In the great 1974 film The Godfather II there's a scene about halfway through where Hyman Roth and Michael Corleone and all the American gangsters are gathering a Patty on Havana and it's Hyman Ross 67th birthday and he's giving a slice of the cake each game she's got Louie from Chicago you run the Copacabana Frankie you get the prostitutes he's dividing up the island among all American gangsters and they're Appropriately enough the birthday cake has the outline of cube on us is giving him a slice of Cuba and while Hyman Roth is doing this he says
isn't it great to be in a country with the government that respects private Enterprise and that's how media policies have been done in the United States for the past 50 years so it's increasingly in the last 20 years extraordinarily powerful lobbyists duke it out behind closed doors for the biggest slice of the cake the public Knows nothing about it it doesn't participate and that's the problem we face foreign [Music] [Music] media is the nervous system of a democracy if it's not functioning well the Democracy can't function we're heading toward an election where most people are
never going to be in a room with Carrie or bush what they learn About the candidates will be what the media shows them or tells them decides not to show not to tell [Music] [Music] people are faced with critical choices about the future of the country when they go into the voting booth and I go in and I have been through the course of a campaign cycle subject to false distorted caricaturing and I may not even know where it's coming from because Often there's an echo effect off places like cable and like radio and those
wrong pieces of information are repeated and repeated by the time it reaches me I don't even know what the source was this is the environment we're living in and it's it's it's really it's it's fundamentally undermining democracy which is based on knowing some good and solid information so I can make an informed choice foreign [Music] when you see the properties Rupert Murdoch owns around the world the strong conservative point of view that those properties often reflect it's different than ABC or CBS or NBC sure they reflect a point of view but not nearly as strong
and not nearly as consistently from one ideological perspective Murdoch actually bought the station in 1985 and actually left us alone for at least the first three years of his Ownership partly because we were so successful and prosperous that there was no reason to monkey with us at wttg our success insulated us to a certain degree and it was kind of like being in an office and seeing people come down with the flu around you we knew the flu eventually might reach us but we were hoping if we took enough vitamins that we'd never catch the
flu it was clear during those years That Murdoch who had absolutely adored Ronald Reagan adored him had a lot of admiration for the group of Republicans that controlled Congress and certainly on Capitol Hill we received an order from one of Murdoch's apparatchics if you will that we should cut away from our newscast and start carrying a fawning tribute to Ronald Reagan that was airing at the Republican convention we were stunned because up until that point we were allowed to do legitimate News and suddenly we were ordered from the top to carry propaganda carry Republican right-wing
propaganda there was a cultural underpinning to what Murdoch wanted race issues AIDS I constantly remember complaints that there was too much being done on AIDS he also couldn't stand the Kennedys Ted Kennedy was a long time opponent of Rupert Murdoch uh and and one a celebrated occasion we were ordered to run a long uncut piece from a Current affair uh that was rehashing the whole matter of Chappaquiddick it had zero news value we were told you had to run this thing uncut you could not even edit it down and just run a snippet of it
I think they evolved in later years especially after Roger Ailes took over and and really got the Fox News Channel up and running into a far more sophisticated kind of operation what we saw in my era was was really the the birth of this sort of thing and the Roots of what came later I just have to say it had a light as I am that we've now reached this moment when we can firmly announce the starting of a Fox News Channel and a much greater effort on the build up of Fox News in every
area we'd like to be Premier journalists we'd like to restore objectivity where we find it lacking and and certainly uh there there could be that interpretation because of my background but I left politics a number of years ago and have Run a news Organization for the last two years so we just expect to do fine balanced journalism [Music] when you lose and I'm dead I was about to play for three years I worked in 10 years on air or behind the camera [Music] I think I'd rather keep myself anonymous yeah I've heard directly from folks
both as correspondents and as Bookers who've Expressed very great reservations almost uh as if they're being monitored by a stalinous system afraid to be seen talking to the wrong person or having the wrong kind of Email exchange foreign you're either one of us or one of them and in leaving Fox News for example uh there were a number of people at the organization to head of the organization tried to ruin my career simply because I was leaving because I didn't leave on Their terms because I refused to sign a confidentiality agreement that was another reason
for them to try to keep me from getting my next job [Music] very much an environment of fear it was made very clear to us that our activities were being monitored and if someone wasn't watching it live they were at least recording it and they would review it after the fact to see what we did we weren't necessarily as it Was told to us a news Gathering organization so much as we were a proponent of a point of view fox has already been successful in sort of branding the uh some of you can't be trusted
and as a result I've already sorted my thin ice regarding my current employer foreign I'd been warned by people there were a number of people who pulled me inside and said look you know I don't know I mean I know that you want to work and I know that you need a job but you might want to think twice about taking this job because really it is a very conservative news network now that I've learned comedy writing at Fox News Channel I guess I should be doing stand-up in the clubs if you don't go along
with the mindset of the hierarchy of New York if you challenge them on their attitudes about things your history I suspect your research has discovered the memoranda that were written by John Moody and by Roger uh in terms of setting the tone for the day uh the message of the day is a very political device let's spend a good deal of time on the battle over judicial nominations which the president will address this morning nominees who both sides admit are qualified are being held up because of their possible not demonstrated views on One issue abortion
this should be a trademark issue for fnc today and in the days to come there was nothing covert about the way the managing editors in New York or Washington operated they made it perfectly clear what they expected from us the so-called 911 Commission has already been meeting this is not what did he know and when did he know it stuff do not turn this into Watergate Every morning there was a detailed list of subjects to talk about not talk about Gary's speech on the economy at Georgetown is likely to move on to the topic of
Iraq we should take the beginning of the Kerry speech and see if other news at the time is more compelling it is not required to take it start to finish they were just actually issuing edicts to the reporters to control what they could say and how they could say it Let's refer to the U.S Marines we see in the foreground as Sharpshooters not snipers which carries a negative connotation when headquarters sent the memo every morning and said we want to touch on the following issues we want to cover the following stories we want to do
them in this particular way our job and our objective then was to execute the plan the pictures from Abu gray prison are disturbing today we have a picture aired On Al Arabia of an American hostage being held with a scarf over his eyes clearly against his will who's outraged on his behalf [Music] the real revolutionary breakthrough of fox has been its eliminated journalism I mean that's the thing to understand what Fox News channel has done is it's stripped out any notion of Journalism as we've traditionally understood it from its product there is no journalism at
