This is truly one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. A Fox news hit piece is attempted for the Bill Oreilly show at a Bill Moyers speech for a media reform conference. The fake journalist from the fake news network gets a taste of his own medicine.
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HA! I absolutely love it. And I am SO glad to no longer be a journalist, especially in this day and age.
Well I just HAD to listen to Bill Oreilly's radio show last night. I couldn't believe my ears. He edited a tiny 5 second snippet of his reporters remarks that made him sound in control of the conversation then said something like "whoo! Go getem Porter Berry". Irony is, this is exactly what Moyers said they'd do. Unfortunately, Oreilly's fans probably will never see what actually happened.
If Moyers and Oreilly had a civil 1 hour conversation where Oreilly was not allowed to shout and scream or cut someone's mic off, Oreilly would be crushed soundly. Half his arguments are not even factual, and when he gets caught in a half truth or lie he just changes the subject or goes to commercial as if it's no big deal.
Well, as one of the senior editors at one the newpapers for which I wrote (a long time ago) once said, "[Unfortunately,] the true power of the pen is in the hand of the one who owns it."
The power of non-journalistic venues like Fox is that they can safely get away with saying anything they like without accountability. Demeaning the entire concept of journalism works to their advantage in another way also because when real journalism tackles an issue (such as Moyers amazing special about the Iraq war) the Fox news watchers assume that the show is just another load of baseless partisan opinions instead of the well researched facts held up on personal accountability and reputation. Any time you hear actual facts said about the Iraq war, the Oreilly's still safely say that this is just "the left", because their audience has forgotten the very existence of real journalism. They just invent their own "facts' and bounce them off the echo chamber.
I wouldn't matter if Oreilly's fans *did* see what "really" happened. Just look at our last conversation. The people that listen to the Hannity's, the Limbaugh's and Oreilly's are listening to an ideological movement that has made a quasi-religion out of itself. They are true believers. The cultish/trible/religious impulse doesn't just show itself in cults, tribes or religions.
The enemy is easily identifiable: the Left is like Satan. Even though the Left, as it is used by Oreilly and Limbaugh, doesn't exist, this concept of the other, the seducer, and the corrupter (atheists, gays, abortionists) has become so fixed in the national psyche by the high preists of Conservamentalist Orthodoxy, that no amount of truth-speaking is going to dislodge it. If it were that easy, atheists would have won their arguments long ago.
What the United States faces in a sizable element of modern Republicanism is a quasi-religion. Oreilly is nothing more than a glorified Reverend Wright and FOX News is his church. You don't undercut someone like that with appeals to something as trivial as the truth, or as mundane as rational argument. It doesn't work. You have to appeal to symbolism and archetype, you have to create a clearly identifiable antagonist - a straw man. Then, one might have a chance - but who wants to?
And yet attitudes like theirs has been a clear and present threat to America, America's system of government and Constitution.
They are nothing but con-men. They don't believe half the stuff they say themselves. I think there is a point where people's political anger and hatred towards the opposition becomes so strong that they are willing to pull out all the stops and spin every little thing that happens in order to demonize and name call their opposition. Every day and every event just poses a new opportunity to spin and find someone to blame. At some point for these people, the truth becomes less important than winning. They are not trying to get at the truth, they are merely trying to win the court case.
I have been listening to Oreilly's radio show and I can't believe how simply dumb the man is. He *has* to be pretending. He is a Harvard grad who tries to pass himself off as a common Joe. Of course, Harvard won't speak to him anymore and Obama won't come on his show (and he pretends to wonder why).
Opinion news is the best weapon of these people because they aren't forced to ever actually engage in a civil debate where facts and accuracy matter. Just the act of saying *something*, no matter how ill-founded it is, gives a mass audience the impression that the opinion(no matter how absurd it is) has some sort of merit.
I don't know what the solution is to this problem because these people are entertaining and bring in the money (hell, I would rather watch them than someone I already agree with).
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