VIDEO COMPILATION: Fox News Devoted 12 Times More Coverage To Anna Nicole Than Walter Reed

[dogday]

Our national media embarrassment was again on full display on Friday. Both MSNBC and Fox News devoted more coverage to Anna Nicole Smith — three weeks after her death on Feb. 8 — than they did to the multiple developments involving the neglect and deplorable conditions at Walter Reed military hospital.

The most lop-sided coverage by far was aired by Fox News, which featured only 10 references to Walter Reed compared to 121 of Anna Nicole — roughly 12 times the coverage. MSNBC featured 84 references to Walter Reed and 96 to Anna Nicole.

ThinkProgress compiled a reel of lowlights from Friday’s coverage. Watch it:


http://thinkprogress.org/

[derby378]

1. Doesn't that hold true for everyone?

It's disgraceful, I tell ya. I feel bad for Anna Nicole and her family, sure, but look at how our troops are being treated.

[19jet54]

37. No it doesn't....

In the case of Fox News, it is because no one there is a veteran? They're all chicken-hawks & it goes to the heart of the problem.

The dirty old men at Fox lusted after the idea of her with them, and her passing broke their hearts?

[justmakingsense3]

54. CNN wasn't any better!

[Steak1]

55. this is true

They are businesses after all. They are in it to get ratings, to sign up more advertisers, to make more money. If you blame anyone, blame American TV viewers. The outlets watch the ratings, not the importance of a story. If this lopsided coverage is sick (which it is) one must only look into the mirror to find the culprit.

In addition, the article said MSNBC's coverage was nearly as lopsided. This is the station that flemploys Olberman, you remember, who is a borderline Maoist.

[singingbiscuit]

58. To compare apples to apples -

whoa, maybe a bad choice of metaphors, considering... but anyway, look at the media coverage of Molly Ivins's death a mere week before ANS's. Anyone hear the crickets chirping?

[Buzz Clik]

2. It was closer to 50/50 here at DU.

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. Do threads pointing out the media coverage count?

At least Anna Nicole never made the DU home page...she didn't did she?

[Buzz Clik]

9. I hope not.

There's no question that DU, despite some giddiness about Anna Nicole, managed to keep some perspective about the relative importance of the two stories.

[stewert]

29. And...........

DU is not a national news outlet, it's a liberal forum, nobody here has a duty to report news with any balance.

The media has a duty to be fair and balanced and report the news, DU does not.

[Buzz Clik]

41. No denying that.

:shrug:

[Robbien]

3. And when FauxNews had stories on Walter Reed

they blamed the veterans for causing the bad conditions.

It is best if FauxNews keeps to ANS.

[Oleladylib]

53. Yes, mindlessness does pay..Faux is good at it.

[Pacifist Patriot]

4. Shocked! Shocked I say!

[havocmom]

6. Tabloid sleeze is NOT supportive of the troops. Tell FAUX

and write some LTTE about it too. Let your neighbors know FAUX watching is damaging military morale! Put some peer pressure on people who need to understand that ignoring problems harms America.

[Supersedeas]

8. Campaign sloganeering for the Repig Party is all that matters-Diversions are sometimes important too

[IWantAChange]

7. What's next for Faux News? Rather than cover the debacle in Iraq maybe stories about a unicorn??

[MADem]

10. Why is this surprising? It's a right wing advocacy station. They aren't going to cover subjects

critical to the administration. That "news" thing in their logo is like a bit of wilted parsley on a plate...no one's gonna eat it.

The food network covers food, the DIY network covers how to repair things around the house, and Faux Snooze covers administration ass.

We KNOW what they really are, no matter how much they try to pretend they're something else.

[seemslikeadream]

11. A guy I work with

who watches Fox for his news didn't even know about Walter Reed last Friday

[ktowntennesseedem]

44. I work with a whole host of similar Faux geniuses.

If any of them have even HEARD of Walter Reed, they're probably wondering if he's any ken to Donna or Robert.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Why do they hate our vets?

[meldroc]

13. Bread and circuses...

That's all the "news" is these days - bread and circuses. Anna Nicole Smith was a distraction, and a very deliberate distraction. There's nothing but bad news coming from Iraq, Congress was debating the Iraq War Resolution, the House passed it while the Republicans in the Senate made themselves look like the asses they were by filibustering it, stories were coming out on how the Administration's line about how Iran was sending weapons into Iraq and building nukes was a crock of bull, and then stories about Walter Reed and Building 18 came out.

What's an administration to do when confronted with all this bad press? What else? Cheney calls up his buddies Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, and tells them to cover something else. Being rich motherfuckers, they're more than happy to oblige, so what do we get to see in the news? "BREAKING NEWS: Anna Nicole Smith is still dead!" and "OMG, Britney Spears shaved her head!!! She's in rehab! She's out of rehab! She's in rehab! Out! In! Out!" That and right wing shill after right wing shill - Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Tucker Carlson, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc. spewing bile like Prothero from V for Vendetta. Absofuckinglutely disgusting.