The Fox News Channel Chad I want to test if you're an honest individual stuff here but my religion didn't teach me that but thank you very much for being here it's a right-wing Network and you don't want to hear this stuff you want to do it not about the kids it's about you Jimmy okay thank you James yes thank you Jamie thank you inappropriate taking a cheap little pathetic shot I am telling you that That's you're taking cheap little pathetic shots tell you what the truth is no you're misrepresenting his record I'm telling the truth
sir that's the truth about his record I understand what your positions is not correct I'd like to hear one word get on regular radios Paula Evans Winston-Salem North Carolina Bill if you are so concerned about public figures being bad role models for children please stop rudely interrupting your Guests and telling them to shut up well the shut up line has happened only once in six years Miss Evans well you know I think that asking a student to stay in the closet in order to go shut up about African-Americans shut up his respect why did you
have to tell him you were an atheist if you didn't have any trouble reading the Oaths why didn't you just shut up what Jimmy Carter should do is privately give Mr Bush's opinion and shut up publicly That would be best for the country and it is our duty as loyal Americans to shut up once the fighting begins once the war against Saddam begins we expect every American to support our military and if they can't do that to shut up all he's got in six and a half years is that I misspoke that I labeled a
poke award at Peabody he writes in his book he tries to make me out no no no no no no no shut up you had your 35 minutes shut up The techniques of pull odd polling and odd Graphics of Democrats and weird banners in the lower third of your screen these are all pretty sophisticated techniques and they work in collaboration with the most genius marketing slogan in history which is fair and balanced so if you're the graphics department and you can put up a liberal flip-flopper as the Chiron hey that's great because the next time
the graphics department has a Discussion with management management say yeah you guys have been doing a great job Graphics are always moving in the background they've sort of pioneered the use of the American flag as as an icon of your news broadcast so there's a lot of stuff that people come up with on their own which in other news organizations you'd never think of coming up with some of the stuff much less even putting it on the air but at Fox News there's sort of the you're Rewarded for pushing the envelope and if you're pushing
the envelope against the Democrat and in support of Republican that's great the problem comes if you try to push the envelope or God forbid should put in some sort of similar sort of style or approach to Republican then you get yourself in trouble probably 19.99 I created the Fox News Alert we were striving to accomplish a sense of urgency urgency in the sense that what was about To be delivered after the Fox News Alert was very important quote unquote shocking news specifically Columbine and all the other important news stories of that time but now looking
back now that I'm not there I find it interesting that I've seen the Fox News Alert used for stories like benefit JLo and Ben's relationship I mean this compared to a school shooting and there's really no relationship to me and I don't understand why based on what we Originally created it for uh why they would choose to use it for a story like that because the sound and the visuals Associated or originally was associated with things that were much more important and this is a Fox News Alert a very busy day for Martha Stewart earlier
today she met with her parole officer no they deliberately blur it and I find it I find it very hard to believe you know there's no separation between Bill O'Reilly the interviewer and Bill O'Reilly with his talking points I mean there's just no separation at all Jimmy Carter is making yet another mistake and this time there's no excuse for it and that's a memo now for the top story tonight another view on this it's very hard on Fox News to separate news from commentary because it all Blends together that's what makes it so ridiculous that
slogan we report you decide because there's no TV news Channel in history that's ever reported less for example a Brit Hume newscast um which is presented as a newscast um I think you you see a lot of attitude and opinion uh both from the anchor and from the reports welcome to Washington I'm Brit Hume there was further Evidence today that President Bush's days of absorbing John Kerry's attacks with without counter-attack are over Fox blurs the line between these in commentary all over the place we are too Believed that Brit Hume is the anchor of a
news Outlet he doesn't bring strong politics to it he just happens to Anchor the newscast like Peter Jennings on Sundays Brit Hume turns into a rather caustic right wing pundit look this goes to Murdoch too he doesn't believe in objectivity he doesn't believe he has contempt for journalism I think I mean they wanted all news to be a matter of opinion because opinion can't be proven false And I think that's very dangerous because if people don't have a set of facts that they can agree on I think it's difficult to reach a consensus on you
know what's correct public policy it wasn't so much a scripted design that promoted the off the cuff ad-libs that you see so often on Fox News Channel it was sort of a reinforcement John Kerry is Jane Fonda with the Burberry scarf tied around his neck any ad-lib that made the Democrats Look stupid and made the Republicans look smart would get an attaboy uh so a pat on the back a wink or a nod well you know there's an old Pizza expression you've tried all the rest now try the best some people say especially on that
paddle there those Commissioners that Condoleezza Rice might be the best and we haven't heard from her publicly at least are you saying the commission's cheesy that you wouldn't say that no they're crusty on the panel okay John Kerry has Kim Jong-il on his side Barbara Streisand you could go wrong North Korea loves uh loves John Kerry really yeah there's no sense of Integrity as far as having a line they can't be crossed not having that sort of line becomes very tempting for someone to self-promote by crossing the line saying something funny that you would never
dare say if you were stepping back and looking at it from the sense of a journalism school and is this the right Thing for journalism would never happen other journalists use phrases like some people say or officials say when they're trying to insert anonymously information in a story that sort of advances the storyline Fox does it in a different way some people say is fox's cue that I'm pretending to be an anchor so I can't say this is my opinion or this is Roger Ailes opinion but some people say some people say that'd be a
pretty good choice bring in the Hispanic some people Saying ah he's posturing some people say and excuse me I'll get to you Joe in just a second but some people say that you may be setting up Sharpton for a run against Hillary in 2006 in the Senate journalistically it's a very peculiar technique because the idea behind journalism is that you're sourcing who you're referring to this is just sort of a clever way of of inserting political opinion when you know it probably shouldn't be there some people say that This might undermine what the US troops
are doing there some people say some people say John Kerry has some similarities to an earlier Massachusetts politician and some people say in light of what's happened with the oil for food program some people say supported by Iran some say I've heard a couple people say some say that it's a sour grapes book some people say some people say some people say it's just too violent there's too much blood some people say Some people say well some people say some people say some say it some people say some are saying some people say there's some
people who say something if not major has already happened those are his words some people say it's exploitive what do you say to that I was given a folder a little binder that had the names of all the Fox News Consultants you know the people who were paid to come on the air to give their opinions to be a Fox News contributor Means you're under contract and you're getting paid to set them out joining us in DC is Larry Johnson former CIA officer and former deputy director of the state Department's office of counterterrorism my services
