It's time we explain to Fox-Fans -- how Fox really works.
Explain that they don't "report the News" -- they create it.
Take this one insidious example, from a long line of Fox-Fearmonging examples ...
The Fox Cycle: From bogus right-wing attack to mainstream news
by Simon Maloy, mediamatters.org -- July 12, 2010
Fox News aggressively promoting spurious allegations against DOJ. Taking a cue from right-wing blogs and The Washington Times, Fox News has spent the past week aggressively promoting allegations that the Obama Justice Department dropped voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party due to racial considerations.
The charges are being leveled by J. Christian Adams, a GOP activist and former DOJ attorney who was hired to the Bush DOJ by Bradley Schlozman, a political appointee who was ultimately found to have improperly politicized DOJ hiring. Adams admits to lacking firsthand knowledge of some of the events, conversations, and decisions that he cites to advance his accusations. Also, Adams' allegations are undermined by the fact that the decision to not pursue criminal charges against the New Black Panthers was made by the Bush-era DOJ (for which Adams worked); further, the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one of the defendants.
Despite holes in story, other media outlets follow Fox News' lead. [...]
New Black Panther story following a familiar pattern.
1. Right-wing bloggers, talk radio hosts, and other conservative media outlets start promoting and distorting the story.
2. Fox News picks up the story and gives it heavy, one-sided coverage.
3. Fox News and conservative media attack the "liberal media" for ignoring the distorted story.
4. Mainstream media outlets eventually cover the story, echoing the right-wing distortions.
5. Fox News receives credit for promoting the story.
6. The story is later proven to be false or wildly misleading, long after damage is done.
This same pattern has played out several times before, with some variations. Three prominent examples from the past two years are the ACORN videos, Barack Obama's "relationship" with William Ayers, and the "Climategate scandal."
[...]
[emphasis added]
"They report All the News -- that wasn't" -- over at Fox, history shows.
It just takes a while to get past all the 'smoke and hysteria' -- that the fire-starters at Fox can generate in 24 hours, sometimes.
Or take the more recent shameless (and consequential) example, of the Fox-Fear-Factory doing what it does best ...
We only have to look to the recent freak-out over the President's "weak Ebola-response" ... and how Americans must be afraid ... "be very afraid."
"Ebola is out to get you, Americans" -- because the Fox News Nation, told us so.
(Good thing for us NOW, that the GOP Wave has "cured the problem" ... Whew!)
Misguided Media Hysteria Pervades the 24/7 News Cycle
by Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson, thenation.com -- October 28, 2014
[...]
Needless to say, Fox News has mastered the art of fear-mongering news coverage. Indeed, given something as easy to manipulate as Ebola -- a potentially deadly disease from third-world, African countries -- it takes the network a mere matter of days to, first, stoke fear and outrage with its opinion-makers, and then, turn around and cover that fear and outrage with its supposedly straight reporting. (Behold one of the most recent examples.) But credit to Roger Ailes, he knows that single-issue fear manufacturing won’t get the big ratings when even CNN is cross-pollinating threats. So no surprise, for sure, when Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace recently engaged in a “lightning round” of hypothetical nightmare scenarios on his show, including an idea that is amounts to a hat trick of right-wing fears: the combination of Ebola, terrorism and illegal immigration.
[...]
That some of our nation’s political leaders freely engage in this kind of ignorant recklessness is bad enough. But when the press -- the supposed bulwark of truth in our democracy -- routinely enables and even encourages this careless behavior, things get even worse. For this journalistic malpractice -- whether it’s hyping distant threats like Ebola and ISIS or ignoring imminent ones like climate change and gun violence -- erodes the public trust in the press and has a corrosive effect upon our ability to govern ourselves. When it comes to the news we produce and consume in our democracy, it’s increasingly clear that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
[emphasis added]
The reporting of News is supposed to be a "service to society" (if you read between the lines of the Constitution, and the once explicit directives of the FCC). Yet Fox in their not-so-infinite wisdom, manages to turn the News into a societal "dis-service" time and time again.
If only some "Right-wing bloggers, talk radio hosts, and other conservative media outlets would start promoting" THAT 'dangerous' story. Eh?
Then Fox might have to trump up some contagion-fear -- on themselves!?
Goodness knows, they deserve it. The 24/7 News-cycle willing, of course.