Oh, and while the Faux Noise Channel's by far the worst, all the news channels are doing it. CNN and MSNBC are almost as bad. Even Keith Olbermann was doing Anna Nicole Smith non-stop. I'm sure Keith tries to stick to keep as much real news in Countdown as he can, but he's getting overruled by the producers and executives, who are saying "Stop the Murrow act and do more Anna Nicole and Britney or else!"

[Frank Cannon]

16. I don't think Ted Turner is involved with CNN anymore

I believe he resigned all of his chairmanships with Time Warner, its parent corporation.

CNN was actually the Gold Standard 24-Hour News Source when he started it up, and while he was in charge. It is now, obviously, a ridiculous mouthpiece for its megacorporate owners.

Yours was an excellent post. I just wanted to clarify on that one little point.

[NEOBuckeye]

21. FYI: Ted Turner hates Bush

He also doesn't own a controlling stake in CNN anymore. He lost control over it when Time Warner merged with AOL. The new management, however, does like Bush and so appointed Right-leaning lackeys to take over management of CNN.

[RedEarth]

14. This ought to be sent to every right wing puke people know.........

just to show ONCE AGAIN how deplorable the right wing noise machine is. And as Thinkprogress suggests, write CNN and thank them for their coverage of the Walter Reed scandal.

[central scrutinizer]

15. wouldn't time be a better measuring tool?

I want to know how many minutes of airtime were devoted to each topic, not how many "mentions" there were.

[Frank Cannon]

17. It would be, but that would be even more damning

I haven't seen a single mention of the Walter Reed debacle except for those stories pointed out by people in these forums. It STILL seems like it's Anna Nicole 24/7.

[stewert]

30. Time.......

FOX only had 10 mentions of the walter reed story, figure 30 seconds a mention. That's 5 minutes, if my math is right.

And O'Reilly had 0 mentions, that's 0 minutes, if my math is right, lol. In fact, O'Reilly has not mentioned the walter reed story one time, ever, none, zero.

The craptor has a media blackout on the walter reed story. Yet Billy claims to report real news, yeah if you consider girls gone wild stories real news, and tonight he is doing a story on a prostitution ring in DC.

Now that's news, lol.

[brentblack]

18. This is not news

I stopped watching mass media during the OJ trial. It was sickening how the media was force feeding us a story that had little impact on most of us.

This trend has continued, unabated, since then. The media (all outlets of all leanings are guilty) decides what is important and then tells us that we need to be concerned with that topic.


The Anna Nicole story just solidified my opinion of major media outlets. It is hard to go to cnn.com without seeing updates on her funeral. The other day, one of the story taglines was something to the effect of ' anna nicole's body being moved from church to grave' - it could not get creepier if it tried.


Oh well....it keeps the sheeple distracted.....

[Mrspeeker]

23. that was right around the telecoms bills

Signed by Bill Clinton, what a great man lol

Don't get me wrong there are side to this, It the RICH vs THE POOR.
Nothing changed except titles.

[The Wizard]

28. But the media was silent

when it was discovered that a male prostitute was posing as a White House press corps reporter under an assumed name with 40 sign-ins connected with sign-outs on the following day. Not one member asked the name of Gannon's bottom in the White House. Inquiring minds want to know. Who has the pictures?

[Thor_MN]

52. The problem is ratings

Network News was required by the government in exchange for broadcasting entertainment. Now that cable news has become big (and nothing more than entertainment), network news has become nothing more than a pale copy of cable news. Most of the journalistic integrity was abandoned/outsourced years ago.

[Vinca]

19. Yesterday, while flipping through the channels, I landed on Faux News

just in time to hear a pukette say, "Walter Reed can't be blamed on President Bush." I guess if you don't cover the news you don't know what's going on.

[Uncle Joe]

20. Maybe they should come out with some

Support Anna Nicole Smith Stickers

Thanks for the thread dogday

Kicked and recommended

[Rosa Luxemburg]

22. FOX - the news channel for 'white trash'

as someone said in my office today

[Orrex]

24. What do you expect? Anna's boobs are bigger than Walter's

Simple arithmetic, really.

[INdemo]

25. yes, but not a real issue

[Orrex]

27. Au contraire: they're TWO real issues

And we know that FoxNews has a thing for putting boobs on the air, whether it's O'Reilly, Hannity, Hume, Wallace, etc....

[TahitiNut]

38. Not true! Walter's built like a brick shit house!!!

Literally! Shit and all!

:rofl:

[Orrex]

46. Nice! And funnier than my joke by a wide margin!

:applause:

[oasis]

26. Failures of the Bush administration are ignored by Fox Snooze. (eom)

[ArmchairMeme]

31. Feed the wolf you want coming back

[Initech]

32. So, um, what is this liberal media that people speak of?

Where is it? Where can I find it? Is it buried under all the tabloid sleaze that tries to pass itself off as actual news?

