Fox News is slightly less predictable than its reputation–there’s Shep Smith, and Bill O’Reilly can surprise–but nothing on television resembles authoritarian state-run media quite like Hannity. Nothing about Sean Hannity’s nightly show is either fair or balanced; much of it feels like the product of the Republican National Committee, and some of it feels like what the RNC would produce if its staff got drunk and made a parody version of their day’s message.
Ever since the murderous rampage in Norway last week, Bill O’Reilly and other American conservatives have sought to insist that the alleged Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik is not a Christian. “Breivik is not a Christian,” O’Reilly said on his Fox News show on Tuesday. “That’s impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder.” Elsewhere on the channel, [...]
In Libya, allied forces are fighting Gaddafi loyalists from air and sea. Gaddafi loyalists are fighting rebels on the ground. And CNN and Fox News have begun a vicious battle of their own. It all began Monday, when Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin announced that a British bombing mission of a Gaddafi compound “had to [...]
You should read Tom Junod’s profile of Fox News honcho Roger Ailes in Esquire. There, I said it too. Now, come after me Steve Doocy. Make it hurt real bad. Ben Smith of Politico made this same recommendation yesterday on his blog, which apparently prompted Fox News’ Doocy to pull one of the most revealing [...]
Fox News Washington managing editor Bill Sammon is under fire today for instructing his newsroom – during the height of the health care debate – not to use the term “public option.” Here’s the supposed smoking gun: an e-mail obtained by Media Matters: From: Sammon, Bill Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 8:23 AM To: 054 [...]
There are some delicious contretemps going on over at Atlantic.com, home of the mega-watt blogger. Joshua Green doesn’t think Palin will run for president. Andrew Sullivan does. But that’s not all. Sullivan accuses Green of dangerous complacency, and willful myopia. [W]here the f— have you been this past year? It doesn’t matter whether she’s uneducated, [...]
I wasn’t planning to write any more about Bill O’Reilly, but it seems I have to do one more round of fact checking about The Factor. After I pointed out that O’Reilly had erroneously said Fox News never told viewers they could be jailed for failure to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, O’Reilly [...]
A little more than a week ago, Tom Coburn did something fairly courageous by political standards. At a town hall meeting in Oklahoma, the conservative Republican senator referred to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “nice lady” and criticized Fox News. (He was briefly booed for the Pelosi comment.) After an audience member mentioned “the [...]
The Fox News playbook calls for the promotion and evisceration of its critics. If the White House bad mouths the network, Glenn Beck adds a red phone to his set so its staff can call in. If LL Cool J objects to Sarah Palin rehashing an old interview of him for her show, a Fox [...]
Michelle Obama to appear on Mike Huckabee’s show this weekend on Fox. Both of them, of course, are waging public campaigns against obesity. Will they also find time to discuss Huckabee’s recent declaration that he was not “abandoning Jesus” by inviting Obama Girl on the show?
