Media Matters writer Eric H. Hananok notices (2/10/09) something fishy about an airing of the Fox News show Happening Now in which host Jon Scott introduced an overview of the government stimulus bill's development thus: "We thought we'd take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew." As Scott "referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources," Hananok astutely recognized the fact that they "were also contained in a February 10 press release issued by the Senate Republican Communications Center." The clincher:

One on-screen graphic during the segment even repeated a typo from the GOP document, further confirming that Scott was simply reading from a Republican press release. The Fox News graphic and the GOP press release both claimed that a Wall Street Journal report that the stimulus package could reach "$775 billion over two years" was published on December 19, 2009.

But it's already well-established that chronological time is but a minor obstacle in the path of corporate reporters bent on predetermining reality.

After President Obama's press conference last night, Fox host Bill O'Reilly saw one to score points against the White House--by mocking Obama for relying on a list of pre-approved journalists when he took questions.

Unfortunately for O'Reilly, his guest at the time was former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, who had to point out that this was... well, exactly the way Bush did things.

O'REILLY: Look, he had those guys listed, written down, who he was going to call. Now, in other press conferences, they just look around, and they go, "Oh, right, right, right!" And they go, "This one, that one, this one." Correct?

FLEISCHER: Well, George Bush never did that. I don't know how Bill Clinton did it, but it's a bad idea to reward the guy with the loudest voice.

O'REILLY: OK. So....

FLEISCHER: Writing it down gives the president what to call (ph).

O'REILLY: George Bush came in with a list of guys he was going to call on?

FLEISCHER: Yes, I used to prepare it for him. I would give him a grid, show him where every reporter is seated. And there are some reporters, you know, in that briefing room, you can imagine, Bill, you get a lot of dot coms and other oddballs who come in there. They're screened.

O'REILLY: Like the Huffington Post.

FLEISCHER: And I used to seat them all in one section. I would call it Siberia. And I told the president, "Don't call on Siberia. Just stay right here and call on these people on the grid in front of you."

Like O'Reilly, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz also seemed to think the breakthrough question asked by Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein was a little weird. Where O'Reilly suggested Stein was an "oddball," Kurtz wrote that he asked a question about a "a cause popular on the left"--by which he means the same thing.

Also like O'Reilly, Kurtz got the history of press conference protocol wrong, writing:

Some journalists are miffed that Obama decides the day before news conferences whom he is going to call on -- the fortunate ones are notified in advance--reducing the other reporters to the role of mere extras. Past presidents have generally worked their way around the room, starting with the wire services, networks and major newspapers.

Too bad Kurtz didn't have Fleischer with him to let him know that such an open-ended press conference system would be a "bad idea."

We noted recently Fox News' peculiar understanding of the Fair Use doctrine, which allows writers, artists and others to make reasonable use of copyrighted material so long as they don't infringe on the copyright owners' commercial rights; Fox interprets this to mean that critics should only be allowed to make use of Fox video if Fox is allowed to sell ads to run alongside the criticism.

Now another corporate media company is making strange claims against Fair Use.  The Associated Press is claiming that the well-known "HOPE" poster of Barack Obama violates its copyright, because artist Shepard Fairey used an AP photo as a model for the image.

Here's a question for AP: If a cartoonist wanted to make reference to the famous "Dewey Defeats Truman" image--which is also a copyrighted AP photo--would they have to get your permission first? That's the implication of their claim about the Obama image. And the end result would be a world where artists can't talk about the images of our political leaders, because those images come to us via for-profit media--a strange position for a democracy to find itself in.

Two things strike me about this appearance by Alan Colmes on the Colbert Report: One, the fact that he would take part with good humor in a humiliating joke that's on him illustrates why he was the perfect person to play the role of the Liberal To Be Named Later. Second, it's remarkable that even in the parts where he's presumably expressing his own opinions--rather than the pre-scripted expressions of adulation handed to him by Colbert--he's still manages, reflexively, to come up with the perfect Fox News Democrat position: He agrees with Colbert on the issue at hand, but produces a different, more innocuous reason for his stance.

Watch the whole thing--but the best part is the opening credits.

Commenter milo janus reacts to a Michael Calderone Politico.com piece (11/24/08) on Alan Colmes' arguably inconsequential departure from Fox News' long-running Hannity & Colmes:

Word had it some years ago that Jeff Cohen, founder of the liberal media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (who was also producer of the Donahue show on MSNBC right after he got booted from the network for being too critical of the build-up to the Iraq War), had often had spirited off-camera debates with Hannity during his years as a commentator. Jokes about a possible Hannity and Cohen show were squashed when Colmes got the spot. The logic is obvious enough. Though Colmes is a smart guy, Cohen's uncompromising style of attack would have likely overwhelmed the telegenic Hannity, and we all know that would be a serious no-no on Fox.

Though slightly garbling the sequence of events--Colmes already was Hannity's co-host at the time--janus certainly is right about Cohen's "uncompromising style"... and about Fox's strong aversion to progressive vs. conservative debates that it thinks the conservative might actually lose.

See FAIR's magazine Extra!: "An Aggressive Conservative vs. a 'Liberal to Be Determined': The False Balance of Hannity & Colmes" (11-12/03) by Steve Rendall

Glenn Beck has been telling a personal story illustrating what he says is a particularly intense level of hatred on the left.

According to the newly signed Fox News host, he was verbally assaulted by a truck driver while standing in line at a Wendy's restaurant at a truck stop. Writing on his blog, Beck says the truck driver called him a "racist bigot," blaming the talk show host and conservatives "for everything." Wrote Beck, "The hatred was palpable." As his security detail stood between him and his assailant, Beck says the truck driver ended his rant by threatening to run him over.