were in great demand in December of 2001. the contract expired in January of 2003. and the first thing that I noticed was that I recognized all of the conservatives who were in the roster they were very well-known people who would come from You know talk radio or from some sort of political background and so I knew all of those people and they were very very strong people I came in and was always you know I was going to call it as I saw it for example the edict came down apparently to stop referring to Suicide
bombings in Israel as suicide bombings they call them homicide bombings I thought that was stupid and I continue to call them suicide bombings because every bombing That kills someone is a homicide bombing but when I looked at the liberal roster there was only one person's name who I recognized which I recognized and that was Bob Shrum who is a very well-known speechwriter and political consultant in Washington the other ones though were people I'd never heard of my entire background was in politics and political journalism so I knew pretty much all the players in DC and
I'd never heard of these people the Question came up about the ability of the United States to fight two Wars simultaneously going into Iraq is going to divert resources and attention that should be focused on Al Qaeda and Sean Hannity being the you know right-wing cheerleader that he is was just you know incense that I was to add the temerity to suggest that we couldn't we do have the ability and the resources to we're able to walk and chew gum we could handle the situation in Iraq and we can Still finish the job of protecting
against al Qaeda in another attack what happens is when the resources end up getting diverted and particularly the airlift assets required facts don't seem to have any effect upon him what was unusual is it was after that appearance that even though I was under contract to Fox for another uh eight weeks roughly they stopped using me your government failed you those entrusted with protecting you Failed you and I failed you and for that failure I would ask once all the facts are out for your understanding and for your forgiveness when Richard Clark emerged it was
obvious this was a danger to the administration because he had worked at the highest echelons of the Bush Administration and it was almost like Fox News was working off of The Playbook coming out of the White House that he had to be torn down he had to be turned into a Democrat a liberal a carry guy he is bringing this up in the heat of a presidential campaign can you assume from what he's saying that he has now become a political do you feel that there is a political he is as some have suggested auditioning
for a job in the Carrie Administration sucking up to another Administration said when he came To me to ask for my support with Tom Ridge angling for a top job and Homeland Security Department and did not get it see one of the things that fox does and conservatives do is they don't have to win every argument but if they can muddy the argument enough if they can turn it into a draw that to them is a victory because it denies the other side of Victory well Sean I either there are apparently two dick clocks here
Dick Clark has been on three sides of a Two-sided issue he's totally contradicted himself his statements are contradictory a lot of information that contradicts Clark aren't there insufficient contradictions he has written a book and he certainly wants to go out there and promote that book is he just out to sell a book who's out to sell his book did he have a motive behind writing the book and going out on 60 Minutes and criticizing the bush administrationally this guy's Hawking a Book unveiling his book an appalling Act of profits here who rakes Bush over the
calls and gives Clinton a pass now in the book gives Clinton a complete pass easily Clark treats uh built the Bill Clinton concerns about where the truth lies and what Richard Clark was saying they launched a major smear campaign in some ways it worked I thought number one he was extremely melodramatic and that he was in toning with great pathos I mean I It seems it almost seemed like it was a performance and it was just attack politics on a TV channel usually you leave attack politics to a political campaign Carol rovin company are quite
good at character assassination you know there are all these people dozens of people in the White House paid for by you and I paid for by our taxes right writing talking points calling up conservative columnists calling up talk radio host Telling them what to say it's interesting all the talk radio people the right wing talk radio people all across the country saying exact the same thing exactly same words I noticed that I was watching it there's a 24-hour News Network and I'm sure it's a coincidence but what they were saying was remarkably similar to what
the the White House was saying and I couldn't help but thinking uh how funny that was the we are bringing diversity of opinion Uh we are there is diversity of opinion on Fox News you may disagree with that we have many liberals there many liberal uh invited we have a liberal commentators as we have conservative ones who are your liberal commentators Alan combs for one um Greta Van sustrian um you know it's in the eye of the beholder I guess again until what they'll try to put on uh the appearance Of being balanced but really
kind of a mismatch you'll have a Hannity and comb show where Hannity is a really a good-looking clean-cut All-American kind of guy and and his counterpart is a little squirrely looking frankly and you kind of say he's the liberal well maybe he's not so smart after all and and it sends a subtle message I think you're a good liberal good liberal good liberal a lot of the times the Liberals that they get to appear on are either uh you know Faux liberals like I would use Susan Estridge as an example of that a person who
was brought on who essentially agrees with the person on the right in a lot of cases I am your biggest liberal friend I do take a little heat people sometimes say to me do you really like Sean Hannon what's not to like what does that mean I thought I was Sean's biggest liberal friend I I you know I love you all friends or they would just bring on people who were very week you know People who were not well-known people we can learn from history because if we don't we're condemned to repeat it in the
facts you're going to get one guy Clark accusing Bush saying Clinton really you know giving him a pass then you're going to get the Bush Administration attacking Clark you're not going to get the truth Marianne you weren't there you don't know right you're probably right about that in the even the people who are supposedly Liberal in those panel discussions they know that uh to challenge the guests and the other hosts too forcefully um we'll they'll they'll certainly find someone else to stand in your place if that's the case you're spinning now I'm not I'm not
right-wing I believe in global warming we looked at special reports one-on-one interviews there once a day we studied 25 weeks of the one-on-one guest who appeared on Special Report from late June through mid-December of 2003. Republicans appeared five times as often as Democrats on one-on-one newsmaker interviews that means that Republicans made up 83 percent of the partisan guests while Democrats made up just 17 percent in addition the few Democrats that were interviewed for the show tended to be Centrist and conservative Democrats often brought on to a firm Bush Administration policies so what does this all
mean well if Fox were the Bastion of fairness and balance that it claims to be we'd see a lot more balance in this prominent interview segment on the Network's most prestigious show instead the numbers indicate that Brit Hume and Special Report choose the their guests based on political considerations rather than news judgment that's here on the Fox News Channel the network America trusts for fair and balanced news my criticism of Fox News isn't that it's A conservative channel it's the Consumer Fraud of fair and balanced it's nothing of the sort you pitch a story in
any given editorial meeting that didn't meet the criteria that they had explained to you and you got a thumbs down when you have this Executive Vice President and those around and who are consistently saying no we're not going to do that story no the story is bad this story is good and it becomes very clear to all the bureau Chiefs to everybody involved who have been there over a period of years there are certain kinds of stories it's not even worth bringing up there are other kinds of stories that you know Management's going to love
