Fox News Reporters Encouraged To Raise Religious Issues

[Ikohn4ever]

Fox News Channel Vice President John Moody has encouraged network anchors and correspondents to raise religious issues during interviews and to suggest that conservatives who have expressed strong religious convictions are unfairly attacked by their liberal detractors, a former Fox News producer and writer said Wednesday. In a letter posted on Jim Romanesko's message board at the Poynter Institute, a Florida journalism school and think tank, Charlie Reina, who spent six years at the news channel, observed that Moody, who reportedly writes a daily "editorial note" to the channel's staff, provides anchors "a clear blueprint of what's expected of them." Reina described Moody as "a scholar and biographer of Pope John Paul II ... a devout Catholic, who seldom holds back on matters of the church."

One of Moody's daily memos suggested a question of the day: "Can a man of deep Christian faith be appointed to a federal job, or will his views be equated with racism, intolerance and mean-spiritedness?" After a bombing at a Baghdad hotel housing reporters, Moody's memo advised them to "offer a prayer of thanks for their safety to whatever God you revere (and let the ACLU stick it where the sun don't shine)." Such views from on high, Reina concludes, are part of a confrontational strategy by the network that includes its current attack on "the war against Christmas" conducted by "a shameless management willing to use even Christmas for its own political ends.


gotta love fair and balanced journalism.

 

[mykevermin]

I was at the optometrist's today, sitting in the waiting room for an hour or so. While I tried to read a commentary on Max Weber's view on economic sociology, I overheard many things on the Fox News on the monitor instead.

I will argue against Bill O'Reilly's assertion that "Happy Holidays" and "Season's Greetings" are offensive to christians (or, rather, that they are now because of the false controversy being drummed up on Fox News, like the phony stories about schools changing the lyrics to 'Silent Night'). I will say that anybody who takes well-intentioned phrases sorely is a worthless person and a moron. I appreciate "Merry Christmas" because it is meant well. That having been said, several people (all three of the "Friends" on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump, and Senator Imhoff) delighted in the false protest via their use of "Merry Christmas." It was used, in this context, as a rallying cry against "secular forces" and "progressive interests." It's fascinating that a phrase used to imply celebration, joy, peace, and remembrance is now considered to be an act of defiance.

I also heard bits of Bush's speech from the other day, where he finally admitted that the intelligence was *way* wrong on Iraq. He also said that "knowing then what I know now, I wouldn't change a thing." THAT is the single most frightening thing I've heard (knowing I was dead wrong, I wouldn't change a thing I've done) in a long time.