Ms. Thrower's Social Studies Website



You may write on this, but write your answers to the questions that follow on your own paper. You do not need to use complete sentences.If disbelieving Fox News' lies makes me a hack, that's fine with meStop using scare tactics in an attempt to make Americans distrust real journalists. Our country needs them. By Bob Garfield, Opinion contributorI am Manu. Manu Raju, that is — the CNN reporter who the other day had a run-in with Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.). He’d approached her in a Senate corridor to inquire about new impeachment evidence, and she shot back “You’re a liberal hack. I’m not talking to you.” Because, duh: enemy of the people.That’s a Trumpism, but the underlying slander is familiar. The political right accepts as an article of faith that the?“lamestream media” are not a proud Fourth Estate but a partisan fifth column of subversives trying to brainwash patriots with leftist doctrine — a conspiracy theory that has yielded a lot of Republican votes and long counterinsurgency of conservative media.Oh, and a fantastic business model for Fox News, which converts right-wing anger into viewership into ratings into?around $10 billion advertiser dollars?a year. Its product: rage.Fox News doesn't really produce news at allFox — where Sen. McSally raced to gloat over catching a reporter blue-handed asking a simple question of a public official — is not a news organization (at least not in the morning and prime time); it is a disinformation factory. Such demagogues as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham and the clown car that is Fox & Friends pump the co-ax full of lies and misrepresentations, vilification, dog whistles and sometimes explicit hate speech. Its own biggest star, Hannity, has also been onstage at Trump rallies, dismissing the real press as “fake news.”Sure. If you want the source of actually fake news, look no farther than his own channel.The boundaries of time and space prohibit a comprehensive rundown here but the liberal Media Matters — which exists explicitly to debunk false right-wing tropes —?catalogues?Fox outrages to a nauseating fare-thee-well. In non-partisan? HYPERLINK "" \t "_blank" Politifact’s accounting?of 160 assertions made on Fox News Channel and subjected to fact checking, 21% were deemed to be true or mostly true; 40% were half true or mostly false; 28% were false and 10% were blatant, “pants-on-fire” lies. In the past four years, most of the lying has been in direct service of — and often word-for-word lockstep with — the Trump administration.But it’s worse. Because Fox isn’t just Trump TV. It’s also a Trump whisperer, feeding the world’s most powerful couch potato a steady stream of infuriating tidbits — usually false or wildly out of context — which frequently reappear as Trump tweets of official government policy by 10 am. This catastrophic feedback loop has resulted in the pardoning of war criminals, the firing of cabinet secretaries, the assassination of an enemy military leader, the caging of children at the border, the conspiracy to shift blame for 2016 election interference from Russia to Ukraine, and the smearing of a US Ambassador in the process.Granted, there’s another obvious objection to an attack on conservative media: namely, that the very idea is smoking gun proof of liberal bias. I concede it is a fetching argument.After all, were you to make a Venn diagram of progressive values and journalistic values, you would indeed see a lot of overlap: Questioning authority. Skepticism about the claims of sitting governments (of both parties). Speaking truth to power. Reform. Reliance on data, documentation, corroborated testimony, law, history, science and empirical evidence — versus even the most titillating preconceptions.But here’s the thing. None of that constitutes a political ideology; it is a mentality — one that does not permit prejudging political or events matters based on fixed doctrine, party loyalty, self interest or any of the other hallmarks of bias. And news organizations have rigorous protocols vetting facts and fairness. Which is why there is no “smoking gun” to be found in the incessant journalistic focus on the present administration. That is why we exist. Read all about it in the 1st Amendment.The founders wanted pesky reporters asking U.S. Senators about the business of the Senate. Such as the effect of explosive new evidence on what seems to be a bizarro trial without witnesses, which is what Manu was seeking to learn more about from Martha McSally to begin with. And me, as someone who is not a Democrat and who has spent the last 19 years obsessively documenting and criticizing the actual sins, failures and errors of the mainstream media, I’m right there with him. Does this make me a hack? Fine. I’m a hack. I am Manu.Who is Manu Raju?In your own words, what argument about the media does the writer claim the “political right” accepts as an “article of faith”? According to the non partisan fact checking website PolitiFact, what total percentage of Fox News segments rank as “false” or “pants-on-fire” in terms of credibility? (compare this with CNN News rating of 20% total)In your own words, what does the writer mean when he describes the “feedback loop” between President Trump and Fox News?Explain in your own words, why the writer says journalistic values and progressive (left ideology) values often go hand in hand. Do you agree with this assertion or not? Explain. ................
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