Fox news channels uh stated uh practice was to embarrass humiliate challenge or disrupt whatever Jesse Jackson did we were told on many occasions that he was one of our targets anything we could do or say that would embarrass him discredit him We were encouraged to find the information and we were encouraged to report the information I did a piece on immigration and I thought it was poignant to tell the stories of these people and all of the things that they had to go through to get citizenship and how we take for granted how really blessed
we are to be born with it and the line that I used in describing their efforts was folks seeking citizenship earned not born Suggesting that hey they really want citizenship because they've got to go through all these motions what managing it was very angry because who these people are they haven't earned a thing they're just here for a free ride they're just here trying to take advantage of all of our freebies and and I mean it was just uh he just laid waste to the idea that these people were hard-working it was very specifically said
we need to Be fair to the Bush Administration or to the Republicans than anybody else in the media would be but that was almost understood as sort of a code for layoff I am first to your knowledge of a reporter who was basically yelled and screamed at by Executives because that reporter was asking tough questions of James Baker at a news conference it was a news conference that was being carried live James Baker was saying we want to count every vote And the reporter was Peppering with questions like wait a second if you want to
count every vote why not go back and find the votes that were not counted because of problems with the Chad the reporters in New York thought that this was a little too confrontational the style never mind that when Warren Christopher got out there for Gore the questions were equally tough there were no complaints about the question and Christopher but because the questions of James Baker Were so tough that reporter was pulled off the story and said we can't trust you anymore you didn't handle this story very well go back to Washington Ronald Reagan's birthday was
for Fox News Channel viewers something akin to a holy day this was Ronald Reagan's birthday and so my assignment was to go to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley California and to do live shots from Before Dawn until until dark there Weren't very many people at the Presidential Library there wasn't a celebration in any organized way going on you know there was a class of fourth graders who came to the library that day to take the tour and they were lined up and they sang Happy Birthday [Applause] [Music] but that was pretty much the
extent of the celebration they saw my first three or four live Shots and Mr Moody called in to say what is he doing out there apparently my live shots weren't celebratory enough and I was frankly at a bit of a loss as to what to say or do to make it seem like there was a big celebration since Dawn they've been streaming in from all over the country and even parts of Canada and Mexico admire so I got in trouble for that one I got in big trouble for that one in fact I was suspended
what you will see of course is intensive Discussion about what we call the wedge issues you'll hear you know affirmative action you'll hear abortion you'll hear certainly gay rights God in the separation of church and state issues will be on television every single day I think this gay marriage thing is going to be an enormous presidential issue but there again we have to be fair in Balance I mean we can't like run with that the Stampede of same-sex couples to the Altar has accelerated President Bush says he's deeply troubled by the hundreds two thousand same-sex
couples engaged in 2300 and Counting that's the same-sex couples same-sex couples wanting to say same-sex marriage their job which is what the right-wing Republicans want to do is to divide America up ignore the important economic health care environmental issues and they do that extremely successfully they did start up a gay marriage but I think That they got sort of Blindsided they all of a sudden couldn't show the usual footage they used to show because they used to love to show the footage of course the parades and the black leather and you know the drag queens
then they had you know very kind of normal looking dumpy middle-aged couples getting married and smooching on the steps of City Hall so I've noticed a certain kind of uh zest going out of the gay marriage thing but that the opposite uh where They've picked up the slack is on anything to do with religion anything to do with the 10K Commandments anything to do with God why is Jesus so popular right now well I think it depends on who you talk to I think a lot of people would say that one of the reasons that
he's very popular is that Mel Gibson's movie has come out George W bush because of all this he wants to see it and I'm sure they will set up a special screening there at the White House oh sure you know he's a devout Christian right apparently he prays daily do they think it's about just a movie just entertainment or do they think that there's really something bigger at work well I think they think that there's something bigger at work September 11th threatened people and people look to Jesus for Comfort but number two um a line
was drawn around the world between two kinds of religions two kinds Of societies freedom is not this country's gift to the world freedom is the almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world boy couldn't you just see the elite media tremble over that one the president knows evoking the deity will anger the secular media he doesn't care talking points applaud they're going to push God very very hard particularly going up in the Bush's reelection all of us working together can change America One Soul at a time Christian fundamentalist movement is one that believes
in we're right you're wrong no matter what and I saw a lot of that at Fox we're right you're wrong no matter what [Music] The O'Reilly Factor is probably the perfect example of everything that's wrong with Fox News Channel you have stories that are selected primarily to upset liberals and and Democrats and Prop up the Republican party you have a hostility towards guests that disagree with the host and you have a host who in service of his conservative politics Will will distort facts will misrepresent things and uh will in some cases just fabricate in the
personal story segment tonight we were surprised to find out that an American who lost his father in the World Trade Center attack had signed an anti-war advertisement that accused the USA Itself of terrorism Jeremy Glick is the son of a Port Authority worker who died in at 9 11 and he had signed an anti-war petition and O'Reilly had to have him on and they were so persistent about getting me on the O'Reilly show because they found out that I was on The Advisory Board and signed a statement that was against the war and then I
was directly impacted by 9 11. the success that I had on the O'Reilly show had to do with just practice and preparation so I taped the shows and what I did is I took a stopwatch that I used to use for running Sprints in high school and I would see when he has a hostile guest and I would time how long it takes for him to cut them off you were the only one I was surprised and the reason I was surprised is that this ad equates the United States with the terrorists I said I'm
shocked that you're surprised and basically just made the only point I wanted to make our current president now Inherited a legacy from his father and inherited a political Legacy that's responsible for training militarily economically and situating geopolitically the parties involved in the alleged assassination and murder of my father and countless of thousands of others so I don't see why we should be surprising for you to think all right that I would come back and want to support it I'll tell you why it's surprising you Are a mouthing a far left position it was extremely intimidating
sitting down in the studio because he's really tall and like dude like he loves over you you see even I'm sure your beliefs are sincere but what upsets me is is I don't think your father would be approving of this well actually my father thought that Bush's presidency was illegitimate maybe but I don't think he'd be equating this country as a terrorist Nation well I wasn't saying that it was necessarily Like that yes Jeremy was pretty cool during it and he was giving his political views which were very to the left of O'Reilly's and he
