E-Mails Show Fox Driving Radical Right Agenda
http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/12/10/e-mails-show-fox-driving-radical-right-agenda/
by James Parks, Dec 10, 2010
Reports that a Fox News editor directed his staff
to use a politically charged phrase recommended
by a Republican pollster to misrepresent the
Democrats health care reform plan is proof that
Fox is driving a radical right-wing political
agenda, says Ethan Rome, executive director of
Health Care for America Now (HCAN).
In a statement released today, Rome says:
At a time when right-wing extremists were
trying to make the case that the health care
reform bill was a government takeover plot, Fox
News incorporated politically charged language
into its day-to-day reporting to mislead its
audience into thinking the public option was something that it wasnt.
Fox News policy is to drive a political
agenda and systematically influence its audiences views.
HCAN is a grassroots coalition that includes the
AFL-CIO and several affiliated unions.
Leaked e-mail messages show that at the height of
the health care reform debate last fall, Bill
Sammon, Fox News Washington managing editor,
sent a memo directing his networks journalists
not to use the phrase public option, according
to Ben Dimiero at Media Matters.
Sammon directed Foxs reporters to use
government option and similar phraseswording
that a top Republican pollster had recommended to
portray the Democrats reform effort as a government takeover.
Whats more, Dimiero writes:
Sources familiar with the situation in Foxs
Washington bureau have told Media Matters that
Sammon uses his position as managing editor to
slant Foxs supposedly neutral news coverage to
the right. Sammons government option e-mail is
the clearest evidence yet that Sammon is
aggressively pushing Foxs reporting to the
rightin this case by issuing written orders to his staff.
You can read Dimieros article here.
In October, shareholders of News Corp.the media
company owned by Rupert Murdoch and the operator
of Fox Newscomplained that the company gave $1
million to the Republican Governors Association.
Several weeks later, it donated another $1
million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Just last week, AFSCME launched an aggressive,
new Stop the Lies campaign to fight back
against lies about public workers by radical
talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck,
John Stossel, right-wing politicians and Fox News commentators.
The campaign will use social media, videos, paid
advertising and ground events across the country
to get the truth heard amidst the din from Fox,
loudmouthed TV and radio talkers and their
orchestrated attacks incorrectly blaming public
employees for the financial crises cities and states are facing.
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