Newsweek: “Fox News Un-American;” Calls For Journalist Boycott

by Joe Coscarelli | 11:11 am, October 19th, 2009

» 37 comments

foxnewsweek

With Fox News and the White House at each other’s throats, it’s tough to get a word in edgewise. Fox, with its typically boisterous hosts and collected anchors, seems to be guiding the conversation, while much of the administration’s talking points are being viewed as whiny. But it’s the result of an echo chamber, according to Jacob Weisberg in Newsweek.

The network’s coverage of the White House’s remarks proves their leanings, he writes, in “a textbook example of a biased journalism.” In his view:

Any news organization that took its responsibilities seriously would take pains to cover presidential criticism fairly. It would regard doing so as itself a test of integrity. At Fox, by contrast, complaints of unfairness prompt only hoots of derision and demands for “evidence” that, when presented, is brushed off and ignored.

Weisberg continues to call the debate “phony,” because “five minutes’ random viewing of the channel at any hour of the day demonstrates its all-pervasive slant.” He cites the usual cast of characters including Glenn Beck and Karl Rove, and insists that sloppy swine flu coverage leaves Fox “to become the first network to actively try to kill its viewers.”

What’s to love about the American press is its independence, Weisberg claims — “that it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups.” His solution? A boycott of Fox News:

Respectable journalists—I’m talking to you, Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs. A boycott would make Ailes too happy, so let’s try just ignoring Fox, shall we? And no, I don’t want to come on The O’Reilly Factor to discuss it.

fnc, fox news, Fox News Channel, Jacob Weisberg, Newsweek, Slate

http://www.swissarmyjew.com Keeva

Hmm. Newsweek calling Fox biased. Pot meet kettle.
Agent Orangutan

Day late, dollar short. The non-braindead right, the left, independents and real journalists across the world should have been beating this drum for years… oh wait, they have.

The ignorant and the easily lied -to sect that FNC caters to don’t want truth, they want bias confirmation. And FNC gives it to them.

Being dumb is their ailment, and FNC is the slimy doctor keeping them sick for financial gain.
jkingo

I’d rather put my trust in the news organization on the outside looking in. It’s called doing its watch-dog duty. It’s called exposing ACORN and John Edwards.

Newsweek is called Pravda.
Karol

Coscarelli needs to get his facts straight. The opinionators on Fox – Beck, Hannity and O’Reilly are just that. Same as MSNBC’s Olberman and Maddow for the left. Fox News has some very good, objective journalists: Shepard Smith, Major Garrett, Catherine Herridge and a host of others. Newsweek should change its name to Weak News.
Agent Orangutan

jkingo — I couldn’t agree more. Exposing ACORN and John Edwards having a child outside of his marriage are/were pertinent to keeping America afloat. I’m pretty sure Bin Laden would have won if not for these stories being reported.

Instead of focusing on the 2 wars that Fox News helped push this country into, instead of exposing the massive corruption going on in our financial markets or, on a smaller scale, instead of covering the story of an American in Iraq (Jamie Leigh Jones) who was locked in a shipping container by her fellow American workers after they had gang raped her… we may soon see John Edwards admit he had an affair.

Thank. God. For. Fox. News.
chesterar

Mr. Weisberg,
Let’s assume Newsweek is a true journalistic magazine. You know, consisting of facts and unbiased reporting.
So let me get this straight, you’re hating on Fox for mixing opinion journalism with its news division?
That’s *some* cajones you got there.
CaptainAmerica

This pretty much sums it up:

Howard Fineman is Newsweek’s Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist … appearing regularly on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,”

ha ha ha ha
m

What I don’t get is why conservatives get upset when Fox News is called for what it is – a conservative news outlet that clearly favors a point of view? It’s like getting upset when someone calls you out for breathing air.
CaptainAmerica

Because its not a conservative news outlet. Its a fair and balanced news outlet which has 1 conservative opinion show (Hannity), one more libertarian leaning show (Beck) and Hannity (whatever he is these days) right and left (depending upon the issues).

What we do have a problem with is LEFT WING news organizations parading around as news organizations: CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS.
m

Why would Mara Liasson stop appearing on Fox News? She’s clearly a conservative.

Fox News Sunday last Sunday had:
1. Mara Liasson (“He called on Huffington Post! I was surprised he didn’t call on Air America!”)
2. Juan Williams (conservative; ever seen him guest host of the O’Reilly Factor?)
3. Bill Kristol (conservative; Weekly Standard editor)
4. Brit Hume (conservative; Weekly Standard contributor)
5. Chris Wallace (conservative; self-described to be mostly politically in align with Sean Hannity)

Nice little balanced round-table there, on a supposed “news” oriented program on Fox News.
CaptainAmerica

Mara Liasson/ Juan Williams both from left wing NPR

Bill Kristol
Brit Hume

and Chris Wallace

balanced panel right there…
m

>Because its not a conservative news outlet.

