Fox Propaganda Site Goes to New Lengths to Distort Reality

By Karl Frisch, Media Matters for America. Posted June 8, 2009.

At times, the website has been downright frightening. In early May, it ran a photo of a rifle pointed in the direction of a photo of Obama's head. The headline associated with the rifle image asked: "Why Are Gun Sales Surging?" One can only imagine what O'Reilly and his ilk would have said if a progressive blog -- or a legitimate news outlet, as Fox purports to be, for that matter -- had done the same thing to President Bush.

Debunked conspiracy theories are also finding new life on the website. A headline in late May asked: "Should Obama Release Birth Certificate? Or Is This Old News?" But contrary to the question, the Obama campaign released a copy of Obama's birth certificate, posting it on the campaign's website last year. It also reportedly provided the original document to FactCheck.org, whose staff concluded in an August 2008 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship."

About the use of questions like the one just highlighted: In what appears to be an attempt to ward off criticism, The Fox Nation, like the on-screen text on Fox News, often employs the use of questions for its headlines rather than straightforward assertions. It's as if they are pre-emptively saying, "We made no such statement. We simply asked a question."

What has the website asked its readers? Of same-sex marriage, it wondered, "Are 'Triad' Marriages Next?" Following the reported suicide of a Freddie Mac executive, one headline asked, "Was It Suicide?" After the Department of Homeland Security declassified an April report detailing potential increases in right-wing extremism, the website queried, "Is Homeland Security Targeting Tea Parties?" Of course, these are the very same tea parties that Fox News and The Fox Nation went to great lengths promoting.

The Fox Nation has had loads of questions, especially when it comes to Obama's Supreme Court deliberations and his nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The website asked, "Why Aren't White Males Being Considered for Supreme Court?" and "Is it Empathy? Or Is Obama Shredding the Constitution?" Of Obama's nominee, the website inquired, "Sotomayor Argued Death Penalty Is Racist... Is She?"

So, is TheFoxNation.com simply the seedy underbelly of Fox News parent company chairman Rupert Murdoch's evil, right-wing media empire?

Boy, that was easy, wasn't it?

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