said oh I don't really care what you think politically and I said obviously you do care because a you brought me on the show and B I told him that he uses 911 and sympathy with the 911 families and the law and the lies lost to rationalize his narrow right-wing agenda you evoke sympathy That's a bunch of crap so I've done more for the 911 families by their own admission I've done more for them than you will ever hope to do okay so you keep your mouth shut knows people I don't represent and I never
represent you you know why why because you have a warped view of this world and a warp view of this country we'll explain that let me give you an example I'm not going to update this with you let me give you an example of Parallel uh experience no on September 14th here's September 14th here's the record all right you didn't support the action against Afghanistan to remove the Taliban you were against it why would I want to brutalize and further punish the people who killed your father sure they did the al-Qaeda people would train there
the al-Qaeda people see I'm more angry about it than you are so what about George Bush what about George Bush you have nothing to do with it the Director senior as director he had nothing to do with people that trained a hundred thousand who were I hope your mom isn't watching us your mother is not watching us it's unfair for O'Reilly to evoke both my mom and my father in the interview especially when I wasn't you know I mean she my mom is a grieving Widow for a prematurely volume of violent horrific turn in their
lives my dad was only 55 he was they were working people you know working class middle Class like they were not retiring for a while they you know and their life is basically destroyed you know their life together is destroyed and destroyed in circumstances that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies including Bill O'Reilly because you that's it I'm not going to say anymore okay in respect for your father September I didn't know what I was doing shut up his respect in respect for your father who was a Port Authority worker a fine American Who
got killed unnecessarily by Barbarian by radical extremists trained by this government respect not the people of America ruling class A small minority cut his might I'm not going to dress you down anymore out of respect for your father we'll be back in a moment we're done we're done [Music] you see him gesturing to security guards and then came the after film performance after they're off the air he said to the Kids on the effect get out of my studio before I [ __ ] tear you to pieces so Jeremy and I've talked to him since
went actually went to the Green Room to get a cup of coffee and the executive producer and the assistant encouraged me to leave the building because they were quote concerned that if O'Reilly ran into me in the hallway he would end up in jail this is our house here if somebody comes to your house and begins spitting on the Floor you'd remove them Glick was out of control and spewing hatred for this program and his country using vile propaganda the next day I just turned on and watch the the follow-up and saw my views totally
distorted next thing I know I was saying Bush plan 911 Glick was saying without a shred of evidence that President Bush and Bush the Elder were directly responsible for 9 11. now that kind of stuff is not only loony it's defamation that pains me as As a fringe conspiracy nut this kid said nothing nothing about President Bush and his father Bush the Elder orchestrating the attack on their own country so O'Reilly's just lying here he came on this program and accused President Bush of knowing about 9 11 and murdering his own father Glick said can
I sue him and so I called the lawyer who was in my case of the fox versus Dutton and Franken he says well the kid has to Prove that O'Reilly knew he was lying and O'Reilly is so crazy he lies so pathologically that it's harder to prove that O'Reilly knew he was lying so oddly enough if someone has a record of crazily lying it is harder to sue them for defamation [Music] an anthrax vaccine for 25 million the key thing is don't be inhaling don't be ingesting don't be sucking particles in Your body that could
get the radiation inside all right first your advice is stay inside don't drink or eat anything many of the themes that are promoted on the Fox News Channel have to do with generating fear whether that's fear of immigration fear of sexual difference a fear of racial difference when you Pander to fear it's a great motivator an organizer you've got to keep people alarmed they really love this sense of fear and danger even When it's not there and so when something is actually dangerous that's some things are they go completely overboard and all sense of perspective
is lost so that Anthrax which I guess affected four or five people adversely no question about it is far more dangerous than you know the poisoning of our air the way we deal with them is the way President Bush is dealing with them you Court in the area you search for them and you shoot them the motivator is Fear and then the payoff is you know we're going to go out and kill the bad guys and you know it's a very simple black and white world that they paint and portray and terrorism has become the
all-purpose fear weapon because now everything is converted into terrorism and of course if you have a constant sense of unease then you're going to look to the government to protect you you're going to look to strong government we've removed from Power Enemies of this country we have made America more secure there are these enemy out there it's an ill-defined enemy but as long as we're fighting them and we're killing them and he's looking presidential then nothing else again is discussed what was interesting is in the climate of the Bush Administration that much of that fear
the emotion was purposely misdirected by the right wing uh into the war in Iraq the type of coverage Fox Offers and all of them offer but Fox is probably the most pristine version is completely consistent with Bush's um with with the strategy of the push Administration a to prevent discussion of things that are not going well like for instance the economy or the Medicare bill there's no doubt that the war against Iraq a country that did not attack us could only proceed based on fear tonight it's a special two-hour block four is my last choice
but the Risk of doing nothing is even a worse option as far as I'm concerned dealing with Iraq the president's war on terror when will his military plans get put into action we hope you depend on us for the truth because we're going to report the situation in Iraq without an agenda or any ideological prejudice then you gotta take what comes not that we hate you Martin Sheen but that we may not want to watch your television program anymore because we're Identifying you with being against what we believe in Americans and indeed are foreign allies
who actively work against our military once the war is underway will be considered enemies of the state by me first are the Americans who went over to Baghdad to act as human Shields well are they more than just protesters are they Traders so Harry Belafonte he's at it again he says the Bush Administration is possessed of evil as the Calypso King on Bonkers you have a Right to say what you want but we have a right not to buy your record just fair warning to you Barbara Streisand and others who see the world as you
do we don't want to demonize anyone but anyone who hurts this country in a time like this well let's just say you will be spotlighted certainly television and perhaps to an extent my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News and it did in fact put a climate of fear and Self-censorship in my view in terms of of the kind of broadcast work we did first rule of being a great propaganda system and why our system is vastly superior to anything in the old Soviet Union it's not that people think
they're being subject to propaganda if people don't think that they're looking for that they're much easier to propagandize and that's the genius of our media systems a system of ideology of control compared to an authoritarian system [Music] so we're making good progress in Iraq sometimes it's hard to tell it when you listen to the filter tremendous purpose in Iraq all the kids are back in school 10 more than when Saddam Hussein was there there's 100 more fresh water it's a fresh start for Iraqi athletes so far 2500 schools have been renovated are Iraqis better off
