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One of the lesser understood functions of Fox News is to keep those who watch in an agitated state and, ideally, create a level of constant fear. Keep in mind, Fox is run by a former political operative for Nixon and Reagan, Roger Ailes, a man who understands the game and plays it well. The way fear is stoked is to play up any development that rattles the nerves. One person being shot by an angry father at a rural school somewhere in Kansas or Texas is enough for news bulletins, headlines, repeated stories and live “on the scene” reports. Minor stories of violence or crime that would never have made national news in previous times are emphasized, played up, made to look like the country is headed for impending doom.
All of this is done with malice aforethought, intentionally. By keeping people upset, by making it appear that we are going to hell in a hand basket, quickly, they set up the psyche of America, or at least those watching, for the idea that a stern crackdown, conservative style, is needed to get the country back on track. (This technique of scarring people and then proposing solutions is not unlike that used for a very long time by rural preachers, especially in the south and southwest. The world is a terrible and dangerous place and there is only one answer.)
Ebola is a made for TV disaster for Fox News. This is great. By thundering on about the “crisis”, which is not yet a crisis here, they scare people and create an idea that things are out of control. These fear plays into political messages. Coming now, just a few weeks before the mid-term Congressional elections, Ebola creates a platform to blame Obama for everything and, perhaps, stir Republican and right wing voters to get out to the polls and send a message that they are not happy about Obama’s leadership (they were never happy in the first place, but, you know, people need to be reminded, to be juiced).
Fox News is one of the first major, propaganda driven news outlets in 21st century America (or the 20th, for that matter). Sure, the people who run the other news channels and the major networks morning and evening news broadcasts have personal views and these creep into their decisions and news coverage, but Fox is different. Fox is intentional, planned, plotted and executed and then, in the nighttime “talk shows”, the climate of fear created during the day finds its natural home.
One aspect of this climate of fear is to constantly pose questions (Is Obama mishandling the Ebola crisis?) that create the impression of providing answers. Raise a question, bring in viewpoints that seem to answer the question (yes!, he is) and leave the viewer either in a state of doubt (I don’t know if he is, but it seems like it.) or provide enough ammunition that the viewer draws the desired conclusion (It appears that this whole thing has been mishandled and it must be Obama’s fault). All of this plays into the fact that we don’t think logically, that we don’t slow down and shift through the pros and cons of arguments and our impressions, our emotions, are equally or more important than our thoughts, most of the time. Just the process of asking questions creates doubt and undermines counter conclusions.
I don’t regularly watch Fox News. I don’t need to be scared. I don’t need to have the news carefully arranged for me to suit my political views and I don’t want to be led down the path to prearranged conclusions. The mega-mouths who populate the evening hours have no appeal to me, but the fear fueled hours of propagandized news are even more offensive.
Doug Terry, 10.21.14
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