On the popular Fox News show the Five (6/6/12), co-host Eric Bolling blasted Muslim advocates who are suing the New York Police Department over its spying program targeting Muslims, saying that in the last 15 years, “Every terrorist on American soil has been a Muslim.”
In fact, Muslims are responsible for a tiny fraction of terrorism in the U.S.; as a Rand study pointed out in 2010 (Extra!, 5/11), of the “83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three…were clearly connected with the jihadist cause.”
Bolling has made a habit of broadcasting false information about terrorism in the U.S. Last year (7/13/11), he bizarrely claimed that there hadn’t been any terrorism on American soil when George W. Bush was in office. He later (7/14/11) amended that to say “in the aftermath of 9/11”–which is equally untrue (FAIR Blog, 7/15/11).
Studies have suggested a correlation between primarily relying on Fox News for your information about the world and ignorance about basic facts. Those studies do not address whether the relationship is causal—in other words, it isn’t clear if watching Fox News makes one ignorant, or if less-informed people are somehow drawn to Fox News. Eric Bolling’s popularity on Fox does not clear up that question.
The frightening thing is that FOX doesn’t exist in some ghetto of the wilfully and willingly ignorant.
Whether you get your “news” with a heaping helping of Murdochismo, or via the lockstep vacuousness of USA Today, your local rag, dripping with AP stenography and fact checkmating, or the highfaluting hagiography of the rich and powerful permeating the NYT and WaPo, the bottom line is that honest journalism is as rare in the corpress as a kept progressive campaign promise.
It’s all the news that’s printed to fit into the prescribed worldview of the plutocracy.
Read all about it?
Not bloody likely.
Is the title rhetorical?
I could see a new reality series Fox…BOLLING for La La Land–with Eric.
Thanks Rand study re : those 83 attacks between 9/11 and the end of 2009— that only 3 had something to do with “jihadist cause.”
On the other hand, speaking as a female, there must be at least 83 attacks against women every day in this nation. Missed that, did you Eric?
If Fox were attempting to be a news organization and failing, it would be fair to ask if their “pundits” are misinformed. Fox is not a news organization, as has been repeatedly demonstrated. Operated by GOP operatives, financed by a malignant right wing criminal organization (England’s hacking scandal, a Murdoch conspiracy), and devoted solely to the creation and dissemination of right wing spin, FOX hires and keeps only the people who will work from the talking points which serve the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove’s benefactors and the totalitarian right wing state they seek to create.
How does being a “conservative” with the entire worldview that accompanies it, square away with non-stop, continous lying, spinning, insinuating, and promoting false narratives. With FOX and the rest of the right-wing media machine, facts are now opinions, and opinions are now facts. How they can still be “conservatives” and consider themselves moral highgrounders is beyond me. Of course, since they don’t actually deal with issues and try to solve problems (excerpt to devise further ways to sieze and maintain power by any means necessary), they spend ALL their time and effort on their heinus and treasonus schemes to further enrich themselves.
Fox News is a title and “fair and balanced” is a slogan. Neither are true and now we have some numbers to show it. That and finding that the more you follow Fox as your only source of news the less you know the longer you follow it. Now that I find scary.
Night Gaunt that study was pure bunk.Rush Limbaughs fans scored highest on knowledge polls and personally I think that is skewed bunk too.Fox is right leaning and the rest are mostly left.Thank God for both.As far as Erics statement it is def a yes and no sort of thing.It is true to say that overall most Muslims are not terrorists,but most terrorists are muslim.At least in this world as it shows danger to this country.This government is struggling with that truth.It is trying to utilize our capabilities to run down leads.The legalities of doing such must of course be examined
“Every terrorist on American soil has been a Muslim.”
Somewhere in hell, Tim McVeigh is laughing at that.
It is true to say that overall most Muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim.
What the 2010 RAND study actually found (FAIR Blog, 3/16/11) was that the vast majority of “homegrown” terrorist attackers—those of all ideologies who successfully carry out an attack—were not Muslims: Of the “83 terrorist attacks in the United States between 9/11 and the end of 2009, only three…were clearly connected with the jihadist cause.”
