Why I Called Fox News "Propaganda" While Live on Fox News

Posted by Lee Camp, AlterNet at 12:14 PM on February 28, 2008.

As most of you have seen, I ripped into Fox "News" while on a Fox "News" morning show this past Saturday. If you haven't seen it, the clip is to your right. I didn't say what I said in order to get attention. I figured that my statements would piss off a few hundred Fox viewers (or maybe help them question the "facts" they're getting from their sacred channel) and that I would show the clip to a few friends. As it turned out, within a day the clip had been viewed around 300,000 times on various sites, and I was getting interview requests from national radio shows. Apparently I struck a nerve.

I thought I'd answer a bunch of questions people had about the incident. Many have asked what happened before that moment to make me say those horrible things about such a lovely news network. (Isn't it sad that when someone speaks the truth on TV, we all ask "What caused it???") Well, nothing really happened in the interview - A right-wing comedian and I told some lame Huckabee jokes. The anchor, hard hitting journalist Clayton Morris, asked the necessary questions while seeming completely unaware that I was a fellow human being, and that was about it. But in a broader sense, what "happened" to make me call Fox "News" a "festival of ignorance" was the past twelve years of knowing this festering pile of propaganda coated with drivel and wrapped in the American flag has been spewing its poisonous eggs into the brains of average Americans. Now THAT's desecration of the flag - watching it flap back and forth behind a Fox "news" program.

What happened after they cut to a commercial? Clayton Morris was visibly furious but didn't say a word. Neither did anyone in the main studio. I got up, took my microphone off, and walked silently back to the greenroom, itching to the get the fuck out of that sixth circle of hell. Back in the greenroom I saw the female co-host, who was wearing her normal business skirt that is only half an inch away from illegal in 23 states. Even though there are three TV's back there showing nothing but Fox "News" (and we act like water boarding is torture?) she apparently had not watched the segment. She looked at me and said, "GREAT JOB!! We need more humor on the show. It's all so serious!" She did not get to the natural conclusion of her thought, "Now excuse me. I have to go interview strippers wearing Star Trek outfits designed for three-year-olds."

I then left the building without speaking to anyone. Following the break, intrepid newshound Clayton Morris pretended on-air as if he had thrown me out of the building. Here's the clip: He says something like, "I had to get rid of that guy!" The other anchor then says something like, "Well, it shows we have both sides of the issues here at Fox News." They then go on to interview the naked Star Trek chicks. So first of all, Fox "News" shows that it feels the solution to someone speaking their opinion is violence, but then they say it shows they have all viewpoints on their network. Within three seconds they stated that they accept all viewpoints and that they physically throw opposing viewpoints of the building. I'm impressed they're able to walk when they're that deeply drenched in hypocrisy.

Everyone has been amused with the irony that after I said my remarks respectable journalist Clayton Morris hit back with, "You can get all the news you can at Fox," and then sends it over to a story about Captain Kirk's lovers, which would not have been a news story even if it had been covered during Star Trek's actual run 38 years ago.

People have also asked whether I knew I was going to say that stuff or it just came out. My answer will make some like me more and some like me less. I knew I was going to say something, but I didn't exactly know what. When Fox called to ask me to be on, I knew that the only reason I said yes was to tear them down and give some truth to their viewers. (By the way, they clearly had not done their research. They knew I was a left-wing comic, but if they'd looked up my earlier work, they would have known I despise them.) If I wasn't there to speak my mind, I would have no justifiable reason to be on their network. Sure, I would like to be a regular comedian commentator on any network (it's good for my career), but I have no desire to support a propaganda machine that has facilitated the false election of George W. and the unwarranted invasion of Iraq. In all honesty, I thought saying this stuff would hurt my career, and maybe it still will, but I knew I didn't have a choice. Too many people have died for me to look the other way and tell asinine jokes on their couch. Until yesterday I had not seen Montel Williams's appearance on Fox "News," but apparently he also felt he could not sit there and talk about celebrity news while ignoring the truth. (Besides, asinine jokes are my day job. I take weekends off.)

This helps answer the last question - Wasn't my tirade a little rude and lacking in class? A few people who agree with what I said have asked this. My own mother said I should have warned the nice news people that I was going to trash them. My view of a lack of class is knowing that nearly a million civilians have died in Iraq and yet then reporting that 80,000 have. My view of unrefined is calling peace activists "anti-American." My view of barbaric is being aware that genocide goes on in Darfur but refusing to speak about it on-air because the people funding it are your corporate friends. My view of disrespectful is calling the first probable African American nominee for president "Muslim" in hopes that it will inspire enough racism in your viewers to defeat him in November. My idea of vulgar is creating false "news" stories that have some relation to naked women so that you can show clips of those women while you discuss it in a "professional" manner.

I realize I'm a comedian, and I realize my job is not to tell the truth. But in a situation like this, I feel it's a crime not to. Plus, all the best comedians have spoken the truth - Bruce, Carlin, Pryor, Hicks. So I don't give a fuck if people say "that's not funny." Furthermore, I don't consider myself special in any way because I feel all of you who support me would have done the same. And thank you for all the overwhelming support! I had no idea people would be so excited about this. Hopefully my statements and Montel's statements and countless others will continue to grow into an time of truth. Hopefully, if nothing else, we can all renew in people the desire to stop watching tripe, start reading, start forming their own opinions, and start speaking what they learned to the people around them.

I'd love to keep in touch with all of you. My sites are www.leecamp.net and www.YouTube.com/LeeCamp and my email is Camp337@hotmail.com.

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Tagged as: fox news, right wing media, camp

Lee Camp is a comedian and writer in NYC. He tours clubs and colleges across the country, writes for Huffington Post and 236.com, and does comedic commentary for various television shows (but no longer Fox News).