It was ugly stuff, and Beck was shocked by the level of hate: "I wanted to say, I think you have me mistaken for someone else, but I knew he knew who I was and he just hated me for who I was…. Wow. Is this who we've become? Is this who we've become?"

Concluding his appeal to civility, Beck explained that he wouldn't treat his enemies the way the truck driver treated him: "I could stand in line with Michael Moore and I wouldn't say that to him. I would say some things to Michael Moore, but it wouldn't be that. Is this who we've become? I believe there is a cauldron of hatred on both sides, but the left is quite frightening."

Beck might not say such things to Moore in person, but he has expressed a desire to murder Moore to his nationally syndicated radio audience (Glenn Beck Program, 5/18/05):

I'm thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I'm wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out--is this wrong?

And Beck wasn't exactly the picture of civility two years earlier when he told his listeners that he prayed nightly for anti-war presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich to be consumed by fire (Glenn Beck Program, 3/16/03): "Every night I get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into flames."

Beck repeated his Wendy's story on Fox's On the Record (11/17/08)--only in this version, Beck said Fox News was among the targets of the truck driver's vitriol. As he explained to host Greta Van Susteren, the story illustrated that "the left is just unbelievably out of control right now."

Whatever the truth is about Beck's truck driver story, his own record of hatred, including a prediction that in 10 years time "Muslims and Arabs will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West," is not merely a matter of angry words spouted in a fast food shop, but a matter of nationally broadcast hatred.

On Fox News Sunday (11/16/08), NPR reporter Mara Liasson offered her take (which was essentially the same as neo-con co-panelist Bill Kristol) on why picking Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State would be good for Barack Obama:

In terms of Obama, I think he wants--it would send a lot of important signals. Number one, she is hawkish, as Bill pointed out. He has to kind of put to rest this notion that he was naive, which, of course, came from her during the campaign.

She’s hawkish, which will balance out his naiveté. If this is supposed to be a reference to the fact that Clinton supported the Iraq War, then it makes even less sense.

Interesting catch by digby from Broadcasting & Cable (11/10/08), which was talking to Fox News chief Roger Ailes about what happens to Fox's ratings post-election: "I think cable numbers overall will drop, although there is a fascination with Obama," says Ailes. But he sees light at the end of the tunnel:

Historically, the dawning of a new administration brings a renewed level of scrutiny from the media and interest from viewers—something Ailes is looking forward to.

"I remember when Bill Clinton took over and within a very short time he had to get rid of a couple of appointees," he says, referring to Zoë Baird and Lani Guinier. "And then he got into gays in the military, and suddenly issues became critical and our ratings started to climb back up. I expect a dip over the next couple of months and then a big return to our numbers in late January, early February."

In other words, the Murdoch bottom line will do fine--as long as Fox can find or invent some Obama scandals to keep the right watching.

digby notes that Ailes "goes back to Clinton rather than discussing the more recent transfer of power from Clinton to Bush." That's because that transition was treated by Fox as an opportunity for renewed scrutiny of the old administration--even if they did have to make things up.

There's been a fair amount of speculation about what Fox News Channel will do in the new political climate. The online teaser for tonight's edition of the O'Reilly Factor gives us some sense of the, uhh, future:

Monday, November 10:
• The Factor confronts Rev. Jeremiah Wright! You won't want to miss it!

New York Times TV reporter Jim Rutenberg (11/2/08) tries to make a case that Fox News and MSNBC are (in Tom Rosenstiel's words) "reverse images of each other." Here are the actual quotes used by Rutenberg to demonstrate this supposed parallelism--first, Ann Coulter on Fox (10/30/08):

I feel like we are talking to the Germans after Hitler comes to power, saying, "Oh, well, I didn’t know."

And then Chris Matthews on MSNBC (10/29/08), addressing those who wouldn't vote for Obama because he's black:

He's been a good father, a good citizen, he's paid attention to his country.... Give the guy a break and think about voting for him.

Again, these are the quotes Rutenberg picks to show how similar the coverage on Fox and MSNBC is--one arguing that you shouldn't vote against a candidate based on his race, and the other comparing that candidate to a genocidal dictator.

Anthony DiMaggio finds (ZNet, 10/19/08) "the massive attention surrounding ACORN" as much evidence of "media racism as it is their class prejudice":

In danger of losing its eight year hold on the Presidency, the Republican Party has become increasingly desperate in its attacks on poor and minority groups, who have registered in increasingly large numbers this election year. The attacks on ACORN must be understood within the context of this enfranchisement of dispossessed groups....

Media discussions of ACORN have predictably followed the talking points issued by Republican Party leaders to Fox News and right-wing radio.... The uniformity of conservative attacks on ACORN has been rather impressive, although hardly intellectual or informative. The editors at the Washington Times lambasted ACORN for being "either co-opted by an outside group bent on committing massive voter fraud to rig this election."... Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer draws attention to "Barack Obama's long-standing relationship with the left-wing vote-fraud specialist ACORN."... Radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, Dennis Prager and Michael Medved and Fox News commentators such as Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have relentlessly emphasized the ACORN issue in their programs.

Aside from the fact that "there's only one problem with this narrative--none of it's true," DiMaggio is impressed that "the right-wing foot soldiers in the media, who couldn't have cared less what ACORN was doing months ago let alone describe what the acronym stood for, have now become independent experts on the organization's negligence and duplicity in destroying democracy."

Listen to FAIR's latest radio show CounterSpin: Lori Minnite on ACORN and Vote Fraud (10/17/08)