Pew Research Journalism Project has a slightly interesting survey out:
Overall, the study finds that consistent conservatives:
- Are tightly clustered around a single news source, far more than any other group in the survey, with 47% citing Fox News as their main source for news about government and politics.
- Express greater distrust than trust of 24 of the 36 news sources measured in the survey. At the same time, fully 88% of consistent conservatives trust Fox News.
- Are, when on Facebook, more likely than those in other ideological groups to hear political opinions that are in line with their own views.
- Are more likely to have friends who share their own political views. Two-thirds (66%) say most of their close friends share their views on government and politics.
By contrast, those with consistently liberal views:
- Are less unified in their media loyalty; they rely on a greater range of news outlets, including some – like NPR and the New York Times– that others use far less.
- Express more trust than distrust of 28 of the 36 news outlets in the survey. NPR, PBS and the BBC are the most trusted news sources for consistent liberals.
- Are more likely than those in other ideological groups to block or “defriend” someone on a social network – as well as to end a personal friendship – because of politics.
- Are more likely to follow issue-based groups, rather than political parties or candidates, in their Facebook feeds.
The survey results were characterized in this manner at HuffPo Politics:
Conservatives are more likely to distrust news sources that don’t reflect their point of view, the study said.
The delicious irony is in how liberals continue to fail to perceive the obvious: That the reason why conservatives trust “one” major news source than “trust of 24 of the 36 news sources measured”, is for similar reasons as to why liberals gravitate toward all those other news outlets. The other ones- NPR, NYTimes, MSNBC, etc.- tilt center-left to far left. FOX News is the only cable news network that leans conservative.
What is deeply frustrating is in how so many liberals fail to see the bias in mainstream publications like the NYTimes, CBS, NPR, WaPo, etc. They tend to think of these news organizations as non-biased, non-partisan, and objective in their straight news coverage- and accurate (Re: “Facts have a liberal bias.“).
The Pew Research survey itself fails to draw this conclusion:
When it comes to choosing a media source for political news, conservatives orient strongly around Fox News. Nearly half of consistent conservatives (47%) name it as their main source for government and political news, as do almost a third (31%) of those with mostly conservative views. No other sources come close.
Consistent liberals, on the other hand, volunteer a wider range of main sources for political news – no source is named by more than 15% of consistent liberals and 20% of those who are mostly liberal. Still, consistent liberals are more than twice as likely as web-using adults overall to name NPR (13% vs. 5%), MSNBC (12% vs. 4%) and the New York Times (10% vs. 3%) as their top source for political news.
This “wider range of main sources for political news” makes it sound like liberals are much more exposed to diverse news and worldly-wise because of it; however, this is just not the case. Not only do the news outlets these self-identified liberals tend to like, lean with a leftward tilt; but in some cases, they are merely parroting/intellectual-plagiarizing from one another. Of course this happens with the AP and Reuters. But it also occurs when you have a traditionally very influential paper like the NYTimes. It reports a certain story, and other outlets- from national to regional and localized rags- essentially parrots and cites what was written in the NYTimes.
A great example of this type of group-think occurrence happened when the 2007-8 Pentagon-funded study, The Iraqi Perspectives Project, was mischaracterized by McClatchy’s reporter, Warren Strobel, who wrote about an important report that he hadn’t even read, because it hadn’t been released yet. Other news organizations ceased upon the same bullet points, which prompted the Pentagon to release the study itself, because reporters were mischaracterizing the actual findings.
As Scott wrote back in March ’08:
His [Mark Eichenlaub of Regime of Terror fame]article highlights in perfectly plain sight just how a single, biased writer will bite on a rumor from a single anonymous source about a report that hadn’t even been revealed, and then a total falsehood becomes propagated by the Old Media. When the actual report came out, anyone and everyone reading it could see that it listed innumerable documented and confirmed connections between Saddam’s regime and the network of terror groups called, Al Queda.
~~~ This one is definitely worth the read. Think about what it shows: NO ONE in the McLatchy Newspaper chain of editors, no one at ABC, no one at the New York Times, no one at CNN, no one at the Washington Post, no one at AFP, and no one at any of the blogosphere sites that posted the original article actually read the report. NONE. Old Media/traditional media outlets are supposed to be special because they have armies of fact checkers yet no one in any of these armies ever saw the actual report. The actual report contradicts the original article at almost every turn.
Is there a fact checker anywhere, or have these outlets collapsed into rumor parrots? Were it not for spellcheck, I wouldn’t have been surprised if a spelling error from the original made it to all the outlets. Would yuo?
