Choice are in fact pro-abortion.

An outright lie.

Jimmy Carter and The Race Card

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American," Carter told NBC News. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that shares the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African-Americans."

"That racism inclination still exists, and I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of belief among many white people -- not just in the South but around the country -- that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply," Carter said.

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The oldest son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, Alan Wilson, has come to his father's defense in regards to a racial motivation to the uncouth interruption of President Obama during an address to a Joint-Session of Congress.

"There is not a racist bone in my dad's body," said Alan Wilson, an Iraq veteran who is running for state attorney general in South Carolina. "He doesn't even laugh at distasteful jokes. I won't comment on former President Carter, because I don't know President Carter. But I know my dad, and it's just not in him."

"It's unfortunate people make that jump. People can disagree — and appropriately disagree — on issues of substance, but when they make the jump to race it's absolutely ludicrous. My brothers and I were raised by our parents to respect everyone regardless of background or race."

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I personally believe that former President Carter's words were the absolute truth. I doubt that Rep. Wilson was motivated by a direct, personal hatred for Barack Obama based on his skin color but rather that he chose to be so disrespectful and chose to insult the nation in the way he did because of the exact principals that Carter touched on in the above quote.


The notion that Obama is not qualified to state facts as a President addressing the Congress and that one must not even hear out his entire address before rebuking him, is so outrageous and unheard of up until this point, that few other explanations remain. Joe Wilson continues to defend his un-American slander and claim that he was truthful in his statements when in fact he was, and is, completely misguided.


The notion that all strong resistance to Obama coming from the middle and the right is pure racism is also inaccurate, in my view.


However, the people who constantly use the argument that not everyone opposed to Obama is a racist are very often the same people who fail to point out the racists on the right and fail to be honest about the reasons for their outrage. Or they fail to give any rational explanation that makes any kind of sense for their intense fear and willingness to believe wild claims about Barack Obama.

Iran Explodes with Unrest

Huffington Post has the latest updates on the Iranian situation.

I would draw your attention to the final video on the post: "12:17 AM ET -- Awe-inspiring courage."

People Who Voted McCain Hate Obama, Big Surprise

I follow politics on both sides of the coin.

In my view the turning point for the McCain Campaign was the selection of Sara Palin.
The Thinking Conservatives removed their support in droves while the Limited Conservatives found a new poster-child for Partisan Logic.

Aside from the racism allowed to crop up in the Republican Campaign and the market crash under a Republican President, the Conservative Americans who actually think about their positions for longer than the span of a thirty second sound byte could not accept the ‘Say it so, Joe’ Logic and the overall presentation of John McCain’s pick for VP.

Many asked themselves and openly begged the question:

“If John McCain made this bad a decision for Vice President, then how can we trust him to make the right decisions on the war on terror.”

I am trying to draw a connection between the Obama-Hate Committee found on right wing radio and FOX Broadcasting with the vague demagogue figure of religious and moral authority found in the Governor of Alaska and her bid for the vice-presidency in 2008.

I think this group is just loud, and well-funded. Most, if not all, popularity of extremist presidential bashing from the Media Republicans comes from people who want theocracy and the destruction of American Liberty in the name of unfounded ideologies.

There are of course exceptions and a rare pack of conservatives can formulate a fair review of the Obama Presidency thus far, but they increasingly move into the minority as Media Hacks and Partisan Pundits rule the conservative-media.

Loyal Opposition No More

For many years I have felt that for all our disagreements between liberal and conservative individuals there was a shared position by both sides. A loyal opposition to the opposition.

For the time being I believe the majority of the conservatives of America have thrown down this national system of civil loyalty in politics in place of a pure obstructionist agenda.

I have not heard any amount of logical rebuttal to an Obama policy or policy proposal, except in very rare cases.

I find I cannot listen to the standard bearers of GOP right wing radio these days. Like most people I have my ‘hang-ups.’

Dismissive attitudes and screaming people down end up on my list.

Every time I have been listening to conservative talk radio, or GOP responses, since the election of Barack Obama I am disgusted by the complete lack of integrity and grace in politics.

Reducing everything down to simply ‘name-calling’ is not the issue. Though it is important thing to avoid as much as possible.

