Beware the Rabid Fox!

        Do you watch the Fox News Channel?  If you do, be aware that there’s a high risk of infection. 

        A University of Maryland study released last year shows that people who depend on Fox for news are very, very misinformed about basic issues.  For example, the study found that Fox viewers are more likely to think that President Obama bailed out the banks, although that occurred when George W. Bush was president.

        If you watch Fox, you may think that tax cuts produce jobs, although the real-world evidence is just the opposite. There’s a reason there are few graphs on Fox that show the economy during the Clinton years. 

        If you watch Fox, you might think that ending federal subsidies for oil companies will reduce jobs or raise gas prices when in fact oil giants like Exxon have been steadily cutting their U.S. payrolls even with federal subsidies.  And today’s gas prices are largely the work of Wall Street speculators.

         If you watch Fox, you might think that Obama is anti-business.  He’s the one who saved the American auto industry even as Republicans like Mitt Romney were saying to let GM close.

         If you watch Fox, you might think Obama is indecisive. It was George W. Bush who couldn’t make up his mind whether Osama Bin Laden was worth pursuing.   

        If you watch Fox, you might think that the tea party movement is fighting Wall Street and other cabals that control the country.  No. The cabals control the tea parties and other anti-tax groups. Organizations like Americans for Prosperity are controlled by wealthy corporate titans.   Plutocrats like the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch are not working in any way, shape or form for anyone’s good but their own.

       Murdoch puts politicians on his payroll the way the rest of us order coffee. His too-big-to-jail attitude finally landed him in trouble in Britain, where he, his family and his top executives have been thoroughly disgraced if not arrested. In the U.S., where he controls the Fox News Channel, the Fox Broadcasting network, 27 individual television stations, the Wall Street Journal and more, he remains free to undermine our country. 

         When you’re watching Fox News, listen for any sign of compassion for the poor, the unemployed, or the sick.  You won’t hear it. Instead, you’ll hear that the poor don’t pay enough taxes and that the wealthy pay too much, although the income of a hedge fund billionaire is taxed at a lower rate than that of a school teacher.  You’ll hear that the corporate tax rate in the U.S. is too high, though many if not most major corporations pay little or no U.S. taxes.

          Murdoch disregards laws, journalistic standards and common decency. David Carr of the New York Times reports that Murdoch’s News Corp. has repeatedly paid fortunes to settle legal cases and silence its critics. In the case of News America Marketing, its in-store and newspaper insert marketing business, News Corp. has paid about $655 million to make charges of corporate espionage and other illegal behavior go away.  Fair and balanced? You decide.