For the record, Scott took the time to read the entire report, in blogging about it. So did Mata. I’ve only read parts. And unlike so many journalists who are not experts on the topic, Scott is, having read a great number of government documents, declassified intell reports, etc., going directly to the source and not always relying upon the filter of a journalist’s reporting. Scott’s authored a couple of books worth checking out on Saddam’s ties to al Qaeda; and on Iraq.
The report described in the article was finally released to the public, and its contents are almost completely contrary to the leaked “article” that described it beforehand.
In fact, if anything this new study should finally put to rest the false perception that Saddam’s regime was too secular to work with radical Islamic holy warriors, and it should be a genuine wake up call for people who continue to ignore the threat posed by state-sponsors of terror like Saddam Hussein once was.
To this day, due to the strength and power of mainstream media, most people are unaware of Saddam’s ties to Islamic terror and have simply been told, “There was no al Qaeda in Iraq before 9/11” or before OIF. They were led to believe that it was all just a Wolfowitz/Feith/Cheney neocon fantasy/fabrication. A recent example of the influence and reach of the NYTimes is in seeing how many people expressed shock when Chivers article came out, talking about chemical weapons found in Iraq that so many people apparently were unaware of.
They were unaware, probably because they read only the wide diversity of liberal news outlets.
Further on in the Pew study report:
Liberals, overall, trust a much larger mix of news outlets than others do. Of the 36 different outlets considered, 28 are more trusted than distrusted by consistent liberals. Just eight earn higher shares of distrust than trust. Still, among those eight, the levels of distrust can be high: fully 81% of consistent liberals distrust Fox News, and 75% distrust the Rush Limbaugh Show.
This is just silly. Rush Limbaugh?! Rush Limbaugh is a pundit, openly and unashamedly partisan. He is not “straight news” but more like the op-ed section of a newsrag. Why are they including him and others like John Stewart and Stephen Colbert as a source for news? And when one looks at the filthy laundry list of “36 different outlets”, a big “duh” as to why they trust 28 of them.
Politifact characterizes this Pew point, this way: Pew study finds Rush Limbaugh least trustworthy news source. But then, Politifact is another outlet that should be better self-labeled as “PolitiPartisan”. It would be the honest thing to do.
Liberals with a wider swath of media outlets to trust from just means they have a wider echo chamber for them to inhabit. That’s all.
Hot Air’s Allahpundit’s takeaway from this is that liberals really are jerks (on account of being defriended for political views expressed on Facebook- whee!).
Bernard Goldberg’s Arrogance is a great read for any doubting Toms out there in regards to liberal bias in modern, mainstream journalism.
A former fetus, the “wordsmith from nantucket” was born in Phoenix, Arizona in 1968. Adopted at birth, wordsmith grew up a military brat. He achieved his B.A. in English from the University of California, Los Angeles (graduating in the top 97% of his class), where he also competed rings for the UCLA mens gymnastics team. The events of 9/11 woke him from his political slumber and malaise. Currently a personal trainer and gymnastics coach.
The wordsmith has never been to Nantucket.
I think you answer your own question.
If they Pew study did not include punditry it could not include most of the liberals ”most trusted news outlets.”
They are no more ”straight news,” than Rush over at almost all of those trusted by liberals of every stripe.
I can bring myself to watch CNN during breaking news, because they go live and extended.
But even for breaking news MSNBC, CBS, NBC, CBS and PBS are all full of lefty color on the breaking story.
It’s simple. Those on the right are low information types who need to reaffirm their misguided fears and hate and Fox News delivers. Those on the left don’t need to be screamed at constantly and get their information from multiple sources to make informed decisions. With the exception of MSNBC, all media is predominantly right leaning. They are owned by mega corporations and the uber wealthy who vote GOP. Even PBS has capitulated to funding threats by conservatives and are far more right leaning than ever before.
During the prime time news hour Fox gets about 10% of the viewers it is the big. 3 abc cbs nbc that get the most
The most liberal religious group, the one that consistently votes Dem are the Jews
Anyone here want to go on record as hating those jerks. ?
@John:
ROTFLMAO
Read it and weep, troll.
http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/10/21/cable-news-ratings-for-monday-october-20-2014/317363/
@John:
You’re correct about the numbers ”Cable” vs ”Network.”
I can’t believe how many poor people back in CA couldn’t afford cable or satellite so they either get news from the networks or not at all.
CA is a leftist state, too.
Loads of people on the dole.
