« Texas Gov. Rick Perry Contemplates Secession | Home | Bachmann Claims 'Flying Imams' Were Attending Victory Party Of Muslim Congressman »
Fox News Anchor: We Did Public Relations For Tea Parties
Earlier today, Brent Bozell, founder of the conservative Media Research Center, appeared on Fox to lambaste liberal and mainstream media journalists (particularly on MSNBC) for telling "oral sex jokes" about the Tea Bag Protest movements. Unfortunately for anchor Megyn Kelly, though, once he was done lashing his tongue, hers slipped. Watch:
You know Brent, it's been interesting because Fox News covered these Tea Parties, and we were one of the only organizations to give it any publicity or p.r. prior to the fact that it happened, and it was so under-covered by virtually every news organization. Why is that? Why was it so ignored up until the very last day by virtually everyone.
This might just have been a media version what some of us like to call a Kinsley gaffe.
Advertisement
Josh
Matt
Eric
Does Brent Bozell remind anyone else of Taylor Doose, the town selectman from Gilmore Girls, or is it just me?
April 16, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
He actually looks more like one of the village elders in 'Planet of the Apes". Seriously.
April 16, 2009 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
yes, the the one who was in control
April 17, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
News networks are supposed to cover upcoming protests? I thought they were only supposed to cover protests as they happen.
April 16, 2009 1:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not only that, before I retired from the news business, our practice was to go to cover protests, but if the turnout was as dismal as the teabaggers' (tee hee) turnout was, we would minimize the space the event got in the newspaper. We figured that if not many cared enough to protest, it wasn't that newsworthy.
As to the oral sex jokes: it was their fault for calling it "teabagging," and if it had been a liberal protest, those hypocrites would have been all over it with ridicule it. Actually, they received kind coverage. From what I've seen in several reports, they looked like fools. Poor things.
April 17, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Would prior coverage be....promotion?
April 16, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Fox is Fair and Balanced....they couldn't possibly have been pushing an agenda. I just refuse to believe it. (places head back in sand)
April 16, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, so now what? What can the FCC do about it? FOX News is a threat to our national security, no doubt. Some one needs to investigate Murdoch and find out what are his motives in trying to distroy America. Roger Ayles should also be investigated they both are behind this treasonous conduct caried on by their Hinchmen Hannity and others. This is no longer just entertainment, there is something behind their actions, but what--we need to find out.
April 16, 2009 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Money, I think, is behind their actions. People are tuning in to watch this circus.
April 16, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is not just about money either. These people are bent on distroying this country, they have been trying since they started in 1996. The devisiveness in this country can be partially traced back to FOX News. What is going on and how can they be stopped. There has to be laws against what these people are trying to do.
April 16, 2009 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you're right and Fox News is masterminded by someone with the sinister intent to destroy America.
I'm convinced, however, that they figured out long ago that they could create a media machine out of convincing viewers that they were the One True Network. The results are heinous and dangerous, but I still think that they're probably just a side effect of what, to those in charge of Fox, is simply business.
There's a good Hannah Arendt quote about this out there somewhere.
April 16, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fox News represents wealthy Nationalists.
They believe USA should take it's rightful place as the world's next empire.
They believe they should be it's new aristocracy.
That is why they act so "entitled" so naturally.
The laughing-stock Tea Parties are examples of their buffoonery.
And AZU and Fox News are all laughing-stocks.
The internet gets the message out and the world's lovers of peace and intellect respond. In the past, they would have just killed us.
It is the best of times.
April 16, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
how about:
The chief qualification of a mass leader has become unending infallibility; he can never admit an error.
or
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.
or
The trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide.
or
Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise.
April 17, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
further may I suggest you all read George Mosse if you like Arendt, a fellow compatriot of Berlin although a few years her junior, Prof lived to 2000 and published extensively about the rise of Fascism and Totalitarianism and essentially looked at the movements as Revolutions of the Right. He viewed the ingredients as economic losses to the middle class, a desire to reconstruct the idyllic society of the past where morals precipitated success within the middle class and why economic distress is fostered upon them. Deviants and domestic and external enemies are perceived as fostering this.
Fox News feeds into this each day, down to every subliminal and overt message with their pretty blonds, their stupid superficial analysis and framing, their fear mongering and open contempt of anyone questioning their analysis.
And yet George maintained that America was too big, too diverse, too decentralized as an economy to actually have it totally take over.
What is at stake is simply results. Obama and good governance will make them more and more irrelevant as predicted Chuck Hagel. They the right is opposed to every measure that could spell success and further shrinking their believers to ever smaller minority.
April 17, 2009 1:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's nothing so malevolent as being "bent on destroying the country". It is simple lust for power. These are people who are unwilling to play by the rules of democracy. To participate in a democracy, one has to concede the point that, if you lose an election, the other guy gets to run things.
This generation of Republicans has steadfastly obstructed Democratic government at every step of the way - under Clinton and now under Obama. The notion of following the rule of others is so offensive to them that they openly talk about rebellion when they do not win an election.
The nonsense in Minnesota exemplifies this problem perfectly.
April 16, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do hope that Homeland Security and the FBI have some of these American haters in their cross hairs. I bet you that Hannity is connected to the White Supremacy groups, why else would he be so doggett with his attacks against our government. This man is dangerous and should not be ignored. He should be put back into his racist box. By the way these people have identified themselves as right wing extremist, so there you go. The government should go after them with everything they have. The first amendment does not apply to what they are attempting to do to this country and it citizens through incitement of violence.
April 16, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you Rick--but as you can tell I am angry with what I see going on even through I understand that these American haters have to find a one to vent their angry. They lost--they should just get over it and move on. This shows that they are not interested in the well being of the country but only their greed and power.
April 16, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fox's motivation is attention (and thus ad revenues) via sensationalism. Its defense is that 1) this is America, and 2) Fox is the voice of populism.
The line between grass roots and astroturf continues to be tested, when it comes to populism.
April 16, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suggest Fox is not the voice of Populism, it is the voice of empire.
The morality is required so that when they send your boys off to fight in a foreign war....they won't be sitting in their "fox holes" worried about their women back home.
Augustus did the same thing 2000 years ago.
April 16, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Worthlesscitizen, I agree with you also, but I still thing that there is something else going on here.
April 16, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fox is not the voice of populism but the voice of "pawns in the game". The poor and uneducated who does not know enough to protect their own rights and well being rather than the rights and well being of the big corporations.
April 16, 2009 2:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"pawns in the game"
That looks like astroturf.
What do you get out of badmouthing TV viewers with a broad brush?
April 16, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please, please folks....Fox is an adjunct of Corporate America, just like all the other networks. However, Fox knows it has a niche of pandering solely to the rightwing, whereas the other networks try to make a show of pandering to EVERYONE else.
They are all just instruments of the power Corporate masters of the world. They are all guilty of hiding what the real news is, and replacing it with the alternative universe we have all come to know and love.
Fox holds a special place, to be sure, in inciting the mentally impaired, vote-against-their-interest rednecks and also the corporate master class likes to watch them (see TheCheney) where their particular world-view get's reinforced, minute by minute.
Fox is not doing this for money, or ratings....they do this because it is what a good propaganda arm does for it's corporate masters.
April 16, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lets remember that the corporations who sponsor this trash is at fault also. I know it is America but we still have laws that prevent a person from sceaming fire in a crowed theater.
April 16, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks DickTater for talking me down.
April 16, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I mean for calming me down----same thing, thanks.
April 16, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
The good news of the day is that we might just have a win in NY-20, with Murphy and it looks like we will get that 29th vote in the Senate with Frankin's win. The news just keep getting better.
April 16, 2009 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm wondering if Fox is going open up their community calendar service and start promoting "Code Pink" and similar social scene makers.
April 16, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rupert Murdoch is the sleeper cell we've all been worried about.
April 16, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honey, we weren't ignoring them at all.
We've been way too busy making fun of them.
April 16, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The number one rule of P.R.:
All Publicity is Good Publicity.
Fox News and the conservative leaders who hopped on the bandwagon thank you and your other friends in the liberal blogosphere for making the day a grand success, the events came across as being larger and as having more importance and support due to your counterreactive buzz.
April 16, 2009 5:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a link to Atlanta Journal Constitution story on Fox's OUTRIGHT CONTROL of Atlanta Teabag Time:
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/04/15/atlanta-tea-party-trimmed-back-by-an-hour/
April 16, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fox News Anchor: We Did Public Relations For Tea Parties
And it apparently worked like a charm with the left blogosphere news organizations like Josh Marshall's. I noticed he gave it a big headline spread on TPM main page for most of yesterday, solictied live blogging, sent a reporter out to check out local action, and made apologia by calling it "anti-tax porn."
It didn't work so well with the New York Times, they put a roundup of the protests across the country at the bottom of page A16.
April 16, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
So they were the "FOX tea parties", of course.
They made them happen.
They heavily publicized and encouraged them.
They are taking credit for them.
They were the gathering of the extremists - of the political crazies. Of the uninformed.
We should give FOX credit where it is due.
They damned sure weren't spontaneous or for any coherent purpose other than to demonstrate FOX "News" political influence!
Those were the (sparsely attended) FOX tea parties.
April 16, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The bit I read in USA Today had no mention of FOX' incitement. Made it sound like a genuine "concerned citizens" effort.
April 16, 2009 11:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brent Bozell is a fool; however, here he is dead right.
The dick jokes on MSNBC were a disgrace. David Schuster's sophomoric rant is not worthy of any self-respecting news organization.
Grow up, guys.
April 16, 2009 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anyone who didn't see this as a phony protest supported by FOX from day one is deluding themself.
BTW, I don't know why but I find Megyn Kelly hot in a 70s Farrah Fawcett kind of way. And I don't even watch FOX.
April 16, 2009 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
artappraiser: "The number one rule of P.R.:
All Publicity is Good Publicity.
Fox News and the conservative leaders who hopped on the bandwagon thank you and your other friends in the liberal blogosphere for making the day a grand success, the events came across as being larger and as having more importance and support due to your counterreactive buzz."
Exactly.
April 17, 2009 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
All this talk about Fox News and patriots and loyalty and such, lest we forget it is owned and micro-managed by an Australian who has very little interest in American Democracy, especially since e can't make them vote like he wants them to anymore.
Not to trash Australia, Murdoch's no more a representative of their free spirit than Sean Hannity is of our American version, but it seems to me that Fox News has NEVER been "American", it has always been managed from the underworld (and I don't necessarily mean "down under".)
The whole concept that they represent anything other than a foreigner's fingers in our American pie suggests we aren't paying attention to some obvious details.
Murdoch could care less about our constitution, and he hires people based on that fact.
April 17, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink