Off The Rails: The Year In Fox News Misinformation
As the year comes to a close, Media Matters offers a month-by-month look back at Fox News' most outrageous and factually challenged moments of 2010.There is more documentation at the link. Unfortunately Fox has no incentive to change their behavior because their viewers eat up the lies, distortions and raid right-wing conservative spin like pigs at the trough.
January
Hume Counsels Tiger Woods To Ditch Buddhism To "Make A Total Recovery." On the January 3 edition of Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume commented on the scandal surrounding golfer Tiger Woods: "He is said to be a Buddhist. I don't think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption offered by the Christian faith. So my message to Tiger would be, 'Tiger, turn your faith -- turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.' " Hume's attack on Buddhism was criticized by religious leaders, but endorsed by Hume's Fox News colleagues Tucker Carlson and Fred Barnes. Hume stood by his comments despite the criticism.
Fox Hires Palin As A Contributor. On January 11, The New York Times reported that Fox News had hired former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a contributor who "would appear on the network's programming on a regular basis as part of a multiyear deal." Her well-established record of pushing falsehoods notwithstanding, Palin said that she would provide "the fair and the balanced reporting and analysis that voters in this country deserve." One of her first Fox News appearances was an hour-long interview with Glenn Beck on January 13 in which the two misled on the Federal Reserve, and Beck read to Palin from his diary.
Fox Campaigns For Scott Brown. In the run-up to the January 19 special Senate election in Massachusetts, Fox News hosted Republican candidate Scott Brown several times for softball interviews and provided a forum for Brown to raise funds. Fox News personalities like Dick Morris made explicit appeals on Brown's behalf, telling viewers to "please, please help" Brown. Stuart Varney claimed that "your 401(k) could do well" in response to a Brown victory, and Bret Baier compared Brown's candidacy to the "Miracle on Ice."
February
Fox Campaign Season Heats Up. Following Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts, Fox began promoting more Republican Senate candidates, like Illinois' Mark Kirk and Florida's Marco Rubio. Several Fox News personalitieslikened Kirk to Brown; Fox repeatedly aired a National Republican Senatorial Committee attack ad on Kirk's Democratic opponent, Alexi Giannoulias; and the network gave Kirk a platform to attack Giannoulias. Fox alsoheavily promoted "political star" Rubio, reporting extensively on his fundraising appeals and speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference. On the February 1 edition of Hannity, Dick Morris solicited GOP candidatesfor Senate, which precipitated Republican Ron Johnson's campaign in Wisconsin.
Fearmongering Over Health Care Reconciliation. Reacting to reports that Senate Democrats were considering using the budget reconciliation process to pass the health care reform bill and circumvent a Republican filibuster, Fox News adopted the GOP framing of reconciliation as a violation of Senate rules, undemocratic, and contrary to thewill of the people. Fox also falsely characterized reconciliation as the "nuclear option" to wrongly accuse Democrats of hypocrisy.
March
Open Activism Against Health Care Reform. As the health care reform bill moved toward passage, Fox News' opinion and news personalities engaged in open opposition to the bill. Fox news anchors agreed that the bill was unconstitutional and said they would vote against it, while the network's opinion-makers lobbied for the bill's defeat. Commentators like Dick Morris, Glenn Beck, and Mike Huckabee encouraged viewers to contact members of Congress and urge them to oppose the bill, and the network helped to publicize anti-health reform rallies.
Fearmongering was rampant as Fox News compared the bill to a tumor and a nuclear weapon. Fox News also pushed misinformation and falsehoods about health care reform, falsely claiming the bill provided increased federal funding for abortion, promoting a non-scientific "survey" of doctors claiming they would leave medicine if reform passed, accusing Democrats of making "special deals" and offering "bribes" to ensure passage, andattacking the Congressional Budget Office's scoring of the bill.
Glenn Beck's Fiascoes Multiply. Beck devoted his entire March 9 program to an interview with former Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) after Massa claimed -- without any evidence -- that the Democrats had forced him out of the House because he refused to vote for health care reform. The hour-long interview did not produce any evidence of Democratic wrongdoing -- instead, Massa acknowledged that he resigned under allegations of sexual harassment. Beck concluded the program by apologizing to his viewers: "I have wasted an hour of your time."
Later in the month, Beck went on a tirade against Democratic leaders, like Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who "wanted to compare themselves to the civil rights activists" as they walked arm-in-arm to the House health care vote. Beck screamed at them: "How dare you!" Lewis is, of course, an icon of the civil rights movement who marched, arm-in-arm, with a group including Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma Civil Rights March.
April
Hannity's Tea Party Appearance Canceled. Of the many Fox News personalities appearing at tea party events coinciding with Tax Day, Sean Hannity drew additional scrutiny for the fact that he was set to tape an episode of his Fox News program at an April 15 Cincinnati Tea Party event and charge audience members for tickets, with proceeds going to the tea party group. Hannity's plan was criticized by veteran journalists as crossing ethical lines, and reportedly "furious" Fox News executives yanked Hannity from the event at the last minute. Earlier in the month, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox News parent company News Corp., said that Fox News "shouldn't be supporting the Tea Party."
O'Reilly's Fox News Defense Fails Spectacularly. Responding to Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) suggestion that Fox News perpetuated the falsehood that individuals without health insurance can be sent to prison under the new health care reform legislation, Bill O'Reilly said on April 13: "[W]e researched to find out if anybody had ever said you are going to jail if you don't buy health insurance. Nobody has ever said it. What it seems to me is you used Fox News as a whipping boy when we didn't qualify there." In fact, that very falsehood had been repeated countless times across Fox News' many platforms, including on O'Reilly's own show.
Dick Morris Invents, And Then Retracts, Clinton-Reno-Waco Story. On the April 19 edition of Hannity, Dick Morris claimed that Bill Clinton had told him that he had retained Janet Reno as attorney general because she threatened to "tell the truth about Waco." Morris explained that this story "had never been said before." The next day, Rush Limbaugh picked up Morris' story, claiming that "Reno's appointment to a second term as attorney general was to keep her quiet about the Waco invasion." One day later, Morris appeared on Fox & Friends to walk back the false story, claiming to separate "the facts" from his "conjecture based on the facts."
