Lately a lot of local media attention has been devoted to the apparent disagreement between the White House and Fox News. Fox went ballistic when White House officials questioned whether the station was an actual news medium, which was further reinforced by President Barack Obama’s remarks of agreement during a press conference. The main critique toward Fox appears to be they do not broadcast news based on facts, but rather bend the truth to propagandize their morals and opinions. This made me reflect on an issue brought up by Fox some time ago.
A couple of weeks ago, I came across a video clip of Bill O’Reilly on “The O’Reilly Factor.” In this video he was talking about Holland — my home country — and more particularly about Amsterdam in a rather unflattering way. Assisted by two co-anchors, Margaret Hoover and Monica Crowley, I got to witness a good six minutes of Amsterdam bashing. Highlights included “cesspool of corruption” and “Amsterdam is a mess”.
Every Dutch person is aware of the very different attitudes traditional conservatives such as O’Reilly and Hoover have on several social issues. However, even though opinions may differ, it is still the responsibility of a news anchor to at least stay true to the facts. After all, that is what makes up the difference between news media and tabloids.
Hoover is a well-known Republican strategist, and as such I understand and accept that she holds very different social and moral views than the Dutch generally do. What bothered me about her story though, was the complete lack of factual support for her claims. Instead of bringing us the facts, she selectively quoted only those observational aspects which seemed to fit her story, opinions and morals. She then used her distorted example of the Dutch to criticize the more progressive Democratic course as set out by Obama.
The amazing conclusion of this panel of “experts”‘ was that “progressive people are just not that good at governing.” Obviously, the slamming of Amsterdam gave rise to feelings of resentment in the Netherlands. Some YouTube users were offended up to such an extent that they found and compared official factual data on drug abuse and crime figures for both the U.S. and the Netherlands. The results were no surprise to me. A higher percentage of U.S. citizens have smoked marijuana than in Holland, and the U.S. murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants is many times higher than it is in Holland. The statistical data, facts and figures are available for everyone to check. Still, O’Reilly responded to such logic by calling it merely “a nice piece of propaganda.”
By the time I was nearly ready to erupt with anger, Crowley made a surprisingly insightful comment. She said she did not think crime problems could be blamed on legalized prostitution and legalized soft drugs. For those of us who were not stunned already, O’Reilly responded in an even more astonishing way: He did not really care about Holland after all, he said, but rather just he just meant to create a picture of what would happen if secular progressives got into power in the U.S.
Finally Fox’s true intentions were revealed. Rather than wanting to create an insightful overview of Dutch society, its aim was to create some kind of vague, frightening image of a liberal country to prevent people from supporting progressive legislation at home.
Clearly, Republicans, Democrats, progressives and conservatives all hold different views on society. Morals and opinions differ, which is good because it gives rise to debate and it thus challenges us to justify the views we hold. However, the Fox example of Amsterdam bashing shows that it is important to always question people like Hoover and O’Reilly and to not mistake their words for facts.
Their aim is not to create a meaningful picture based on research or factual data. Instead, they collect bits and pieces, they twist and turn, they cheat and lie in order to enforce their morals and personal views upon you. Obviously they have the right to say and think whatever they want to. Nevertheless they should take some responsibility in differentiating between facts and opinions, which they did not.
As this case shows, the Obama administration is completely right when they claim Fox is not a serious news medium. After all, the information they present as facts is often not more than the delusions of some bitter conservatives who disagree with everything that is slightly progressive in nature. These conservatives have every right to feel that way, but the way their information is presented is oftentimes misleading and factually inconsistent. As such, Fox has once again demonstrated to not be a serious news medium, but rather the cheap, American version of a British tabloid.
Lars Jacobs ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in economics.
