The 8 Worst Examples of Fox News Election Journalism Malpractice (In Just 8 Weeks)

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SOOEF's assertions that Obama has improperly heralded himself for the demise of bin Laden are demonstrably false. Their video features gross misrepresentations of Obama’s statements on the subject that loop portions of his speech referencing himself, but leaves out his abundant praise for the military and intelligence operatives who carried out the mission. The opening line of the president’s address to the nation announcing that bin Laden was dead explicitly stated that “the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.” He went on to thank “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who’ve worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome,” and he praised “the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country.”

Whatever we think about the politics and ethics of the assasination, it's obvious that Fox is primarily interested in misrepresenting the president's role in a desperate attempt to keep the militarism mantle for Republicans. 

Little of the president's statement was in the SOOEF video, which Fox has featured in numerous broadcasts. What’s more, Fox actually uses the term "swiftboating” to describe the anti-Obama campaign. Either it has completely given up on trying to pretend that it is a “fair and balanced” news enterprise (which no one believes anyway), or it doesn't know that swiftboating means lying.

4) Fox Nation Ignores Polls By CNN, Reuters and — Fox News

Virtually every time a new poll on presidential politics is released Fox News will make a point to publish the results – so long as the poll shows Obama losing. In a  particularly egregious example of this bias earlier this month, Fox prominently reported on a poll by the right-wing Rasmussen operation that placed Mitt Romney in the lead 47-43. What Fox neglected to report was that there were three other polls released at the same time that all put Obama ahead. And the most striking part of this omission was that one of the polls Fox declined to cover was conducted by Fox News itself -- and it put Obama ahead of Romney by 9 points.

Fox couldn’t even bring itself to report on its own poll conducted by its own pollsters. That’s the sort of biased cherry-picking that is the hallmark of Fox’s “news” charade. And it’s a crystal clear message to pollsters from Fox: If you want to be covered, you better say what we like. And that goes for Fox’s pollsters as well.

5) Welfare-To-Work Rules Were Not Weakened By Obama Administration

The Romney campaign recently accused Obama of directing his administration to relax the welfare-to-work provisions of Bill Clinton’s welfare reform bill. That accusation is directly refuted by the facts. What Obama did was to permit waivers for states that could affirm their progress in moving people from welfare to work, and allowing them flexibility to enhance their programs. It’s a modification that Romney himself had requested when he was governor of Massachusetts. Nevertheless, Fox News picked up the accusation and ran with it. In every segment on the subject it portrayed the issue precisely as Romney had framed it despite every factchecking operation concluding that Romney’s charges were entirely false.

Speaking of factchecking, Romney has been  rated untruthful 67 times by PolitiFact, and 14 of those were “Pants-on-Fire” lies (including the welfare lie). In fact, 43% of PolitiFact’s findings on statements by Romney are rated as untruthful. He’s downright pathological, but Fox has not yet reported that fact.

6) Obama Did Not 'Sell Amnesty' For $465

After Obama issued a directive to the Department of Homeland Security not to advance the deportation of young immigrants who had been brought to this country by their parents and who had demonstrated achievement in school or the military, there was a rush of dishonest reporting from Fox News that Obama was placating lawbreakers and opening our borders to criminals, drug traffickers and terrorists. None of that was true. News reports from objective sources correctly noted that the beneficiaries of the program had broken no laws and that the public overwhelmingly supported the president’s plan.