FOX News: American PR Department for ISIS
By Thom Hartmann A...
ISIS’ propaganda machine just gained a new ally.
Conservative pundit Erick Erickson has a new piece over at Red State, where he praises Fox News and its president Roger Ailes for boldly making the decision to air the gruesome unedited version of a Jordanian pilot being burned alive by ISIS terrorists.
Erickson writes that, “Whether Fox News aired the video or not, ISIS burned alive a Jordanian pilot. We might as well all have the opportunity to see what that evil is like, to know what we are dealing with, and resolve to slay that evil. Roger Ailes and Fox News have done a valuable service to the American people.”
Actually Erick, Fox News has done an incredibly valuable service to ISIS, not the American people.
Now, there’s little doubt about why Fox News decided to air the video. The main thing that Fox News has to sell is fear. It’s a giant fear-mongering machine that works really, really well. By airing the gruesome ISIS execution video, Fox News knew that it would be building fears over ISIS in the American people.
After all, before airing graphic images from the video on the February 3rd edition of Special Report, Bret Baier said that, “The images are brutal. They are graphic. They are upsetting. The reason we are showing you this is to bring you the reality of Islamic terrorism and to label it as such. We feel you need to see it.”
But here’s the thing. Every time Fox News ramps up fears over ISIS here in the U.S., that network is giving ISIS exactly what it wants.
By airing the video, Fox News became ISIS’ new best friend. And by airing the video, Roger Ailes and Fox News are promoting terrorism.
What Fox News may not realize, or more likely chooses to ignore, is that media coverage fuels terrorism.
Terrorists, like those in ISIS, rely on the media to spread the terror and to stoke fears in the people. If the media never covered ISIS’ horrific terrorist acts, there’s a good chance that it wouldn’t be as strong – and feared – as it is today.
Malcolm Nance, an expert on counterterrorism and radical extremism, told The Guardian that by posting and airing the video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive, Fox News was showing, “exactly what ISIS wants to propagate.”
Meanwhile, Rick Nelson, a senior associate in homeland security and terrorism at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that, “They’re [ISIS] a terror organization. They seek to strike terror in the hearts and minds of people globally, and by [Fox News] perpetuating these videos and putting them out there into the internet, it certainly expands the audience and potential effects. These groups need a platform, and this gives them a platform.”
Interestingly enough, when it comes to media coverage, terrorist organizations are a lot like political candidates during campaign season. Often during campaigns, candidates will come up with some really outrageous ads that are too outrageous to be put on TV. So, they throw them up on the web hoping that the media will pick them up, giving them some free exposure.
Well, by airing the execution video, Fox News gave ISIS some free exposure, and became the newest member of its propaganda machine. And boy is ISIS happy with the results.
The Guardian is reporting that Twitter accounts associated with known ISIS supporters are boastfully sharing the Fox News link to the execution video. One account tweeted out, “Whoever is looking for the al-Furqan version [of the video], here it is and it cannot be deleted because it is on an American network.”
Al-Furqan is ISIS’ official propaganda outlet. So, congratulations to Fox News for doing exactly what ISIS wanted it to do, and for giving that terrorist organization another victory.
At the end of his piece over at Red State, Erickson writes that, “I have not watched and do not plan to watch the video. But I know many who did and, by watching, are now more resolved than ever that ISIS must be destroyed. The rest of the media can cower. Thank God that Roger Ailes and Fox are willing to confront evil and show us what it looks like.”
Sorry Erick, but you’re wrong. Fox News isn’t confronting evil, and it isn’t standing up to terrorism.
What it is doing is promoting terrorism and emboldening ISIS. And for that, ISIS owes Fox so-called News and Roger Ailes a big thank you.
Comments
#2
Actually, the Military Industrial Complex owes Fox News a big thank you. After all, Fox is just their lap dogs doing tricks for the master. Also, ISIS just did the Military Industrial Complex a big favor. Now they don't have to stage their own false flag for an excuse to rifle our treasury for more war. Fox viewers will willingly cheer them on. So will most of the brain dead populace. If Fox News really had any balls they would air a documentary about the lasting effects of dropping depleted Uranium over Fallujah.