Talk about being either completely oblivious or just straight-up brainwashed by FNC’s own self-declaration of “fair and balanced”. That’s got to be one of the most absurdly hilarious comments I’ve ever read here on Mediaite.

Your three examples of O’Reilly, Beck and Hannity are absolutely horrible – all of them are clearly right-wingers. It’s like me claiming MSNBC’s line up isn’t biased because Maddow is a progressive, Schultz is a liberal, Matthews is a conservative Democrat and Olbermann is a self-declared independent.
CaptainAmerica

No, they aren’t clearly right wingers.

But then you try and claim Juan Williams is not a liberal because he filled in for Bill. Totally laughable like most of your posts.
m

Yes, just because Juan Williams is on NPR he’s somehow “liberal”. Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7fgzIdUu3A
Would a liberal say the things he’s saying? Hell no.

Juan isn’t even close to being liberal.
Puter Boi

The solution is clear, folks….for you fogies ..the TV has on and off switches….the remote allows for channel surfing…it’s amazing these days…. there is nobody sitting next to with a gun forcing you to watch anything.

What is really cool….you can even go outside…take a walk…visit the neighbors….
I know…call me crazy.

If there is a breaking news story, I am notified by email alert on computer or Blackberry….I may then turn on a cable channel….check out Mediaite….whatever….other than that I remain a happy camper…just livin and lovin my life.

I wish the same for all of you. It’s a great day!
jkingo

Agent Orangutan: Those are just 2 obvious examples. ACORN takes tax-payer (probably not much in your case if you’re a low wage earner, as I assume) money in the billions. Edwards is a snake. President Clinton while in office recommended “regime change” in Iraq, just not while he took the risk. (We have not been struck domestically since these 2 wars started, btw.)

If you can follow logic, try to think of it this way: the press is supposed to do investigative reporting. If ACORN and Van Jones had done nothing to be ashamed of, they’d still be taking money from those of us (again, you have to make enough income) who pay the IRS.

And I wouldn’t dare say this without my pseudonym because, like Clinton did, if you speak out against this kind of corrupt government, you’ll probably be chosen for an audit.

Are you an “agent” of the United Soviet States of Amerika?
CaptainAmerica

The earth has cooled the last 11 years. Granted, Al Gore is making millions off the scam but common sense people don’t believe the hype. Especially when science isn’t on their side.
Sunnyr

I’d rather call for a BOYCOTT ON NEWSWEEK! These jerks are so deep in Obama’s zipper that their brains are suffering from lack of oxygen. Obama is lobbed one soft ball after another from virtually every single TV station and Liberal Rag in the country but Fox News dares to ask hard questions and if they don’t get any answers they investigate and FIND the answers. ACORN, THE NEA SCANDAL, VAN JONES, GERALD WALPIN SCANDAL, the list goes on. Thank you, Fox News, for being a REAL watchdog for the American people. And Thank You, Andy Breitbart and his group of excellent JOURNALISTS on Big Government who investigated and broke some of these scandals. Thank goodness for folks like Fox News and some of the excellent Blogs on the web, including, of course, Mediaite! :)
libra blue

Liberal desperation “gone wild!”
Sunnyr

Anyone who thinks Juan Williams is not a card carrying LIBERAL is in crazy-land. Fox News has other Liberals as well, Shep Smith, Geraldo Rivera, Greta Van Susteren who all have their own shows, PLUS a ton of political contributors who appear on all the shows on Fox as a balance. Fox is the NUMBER ONE cable station and the ignorant loons in the White House just can’t stand it that they are unable to CONTROL Fox as they do all the other “news” outlets and rag media. News Flash: You will NEVER be about to control Fox and you are losing the war you started, big time. Please continue with your little jihad, as Fox News Channel is benefiting greatly from your stupidity!
Agent Orangutan

jkingo, thanks for making my point.

Indeed, ACORN (with their millions of dollars) and Edwards (with his love-child) are obviously WAAAAAAAAAAAY more important than factually reporting on our entrance into 2 wars (costing trillions of dollars and how many lives?), a financial collapse of epic proportions (more trillions of dollars) and the gang rape and subsequent cover-up of an American woman in Iraq by a company once CEO’d by Vice President Cheney.

Nice set of priorities you have there.

And BTW, I drive a 7 series BMW… why don’t you go take a look at it. (1st person to correctly place this reference wins… something.)
jkingo

Agent O: Glengarry Glen Ross. Congrats. Me and Bill are…looking out for YOU!
Agent Orangutan

jkingo: Great movie, but not what I was thinking of… and the Blake part of the movie (with Alec Baldwin running wild) doesn’t appear in the script, so I can’t verify his lines (which is where I would imagine something like that would come from): http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/glengarry.html

I was instead thinking of the bar scene in Trading Places, where Eddie Murphy’s character… well, I’ll let the scene tell itself:

Big Guy #1: You was in the tank last night, braggin’ on your limousine. You’re the motherfucker I was gonna carve.

Big Guy #2: Yeah.

Eddie: Motherfucker? Moi? That’s my limousine outside, why don’t you take a look at it?

