McClellan: Fox News Commentators use talking points from the white house

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Saw this over on Something Awful. Basically something I've always thought was true is true.


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/26/mcclellan-fox-talking-points/

On MSNBC’s Hardball last night, host Chris Matthews asked former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan if he saw “FOX television as a tool” to get the White House’s “message out” while he was in the Bush administration. “Certainly there were commentators and other, pundits at FOX News, that were useful to the White House,” replied McClellan, adding that they were given “talking points.”

Making a distinction between journalists like Brit Hume and commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, McClellan admitted that “certainly” the White House used Fox News talking heads as “spokespeople” with “a script”:

MATTHEWS: So, you wouldn’t use Brit Hume to sell stuff for them, but you’d use some of the nighttime guys?

MCCLELLAN: Yeah, I would separate that out, and certainly I, you know, they’ll say, that’s because they agree with those views in the White House.

MATTHEWS: Well, they didn’t need a script though, did they?

MCCLELLAN: No, well, probably not.

McClellan later told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that “it was done frequently, especially on high-profile issues” and that Fox often gave the White House “its desired results.” Current Press Secretary Dana Perino would only tell Olbermann, “I’m not aware of that.” Watch it:

Fox News’s close relationship to the Bush administration should come as no surprise to anyone, considering Fox’s Neil Cavuto once ran a segment asking if George W. Bush was “the best President.” But, as Olbermann notes, it “is one of those things you assumed to be true all along, yet you are shocked when the hard confirmation actually shows up on your door.”

Not only is Fox the network the White House turned to when Vice President Dick Cheney had to explain how he shot his friend in the face, but the network has also produced sympathetic documentaries on both Cheney and President Bush.
Click to expand...

Here's the link to whatever on youtube; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D08K7Q6hyE
 
A

avidwriter

Guest
Walter said:
This is utterly shocking news.
Click to expand...

Sarcasm? Foxnews is a joke. They've had so many bad reports is laughable. Mass Effect comes to mind.
 
nomad

nomad

"Bring the light of day"
US television in itself is a joke period. So it was said and proven on national television, what's that going to do really? The amazing thing of all is how Fox news gets singled out, when the NBC network is clearly the mothership of them all. I love how the FCC is allways on top of thing$ but this one, oooh... this one just sliped.
 
Walter

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
There's not a Jew in my entire county. Now, there very well may be one running the corporation my company WORKS for.
 
ELEKTRO

ELEKTRO

Well I will let someone who had it against mass media speak for me on this one.

"journalism is run by a few talented persons and many incompetent ones "

"anonymity of newspaper articles make people irresponsible and spoil the correctness of information."

- Soren Kierkegaard


The news media have allot of positive things but one of the negative effects it has it that most people who watches the news feel like they are an expert on the subject which causes allot of idle talk (I have no problem about people speaking about a topic that was on the news just as long as they don't act as experts). As an example regarding politics I can just here people blurting out the same biased half-assed opinions about a candidate over and over because a popular journalist said so ( I also beat myself with a stick every time I listen to myself doing that).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom