Dropping the pretense

August 19, 2007

Anyone who’s seen Fox News knows its on-air personalities offer Republicans in-kind contributions with practically every broadcast. Once in a while, though, they drop the pretense and make the support more direct.

It’s no secret that Sean Hannity, the conservative Fox News commentator, has helped to raise Rudy Giuliani’s profile – but now he’s helped the former mayor raise money, too.

In a little noticed event this month, Hannity — co-host of Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes” and host of a popular WABC radio show — introduced the Republican front-runner at a closed-door, $250-per-head fund-raiser Aug. 9 in Cincinnati, campaign officials acknowledge.

In so doing, some believe that Hannity — while clearly a commentator paid to express his opinions — crossed the line from punditry into financial rainmaking for a presidential candidate whose bottom line is now better for it.

Atrios’ joke about calling a bloggers’ ethics panel comes to mind….

I can appreciate the fact that Fox News exists to blur the line between reporting and advocacy, but this seems over the top, even by the network’s standards. Indeed, when Dan Rather’s daughter organized and hosted a Democratic Party fundraiser in Texas in 2001, and the then-CBS anchor made an appearance, Bill O’Reilly blasted the ethical impropriety.

“Now Rather gave a speech at a fund-raiser, so money changed hands,” O’Reilly said on the air. “I mean, I wouldn’t do that.”

And in this instance, Hannity didn’t just make an appearance, he was the special guest.

The Aug. 9 fund-raiser where Hannity worked the crowd for Giuliani, held at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse in downtown Cincinnati, was closed to the press. No known recording of his comments exist.

But some who were there – including Hannity’s boss at WABC, Phil Boyce – said Hannity was typically effusive.

“He talked about Rudy’s leadership after 9/11, about how Rudy had turned the city around and taken people off the welfare rolls,” said Boyce “There wasn’t anything he said that I haven’t heard him say on the radio.”

No, but don’t some kind of professional standards still exist for media personalities?

Never mind, don’t answer that.

What we need are generally accepted definitions for: reporter, commentator, advocate, activist. W
and political operative.

What we have now is a mish-mosh called “journalists”, which seems to cover all five. Once you’ve been one of the latter four, it seems to me, you can’t ever call yourself a ‘reporter’ again. Such distinctions are hard enough to maintain in credible news organizations, don’t exist on blogs, and are unheard of on the Faux News Network.

Being able to call yourself a ‘jounalist’ ought to require some accreditation and standards, not to mention penalties for violating those standards, but that idea, in this day and age, is a quaint anachronism.

  • That’s my boy Hannity — he’s not only putting another nail in the coffin of journalistic credibility, he busted out an effing nail gun. I’m sure Rupert is proud of you.

  • ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Of course O’Reilly and Hannity aren’t journalists.
    They are entertainers.

    They are to Fox News… what Vince McMahon is to the World Wrestling Federation.

    As such… their jobs require that they project bile, rage, and draconian bombast.
    As such… they aren’t held accountable for their outbursts of ire.
    Indeed: they are being handsomely paid to bark like pro wrestlers at liberals.

    This is the way it is.
    This is the way it is going to be.

    As they cannot be held up to a higher standard…
    As they are fulfilling their job descriptions admirably…
    The only weapon that will work against them is satire and ridicule.

    Regarding the 20-40% of Americans that watch these two…
    Nothing can be done about them either.
    Their minds are gone…
    They have been left behind.
    This is as it should be…

    The future of American lies in the 60-70% who aren’t so posioned.
    Everthing must be done to husband that block for the fall of 2008.
    Satire helps.
    Ridicule helps.
    As such, Jon Stewart and Colbert are doing more for the future of American than any democrat on the hill.

    If it wasn’t for them…
    We’d really be fugged.

    Keep watching them.
    And laugh like hell!
    Heaven on earth depends on it…

  • We need to probably re-institute the “Fairness Doctrine” as soon as possible. The right-wing continues to use public airways for spreading their bile without challenge and the misuse is not going away. Sure, we can laugh at them, but we also need to make life a little more uncomfortable by breaking up their monopoly.

  • One problem is that the Fairness Doctrine, even as it used to exist, did not apply to cable channels. So Faux News would be unimpeded.

  • Yes, the Fairness Doctrine would not touch Rupert and Faux, but disrupting the noise machine at its core, radio broadcasts, might weaken the perception that right-wing opinion is somehow more popular (simply because it seems ubiquitous).

  • Dale wrote; “I’m of the (not very firm) opinon that right wing radio doesn’t change minds. ”

    That’s probably true for the most part, but its prevalence can have a silencing effect on contrary voices (who are more reluctant to speak out because ‘everybody thinks that way’).

    I think it can also convert some people by convincing them that certain racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic beliefs are acceptable, against what otherwise would have been their better judgment. This more or less happened to my sister, who went from being an apolitical moderate to (after several years of Rush dosages) to a volunteer G.W. Bush election supporter.

  • I think it can also convert some people by convincing them that certain racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic beliefs are acceptable, against what otherwise would have been their better judgment. — gg, @ 9 (about the wingnut radio)

    It also delivers, to those who are not inclined to think things through for themselves, spurious “arguments” which are hard to refute simply because they don’t follow any logical principles. But they’re expressed firmly and vociferously and are reflected in the voting booth.

  • Isn’t Fox at this point just preaching to the choir? And isn’t it pretty obvious, by all the numbers, that the choir is shrinking?

    I think the people who watch Fox already think it’s okay to be racist or sexist, or whatever negative “-ist” one can think of, and Fox just makes them feel justified in their views. It’s why people listen to Rush, or buy Ann Coulter’s books – they’re already in that hateful place and these people just make it all legitimate.

    Hannity’s ties to Giuliani definitely need to be disclosed, and failing to do so is contrary to journalistic ethics. I realize that both “journalistic” and “ethics” are wholly invisible at Fox, and not a priority for them, but I think most people already know that. They are perfectly positioned to be the GOP propaganda network, but now that the bloom is decidedly off that particular rose, I suspect that they will have to re-think their approach before too long, or risk becoming irrelevant, and the laughingstock of the industry.

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