Pretty much sums it up, wouldn't you say?
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. That is, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. This isn’t so for Fox News. They even won a court case that said they have the right to make up their own facts. A testament to the power of the first amendment.
It doesn’t take the detective skills of Batman to figure out that Fox News, who’s tagline is “Fair and Balanced”, is in the business of twisting around headlines, whole stories and and even inventing their own facts to push a blatantly far right spin on current events. A quick google search for “Actual News Headlines Vs. Fox News Headlines” will yeald several examples of this.
Maybe it all goes back to an idea from the Nixon era. An idea conceived by none other than Fox News founder, Roger Ailes. The document, a memo was titled, ”A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News”. It outlined how using a powerful media, such as television, public opinions could be swayed to a tailored political narrative.
This looks to be politician speak for spreading propaganda. As that article points out, Fox uses specific techniques tailored to push their narrative, and keep you coming back for more.
Keep the audience scared, define a clear enemy, attack your enemy, not only their policies or their politics, but their person, their character. They will flip or project what they are doing onto their opponents, accuse anti-discriminatory of themselves being the discriminators.
They will revise history, again making up their own facts, because they know that a lot of people will accept it as fact without checking to make sure it’s accurate. They will “other” groups of people, making them out to be deserving of anything “bad” that happens them, justifying violence against them and absolving those perpetrating that violence against them for any wrong doing.
They will use language that subtlety empowers violence, like, “Show of force”. They will bully those with differing opinions or make statements that are purposely confusing to make them appear “dumb”. They will use populist rhetoric and claim their opponent thinks themselves better people or superior somehow, accuse them of elitism. They will invoke religion, and state what makes people “real Christians” or “real Americans” and even equate the two. They use anti-intellectual rhetoric, claiming the educated to be elitists and even somewhat not to be trusted.
They will make false parallels and associate people with groups that they have deemed undesirable.
Their commentary pushes a narrative that our enemies are dangerous and they need to be brought “around to our way of thinking”. This way, not only are the facts and news distorted, but the narrative gives the idea that, “Damn it, we’re right, and no one can tell us otherwise”. You can see this when they mention things like, “We shouldn’t Monday quarterback the police“. Saying we shouldn’t question what they do.
Obey the police, do as your told, and if someone is not obeying, you have the right to tell them to because they will eventually suffer consequences. It’s turned the viewers into intellectual bullies that shout down and try to silence any descent.
This creates a story, a narrative in the viewer’s mind that conservative columnist David Frum, former speech writer for the Bush administration calls an, ‘alternative knowledge system’.
He sites an example of how Fox news, who had already painted Obama as this, “othery” kind of guy,says that he is somehow going to impose a tax on Christmas trees. This creates a path for a huge “cultural conflict”. It makes people feel like someone is oppressing them. In reality, it was something that the Christmas tree industry lobbied conservatives in congress for.
They twisted the narrative to induce fear that the president was oppressing them by putting a tax on the symbol of their most hallowed holiday. You can see why they would do this. It pushes their agenda.
Fox news is clearly pushing the far right’s political agenda and using distortion, outright lies, and well known propaganda techniques, to do so.
Just like in Roger Ailes original memo, they push the narrative of their choosing onto the population. Using “mental hacks” to have them aggressively spread these alternate facts, and invalidate anyone who disagrees, have them believing they are entitled to tell others they are wrong, and believe they have the facts to back them up.
It makes things very black and white for them, It makes it easy to get your opinions from what you think is a source of authority. It turns you to unquestionably do what those pushing this agenda want you to do. They make it an identity, you’re “one of us” not “one of them” – and that’s good, because “they” are bad people.
What amazes me is that they manage to get away with this. As easy as this information is to find on the internet, you’d think more people would have figured this out by now.
Aaron is a staff writer and columnist for Politicsbreak. He is also a computer systems technician and avid tumblr user. Follow his weekly columns for great political news and discussion.
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