Fox News Channel Engages In Chinese-Style Self-Censorship

A TOOTHLESS FOX?

FNC Censors Itself Ahead Of Obama Presidency







Confirming the worst fears of millions of dedicated fans, the Fox News Channel really has gone soft on Obama. That's at a time when viewers are counting on it to remain a key opposition voice during a disturbing political shift away from freedom and prosperity.

According to columnists Rush & Malloy of the New York Daily News, Fox has issued a chilling edict to its hosts that they must cease criticism of Obama for the near future:

Fox News boss Roger Ailes doesn't want to spoil Barack Obama's political honeymoon, we hear. A source says Ailes has told prime-time hosts Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren to lay off the President-elect - at least for a while. "We're not going to have any personal attacks on Obama," a network insider says. "The public has spoken - we must treat him with respect."

This confirms an almost-identical account your Radio Equalizer was given Wednesday evening from a key source. That person contends the order came from the top: Rupert Murdoch himself.

"Personal attacks", by the way, can be construed to mean any criticism of Barack Obama whatsoever.

The reason? News Corporation is bracing for potentially-vindictive actions by Obama's incoming thugocracy, especially regarding dual station / newspaper ownership rules and apparently seeks to placate the Dear Leader, hoping he will be merciful.

Unfortunately, this is a great way to send FNC's audience running for the hills, with evening talk radio as the likely beneficiary. Meanwhile, the left will still hate Fox.



Did MSNBC lay off of Bush during his time in office? Of course not. Then why should FOX sacrifice its entire audience out of fear of Obama's thugs?

What about the tens of millions of voters that didn't support Obama and refuse to join his creepy cult?


Even before the election, viewers were alarmed over a sudden shift to a pro-Obama stance, especially during its debate coverage:

McCain Won the Debate, but the Drive-Bys (Even Fox) Deny Reality
October 16, 2008


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I watched the debate last night, as everybody did, and I'm thinking, "This is cool. McCain finally on message. McCain finally on offense." I thought Obama looked like he was stumbling around. I thought Obama looked off his game. I thought Obama was totally on defense. I did not see somebody cool. I did not see a mountain. I did not see somebody elegant. I didn't see any of that. I saw somebody who was lying through his teeth time after time after time. I saw somebody who seemed irritated when McCain was speaking. I saw somebody who almost was close to blowing his cool in terms of facial expressions, and I saw the director cut away from Obama at those times so as to assist Obama in having his facial expressions not broadcast as much as possible. I'm getting e-mails all night long from people, I mean in the thousands, who are jazzed, finally somebody is taking it to Obama, somebody is standing up for the middle class, somebody is standing up for the right economics, somebody trying to do the right things for the first time in a long time.

And then, after the debate, people that are e-mailing me, a lot of them turned on the Fox News Channel, and they were dispirited and depressed. They felt that Obama had found a new ally in some of the commentators on the Fox All-Star Panel.

Now, they view the Fox News Channel as their network. They tuned in for post-debate analysis expecting the Fox All-Stars to have seen what they saw, and they listened to the Fox All-Stars talking about a debate they didn't see. The Fox All-Stars were talking about how rotten McCain was, how horrible he had done, what a rock Obama was, how cool Obama was, how elegant Obama was. I got a note from a friend who watched this in a bar with 200 people last night, and they were cheering themselves crazy during the debate last night. One of these guys happened to e-mail a friend and said, "What's the reaction on Fox?" He said, "The Fox guys say Obama skunked McCain, that McCain was just horrible." And the guys at the bar said, "What? What in the world did they watch?" And I'm thinking, Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol, these are the people, folks, who told us that McCain was the best chance Republicans had way back when. I mean, as far as Kristol was concerned, going back to the year 2000 in the primaries versus George W. Bush.

Particularly disturbing to Fox fans was Carl Cameron's now widely-discredited hit piece against Sarah Palin, which has led to a huge backlash in favor of the Alaskan governor. Also from Limbaugh's show:

CAMERON: Early on, they began to discover that there were these gaps in her knowledge. I just want to rattle off a couple of the things that insiders say she just simply didn't know. There were real problems with basic civics, government structures; municipal state and federal government responsibilities. She didn't know the nations involved in the North American Free Trade Agreement, we're told. She didn't understand, McCain aides told me today, that Africa was a continent and not a country, and actually asked them -- they argue, they say -- if South Africa wasn't just part of the country as opposed to a country in the continent. They go on to say that she didn't understand the idea of American exceptionalism, a classic principle of Wilsonian doctrine that says that the United States is exceptional in the world and has therefore a very special role in leading the globe.

RUSH: I don't believe any of this, and what kills it for me is that she "didn't understand...American exceptionalism." She's the only one in the McCain campaign who did understand American exceptionalism, and had to drag the rest of the campaign kicking and screaming into the concept. We never heard about American exceptionalism from our own party 'til Sarah Palin showed up. This South African... Not knowing the countries in Africa? Not knowing how the federal government works? She's governor of Alaska, for crying out loud! This is just a smear job. She is being smeared worse than anybody in the McCain campaign went after Obama or any of his questionable allies.

CAMERON: There are stories that say she would look at her press clippings in the morning and throw what has been described to me as "tantrums." One of the more infamous stories that's now come out is there was a time when McCain staffers went to collect her at her hotel room and she had just stepped out of the shower and essentially met them wrapped in a bathrobe. They were taken aback by that. They have suggested that she's a bit of a shopoholic and that on more than one occasion she would go out and buy clothes that to many seemed unnecessary because the campaign had already provided her with a very large wardrobe, uh, a wardrobe that famously rang up a bill of $150,000, mostly because they bought extra sizes to make sure everything fit.

RUSH: (laughing) So this is Carl Cameron last night on Fox detailing what had been told to him. Carl Cameron, by the way, is the voice of the McCain insiders, I should point out. So they're dumping on Sarah Palin, and you have to ask yourself: "Why? Who benefits from this happening to Sarah Palin?"

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: You might ask, "Why is Carl Cameron spewing all this stuff?" Okay, so somebody inside the McCain campaign reports it to him, but why does he spew all this stuff out there? I guess to have a scoop. I don't know. But it's quite telling, it is quite instructive here, ladies and gentlemen, as if we conservatives aren't angry enough with Obama and McCain, the fact is we're going to have to defeat 'em both now, all over again. So I'm just going to warn you, there's going to be a McCain-somebody, comprehensive immigration bill, which will result in the migration of more nonpaying Democrat voters. This I cannot believe and I'm going to deal with this as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears today. The wizards of smart on our side are all out there talking about how Obama's going to govern from the center. (laughing) They have learned nothing! I don't even think that this is wishful thinking, or hopefulness.

As they take full control of the government, Democrats have made it clear they are not going to tolerate opposition voices or political dissent.

Though talk radio will have to be eliminated through a takeover of the FCC, FOX has simply decided to censor itself, exactly the way it is routinely done in communist China. Are we still living in America?


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