#3
Where is the "Like" button for DAnneMarc's comment?
#4
The truth is Roger Ailes is a salesman and he knows his audience of choice. Both their likes and dislikes so he has Fox News show what his audiance wants to see. These are people that get pleasure out of watching these kind of things happen. They enjoy the adrenaline rush even if it scares them. I guarantee you though what most of the Fox news viewers opinion, was look these goofy muslims are killing each other. These people hate anything and anyone that is in the slightest way different form them. That is why Fox News is still on the air.
#5
I read Jeremy Scahill's description in his book Dirty Wars of the aftermath of a USA missile strike on the Yemeni village of al Majalah. My problem is that the media does NOT publish war, not that it does publish it. Remember when the flag-covered coffins arriving at McGuire AFB were being broadcast, and then were terminated? No longer did we SEE the consequences to our own troops of the wars. Perhaps rubbing our noses in war would so sicken us that we would find alternatives to settle disputes.
"As soon as bin Fareed arrived in al Majalah, he was horrified. 'When we went there, we could not believe our eyes. I mean, if somebody had a weak heart, I think he would collapse. You see goats and sheep all over, you see the heads of those who were killed here and there. You see their bodies, you see children. I mean some of them, they were not hit immediately, but by the fire, they were burned,' he told me. Body parts were strewn around the village. 'You could not tell if this meat belongs to animals or to human beings,' he remembered. They tried to gather what body parts they could to bury the dead. 'Some of the meat we could not reach, even. It was eaten by the birds.' As bin Fareed surveyed the carnage, most of the victims he saw were women and children. 'They were all children, old women, all kinds of sheep and goats and cows. Unbelievable.'"
[http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/16551-jeremy-scahill-recounts-how-the-us-dirty-wars-killed-women-and-children-in-a-yemeni-village]
So instead of censoring the images of the barbarism of war, I say play it over-and-over -- atrocities of all parties to the barbarity -- until we learn.
#6
Interesting, Fox news tells the truth and gets lambasted here. Left leaning Brian Williams lies about his helicopter being forced down during the 2003 Iraq war, saying it was hit by an RPG. That isn't mentioned here. I guess it's cool to criticize Fox news, but politically incorrect to mention lies from the left. George Carlin was correct, censorship in America today is coming from the left.
#7
So censorship is ok if it's from the right? and Brian Williams is left leaning and not just another rich white guy telling a War Storey? ? I guess you're not an American but something else more important ?
#8
Ou812, Brian Williams' story is inconsequential. It didn't lead a nation into war, or get anyone killed. The two cases are simply not equal.
#9
Mathboy, I see your in favor of censorship. Fox showing the burning of the pilot hasn't led us into war either, we have yet to make that decision. If it does led to war, it will be because the truth is told. I'd much rather be told the truth than be lied to by someone who thinks he knows what's best for me. BTW oneworldatpeace I never noticed Brian Williams was a white guy. I guess you judge people by the color of their skin.
#10
Ou812 -- Fascinating. What you get out of this is that Faux news is telling the truth. You do not get the part about how much ISIS likes it. Acutally, Politifact (a little bit to the right as evidenced by calling Thom a "pants on fire liar" becuase it said the Koch bros "had 100 billion dollars in Canada tar sand oil reserves" rather than saying "up to a 100 billion dollars") says faux news tells the truth 40% of the time.
#11
Showing the latest terror-video from ISIS is tragic, but not as tragic as the killing of tens of thousands of American men, women, and children PER YEAR by denying them healthcare coverage when they need it in order to live. In line with the enthusiastic support of the FOX "News Channel", most of the Republicans in our House of Congress just voted for the 56th time to inflict that level of damage on the American people. They clearly don't care how many Americans they kill, as long as they can continue to receiving money from wealthy right-wing sources by doing so. I find this to be far more outrageous.
#12
What happend to the journalistic responsibility of credible news reporting form an objective position. Just reporting the facts without the sensational game show hype. People capable of critical thinking are able to accept information and form their own opinions. Manipulative reporting used to be called YELLOW JOURNALISM and got us into the Spanich American War and the war in the Phillipines which Mark Twain objected to. There is big money directing the media today and especially FOX news as the devils emissary.