than they were one year ago yes they are definitely better off Because these Brave athletes look forward to making Olympic gold I mean there's so many positive developments fox has made a decision to present the Iraq War as a success and as an ongoing success the Baghdad equestrian Club is open for business and yes you can play these ponies it's the Iraq you don't hear about falling unemployment Rising wages interest rates down foreign investment up life for 95 of the Iraqis is already immeasurably Better than it was under the Decades of saddam's rule there's no
question about that and that's what's the least reported story over there you go to the markets they're thriving big fat fish coming out of the Tigris and the Euphrates River young men in Baghdad blowing off steam with their cars the guys that have put their wheels through the paces once a week something they say they were not allowed to do Under the old senior producer told the two or Three writers for her NewsHour she told us now just keep in mind it's all good this is such a fair and balanced issue keep it positive we've
got to emphasize all the good that we're doing achieved at that point made a reference to rebuilding schools bringing democracy to Iraq and then she said see big progress Yoo-hoo for us things were actually at that point going quite badly many more American soldiers were dying each day and God knows how many Iraqis 277 U.S soldiers have now died in Iraq which means that statistically speaking U.S soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than citizens have of being murdered in California which is roughly the same geographical size [Music] [Music]
foreign the people survey is interesting because you're looking at questions of of basic True false kind of factual nature did we find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq [Music] these are very simple questions with very simple answers and what the survey found was that the more likely you were to watch Fox News Channel the more likely you were to have completely incorrect assumptions about these things foreign all the research shows a very high correlation in the case of Fox News with People watching it with having a very confused notion of the world on one hand
especially of foreign policy in the Middle East and also being strongly supportive of the government and Power [Music] and this is an extraordinarily disturbing trend for the media I mean for any self-respecting journalist if you're told the more people consume your media the less they'll know about the subject and the more they'll support Government policy and that's that's exactly the worst thing any journalist would ever want to hear or should want to hear [Music] in terms of fox overall I think we have got to appreciate and when we look at them is to understand that
this is an adjunct of the Republican party what fox specializes in is punditry basically getting marching orders from the Republican National Committee or some political operative and then having people pontificate about it have guests come on and talk about it I have pseudo experts come on and discuss it their main allegiances I'm talking about the people at the top is to the Republican Party Murdock is is absolutely to his core a partisan and he makes no secret about that [Music] George W voice sat for an interview with All in Austin with Fox news channels Carl
Cameron who joins us now with highlights hello Carl hi Brad welder it was well known in the summer of 2000 that Fox's lead political correspondent covering the Bush campaign that his wife was campaigning for bush bush does have a Halo okay very well my wife has been hanging out with your sister yeah good my county has been all over the state campaigning and Pauline has been constantly with her And there is a good person my uh oh she she's been terrific I mean Paulie to hear Pauline tell it when she first started campaigning for you
she was a little bit nervous but now she's out getting her stride she's got she doesn't need notes she's going to crowds and she's got the whole wrist she's a good Soul she's having fun too she's a really good soul and in any other news organization in fact in CNN that very summer there was a Producer whose husband was a lawyer for the gore team and this was a producer who would have naturally covered goar who was immediately told you not to have anything to do with campaign coverage either covering Bush or covering War because
of the possible conflict of interest or the perception of the conflict of interest at Fox they didn't care the fact that the senior political reporter his wife is actually campaigning for the Bush Campaign at a time when this guy is covering them that didn't even register it never would have occurred are you guys ready all right that's great here we go she's the little things that get disclosed I like that thank you for joining us sir yes sir thanks Carl it's good to see you just a few days away from the convention that's a whack
of having some sort of basic journalistic Integrity that is just Missing from that organization thank you first person who made the call to say that George W bush had been elected president of the United States was the person who was in charge of fox news's election analysis division the people that crunched the exit polling numbers that person was a gentleman named John Ellis and he is George W Bush's first cousin at around two in the morning on Election night The a new set of data had come in and it was complex data with from precincts
all over Florida the proper answer in analyzing that data unquestionably was you couldn't tell it was too close to call there was simply no clear winner instead John Ellis called it as a clear win for George Bush news then interrupted its ongoing election coverage and announced that George Bush had been elected president Of the United States Fox News Now projects George W bush the winner in Florida and thus it appears the winner of the presidency of the United States now What's significant about that is not the intervention of the president's cousin to declare his relative
the new president of the United States it was the fact that within minutes ABC NBC CBS also fell right in line calling Bush as the winner George Bush is the president-elect of the United States Bush wins ABC News is now going to project that Florida goes to Mr Bush there's no way that they could have crunched the data in that time to come to that conclusion in fact quite the opposite they should have come to the conclusion which Associated Press came to which was that you couldn't make a call when Fox made the call that
bush had won and the other other networks followed on that created the perception that Bush was the winner in fact he Wasn't but that perception was what really held for the next 37 days and I would suggest to you that that call on Election night had more to do with making George Bush president than any recount or ballot design issue to our audience that information our lengthy and critical self-examination shows that we let our viewers down I apologize for making those bad projections that night it will not Happen again in the old Soviet Union you
used to hear about the party line shifting 180 degrees watching Fox News at the end of Clinton where it was all Attack Mode where they were just vicious Watchdogs and then bush takes power and they're like little lap dogs it was like night and day and it's a party line shift the president has the direction and the vision to take us into the future boldly and with with courage and with optimism He is an extraordinarily straightforward leader he says what he's going to do what he does it the president stands for steady leadership during a
time of enormous change in challenge but the president is on Air Force One and the plane is now touched down in New Mexico as strong a pro-national security conservative president as I have ever seen this is the guy who says what he means it means what he says but the president is a gentleman you know he set A different tone for his campaign [Applause] [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] lived up to its word this was a super night for our candidate John Kerry and a super night for the Democratic party he's a super nominee foreign that
in 2004 One United Democratic Party we can and we will win this election what would you say would be uh Senator Kerry's one or two major weak points that could be exploited the presidential hopeful has missed every one of the 22 roll call votes in the Senate this year but hasn't missed the paycheck he talks about trying to protect the taxpayers every single day and here he is fleecing the taxpayers out of 150 000 a year so do you think he should step down Dominic When he's running for president the controversy over John Kerry and