Jews, from my own family’s history, are a one-policy voter bloc.
The one policy is ABORTION.
Weird, too, because most of my relatives who are active Jews come from HUGE families!
@This+one:
Utter tripe.
Wow John, I’ve seen some messed up posts during the last decade, buy you take the cake with that one. Seriously John, you and your other socks need to seek professional help. Doing so might just make it possible for the likes of you to make in life without sucking on the tit of of the income taxpayers.
In short, wing nuts are much more gullible people.
@Ronald J.Ward:
In short, left wing nuts are much less
more gullibleinformed people.There, fixed it for you, RJW.
@retire05: Well, that somewhat contradicts the findings but if it’s therapeutic for you, so be it.
@Ronald J. Ward:
You can check the other stats on that website, if you wish. But you are going to get the same results, week after week. Fox viewers outnumber the other cable news networks combined.
And, unfortunately for liberals like you, left leaning Pew Research did a study and it showed that Republicans are more informed than Democrats.
@This+one: wow this plus 1 are you now sybil?besides being dumb as a stump?or are you and greggie sharing a bathrobe?
@retire05:
Surveys: Republicans more open-minded, better informed than Democrats
Hmm. Trust Fox news more than the leftist controlled MSM maybe. Frankly, Fox news has become far too entrenched and lockstep with the establishment Republican agenda for me to say I “trust” Fox News or it’s so called “conservative leaning” establishment mouthpieces. I happen to get most of my news from a wide variety of internet news providers.
Fox News gets the lion’s share of conservative viewers simply because it is the only significant programming that preaches to the conservative choir. On the other hand, it is at times difficult to accept that their conservative viewers are “well-informed,” as this sole conservative voice spends so much time REPEATING stories that they think will “motivate” the Republican base ( THE 40TH VOTE TO REPEAL OBAMACARE, BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI, BENGHAZI, ZIMMERMAN WAS INNOCENT, OBAMA IS A TRAITOR, etc.). Fox News would seem to take its daily line-up of “news worth reporting” from the index of Flopping Aces’ “Active Discussions.” There is other news worth reporting.
@This+one:
Odd perception, being that survey after survey and poll after poll shows, clearly, Fox to be the least biased and most fair, presenting the most equal number of positive and negative stories about politics. As to being the “low information” bunch, remind me again who elected Obama… TWICE… based on nothing but “hope and change”?
Ability to view objectively: GONE.
@Ronald J.Ward:
Again, who was it that voted for Obama, even AFTER he made the economic, domestic and foreign affairs situations worse? Who is it that supports “the most transparent administration in history” despite stonewalling Fast and Furious, Benghazi, Obamacare rollout, IRS and the VA scandals? Who is it that voted based on “you can keep your insurance, you can keep your doctor… PERIOD” (2013’s #1 lie) and now simply write that off as what politicians say? Anyone still supporting this absolute failure and criticizing any other system of governance are the most gullible (or, to put it another way, STUPID) on the planet. Especially those too cowardly to even answer pointed questions about the performance of this worthless administration and its lies.
What is shown is that there is only one non-left wing biased source of information available to those who have not already made themselves drunk on the left wing ideological kool-aid.
@George+Wells: I wonder if your trusted news sources informed you that the one and only suspect this administration has “arrested” for the Benghazi catastrophe has admitted that the consulate was targeted, surveilled and attacked in a well-laid out plan that had nothing to do with a video. So, the entire administration narrative about the attack has been a lie. Now, the investigations (still stonewalled by Obama, Holder and Clinton) is important in the context of a Clinton Presidential bid. If she ignored warnings, disregarded pleas for security and help and joined in on the administration lies about the cause she is automatically disqualified as President.
Oh, and Zimmerman WAS innocent. Just as it looks more and more that Darren Wilson is innocent of the left-wing promoted charges against him.
I must note how amusing it always is to see how the left views the Daily Show and Colbert as “trusted news sources”. This alone tells you how ignorant they like to keep themselves. Again, anyone that made the uninformed, popularity-based, race-based judgment to vote for Obama…. TWICE… has no room whatsoever to evaluate how anyone else makes a decision. NONE.
Looking around at today’s headlines, one wonders why anyone trusts the MSM to report fairly.. Here’s a couple.
One Week Later: Networks Still Ignore Houston Sermon Subpoena Scandal
AP Ignores Shaheen’s Refusal to Answer Whether She Approves of Obama at Debate
WaPo’s Kessler Gives ‘GOP Cut CDC Funding’ Four Pinocchios, Effectively ‘Cutting’ AP’s Disinformation to Ribbons
There have been several in the past few weeks where a network will take a pole, and if the pole isn’t to their liking, they won’t report on it. How can anyone trust a network that won’t report on its own poles?