[malaise]

33. And you are surprised

because?

[dogday]

34. No surprise here, the facts need to be pointed out

and it is obvious fox was more interested in Anna than supporting our troops like they always claim they do....

[johnlal]

35. Don't worry, more coverage to come...

They just need time to find a way to blame liberals or the Clenis.

[dos pelos]

36. It's anesthesia....

You are supposed to sleep.

[mduffy31]

39. I know that there will be plenty who will flame about this but...

Really the only person that I have seen really go after this story and ask people some real questions is Imus. He has been screaming about this ever since the story came out, and even before that when the Center for the Intrepid was opened asking why the private sector had to do this because of government bureaucracy. He has been asking some tough questions to his guests and been screaming for everyone affiliated with the VA to be fired.

[UrbScotty]

40. Only 12 times more? I'd expect it to be much higher.

It is, after all, Fox News.

[Joey Liberal]

42. Faux News is the Nazi Channel n/t

[Catherine Vincent]

43. Well that figures.

They're good at reporting on other news to keep from reporting the bad news about this administration. You know if a Democrat was in office, they'd be talking about it 24/7. Rat bastards!

[barb162]

45. In actual time (v. references) I think all the cable news was alike

They spent huge amounts of time on AN Smith. ALL OF THEM.

[Madspirit]

47. Bad, Bad Dead Girl

**Meldroc...Anna Nicole Smith was a distraction, and a very deliberate distraction.**


A very deliberate distraction? So she died on purpose to distract us from More Important Issues?
Dang. Bad bad Dead Girl. :rofl:

There were about 40,000 ANS threads at DU because a lot of women feel a kinship with a woman they perceive as being a True Victim of Misogyny.

The MSM on the other hand, just continue USING ANS and ignoring stories that make the Right Wingnuts look bad.

Don't confuse the two. Your criticism of the media's priorities is spot on but ANS didn't do anything bad. She just died.
Lee

[GrimReefa]

57. I believe you missed the point

I don't like speaking for other people, but I believe the other poster's point was that the MSM was overreporting the ANS story because they needed a distraction from the real news, not that ANS died because people needed a distraction from the real news. The MSM was reaching for ANY story that they could sell to take people's eyes away from the bad news coming from overseas or, now, at home, and ANS's death just happened to occur at the right time.

In other words, that there was a distraction was deliberate. That the distraction happened to be ANS's death was coincidence.

[Madspirit]

59. No, I got it.

It was just a funny way to word it.
Lee

[JoeySoCal]

48. The abomination that is our 'fourth branch of government'.

Sent To: drudge <[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>, "[e-mail]" <[e-mail]>, [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail], hardball <[e-mail]>, [e-mail]

To Fox 'News' Sellouts,

References to Anna Nicole and Walter Reed on cable networks on March 2:

NETWORK_____ANNA NICOLE____WALTER REED
FOX NEWS..............121.......................10
MSNBC....................96.......................84
CNN........................40.......................53

"Fair", "Balanced". "We report, you decide."
Why don't you guys just kill yourselves? How do you live with
yourselves? The guilt and self-disgust has just got to be unbearable?
How could you get to sleep at night even just based on the above
simple facts, much less the rest of the putrid that you call news
programming. You incessantly wave that little fucking American flag on
your screen, wrap your cheesy pompous graphics in Red White and Blue,
and 'talk the talk' in brainwashing repetition that you "support the
troops". Then this is the respect and dignity you show them. This is
morally inferior to Anna Nicole's old profession of selling her body
for cash at the strip club. You are in all precision, whores in your
own right. I despise and loath you, and would sooner piss on myself
than watch one revenue generating advertisement for your
'organization'. I'll take it upon myself to speak for the troops on
this one, Piss Off you wretches.

Thank you again for your undying commitment to the stupification of
the American public,
Joey north of Los Angeles

[Erika]

49. It's Faux Noise

Really. Brit Hume said the only real story about Walter Reed was the political aspect. Otherwise, it was no skin off his nose. Contact him.

[Pachamama]

50. Doesn't a network like Fox show what they think their audience will want??? Guess we know how much

they know the righties care about the troops.....very little....

:puke:

[NMMNG]

51. Priorities, you know.

:sarcasm:

[newspeak]

56. this is where our attention needs to be

mainstream media is not serving the public's interest!!!! I keep envisioning a bunch of corporate fatties sitting around the table, patting themselves on the back on selecting our leaders... how they can coerce the majority of the population--repetition from all main networks, and the unwashed masses will believe it's true. Remember, "Gore is a liar?"--over and over again. My friend uttered this mantra during the election and I asked her, exactly what did Gore lie about? She couldn't answer. This is a woman who graduated from college, spreading the repetitive BS!!!! Catapulting the BS has gotten worse with this administration.