That Fox News Channel — recently labeled the “Fox Nothing Channel” by Keith Olbermann — is a blight on the nation is not exactly new information. But questions are how to deal with a massive, successful propaganda network, with no professional standards or concerns for objective reporting, are fairly new.<\/p>\n
Take Barack Obama, for example. FNC helped orchestrate a smear of the senator last week, suggesting that Obama might be a Muslim trained, at the age of 6, in a radical madrassa, possibly financed by the Saudis. Yesterday, Obama said he would not be “Swift boated” by the far-right network, and called out<\/a> Fox hosts Steve Doocy and John Gibson by name for airing “malicious, irresponsible charges.” <\/p>\n As Greg Sargent said<\/a>, “If this is a sign of how Barack Obama intends to deal with the right-wing media during his Presidential campaign, then I’m all for it.” In particular, Sargent was referring to a memo Obama’s staff distributed on the subject.<\/p>\n Fox News quickly parroted the charges, and Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy went so far as to ask, “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised \u2014 spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father \u2014 as a Muslim and was educated in a Madrassa?”<\/p>\n All of the claims about Senator Obama raised in the Insight Magazine piece were thoroughly debunked by CNN, which, instead of relying on unnamed sources, sent a reporter to Obama’s former school in Jakarta to check the facts.<\/p>\n If Doocy or the staff at Fox and Friends had taken [time] to check their facts, or simply made a call to his office, they would have learned that Senator Obama was not educated in a Madrassa, was not raised as a Muslim, and was not raised by his father \u2013 an atheist Obama met once in his life before he died.<\/p>\n Later in the day, Fox News host John Gibson again discussed the Insight Magazine story without any attempt to independently confirm the charges.<\/p>\n All of the claims about Senator Obama’s faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Given the Swiftboat lies of 2004, it seems clear that Obama’s response is the only way to take on the right-wing smear machine. Respond to the charges and correct the record — and then call out, by name, those who are lying to the public. (Obama’s memo also included a letter<\/a> signed by 11 leaders of Jewish, Baptist, Catholic, Muslim, and other Christian groups condemning Fox News’ reporting as a mean-spirited attempt to drive a wedge between American faith traditions.)<\/p>\n How the rest of the mainstream media deals with FNC is less clear. Last week, Fox News highlighted a right-wing report alleging that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended an Islamic “madrassa” school as a 6-year-old child. In a memo released today, Obama’s office specifically called out Fox News host John Gibson for discussing the story “without any attempt to independently confirm the charges.”<\/p>\n On his radio show this week, Gibson refused to back down. He claimed the CNN reporter who debunked the false report “probably went to the very madrassa” as Obama. Gibson implied that CNN’s report had covered up religious extremism at the school.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For a Fox News personality to lash out like this is pathological. Gibson shouldn’t be on the air; he should be on medication.<\/p>\n
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\nAfter CNN debunked Fox News’ “reporting” on Obama’s two years of elementary school in Indonesia, the far-right network responded with yet more smears<\/a>.<\/p>\n