10/20: NBC Newscasts Avoid NBC’s Latest Bad-News Poll for Dems
10/19: WashPost Buries Own Poll Showing Historic Low for Obama, More Energized GOP Voters
10/15: ABC Gives 17 Seconds To Own Poll Showing ‘Democrats Sweating’ Before Midterms
@retire05: Sure didn’t take the trolls long to pop up!
@Ditto:
Fair and balanced === cutting the baby in half
@John: If the MSM was reporting re Obama and the demo-COMMUNISTS the ‘RAT’s approval would be in the 20 percentile range
@Bill #16:
Regarding “Benghazi,” Republicans have made their point. Continuing to “refresh” everyone’s view of the incident might keep the “base” excited, but it runs the risk of becoming a tiresome annoyance to the rest of the country. (Hint: House Republicans stopped voting on ObamaCare because it became counter-productive. 40+ times was simply too much of a good thing.) The voters will decide who is best qualified to be our next President, and I doubt that Benghazi will matter one way or the other. (You weren’t going to vote for Hillary before Benghazi, and nothing changed. I was going to vote for her before Benghazi, and nothing changed.)
Regarding Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, they are both on COMEDY CENTRAL! Get it? It’s COMEDY!
A good joke can make a political point, and SNL/Tina Fey’s portrayal of Sara Palin didn’t do McCain’s ticket any good, but if Democrats are telling you that they get their “news” from comedy shows, they’re pulling YOUR leg.
@George+Wells: I see and smell that the shovels have been run down the barn’s gutters and the hoses have flushed out the place!
@George+Wells: There is a stark difference between the way the two sides (as pitiful as it is that there are two sides) of this issue. You and the left look at Benghazi as something political opponents want to use to damage your candidate/leader/idol. I and others look at it as a national disaster that cost America four lives and provided al Qaeda with an invaluable recruiting tool, as well as the loss of quite a bit of valuable intelligence. Further, we looked upon it as a barometer to measure the ability to lead and make decisions; first of Obama in 2012, and now of Hillary in 2016. You and the left still see only political liability and how to dodge it. Slowly the facts have dribbled out, beginning with the absolute falsehood that the attack was merely a riot spawned by a video. Other facts, such as specific warnings and no one paying much attention to the attack on the night of the attack have also been revealed. This goes well beyond political embarrassment; this is dereliction of duty and absence of leadership. It matters.
I get it; the question is, do YOU? Again, as the survey shows, Steward and Colbert are regarded as TRUSTED NEWS SOURCES.
Quite a number of liberals actually attribute the “see Russia from my house” quote TO Palin; liberals are so used to false news that they cannot differentiate between fact, lies, comedy or sarcasm. If it fits their prejudiced perceptions, it is the NEWS.
@Bill:
One of the truist and clearest statements I have ever read re liberals and their typical inability to receive information and reason with it!
So, the farther to the right, the fewer the sources that are generally trusted.
Rupert Murdoch owns both Fox and the Wall Street Journal. Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity aren’t actually reporters, but commentators that view and report on current events as seen through a right wing filter. The Drudge Report is nothing more than a news aggregation service, which presents selected stories linked from actual news services with their own suggestive story titles slapped on—in other words, another filtering mechanism, and one which frames linked stories in a politically purposeful way.
What’s the likelihood that anyone relying almost entirely on that narrow range of outlets is getting an objective view of reality?
@George+Wells:
No, I was not going to vote for Hillary. I would reference White Water, Travelgate, FBI file-gate, lies about dodging snipers in Kosovo, fully supporting the Iraq war (based on the same intel everyone else had) then opposing it and the surge simply because it became politically popular and, of course, a total dereliction of duty regarding Benghazi. Not to mention happily looking the other way while Bill abused women at the sex-harassment buffet.
Unsettling that you have already decided to support her despite all the viable questions regarding Benghazi, many of which have been answered. But, I suppose, at this point, what difference does it make… right? The ends justifies the means.
@Greg:
More specifically, the more interested in unbiased facts one is, the fewer sources are generally trusted. Though the left has 36 sources to choose from, they are all essentially singing the same tune; failure is success, disaster is progress. You do remember the “impartial” (too much) Candy Crowley jumping in to Obama’s rescue when he was on the ropes over Benghazi during the Romney/Obama foreign policy debate? The left wing media does not simply provide a point of view (instead of news) but is also actively attacks conservatives while shielding liberals.
