Friday, April 10, 2009

Faux News Update

A few minutes ago I was checking out "Alternate Brain", another of my favorite blogs. There I found a link describing retired Lt. General Tim McInerney's promotion on Faux News of the F-22 Raptor as the weapon of choice for the "War against Pirates". It noted that the general was a consultant to Northrup Grumman, a major F-22 contractor now in jeopardy of having that lucrative program cancelled by the Obama administration. The link focused on the general's failure to mention this rather important fact during his appearance on Faux.

After considering the total senselessness of the general's recommendation, I decided to click on over to Foxnews.com and give them a little s**t about this double journalistic sloppiness - a biased commentator making a stupid suggestion on their network. This, of course, brought me face to face with Faux for the first time in a very long time. A short perusal was all it took to refresh my understanding of how Faux allowed the McInerney fiasco to take place.

Faux will forever be known for turning the phrase "fair and balanced" into a joke. I need say no more. But, there may be hope: the crap they peddle is so outrageous ("the economy is fine", for example, or, "Jeb Bush tells Obama not to blame U.S. problems on his big brother") that even diehard listeners and readers may likely figure out that they are being scammed. Certainly lots of ex-republicans, now independents, have already figured that out. The F-22 recommendation can't help but hasten the next wave of defections.

(That said, I heard recently that Faux News is enjoying record ratings. It may have fewer fans, but its fans are loyal watchers. They're the same crowd that began creating the current ammunition shortage on the day Obama was elected president. Pray for them.)

1 comment:

Emily said...

to be fair, a lot of news sources are biased the other way, too. but i do agree that they are ampng the worst.