For some time, as it has really sunk in that FOX News is a wholly-fake, imitation news station, I have had a 'notion' sort of simmering in my mind that people who work for FOX news - not the O'Reillys or the Hannitys but the rank and file - are basically complicit in the horrible things this station does.
I usually say nothing about it. People gotta work.
However, there is an issue called 'ethics' and sometimes one ends up in a situation where one realizes the people one works for are unethical: you end up with decisions to make. I have 'been there and done that': I have worked for 2 organizations that I have come to view as unethical - usually because they have done something flagrantly wrong - and I have taken steps to quit and get another job. It's not easy, but I have done it.
FOX news employees are there. They are working for an unethical organization with a not-so-hidden agenda. I believe a lot of people at Daily Kos are aware of this to some extent. FOX news is a massive propaganda outlet, run by the GOP, posing as a news organization.
If, for some odd reason you, kind reader, are NOT aware of this, please read a couple of the articles written by the ever-excellent News Corpse to get you up to speed.
This morning, then, I see Media critic: Fox’s ‘goddamn ratings’ won’t ever impress me to hire their employees posted at Raw Story.
Recently the fake news outlet ran an anti-Obama story - no surprise there - but the TV critic for the Baltimore Sun, David Zurawik, has some feedback for absolutely stir-fries FOX, and I don't mean their well-known their talking heads.
Over the fold!
In an interview with Media Matters Radio, Zurawik added to his heavy criticism about the network for its Fox & Friends morning show running an anti-Obama ad that appeared as it was created by the Republican National Committee.
“Nobody wants to hire you, and it’s because you’ve worked at Fox,” Zurawik said. “You know, you’re working for an outlaw, rogue organization. And it can send me their ratings every goddamn five damn minutes and I still am not impressed with them as a journalistic operation. And I wouldn’t hire anybody who worked at Fox even if I knew them, because I believe they’ve been compromised.”
The audio is available below:
Here's some more detail on his displeasure with FOX and their anti-Obama ad being played on a 'station' that he feels is falsely representing itself:
Today's version of the morning show featured an anti-Obama video that resembled propaganda films from 1930's Europe more than it did responsible TV politics of today.
And the remarkable thing was the witless crew on the couch that serves as hosts for this show had the audacity to present it as journalism and congratulate the producer who put it together.
You can see it for yourself, and I hope you will let me know what you think.
But as the guy who challenged the Obama administration two years when it tried to deny Fox News access to interviews and other opportunities offered to the media on the grounds that Fox was not a legitimate news operation, I have to tell you even I am shocked by how blatantly Fox is throwing off any pretense of being a journalistic entity with videos like this. Don't be fooled by Bret Baier's Boy Scout smile or all the talk about how some shows are news and some are opinion on the channel. Any news organization that puts up this kind of video is rotten to the core.
I am certain that some will complain that times are hard and a job's a job, and most of the time I'd be in total agreement.
However, as I indicated above, I have quit jobs that were somewhat less ethically-challenged than FOX but which were engaging in unethical conduct that would reflect badly on me as a professional.
At the first place I quit, the supervisor I had used her abilty to access my managed care re-certification account to alter things I had written so that the managed care company would accept a request for treating a family that did not meet criteria. This is fraud and I quit.
I have only worked at little rinky-dink, Mickey Mouse organizations by comparison to FOX News: FOX, of course, is huge.
Their unethical conduct influences and affects - adversely - far more people than those pathetic little agencies I worked for.
I agree with Zurawick: FOX is a corrupt, 'rogue' operation with a known agenda to systematically misrepresent the truth and spread republican propaganda all disguised as a very flashy newscast: From News Corpse - Fox Nation Is Right: There Is An Historic Debacle At CNN
When Fox News began to approach and overtake CNN in the ratings, CNN management made the foolish mistake of concluding that Fox's success was related to their blatant conservative bias and abandonment of journalistic principles. While that was (and is) the model for Fox's programming, that played only a small part in their success story. The real reason that Fox excelled was that they had switched the deck. They were not in any practical sense a news network. Their programming was (and is) closer to an entertainment channel than anything else. They feature shallow, sensationalistic stories that rely heavily on melodrama, controversy, emotion and sex - the main characteristics of soap operas and reality shows. And they decorate their broadcasts with flashy graphics and sound effects that would be more appropriate for game shows. That's what draws their viewers in, and that is always more compelling than actual news content.
FOX is a product, like cigarettes or junk food, pleasurable for those who can stomach it, full of toxins and crap your body and mind just do not need, but which are legal.
But instead of nicotine or high-fructose corn syrup, FOX is chock full of lies, half-truths, innuendo, and republcian talking points all wrapped up and presented to those who would consume such stuff as if it were detailed, fact-based information coming from a legitimate news site.
Ergo, FOX News is very unethical and I will imagine that what Zurawick means by 'compromised' is that people who have thrived at FOX may have become ethically "lost", polluted with the FOX News/News Corp mentality of 'anything to get ahead or make a buck', no matter what.
We all have to work and the economy has been a nightmare for the past several years. A job is a job, to a great extent, but when it is requiring you are enticing you into lying, misleading people with information you know to be wrong, it is an unethical income and you run the risk of compromising your integrity and ethics.