Standards and Integrity

Last year, I wrote an article, “Gaffe in the Eye of the Beholder.” It was about the media’s coverage of the mistakes or gaffes Mr. Obama made during the presidential campaign. I compared Mr. Obama’s gaffes with the other candidates, and with President Bush’s gaffes. Mr. Bush made numerous gaffes during the presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004 and as president of the United States.

There was a gaffe that I wanted to use in my article. It was attributed to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Mr. Romney was alleged to have said, “Hamas is a great example of a faith based organization.” The joke being Mr. Romney did not know Hamas is a terrorist organization.

I searched the Internet for a reliable source confirming Mr. Romney made the statement. There were a couple of Blogs that corroborated the story, but I could not find a reliable source from the print media confirming the gaffe. I decided not to include the gaffe in the article.

There is a good chance the gaffe was created by the fertile mind of a late night comedian. Mr. Romney is prone to gaffes and misstatements, like when he said his father marched for civil rights in the 1960’s. That statement was proven false. But I did not want to include an apocryphal statement in my essay.

The same can be said of the alleged Sarah Palin gaffe in which she said Africa is a country. Comedians use that statement to demonstrate Ms Palin’s lack of intelligence, but the statement attributed to Ms Palin is also doubtful.

My Blog sites (MelvinReveron.blogspot.com and CheLenin.blogspot.com) are not widely read. My articles will not be quoted in the Main Stream Media. But I have standards. I may not have hundreds of readers, but I still have to respect the process. I will not use a quote out of context. I will credit my source of information in the endnotes.

Unfortunately, Fox News does not have the same standards.

President Obama delivered an address to a joint session of Congress on September 9, 2009 to persuade Congress and Americans on the need for health care reform

Fox News commentator Sean Hannity analyzed the speech with Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Mr. Hannity was appalled with a statement from President Obama.

“One of the things, Frank, you have been very, very clear about… is this tendency to go negative,” Mr. Hannity said. “And he had a very different tone on Monday, but when he said tonight that insurance executives are bad people, it took me back because it was so harsh, and I think unfair, but it’s part of their polling.”[i]

Mr. Hannity should be given partial credit for showing the portion of the speech he was arguing against. The video clip proved Mr. Hannity distorted the President’s statement.

President Obama said, “Insurance executives don’t do this because they’re bad people; they do it because it’s profitable.”[ii]

Mr. Hannity created a story by claiming President Obama said, “insurance executives are bad people.”

The distortion was deliberate. Most Fox viewers will not watch a speech delivered by President Obama. The only source Fox viewers will count on for information about President Obama will be from Fox commentators.

Fox News is not a news channel. Fox News does not report news. It creates news.

Fox News is an entertainment channel. Their job is not to inform the public. Their job is to entertain their viewers - Republican, conservative, Christian, and white.

Their demographic base would not support the policies of any politician from the Democratic Party; therefore they indulge their viewers with stories that are false and with conspiracy theories. Fox News practically sponsor protest movements against President Obama.

The Hannity distortion is not the only incident of Fox creating news. Last year, Mr. Obama gave a fist bump to his wife before a speech. On June 6, 2008, Fox News TV host E.D. Hill said, “A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently.”[iii]

This “gesture” that athletes perform every day suddenly became a terrorist secret handshake. The only people who will interpret the gesture differently will be Fox viewers who will now associate the fist bump with terrorism.

Fox commentators will accuse President Obama of being a fascist/socialist/Marxist/Leninist not knowing fascism and socialism occupy opposite sides of the political spectrum.

President Obama’s birth certificate is an issue on Fox News. Conspiracy theorists who argue President Obama was really born in Kenya have a platform to vent. Other media are forced to cover the story because of Fox News’ relentless coverage.

According to Fox News, Health Care reform is a socialist plot to nationalize health care, create death panels to kill of seniors and unproductive citizens, and grant illegal immigrants access to universal health care at the expense of American citizens.

According to Fox News, President Obama speaking to children on the first day of school is a nefarious plot to indoctrinate children with socialist ideology.

Now it is patriotic to dissent against a sitting president, who received 53% of the vote, but it was unpatriotic to question President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

In fact, Fox News commentator Glen Beck is virtually cheerleading an armed insurrection against the federal government.

Glen Beck also perpetuates the lie that President Obama wants to abduct Americans, and force them into FEMA concentration camps for socialist indoctrination.

In college, a philosophy professor lectured the class about the First Amendment right to free speech. He argued there is a difference in having a right to express an opinion versus the right to express an intellectually sound opinion.

For example, I have the right to express the opinion that the world is flat. The government cannot interfere with me if I decide to post, “the world is flat,” on my Blog site. But I should be able to support my opinion with facts.

The purpose of the First Amendment is persuade, not simply to express. The government is not allowed to suppress persuasive speech. I have the right to say something stupid. The government will not try to stop me from saying stupid because it is unnecessary.

But the government cannot suppress my right to say health care reform is bad because it is too expensive, and President Obama has not been able to clearly explain how he intends to pay for the program.

By the way, this is a legitimate conservative argument against President Obama’s health care reform package, but you will not hear this argument in the Main Stream Media because it is not as controversial as death panels and covering illegal aliens.

Freedom of the press should have the same intellectual standards. The government cannot suppress my right to publish an article stating the moon landing in 1969 was filmed in a Hollywood studio. It is a conspiracy theory, but it is not based on fact; therefore the federal government would have no interest in suppressing this article.

But the government cannot suppress my right to publish an article arguing for withdrawing troops from Iraq because I am trying to persuade other people that it is in our economic interests to leave Iraq. We cannot afford to continue occupying a foreign country, especially when Iraqis want our troops to leave.

The goal of Fox News is not to inform or to persuade. It is to entertain their viewers. Fox News has the constitutional right to broadcast news, but it does not have the intellectual right to call it news.

I will not publish false statements or distortions on my Blog because I have standards and integrity and I respect freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

Fox News cannot make that claim.


[i] Media Matters for America, “Hannity Falsely Claimed Obama Called Insurance Execs Bad People,” September 10, 2009.
[ii] Media Matters for America, “Hannity Falsely Claimed Obama Called Insurance Execs Bad People,” September 10, 2009.
[iii] Media Matters for America, “Fox E.D. Hill Teased Discussion of Obama Dap: A Fist Bump? A Pound? A Terrorist Fist Jab?” June 6, 2008.