his Vietnam War medals has just gotten worse he says he never suggested he threw them away but the videotape does not lie foreign s or Metals which did John Kerry throw away after he returned from Vietnam his perceived disrespect for the military could be more damaging to the candidate than questions about his actions in uniform Many are angry over Kerry's post-war protests but the bigger issue here is Kerry's involvement in a group that's inherently violent presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry was scaring old people as usual with the predictable Democratic line he said President Bush will
cut off their entitlement checks it isn't true but the LIE has worked well for Democrats in the past assuming that the unthinkable happens and that that Senator Kerry Becomes president you're watching Fox News Real journalism fair and balanced they will give you the the almost the full Bush stump speech no matter where it is no matter how many times they've shown it good cut live to these campaign rallies as if there was going to be real news in them as if Bush was going to say anything earth-shattering and your uh ability to make good decisions
like Marrying your wife Carolyn Fox portrays his every action as a heroic move as a you know something dramatic and significant I imagine it's pretty hard for the fox producers some days George Bush doesn't do anything interesting and yet they've got to find something that makes him heroic that day most people just started waking up and saying Oh you mean we don't have the fairness Doctrine anymore I can't tell you how many times when I was a political candidate running For office I would have somebody come up to me on the street and say now
I saw your opponent on TV the other day aren't they supposed to give you equal time and I didn't even know for years that we lost that in the Reagan Era that for years we haven't had the ability to expect both sides to be adequately covered clearly on the Republican side what we do know is that for years they have coordinated what they call their message of the day so you'll hear on the Floor of the house you'll hear on Rush limbo you'll hear on a fox and Rupert Murdoch's Network the the issue of the
day which they will pound away at which then creates the echo chamber which resonates throughout America here's what he said I actually did vote for the 87 billion before I voted against it Senator Kerry recently said quote I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars before I voted against him End quote Kerry starting to feel the heat for his flip-flop voting record is in West Virginia is President Bush doing a good job of defining carriers of flip-floppers and you're saying he flip-flopped on the issue of this because he does seem to agonize and flip-flop
over and over and over again he's flip-flopped on all these issues beneath Kerry's flip-flopping is an opportunistic flip-flopper you're Talking flip-flops brand of Summer Footwear John Kerry flip-flops they say that he flip-flops a lot so he's flip-flopped now on every major issue those would be the flip-flops because he's flip-flopped on everything else is Senator Kerry guilty of flip-flopping on these flip-flops like crazy first of all flip-flops you've seen him flip-flop on a whole variety of issues opportunistic flip-flopper who doesn't have any principles is that a little harsh I Think um it shows one thing the
weakness of John Kerry you're watching Fox News Real journalism fair and balanced and just 263 days until you get to cast your vote and decide that George W bush deserves a second term John Kerry may wish he'd taken off his microphone before trashing the GOP his course description of his opponents has cast a luried glow over the campaign presidential hopeful John Kerry got Caught on tape in some candid remarks that he didn't want everybody to hear but we did John Kerry has been lashing out at President Bush and by extension Republicans for a long time
nothing new there you see a picture of George Bush you expect to see hear organ music that would come out of a church swelling the the backlit head you know the Madonna look and then a picture of John Kerry flashes and you hear the the devil's voice this is the devil he is evil is it True the reports that we're seeing to John Kerry on the slopes curse out of secret service agent is that true I think Kerry needed this vacation he was showing some fatigue I mean the crooks only 217 days and counting until
George W bush is reelected they're saying John Kerry looks French John Kerry looks French Carrie the man who would be America's first French president when you're at War there are two models you have the Churchill Reagan Thatcher Tony Blair George Bush model or you have the McGovern Jimmy Carter French John Kerry model are the Republicans going to effectively be able to make Kerry French good afternoon everybody or as John Kerry would say bonjour French authencos and that doesn't go into the code of the American presidency I mean you know the French the thinkers I mean
they think they think they think they never do anything with their thinking I believe that Mr Kerry has to get away of this Image if you want to win right now I think is not in the American archetype why is on vacation if the archetype is to take action and you are taking vacation I mean you definitely not you don't feed the code you are off code thank you very much you are hereby invited back every week there's so many ways you can play the economic story at Fox News it's only the upbeat they select
statistics that prove the economy is moving up and thank God for president Bush for doing it economy of course shaping up to be one of the hot button issues in this presidential campaign polls show the economy is shaping up to be a major issue of the presidential campaign they're all amazed at the strength of the economy and how it's picking up day by day I think the economy is growing and uh I think it's going to get stronger economy is very very strong right now it continues to get stronger the latest reading on the Nation's
gross domestic product confirming it Rose at a healthy 4.1 for sales of existing homes up two percent last month the economy is behaving like it's on steroids at the moment the fact is that the economy is improving will Roar and 04 every sign or in all four that sounds like a push 204 days until George W bush is reelected we're creating jobs good high paying jobs for the American citizens [Music] the president goes to Charlotte to talk about job training buoyed by the 300 000 job figure last week he can boast his policies are working
new jobs grew last month at the fastest rate in four years with the the news this morning 308 000 new jobs were created last month they're drinking the Maalox right out of the gallon bucket at the Kerry campaign what this carry plan will do is punish Successful companies and that's bad if you want to destroy jobs in this country you raise taxes John Kerry's plan to bring millions of jobs back to America while someone here says watch out Kerry's plan will end up killing more jobs instead I said previously that the market was neutral on
John Kerry I think that was utterly wrong I think the market is down on John Kerry when the market goes down one of the things you often hear is the market is worried About a carry Victory then out comes a poll showing Kerry with a four or five point lead down goes the market big time and how they know that the market went down because everybody had carry on their mind as opposed to everyone was worried about interest rates or everyone looked at the earnings figures and thought they weren't as good as projected but they
they they love to pretend that their car neck the Magnificent they can read the mind of The market sure we got Terror threats gas prices Sky High but Forbes as the economy is still strong and getting stronger every day there you have it 196 days till we re-elect George W wait wait wait the election's over all right thanks for letting me know it's almost there I think Fox News of all lots of procedures had the best increase in profits what makes Murdoch particularly dangerous is that he's foremost a politician and he will use his immense
Media power to shape the content especially the news that furthers his interests and those of his allies including uh the Conservative Republican Community after all Fox News is nothing more than a 24 7 political ad for the GOP foreign Phil Donahue Primetime show from the beginning they were saying to us we have to be balanced giving them instructions not to be too Confrontational don't be too partisan don't be too angry now by the end of our tenure balance wasn't enough and this is the fox effect they mandated that anytime we had if we had two
