"Terrorist Sympathizers" - The New Traitors?

Photo-NPR/AFP/Getty Images - Nicholas Kamm

Yesterday in Washington, thousands of Christians marched against the war in front of the Whitehouse. More than 200 were arrested and fined, not for violence, but for standing instead of walking on the sidewalk.

If anyone thinks there is a liberal bias in American news reporting, take a second look, and a third... First of all, as Stephen Colbert likes to say, "Truth has a liberal bias". The big problem is, who is telling the real truth? Nobody on your cable dial.

Since it has become apparent that Fox "News" is winning the profits war and has for years with their conscious punditry for the right wing. In the documentary, "Outfoxed" ex-producers, writers and even some possibly still at work in the organization, outline a clear effort to play cheerleader for the Republican party, and to attack Dems, no matter what they do. Led by Britt Hume, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, they make no pretense of offering equal time to liberals while claiming in every other sentence, to be "fair and balanced."

Though nothing at CNN comes close to their blatant ignorance of the objectivity standards taught in every journalism school and heralded throughout US history, Fox is not the only one now as MSNBC tries to outfox fox by hiring Tucker Carlson (yes, the bowtie guy) and Chuck Scarborough to give them free reign to tell "terrorist sympathizers" and "leftists" to "shut up!" It's in this pervasive and accepted usage of the previous terms, "terrorist sympathizers" and "leftists" to describe anyone who disagrees with the war, that we find Fox has won, no matter how up popular the war becomes. Bottom line: it's more profitable, as advertisers are among the super rich that benefit from war.

As a professor of Critical Thinking, I teach students to convert editorialized/emotional terms to what they really are. In this case, "anti-Iraq war advocates" and "Democrats and moderates" should objectively replace the value laden, pejorative labels that are consistently used in every major media source, including CNN. True, CNN still is heads above the rest for their professionalism after they cleaned house of Carlson and shows like "Crossfire" which never offered an objective voice; however, even CNN barrels ahead with sensational conformism in their vocabulary.

Some may say they are simply unaware they are doing it, but anyone who actually went to Journalism School knows otherwise, and writers/producers of conscience are shaking their heads at every turn while the promotion departments and accountants apparently call the shots on editorial content and official terminology.

Outfoxed-Interviews 49mins


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