Will they ever stop lying to us?

First, an excerpt from a revealing article about Roger Ailes, president of FOX News, published yesterday.

In the fable Ailes tells about his own life, he made a clean break with his dirty political past long before 1996, when he joined forces with Murdoch to launch Fox News. “I quit politics,” he has claimed, “because I hated it.” But an examination of his career reveals that Ailes has used Fox News to pioneer a new form of political campaign – one that enables the Republican party to bypass sceptical reporters and wage an around-the-clock, partisan assault on public opinion. The network, at its core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism.

According to recent polls, Fox News viewers are the most misinformed of all news consumers. They are 12 percentage points more likely to believe the stimulus package caused job losses, 17 points more likely to believe Muslims want to establish Sharia law in America, 30 points more likely to say that scientists dispute global warming, and 31 points more likely to doubt President Obama’s citizenship. At the height of the healthcare debate, more than two-thirds of Fox News viewers were convinced Obamacare would lead to a “government takeover”, provide healthcare to illegal immigrants, pay for abortions and let the government decide when to pull the plug on grandma. In fact, a study by the University of Maryland revealed that ignorance of Fox viewers actually increases the longer they watch the network. That’s because Ailes isn’t interested in providing people with information, or even a balanced range of perspectives. Like his political mentor, Richard Nixon, Ailes traffics in the emotions of victimisation.

The Murdoch scandal, which seems to have been mostly swept under the rug, should have sparked a public outcry. After knowing this happened, shouldn’t we be scrutinizing all media conglomerates, especially those affiliated with Rupert Murdoch? The actions of Ailes, and those like him, are an insult to the American public.

There are many examples of how powerful companies influence and control information/ political decisions. This is why I feel compelled to give every piece of information my full analysis – and I urge everyone else to do the same. We all know that Ailes isn’t the only mogul wielding this type of chutzpah.

“I’m not in politics,” Ailes recently boasted. “I’m in ratings. We’re winning.”