Has Fox, for instance, EVER invented evidence out of thin air to prove a point, much less try and alter the outcome of a Presidential election as CBS and Dan Rather tried to do in 2004? The evidence of a leftward bias in the media is overwhelming and it does not simply represent the heartfelt feelings of its members; it is the agenda.
@Greg: So, the farther to the right, the fewer the sources that are generally trusted.
As usual Greg shows up to show how much of a low information voter he is. He attempts to insult our intelligence as he spews forth his unfounded Daily Kos Huffington Post style tripe. It has little to do with the political orientation of the news receiver, but instead is mostly in regards to the politicization of the news providers. As bias and propaganda have become the norm in “news” reporting, these providers have lost the public trust. When you keep lying to people, or provide them with propaganda instead of fact, they eventually catch on. That is why the ratings of CNN, MSNBC, and the broadcast news organizations have been tanking, while FOX news has increased in market share. “All the news that’s fit to print” was the New York Times masthead logo, which however bears with it their unspoken arrogant and elitist caveat that they would decide what was “fit to print” That was the start of “yellow journalism” (based on the progressive Yellow Man political cartoon) and eventually led to the secretive progressive Journalist group. The goal of the MSM evolved from simple reporting of the news, to using the news to shape conventional wisdom by careful editing and by exclusion of news or information that is ‘unhelpful’ to their agenda.
@Bill, #26:
How does that work, when the only trusted sources are those that are closely identified with a particular political bias? The only people who seem to be totally oblivious to that bias are the those who share it. They’ve become convinced that everyone else is brainwashed. They’ve been repeatedly told that. If that doesn’t raise a red flag, I don’t know what would.
What do you think all of the unnamed sources FOX has cited for totally unverifiable assertions actually represent? Consider the volume of total bullshit they promulgated in connection with Benghazi, for example. They turned the switch up to FULL POWER during the weeks preceding the last presidential election. I don’t know how that slipped by so many viewers.
@Greg:
Yeah, four dead Americans, Ambassador Stevens requesting more security and it being denied, Hillary and Obama’s MIA actions that night, no air assistance for the men on the roof tops that were fighting off the terrorists and Susan Rice’s FIVE tv appearances to spin the lie the attack was due to a video is just total bullshit in the minds of true believers like you, Greggie. So what exactly “unnamed sources” are you talking about when Fox is the only channel to actually interview three of the men who fought like hell that night against the terrorists? Are you calling those three men liars?
Surely you are not that despicable.
@Greg:
What is the bias, Greg? How does it manifest itself? What is the evidence of the bias, Greg? Is it because Fox has covered the ongoing development of stories such as Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, Benghazi lying, Obamacare failure or ISIS enabling when none of the cheerleading outlets provide coverage? Greg, that is what news outlets are supposed to do; give the news, not sanitize it.
How about some notable examples? What do you think of the left wing outlets editing tape and audio to support the narrative they promote? What do you think of left wing journalists forming mutual support groups (“Journal-list”, for example) in order to assure a consistent and uniform control of the message is maintained? What do you think about the anti-war character of the media during the Bush administration suddenly changing to a “we really aren’t concerned with the war” character once Obama took office?
What is ONE example of “bullshit” promulgated, other than the left wing narrative of a video being responsible for the attack, one that has actually been recycled by the corrupt MSM?
IT WAS AN IMPORTANT DECISION POINT CONCERNING WHO WOULD BE THE NEXT PRESIDENT, YOU IGNORANT SYCOPHANT. Obama, as it has turned out, dropped the war on terror once bin Laden was dead. He would not acknowledge that there was a threat to the consulate for it did not follow the narrative he had invented that “al Qaeda is on the run” and, after the attack, it had to be blamed on a protest to protect that narrative. On top of it all, during the attack, when lives could have been saved, Obama simply went to bed so as to be rested and fresh for… wait for it…. a FUNDRAISER. The fact that the rest of the media did not do its job and get to the bottom of the Benghazi is a crime against the citizenry and resulted in another four years of an inept, incompetent President.
Obama and Hillary both dropped the ball on Benghazi and if Hillary is foolish enough to risk running, it will swamp her. It PROVES, just as it did with Obama, that she is not qualified or capable to be President.
The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are the Most Misinformed
http://www.alternet.org/media/science-fox-news-why-its-viewers-are-most-misinformed
@Bill:
“Again, as the survey shows, Steward and Colbert are regarded as TRUSTED NEWS SOURCES.”