I see the Budgie of Despair is back peeping his Mono-winged garbage again, and I think once and for all we see that Fox Attracts the uniformed because the “Fux Snooze Network” is as uninformed as they, so the ‘info’ can be molded as they see fit. When the have to deal in the real world, they simply give up and go back to “peeping the party line” even they have no idea of what they are actually saying.
So just how the hell can someone be so freaking idiotically stupid as to believe the ‘Most Terrorists are Muslim’ when the evidence is not only clearly, but overwhelmingly the opposite. In the example above 3 out of 83, is not majority, no matter how upside down, backwards or sideways you turn it or try to twist. If you can’t live in the real world, then go find a nice a cave on a mountain and live out your live where you belong, in your own stupid, ignorant, racist, backwards world and let the rest of us in peace.
We don’t need another stupid budgie of despair peeping the same trash over and over; we already have the freaking moron sheeple pundits of Fux Snooze and their lies being bleated constantly. Sorry but the Uber-richt fascists of the still traitors to the human race.
michael e: There are a number of things wrong with your statement, but I appreciate that you are much more thoughtful and reasonable than the current crop of conservatives. However, have you stopped to consider how much death, destruction, and state sponsored terrorism (both overt and covert) the U.S. and Israel has caused in the middle east in the past 50 years? (that is, if you start with the CIA-lead overthrow of Mossadeq in Iran in 1953). Just in the past 21 years (starting with the Gulf War in 1991) I would estimate 1.5 to 2 million deaths easily. Add the preceding 30 years before that (including the murderous, and dictatorial regimes we installed) and I would estimate 4 to 6 million in total easily. While most of the terrorism in the U.S. is carried out by right-wing, fundamentalist extremists, I think the Arab world has pretty good reason to be angry- not that I’m justifying acts of terrorism by anyone. This discussion seems to be almost entirely absent, if not forbidden, in the discourse of conservatives today for whatever reason.
Thank you “J ” for making the exact point that I was going to make. Ad the descriptive, Jew and Christian to Israel and the U.S. and the circle is complete.
‘add’
You’re welcome, Mick. It’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. A woman named Beverly Bandler wrote a great article on Robert Parry’s site, Consortium News.com called, “GOP’s Strategy of Deception”. It’s about the infinite lie machine that is the right-wing media, not terrorism (although what Roger Ailes and FOX News does is a form of terrorism, I think). Anyway, it’s worth a look.
just wanted to add that every one of the faux news studies have found that DEMOCRATS
who watch the network do worse on the test that democrats that don’t.
it’s purpose is to misinform.
You have it close, it’s mission is not merely to Misinform, since then the application of correct information would fix it. They are here to deliberately obfuscate and conflate issues to the point that additional information only cause more problems.
The whole uber-richt wing of Fux believes (since there never can be any proof or evidence) that they they only ones who can ‘handle the truth’. Sadly people like Beck(er head) and Limburger, do not understand what truth is, or what it looks and sounds like. In practice, if not in reality, they are pathological lairs. There is no reason they can’t say what they want, even if it is a blatant falsehood, because in their mind, if they ‘think it, then it must be so’ as noted by folks like Limburger who insist on using platitudes like “I can’t make this up”, which means that is exactly what he did.
So the mission of Fux Snooze is to make sure that unless you know all the code words, you can not possible make any heads or tail of the disinformation they spew thus ensuring informed debate is not possible, so that their corporate Gods can rape the public with little resistance.
Michael e: “Rush Limbaughs fans scored highest on knowledge polls and personally I think that is skewed bunk too.”
Considering you’ve written that you listen to Rush and it’s obvious from your comments here that you’re consistently misinformed about everything, you might have a point.
What is a “knowledge poll”? (It doesn’t refer to the eugenicist detritus of IQ tests, which is somewhat commendable.)
Those knowledge polls have been around for a while. They are fairly easy to administer, I would think–people who think they know a lot about a lot of stuff love to shoot their mouths off, and are given to brag, like our michael e. above. He readily reveals his vast ignorance on everything; it’s the same for the Fox viewers; they’ll start going off on how Obama’s a Socialist and there’s fifty quadrillion barrels of oil in the shale by the Grand Canyon but the goddamn libs won’t let us dig it up and every Muslim’s a terrorist and the queers are gettin’ special rights and are coming for your kids to brainwash them into the queer lifestyle (just like Rick Santorum said!). And so on. It’s likely that many of the Fox personalities are just acting out their parts to rile up the “base,” though obviously Hannity and Beck and O’Reilly really are simpletons and angry dunces who believe all of the shit they jabber on about.
