Foxed up

I was Foxed today, and it wasn’t pleasant.

Most days, I watch “ABC World News Tonight” and/or “CBS Evening News” on Sky News Australia, one of the news channels on our pay TV service. Today, however, they broadcast a funeral for some Australian sports guy I’d never heard of, so I channel surfed.

I ended up landing on Fox News which I detest (evidence here and here). The show was O’Reilly Factor, something I’ve never seen before. I hope I never do again.

I’d heard about O’Reilly, having read about him on blogs or in news stories when he’s gone too far. Having seen his show, I’m surprised it’s not more often.

In a half hour or so, I got the following: Anyone O’Reilly disagrees with is either an “extreme leftist” (MoveOn.org) or “ultra liberal” (Boston Globe, which he repeatedly called the most extremely liberal newspaper in America). I also found out that all TV and film reviewers in America are liberal—“ultra liberal,” even. I’d bet Michael Medved was surprised to learn he’s an ultra liberal.

What I noticed most was that O’Reilly didn’t always tell outright falsehoods. Most of the time, he simply manipulated facts in a way that made them tell the opposite of what they really presented. He made the facts lie so he didn’t have to, I suppose.

But what I found gut-achingly hilarious was a comedy sketch he had with nattering nabob Dick Morris. The two complained loudly about “extreme leftist” organizations threatening to use the Internet to “smear” Democrats they disagree with.

We were warned these people raise a lot of money and influence a lot of other “extreme leftist” people, so they have a lot of power, and will stop at nothing to get what they want. Apparently, they’ll lie, smear, cheat, strong-arm and generally bully into submission all who disagree with them.

You know, like O’Reilly’s buddies in the extreme right. Except that they made it all up. The threats they mentioned? MoveOn.org said it would be watching. Oh! So very scary!

New Zealand’s airwaves were darkened with Faux News when free-to-air channel Prime began carrying it overnight. Then pay TV operator Sky added the 24-hour channel to their lineup (without commercials, interestingly enough). Sky TV, like Fox, is owned by “extreme rightist” gazillionaire ex-Aussie Rupert Murdoch (he became an American citizen, renouncing forever his Australian citizenship, so he could build his media empire in America). Sky now owns Prime.

Fox “News” is so cartoonish, so over-the-top that it’s hard to believe that anyone would take it as anything other than a comedy channel. Looking at the various network promos they ran, it occurred to me that Fox is the home of grumpy, washed-up news readers from other American networks, people who are finally freed from normal conventions of accuracy, fairness and balance.

It's official: I hate Fox News.