It's been four days since Chris Wallace and Jon Stewart squared off on "Fox News Sunday" and people still can't stop talking about it.
FBN's Don Imus brought it up with Wallace Thursday, and the FNS host said of Comedy Central's feature attraction, "I think he lives somewhat in denial about the bias of his program and of the, more importantly, of the mainstream media" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
For years America's media have been enthralled by anything that supports the theory that carbon dioxide is warming the planet leading to an imminent cataclysm if governments don't regulate this partially man-made gas.
By contrast, reports that might undermine CO2's importance in global warming, like the following released Tuesday by the AAS Solar Physics Division in Las Cruces, New Mexico, predicting a sharp decrease in solar activity in coming years, typically get either little attention or are downplayed:
On April 15, The Chicago Sun-Times reported on its Web site, "Jesse Jackson denies gay worker’s harassment, discrimination claims." The article began:
A spokesman for the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday denied a claim from a man who says he was fired from the civil rights leader’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition because he is gay.
Tommy R. Bennett filed a complaint with the city of Chicago’s Commission on Human Relations last year, alleging Jackson fired him unjustly and that the civil rights leader forced him to perform “uncomfortable” tasks, including escorting various women to hotel rooms to meet Jackson for sex.
The piece ended noting that a gay publication, The Windy City Times, had reported Bennett's allegations earlier in the week. The Windy City Times story included more salacious details, such as the complainant's charge that Jackson directed him to apply cream to a rash between Jackson's legs; the minister told Bennett about one of his high school instructors, a gay man, who served as Jackson's teacher with benefits; and Bennett's allegation that Jackson wanted to have sex with the Rainbow Coalition employee.
Since the moment he announced he was doing his last "Countdown" on MSNBC, people have wondered where the controversial Keith Olbermann will land.
On Wednesday, News Corp's Rupert Murdoch told Neal Cavuto it won't be on Fox News (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters previously reported, Chris Matthews on Tuesday blamed conservative talk radio hosts Mark Levin and Michael Savage for supposedly creating the climate of hate that led to Saturday's shootings in Tucson, Arizona.
On Wednesday, FBN's Don Imus and his sidekick Bernard McGuirk responded to the "angry," "vile," "psycho," "spittle-spewing" MSNBCer (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Fox News apparently employs a pair of 9/11 "Truthers": Geraldo Rivera, host of FNC's "Geraldo at Large", and, we've recently discovered, Judge Andrew Napolitano, who hosts "Freedom Watch" on the Fox Business Network.
Both Napolitano and Rivera have, er, raised questions about the "official" (read: commonsensical) explanation for the collapse of the WTC7 building on September 11, 2001. This conspiracy theory has been thoroughly debunked a number of times. Apparently Geraldo and the Judge are not convinced.
Ed Schultz on Tuesday falsely accused Fox Business Network contributor Charles Payne of recommending people on unemployment lines eat each other to survive.
Such ironically occurred on the "Psycho Talk" segment of the "Ed Show" (videos follow with partial transcripts and commentary):
Earlier today Fox Business Channel announced that it's hiring former CNN talker Lou Dobbs to host a new program on its schedule. Once again Fox has demonstrated that it is alone among cable networks in being willing to routinely offer conservative opinion.
Dobbs left CNN last year after CNN president Jonathan Klein gave him an ultimatum: "Mr. Dobbs could vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN."
The National Public Radio (NPR) executive who fired Juan Williams is behind an effort lobbying for a new tax to be levied on private media outlets in order to finance a BBC-style state media, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center Brent Bozell told viewers of Fox Business Network's "Varney & Company" at 10:45 a.m. today.
NPR president Vivian Schiller is "part of a group which wants to essentially tax existing media companies... and use that tax money to create a national network of public broadcasting companies to put out a news broadcast on a national basis, like an American BBC," Varney noted.
"Let's put it another way, the attack on Juan Williams... wasn't really an attack on Juan Williams," Bozell replied.
It's a very simple proposition, Stuart. I think it's time that the American people say simply to the media, tell the truth! Stop distorting stories. Stop projecting an agenda and calling it objective truth. Start reporting news. Tell the truth about what's going on in Washington. Tell the truth about the positions of these candidates. Stop playing politics with everything.... I want them to get the message loud and clear the public is sick and tired of this left-wing agenda masquerading as news.
A slightly skeptical Varney then asked the Media Research Center founder if he thinks that's always been the case:
Eric Bolling's new show on the Fox Business Channel, Money Rocks, saw a significant display of fireworks this evening. During a discussion of some already controversial statements made by Democratic strategist, Bob Beckel, a very heated exchange developed involving Beckel and Atlas Shrugs publisher, Pamela Geller.
The controversy started when Bolling played a clip of Beckel's previous appearance on the show in which he stated:
"Look, at some point, I know it's sensitive here in New York and probably New Jersey, but we have to get over 9/11."
What did he mean by ‘we have to get over 9/11'? According to Beckel, this was simply an expression of frustration for a variety of things, such as extra security at airports and a few other minor inconveniences designed to catch "a bunch of non-existent terrorists."
The short list of ‘non-existent terrorists' since 9/11 that Mr. Beckel must be referring to, include the Madrid train bombers, Russian train bombers, Shoe Bomber, the Lackawanna Six, Fort Hood assassin, the Virginia ‘Jihad' Network, Christmas Day bomber, Fort Dix plotters, and the Times Square bomber.
Beckel might have been feeling the stress of trying to defend such a blatantly insensitive statement, by providing a blatantly inaccurate defense, as he experienced a misogynistic meltdown directed at Geller in the middle of the segment in which he said:
"You're a woman, you better be careful about saying who I carry water for."
Clip and partial transcript below...
In an appearance on Fox Business Network Sept. 21, BMI's Julia Seymour told host Charles Payne that the mainstream media - "particularly the cable primetime shows that we looked at," had been framing "the debate as tax cuts, rather than tax increases."
Seymour was referring to BMI research showing that the media was using the language of the left and the Obama administration when reporting on the tax issue. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said on Sept. 13 that "Democrats want to cut everybody's taxes," despite the president's stated intent to raise taxes on the rich. "It was 27 tax cut-framed stories, versus two tax increase stories," Seymour told Payne. The media were thus 13 times more likely to put a positive spin on the Democrats' intentions than to characterize the move as a tax increase.