“Liberals are so used to false news that they cannot differentiate between fact, lies, comedy or sarcasm. If it fits their prejudiced perceptions, it is the NEWS.”
Well, now, this does present YOU with a problem, doesn’t it? Personally, I can’t see where voters who base their election day decisions on comedy programming are at a disadvantage over other people who follow the “right’s” doom-and-gloom message religiously and vote accordingly.
I’ve listened to Democrats crying over disastrous Republican presidencies and I’ve listened to Republicans crying over disastrous Democratic presidencies for a long time now, and after the dust has settled, none of them were really disasters. You want to get up-tight about Democrats making bad decisions, then start to message them with something that they can buy into, something that doesn’t sound like yet another golden parachute for the rich.
“Unsettling that you have already decided to support her despite all the viable questions regarding Benghazi, many of which have been answered. But, I suppose, at this point, what difference does it make… right? The ends justifies the means.”
Indeed it does. It would have worked for Nixon, too, had he not been caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
I support Hillary because, as a weak-spined barometer of liberal sentiment, she can be more or less depended upon to continue in the direction that weak-spined barometer of liberal sentiment Obama has taken in the advancement of gay rights. This is the most important issue to me. Republicans have thrown their ObamaCare tantrums and otherwise refused to ever grant a single gay right that wasn’t already being shoved down their collective throats. We all work toward our own ends. Are you really surprised?
@Greg:
Examples pleas – examples — dig out the quotes and the PROOF they are WRONG — we are all excitingly waiting to be enlightened
@retire05: You said re Greg:
Uh — I didn’t realize there was a question!
@Bill, #30:
A list could be made of the lies promulgated about Benghazi. Some left-leaning websites have taken the time to do so. Atlas Left came up with a list of 19, most of which I recall being mentioned on FOX News at some point in time.
So, it became excusable for a “news” station to lie and distort reality on a routine basis? It didn’t work, did it? That’s because a majority of Americans know a propaganda campaign when they see one.
@Bill:
But neither was Obama and he got elected twice — I’d bet that the first thing the hildabeast will do is provide her BC and transcripts – uh, well, maybe not!
“How about some notable examples?”
“A list could be made of the lies promulgated about Benghazi. Some left-leaning websites have taken the time to do so. Atlas Left came up with a list of 19, most of which I recall being mentioned on FOX News at some point in time.”
What difference does it make? Benghazi has been prosecuted in the court of public opinion for two YEARS! Is there some NEW evidence being presented? No, I didn’t think so.
I hear that there’s a groundhog out in Idaho that hasn’t decided yet, but for anyone with a lick of sense, this issue is dead. Oh, that’s right – it ISN’T dead for Republicans. Now what could that mean…?
@retire05 #29:
Despicable Greggie, Despicable Tom, Despicable Georgie.
I’m a Republican parrot! SQUAWK!
DespicableDespicableDespicable!
SQUAWK!
@Greg:
Greggie, I read your little far left apologist link to AtlasLeft. My God, they need to use those guys in journalism schools as an example of how to take lies and half truths and spin them into fact. Take this little bit of obfuscation:
“8. The State Department was repeatedly asked for extra security — including direct cables to Secretary Clinton and no one acted.
While it is true that a number of requests for additional staffing were sent to the State department, laying the blame for them not being answered at Clinton’s feet is disingenuous. There were, according to the House Republican’s report, two cable and two email message that indicated the requests were received (March-July, 2012). In them, diplomats requested more security but officials replied that they preferred to train Libyan staff. But were these “signed by Hillary Clinton?”
The communications center at the State Department puts the secretary’s name on all telegrams and posts. Whoever is Secretary of State at the time has their name on everything so, when Clinton was in charge, her “signature” was on all communications. But that doesn’t mean she signed them, just that her name was printed at the bottom of them. The claim that she saw them because she signed them is false.
Messages to the State department are still referred to as “telegrams” even though they are emails (old habits die hard). They are always addressed: To “SECSTATE” in “WASHDC.” There are about 1.4 million cables every year that are addressed this way. Clinton’s name or title on these millions of messages doesn’t mean that she personally knew of their contents. In the case of Benghazi security, she testified under oath that she didn’t.