#13
Did they call for showing the multilated bodies in the aftermath of right-winger Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma bombing, so that we could see the evils of the American right wing?
#14
This was largely phased out via the massive restructuring of US news corporations, etc., starting in the 1980s. Virtually all mainstream news comes out of only a handful of massive news corporations, largely tempered by (or reflecting) information from the corporate perspective. We get the news that they decide we should know, reported in the manner determined by these corporate entities.
#15
OU812 ~ FOX News tells the News as it is, as it happens, and, in it's entirety, only when it suits their agenda. Here, they simply want to justify sending troops back into Iraq in the worst way. That is all this is about. Stop trying to paint them as some kind of responsible journalistic organization doing their job serving the community. They serve the community the same way Walmart does--like parasites. We both know who they serve, and it ain't the community or the country. They are the lapdogs for the corporate interests that own them, looking out for their own profits, and nothing else. You should ask yourself whenever you see them push a story, what's in it for them? If there was nothing in it for them this story would have been swept under the rug faster than the Wall Street investigation, occupy, environmental, anti Keystone, and anti war protests got swept under the rug. As far as I am concerned, selective journalism has been, still is, and always will be blatant propaganda. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You, above all, should know that.
#16
Lies? Actually, Williams publicly addressed this issue, and did apologize. It was an isolated incident during a career, during which he has been/continuies to be noted for his integrity. It appears that this was more a matter of his words "coming out wrong," with no malicious intent. Regardless, Williams is neither a leftist nor left-leaning. Before Reagan, we called people with his (apparent) general point of view, "centrists." As for criticizing FOX, I really don't see what this would have to do with some notion of "being cool." On any scale, FOX has earned it's reputation for both misinformation and misleading information. There is a big difference between calling for censorship, and pointing out misldeading or false reports.
One interesting fact is that those on the far right have always attacked our leading newspeople, from Edward R. Murrow to Walter Cronkite, etc. There is no evidence that these newspeople lied; they merely had the audacity to report those things that the right wing didn't want reported.
#17
Considering the possibility that our own CIA is funding and supplying with weapons many of the 'terrorist' groups in the world and that main stream media is complicit in perpetuating the lie and fear that ISIS is real and backed by Islamic fanatics, perhaps we should contemplate looking for these answers behind the 'curtain'! Also considering the ample evidence that the beheadings being broadcast the last year or so were complete hoaxes, (once again to create fear for the public), maybe this 'video' is contrived as well! You must be aware that photo shop these days, as well as the graphic imagery that can be created for movies adds the possibility that this may be a fake video as well. You are spot on about Fox news Thom, but they aren't the only news agency that's lying. Corporations own 90% of all media, and you can bet that the corporations are profitting big time from war and military contracts and it's all connected in sometimes subtle ways. If you aren't sure about what I'm saying here, feel free to contact me. I have 100's of files and 1000's of articles saved, stashed, and shared to back up these claims. Sometimes venturing further down this rabbit hole, you may uncover some unsavory agendas and who's behind them, but in the end the truth will set humanity free.
#18
Here's one of many links that confirm what I've known for years. Fear mongering is a business, and corporations and the military industiral complex profit from it. Educate yourselves, and the fear will dissipate and no longer control you!
#19
Reply to posts #6 & #9: FOX tells the truth? I beg to differ.
For starters, I’d like to remind anyone needing to be reminded that FOX is not an American news outfit serving the American public; it is owned by neocon foreigners serving transnational corporate interests. Its only purpose is keeping Americans misinformed. It is not even a legitimate news organization with real journalists. Its two top shareholders are Rupert Murdoch the Aussie fascist, and Rupert’s sidekick, Saudi Prince what’s-his-face, who recently sold his #2 holding in this terrorist propaganda network. Anyone who listens to these thugs and takes them seriously is an idiot, and a gullible one at that.