Big Guy #1: Right outside?

Eddie: Yeah.

Arm candy: You took care of him, baby.

Eddie: I was gonna kick his ass, but I’m a peaceful man.

Source: http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/trading-places-script-transcript-murphy.html
m

>Especially when science isn’t on their side.

Global warming is a fact. There isn’t a single international body or scientific academy in the world that has a dissenting opinion on global warming. Here’s a pretty good list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change

If there was any debate about global warming, there wouldn’t be 100% unanimity. Once again, this is why I can never find myself voting Republican. Complete disregard of modern science…just deplorable.

> Anyone who thinks Juan Williams is not a card carrying LIBERAL is in crazy-land.

Did you even watch the clip I just linked to? If you think Juan’s a liberal, then you’re further to the right than Giorgio Almirante.
StewartIII

Greta Van Susteren — Newsweek: Fox “un-american?”
http://gretawire.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/10/19/newsweek-fox-un-american/

J$P — New FNC Promo: An Answer to White House Attacks?
http://homepage.mac.com/mkoldys/blog/rex277673446.html
TfT

Newsweek and MSNBC Renew Agreement; MSNBC.com, MSNBC Cable and NBC News, The Washington Post, Newsweek And Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Extend Strategic Alliance.
TfT

Why wasn’t this relationship identified in this article?

I would think it quite relevant when Newsweek calls for a boycott of FNC, while it has a strategic aliance with NBC/MSNBC.
CaptainAmerica

Wow, M is now using Wikipedia as a source. No wonder he follows Keith Olbermann. They don’t care much about being accurate.

Modern Science shows the earth has cooled the last 11 years. Global Cooling more like it!
Agent Orangutan

Captain, you’re doing it wrong.

Try “Climate Change” instead of “Global Warming”. Folks hear “Warming” and think a cold spell refutes the premise… but it does not. Models predict that increased CO2 levels will bring about change in weather patterns — not just warm, but really warm, and really cold, and violent storms, and all over the place, etc.

Or, as the EPA under President Bush put it:

What’s Known — Scientists know with virtual certainty that:

* Human activities are changing the composition of Earth’s atmosphere. Increasing levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere since pre-industrial times are well-documented and understood.
* The atmospheric buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is largely the result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
* A warming trend of about 0.7 to 1.5°F occurred during the 20th century. Warming occurred in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, and over the oceans (NRC, 2001).
* The major greenhouse gases emitted by human activities remain in the atmosphere for periods ranging from decades to centuries. It is therefore virtually certain that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will continue to rise over the next few decades.
* Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations tend to warm the planet.

So, even President Bush, who went out of his way to curb the release of this type of information, still toed the scientific line as far back as 2007 (which is where the above quote comes from).

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20070403232631/http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/stateofknowledge.html (For those not understanding this link, it is an April 3rd, 2007 version of an EPA page, as cached by the The Internet Archive.)
ChrisNH

Is Newsweek the 11-page magazine I only occasionally see in the oil & lube garage waiting area? Thought so. heck, HIGHLIGHTS Magazine has more pages.
Obama mmm mmm good

And how many American soldiers were killed in that riot caused by a fake Newsweek story that said American soldiers were flushing a Koran ?

Newsweek got Americans killed.Talk about un-American.
jkingo

So Agent Orange…don’t I win a set of steak knives or something?
Obama mmm mmm good

Agent Orangutan says:
“Instead of focusing on the 2 wars that Fox News helped push this country into, instead of exposing the massive corruption going on in our financial markets or, on a smaller scale, instead of covering the story of an American in Iraq (Jamie Leigh Jones) who was locked in a shipping container by her fellow American workers after they had gang raped her… we may soon see John Edwards admit he had an affair.+

FOX NEWS did cover Jamie Leigh Jones. Research before you rant please.

FOX NEWS has the power to lead a country to war? Wow….. I now know why Obama and the Democrats are scared of FOX NEWS. FOX NEWS may send the military after Obama!!!1
hkyplayer

Thank you Fox for watching over America and questioning authority.
God forbid if any other news agency does real news and ask questions that are not about Michelle Obamas dresses or what a cute dog they have. Yuck! I hope Fox kills the competitors in ratings….
ingenieux

Roger Ailes worked as a political consultant to Nixon, Reagan, Bush #1. Roger Ailes was hired by Murdoch to create FNC. But why would Fox have a conservative bias?
m

>Modern Science shows the earth has cooled the last 11 years. Global Cooling more like it!

It’s absolutely hilarious how you take someone’s blog post on BBC’s website as evidence of “scientific opinion” versus EVERY SINGLE LARGE ACADEMIC INSTITUTION IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

Here’s a crapload of data collected by NASA et al that shows the last 11 years of “cooling” is just a bunch of baloney:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/10/a-warming-pause/
Agent Orangutan

Obama mmm mmm good (nice name btw)…

Please feel free to watch FNC all you want; I will continue to point and laugh.