“They are all addressed to me. They do not all come to me. They are reported through the bureaucracy. I was not aware of that going on (requests from Libya). It was not brought to my attention, but obviously it’s something we’re fixing and intend to put into place protocols and systems to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
In reality however, Benghazi was only one of nearly 300 areas which were a concern. Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta testified that, in the six months leading to the attack, there were approximately 281 threats to diplomats, embassies, diplomatic facilities, consulates, etc. worldwide. But there were no specific indications that Benghazi was in more danger than any of the other facilities.”
So let’s take a look at reality, shall we?
Charlene Lamb, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Programs, a chief position at the Department of State and immediately under Under Secretary of State, Patrick Kennedy, testified that she was the one who declined Ambassador Steven’s request for additional security. When asked what she did with that request, Lamb testified that she “passed it on up” which means it would have gone to Kennedy who was responsible for making Clinton aware of the request. This can only mean that Lamb passed the request on, but was told “No” for the request for additional security for the Ambassador assigned to Libya.
You little piece of misinformation also fails to note that Lamb, in her testimony, said:
“Additionally, I was in our Diplomatic Security Command Center monitoring multiple open lines with our agents for much of the attack.”
So although there was no “real-time” video, there was a “real-time” audio in the Command Center that Lamb, Kennedy and Clinton would have all had access to. They knew, or at least Lamb and Kennedy knew, what was happening on the ground in Benghazi as it was happening.
So Shillary testifies that she was not “aware” of the requests for addition security for Benghazi. Fine. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, but then why was Lamb and Kennedy not fired on the spot? Especially Lamb, who was cited for “leadership failures” in the State Department’s own ARB investigation? Instead, Lamb has been PROMOTED to Regional Security Officer, with an increase in pay and stature. Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Those people worked for, and should have been responsible to her, and because of that, the buck stopped at Hillary Clinton’s desk, not at the desk of some underling that has consequently been promoted,
I could take each on of the 19 talking points and demolish them as easily as I did #8. Lies, obfuscation, misdirection with a heavy dose of spin is all your link offers.
From the OP:
That would only be true if the “liberal” publications were all as monolithic of viewpoint and opinion as Fox News, which to anyone who reads them, is clearly not the case. While those outlets can clearly all be clasified as “liberal”, they offer a far wider range of opinions and focuses than what the Right offers in the guise of one major outlet and Far Right fringe media. If you accept that The New Yorker and The Atlantic and The New Republic and The New York Times don’t all actually run the exact same content, then clearly the liberal consumer of liberal media has the benefit a much more varied diet of news and opinion, even within the liberal tent, than someone who only gets his news from Fox. And the fact of the matter is that these sources don’t dovetail on many important issues. For example, The New Republic is much more hawkish on Israel than many other liberal publications. Another example, in particular, the New York Times and the New Yorker were at the time editorially supportive of the invasion of Iraq compared to others. To this day, the New Yorker writers such as John Lee Anderson, Dexter Finkins, Steve Coll and George Packard have continued to publish stories from the front lines of the US engagements in the Middle East that have shown a deep empathy with the sufferings of the moderate citizens of those nations that often feel more in step with pro-interventionalists. (a recent example on the Kurds ). Instead of being served up unreported stories reinforcing simple memes like “Benghazi”, the New Yorker is putting front and center the agonizing costs of leaving Iraq, just like they’ve reported on the costs to Americans for being there in the first place. This is called ambiguity and nuance, and an invitation to the reader to draw her own conclusions. There simply is no equivalent to this type of boots on the ground unflinching reporting on the Right. And these are just two broad examples of where reading the media of “the left” isn’t an exercise one note propaganda. Regardless of what you think of the editorial stances of these publications, to call them an “echo chamber” in comparison to Fox is rich indeed. Do you honestly think the Right wouldn’t benefit from a wider variety of voices, even within the confines of their ideology? Or are to think that Benhazi is, objectively, the most important issue of the day?
@Tom:
Fox just scares the hell out of you liberals, don’t they, Tom? No more can those like Dan Rather get by with their jaded, one-sided propaganda for the masses.
@retire05, #38:
I recall it being asserted on multiple occasions that high-placed members of the Obama administration watched the entire attack on a live video feed—only one of many claims that were patently false. FOX’s coverage of the entire event was like a news feed from an alternate reality.
@Greg:
Charlene Lamb WAS a high placed member of the Obama administration. She still is.
Now provide a link to a Fox video where they are saying it was a “video” link, or STFU.
@retire05:
I consider Fox to be the unintentional equivalent of the Colbert Report. Good for laughs. The fact the Colbert Report is trying, and succeeding, to be funny by mimicking Fox just makes the entire comparison more apt. There are some conservative writers and pundits i follow for the conservative view. But there is nothing on the Right that compares to the the top echelon of “liberal” publications just in terms of the breadth and quality of the product they can deliver.