All this attention focused on ISIS is a goddam joke, the hypocrisy of it downright crazy-making. Saudi Arabia is a country that beheads people it doesn’t like on a regular basis, that cuts off people’s hands and other body parts in public squares, that keeps women housebound and wrapped in ugly black sheets with slits for eyes. Most of the criminals complicit in the 9-11 twin tower attacks were Saudi, and after those attacks were carried out, Baby Bush the boy king couldn’t get Bin Ladin’s relatives flown out of the U.S. fast enough. That in itself should be considered an act of treason on Bush’s part.
As horrible and gruesome as the executions ISIS carries out, they are no more gruesome than the murder-by-drone attacks and in-your-face murders and rapes committed by the U.S. military in that part of the world on a daily basis. And like I’ve said here repeatedly, the U.S. government is the greatest terrorist organization on the planet, bar none.
Our country’s chummy relationship with Saudi Arabia turns my stomach. Nothing reflects who we are more than the friends we keep, and that goes for nations as well as persons. -AIW
#20
You said it Aliceinwonderland .you tell it like it is girl this is what we need in our world debate and dialogue asking why are these things taking place and what kind of belief's are creating such de-evolving behaviours .
Martin Luther King Jr said many things about violence as have so any other of our master teachers but we kill them all instead of heeding there greatest truths .
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral ,begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy .Instead of diminishing evil ,it multiplies it .
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only love can do that ."
"Returning violence for violence multiplies violence ,adding despair darkness to a night already devoid of stars ."
We need to build a new society "if not now ,when ?if not you who ?"
It all starts at the level of belief and who we choose to be and what as a species is humanity trying to do .
We are all one and there is no separation between what some call god which is life the seen and the unseen and ourselves individuations of the divine essence .
This is the only message that matters .It is the only message there is .Everything else in life is a reflection of this message .Everything else sends it .
The fact that we have so far failed to receive it (we have heard it often,but we have failed to receive it) is what has caused every misery .every sorrow ,every conflict ,every heartache in our experience .It has caused every murder ,every war ,every robbery ,every assault and attack,mental ,verbal,and physical.It has caused every illness and dis-ease .and every encounter with what we call "death".
The idea that we are not ONE is an illusion. Denial is used for the illusion to continue .
namaste
#21
Thank you, HT. Much appreciated. Not everyone here has to love me, but it sure is nice to have responses like yours once in a while. And ezwriter, thanks for sharing that link! I read the article, and some of the responses on the accompanying blog. Even added my two cents!
#22
Alice ALL true ! If only people were informed ..Voter 'Ignorance is NOT bliss' Its dangerous ! US is ( has been ) chummy with many dictators but we never learn.. It always comes back to bite us in the arse . US is now run and owned by billionaires, powerful anti middle class corps / DC lobbyists. Far right judges make laws that favor wealth ( Citizens United ) They gave us the best gov't MONEY CAN BUY ' Illinois new GOP Gov is Wis Gov Walker on steroids Gov Rauner spent 30 + million of his own money to buy his election with tons of ads on TV . This is NOT the country I grew up in ! We are in the Second 'Gilded Age' yet millions of gullible voters are clueless. I am fearful for my children and grandchildren. I vote -I donate - I post- write to Obama and congress..but it may be too late ..
#23
I hear ya dianhow. But please don't get discouraged. I know it looks grim, but we can't afford to get discouraged. That's what the psychopaths want. Just hobnobbing with folks like you helps me stay sane.
We share a point of view grossly under-represented in this country. It needs to come out of the shadows and into the light. Sounds like the FCC is finally taking our side of the net neutrality issue (WHEW!) so we still have a platform and a means to stay connected. Let's make good use of it! - AIW
#24
It appears to me very sad how American people have been dumbed down so much
Sadly, in UK the same effect seems to be occurring now
There are masses of people outside of the Euro / US sphere of influence
US / Euro population is less than 1 billion
World population is about 6 billion
We need to raise awareness amongst the billions who do not get this information in order to create mass movement for change
#25
We talk about the 1%
Of what population and what country
I guess the 1% of the American population... no?
There are other countries you know!!
And, more human beings around the place
We share the same globe all together
We are one human race
Sorry about the rant! Cheers!
#26
I would flag as offensive but that doesn't quite fit. Flag as stupid is better.
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