Not sticking to the facts about our democratic representatives and our recent national historical history is unpatriotic.

I wish it were not so. And no group can claim to innocent of some form of vitriol in these times.

But not having an actual political dialogue and instead presenting vague facts along with connect-the-dots logic is simply dirty pool.

Difference Between a Liberal and a Conservative?

We hear this question posed often in our lives, if we are a political person ourselves.

I recently heard a response to this question on the radio that I disagree with, but I still believe desires to be heard. I offer it as but an anecdote:

Question: "What is the difference between a liberal and a conservative?"

Response: “Think in terms of kind and unkind.”

While this sentiment starts to address the huge gap between these ideologies it only touches the most bare and stereotypical edges of the matter.

The truth of the matter is more that historically both liberals and conservatives morph and relocate themselves throughout the political spectrum in all nations. Only certain key values and standards define each group and it is easier to grab one specific location and timeframe than to just say all liberals or conservatives are so.

Modern American liberals are clearly defined against modern American conservatives in terms of their views of separation of church and state.

Modern American liberals are clearly defined against modern American conservatives in terms of their views of the use of military budgets and international policies.

These kind of statements are the only real response to this question and it is obviously verbose to try to answer this question with what sounds like reading a textbook at someone.

It is said sometimes that these groups are defined by the members they attract.

I believe this only partly defines the ideology and the group.

The common views and desires are the true backbone of every movement.

Some claim the liberal movements to attract the more ‘fringe’ elements of society while conservative attracts a more ‘common’ element of society.

That may have been true in days past but in our world, right now, the conservative movement has attracted the truly fringe elements of our society in the past national campaign and to this day on talk radio and certain websites. Unquestionable willful destruction of non-partisan debate is expressly un-American.

I think my own answer to this question is more like an answer one might get from a wandering mystic:

Response: “Ask me again when you know which one you are.”

I think if someone is even asking this question they are just fresh into politics. All political types, even myself, must claw backwards into our memories to a time when we were mostly apolitical and remember that nobody comes out of the womb with a position on taxation rates.

We form all these things we call ‘opinions’ as we go. So cut a break to people who were spacing out on their nation when we needed them the most, because we still need them now that they are paying attention.

Media-Watchdog? Come Again?

This is the only reason I call myself a Media-Watchdog, one of the last of the breed. These are just some of my saved email contacts from my personal email account.

crooksandliars@gmail.com
feedback@realclearpolitics.com
mail@journalism.org
yourcomments@foxnews.com
info@ap.org
pres@kqed.org
scoop@huffingtonpost.com
tips@hotair.com
press@thedailybeast.com

Just a sample, there‘s more. (Hot Air is highly partisan, by the by.) Just making a point.

And hoping you’ll input your own thoughts to these addresses.

Whatever good public emailing my real name and address attached has, you can bet I did it.

And will do it again.
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Most likely, standing while typing one-handed just like this. (Someone take a picture, I look journalistic!)
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This post is just to dispel any confusion out there in terms of who exactly the real media-watchdogs of America exactly are.

That would be me, Eric Lightborn. The Student Blogrtist.

And that’s pretty much it.

Eric Lightborn
March 22nd 2009

A President with a Sense of Humor?

Yes, this is a drastic change in personality in the White House.

I believe from what I know of Barack Obama that he understands a fundamental basic concept of psychology. Humor saves lives.

Last night I wrote a hard hitting piece on gang violence and finished by writing a comedy posting about the social site phenomena. I find interjecting levity into situations, appropriately, is part of a healthy psyche. Just as Obama has shown that he understands the principals of stress management through recreation.

Let’s also not forget that when another candidate would have been pacing around a counting office, Obama was body-surfing in Hawaii. Some mistakenly perceive this ’laid back’ attitude as arrogance or lackadaisical.

The record stands for itself.

In only two months President Obama has made more actions in office than anyone, including myself, predicted he would.

Quickly expending political capital while it is still tangible and fresh.

In this time of economic chaos and severe political division, any President would be under immense strain.

I wish to commend Obama on being aware of the dangers of stress.

Striking balance between work and play is critical, and having a President who leads by example is beyond refreshing.