@retire05, #42:
Here’s an October 28, 2012 FOX News video clip that’s still posted on Breitbart. I’m surprised it hasn’t disappeared before now.
REPORT: OBAMA WATCHED BENGHAZI ATTACK FROM ‘SITUATION ROOM’
That, from one of the right’s 5 most trusted sources, being picked up and pushed by yet another. It would be too time consuming to try to document that the remaining 3 did the same thing with the same claim, but I’m guessing they may well have done so. It’s a pattern. They tend to cover the same material and seldom contradict one another.
@Greg:
I know that as a liberal, you have a reading comprehension disorder, but read the words, Greggie:
“Lt. Col. Tony Schafer told Fox News that sources were telling him that the President was watching the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in real-time.”
Tony Schafer was making that claim, NOT FOX.
@retire05, #46:
Oh, please. He’s one of FOX News’s circle of paid talking heads. The FOX segment featuring Schafer was for no other purpose than to provide him with a soapbox from which to attack the Obama administration one week before the 2012 election.
What sources? The never-to-be-named sources, of course. And like hell he hated to say it. He was put in front of a FOX News camera specifically to say it. “It” being a total load of manure—an outright lie. The entire performance was scripted.
The problem you actually have with liberals is that they comprehend this sort of tactic perfectly. Most liberals are smart enough to know exactly what FOX News is up to. They don’t have to be told about it or have it explained to them. They directly observe it.
@Greg and Tom:
Retire05 has her eyes closed, and her hands covering her ears, and she is loudly singing “LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!!!”
What does that mean?
And what about those ruby slippers, the heals of which she keeps clicking together, saying “There’s no place like Texas, there’s no place like Texas?”
I wonder when she will awake from her dream…
Good de-bunking job!
Hat’s off to ya!
@Greg: @George+Wells: @George+Wells:
Hmm… I notice you don’t find them reliable enough to provide any. I constantly hear of the “Fox lies” but never see a one. No different here. Of course, #19 is itself a lie. Also, Rice WAS sent out to lie, since we now know EVERYONE was made aware IMMEDIATELY that this was a terror attack, not a video protest. In fact, there is NO reference to the video but for White House spin. Three of the Benghazi survivors have verified a “stand down” order. Further, even though the administration contends there was not enough time to send aid (how could they know how long the attack would last?), they could have tried to save those men’s lives.
The entire purpose of the investigations is to find out who knew what when. This is slowly coming together (no thanks to the administration) but from what we now know, one thing is certain; the White House knew immediately that this was a terror attack and decided to blame the video. Why? Well, for lack of an explanation from the White House, we are left to speculate, but certainly the foremost motivation was to support the narrative that Obama had already defeated terrorism so this was the result of a protest. And, while Obama mentioned the word “terrorism”, he did NOT declare Benghazi a terror attack in the Rose Garden, the point at which in the debate that Crowley astoundingly came to Obama’s aid on.
Your list of confirmation and reinforcement of my originally stated views is much appreciated. Most of those “lies” I had not even heard of before your list and the rest, clearly, are lies themselves, comprised mostly of talking points.
That is a problem, because it is impossible to determine exactly WHAT liberals base their decisions on. Demonstrably, it is not reality and, just as demonstrably, they regard what comedians say as fact and gospel.
@Greg:
What kind of reality claims this attack was due to a video? There was NO support for that as an actual fact to be considered yet this was the official reason given by the administration… even resurrected later by the NYT. Alternate reality? There isn’t even any reality in the alternate reality of liberals.
@Tom:
Of course you do, Tom. All willfully ignorant liberals do. This is because Fox reports ALL the news, even that which the administration doesn’t want known whereas the hip-pocket REST of the MSM abide by the administration’s desire to keep any unflattering reports quiet.
@Greg:
I still wonder, Greg, how this compares to an official narrative, strictly coordinated by the White House, based on known lies, ignoring known facts, that the Benghazi attack was due to a video? THIS is one instance of a report coming in that may or may not have been proven true. However, the overriding and prevailing fact of it all is that the White House knowingly lied about the Benghazi attack and, as we are now made aware, had multiple warnings and requests for additional security. Not to mention that the attack occurred on 9/11, a date on which every facility should be EXPECTING an attack.
Obama, Rice and Hillary have lied about Benghazi. Period. Settle science. End of debate.