left-wing guests we had to have three right-wing guests if we had one anti-war guest we had to have two pro-war guests and that's how we ended the show so we're like trying to out fox fox you cannot out fox fox but MSNBC and the others have tried CNBC has tried to out Fox fox since the corporate structures and corporate ownership of the other channels did not allow anyone to counter program against Fox you know in television the inclination is imitation you know I I think the standard right now is is fox and I want to
be as interesting and as edgy as you guys are it's influencing its competitors uh that's why you know uh MSNBC hired Joe Scarborough that's why CNN in in Recent weeks has taken to reporting pretty much anything the bush White House tells it to report there is a sense now that there is money in the flag and fox knows that and its competitors know the fox is on to something today news business is geared toward entertainment it's geared toward in some cases propaganda it's geared toward ultimately the bottom line of a big corporation that owns the
station that Owns the news Operation it's called the news business for a reason it is news but it's a business they don't like to spend money doing serious stories they like to do cheap easy stories that will get a gut reaction the thing I think that distresses me more than anything else is that a lot of the news content is not coming straight out of the newsrooms particularly in television but out of the promotion Department it's Expensive expense to spend time exploring the issues it's cheap and everything now is a question of money if you
go to the National Association of black journalists or you go to the National Association of Hispanic journalists you talk to Asian American journalists who are on air you talk to Native American journalists you're seeing a diminution in the number of journalists that are locally based because in order to save Money and in order to get economies of scale and scope a lot of the broadcasters are shrinking their employee employee pool and they're shrinking them in the news section sectors of their stations so a lot of the young vibrant people who are getting experience as on-air
talent in small towns are seeing those opportunities increasingly diminished when you let a small number of companies have this much concentrated power they will always Abuse it it's simply unacceptable in a free society and if you don't change the system we can be having this conversation for the next 50 years we'll be talking about Rupert Murdoch III foreign [Music] just as Healthcare and the economy and the environment are political issues that people are familiar with corporate control over the media is also a major political issue when you have one Network that is so powerful and
so intent upon warping the dialogue it limits that discourse it actually influences it to be a narrower discourse and that's what I think citizens ought to be up in arms about we can't accept this anymore if we do accept it we are handing on to our children and our grandchildren a lesser democracy than we inherited and that's the one thing we don't have a right to do it's ironic that it's been what 30 years since Patty chieski wrote Network but I really believe that those prophetic words that were spoken by Peter Finch when he finally
got out of the chair and said it's time go to the window shake your fist and say I'm mad as hell I'm not gonna take it anymore I think those are resonant words today I think people are genuinely upset get off your rear end and become an activist and If you see things that are biased complain to the outlet and say you won't be watching it anymore content has to change power has to shift and I think the only way we can shift power is the only way we've ever been able to shift Power by
directly confronting those who hold it and taking it back policies have been made Behind Closed Doors by very powerful special just thought any public involvement or participation and what we've learned in the last few years is From the public that's aware of this and they start organizing we can change these policies and we can make a system that actually responds to the needs of the people of this country America's digital Destiny is hanging in the balance now with the right activism public outcry we can shape a meaty environment so that in every Community there are
channels that actually serve the public interest if you are a citizen at home right now When you turn on talk radio all you hear is one right-wing nut or another right wing nut why don't you go to the radio station and say I'm sick and tired of this there are progressive voices out there we want a balance if a Fox TV station in your town is broadcasting reports that you know to be inaccurate that you know to be warping the news you as citizens have power groups like code pink and others have actually demonstrated outside
television stations And have made noise about it you need to basically play the Paul Revere role to you know kind of ride out into the night alerting people that there's something bad going on here and and something needs to be done about it here's what I'd love to have happen family from Nebraska Goes to Washington for the family vacation we're going to visit the air and space museum we're going to visit the mall we're going to visit the Vietnam memorial and we're Going to visit the FCC to see a commissioner or two to tell them
about what we care about when that happens you might start to see a little more attention but you know it ain't gonna happen if you don't try it we can actually win here the whole strength of the system has been based on people being apathetic and not thinking they could do anything about it as soon as we rise up it collapses like a house of cards that's the extraordinary Development of the last two years it is not an issue of the right or the left it is a populist issue about people finally saying it's their
democracy and they aren't going to let five companies control the Airways for corporate convenience at the expense of public necessity foreign [Music] I come from a community in the in the state of Maine that's mostly uh fishing Towns small coastal communities and for many years we were served by one radio station that everybody listened to I mean it was local radio every time I debated an opponent when I was running for office everybody would tune it in in their cars or their home radio and they would hear what we were feeling differently about and when
Clear Channel bought it that was the end you couldn't even count on somebody looking out the window and telling you if it was a good Day or a bad day or if the fog was coming in but what was really interesting to me was that people got so angry there was a local group that organized and attempted to get a low power FM radio license they had a hardpought battle a Clear Channel opposed them and they actually won and now there was a little radio station operated out of a garage in that town all volunteers
anybody can play the music that they want but at five o'clock Every day they tune into the dialogue of what's going on in that community coming coming in my ear s [Music] oh we've been doing over the last decade is to create this alternative infrastructure so that we now have an online audience of 10 000 unique visitors per day to our home page plus the over the air audience of our new low power FM radio station and very soon We're going to have Public Access TV in this community so we're we've got three legs of
a of a stool here of an alternative media infrastructure that gives us a means of communicating among ourselves and not just relying on the occasional letter to the editor in the corporate newspaper or almost no coverage and the broadcast media because they're all owned by Clear Channel and and Sinclair or Fox [Music] When the youth media Council started one of our first projects was to recruit unorganized use of color teenagers and have them study the fox affiliate station in the Bay Area when we did the study we were able to do an editorial meeting it
was the first time in probably 10 or 15 years that a constituency group locally had actually ever came and demanded anything from them they just get to do whatever they want nobody cares nobody understands That they can demand anything so it was a pretty momentous moment for us you know to to both demand something and get it from a fox affiliate but also to be one of the first you know folks to come forward and that's that's something that I think is a trend that we're trying to start now marginalized people don't have any concept
that they can go to an editor in groups and demand something [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music]