They may all get their wish come November, and we’ll actually elect a “business man” who will “run the country like a business” just like Dubya did. Couple this with the fact that the very interests that stole over 11 trillion dollars from the Treasury, having escaped unpunished, are poised for a return to double-down on their new “investment.”
J: Re. “… but I appreciate that you are much more thoughtful and reasonable than the current crop of conservatives.” I have been reading comments on this blog for years, and no one posting here has had so much to say that is ill-considered and unreasonable as michael e. His highly divisive off-point rants invariably express contempt for liberals that evoke responses from others.
Yet again, the FAIR troll has led us off the subject at hand.
Here is a sample of the Latest ‘knowledge poll”:
Questions: (all but the first two were open-ended)
• To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in removing Hosni Mubarak?
• How about the opposition groups in Syria? Have they been successful in removing Bashar al-Assad?
• Some countries in Europe are deeply in debt, and have had to be bailed out by other countries. To the best of your knowledge, which country has had to spend the most money to bail out European countries?
• There have been increasing talks about economic sanctions against Iran. What are these sanctions supposed to do?
• Which party has the most seats in the House of Representatives right now?
• In December, House Republicans agreed to a short-term extension of a payroll tax cut, but only if President Obama agreed to do what?
• It took a long time to get the final results of the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates. In the end, who was declared the winner?
• How about the New Hampshire Primary? Which Republican won that race?
• According to official figures, about what percentage of Americans are currently unemployed?
thanks for both your comments, padremellyn
“it’s [fox’s] mission is not merely to Misinform, since then the application of correct information would fix it. ”
if i was faux, i’d be worried about the viewers that get the answers correct…..the network is failing to reach those folks.
“Sadly, people like Beck and Limburger, do not understand what truth is, or what it looks and sounds like. ”
i disagree…they know what the truth sounds like…they simply understand that their listeners don’t, so their whole mission [and faux’ as well] is to tell the lies their audience wants to hear told.
one think i wanted to add…most conservative commentors think these studies are bunk because they can answer all the questions correctly.
i believe that anyone regardless of ideology or party i.d. who reads 20-30 minutes a day of politics and current events on line can ace these tests. what many people forget is that most of the rest of the country just isn’t that all tuned in to this stuff.
[for example, only 8% of people who take pew’s online current events quizzes get all 13 questions correct.]
and the results of the quiz/studies we’re discussing have been consistent…those who listen to npr or limbaugh, watch colbert or the daily show or read the nytimes do the best.
and those who watch faux do worse than people who watch no tv news.
padremelleryn….The study you mention included all kinds of things under the term “terrorist action” that I personally find ridiculous.14-15 year old Kids in ohio breaking school windows and writing Nazi symbols and anti Jewish graffiti on the walls are terrorists?I call them rotten skrewed up little jack asses that need a boot in the butt..Ok I agree my 3 year old nephew is a terror too- but lets get real.When a suicide bomber blows himself up in New York some day(God forbid)killing a lot of people ,believe me….they are not searching for Rabbis,Priests,and boy scouts.Mcvie was a surprise yes…Or was he?We still have not tracked down the other guy.Who knows what that hate filled moron believed.If you want to play with numbers that seem to say there is no problem with Islam and terrorism be my guest.You probably would of been the guy pre 911- arguing AGAINST increased surveillance of the men who turned out to be involved.So yeah thanks for your input…NEXT!!!!!
J…..Im not sure where you came by the numbers you quoted.Your point seems to be the Israelis and the US are/have been, on a mindless killing spree in the middle east (for many years now.)Um wow….how to even approach that.Sounds like we are no different from the Nazis.At least to some liberal eyes.Hard to dignify that.
To the rest of you it just sounds like mountains of sour grapes.When Fox came out it was laughed at by the dominant liberal press.Rush called a clown.It must of been nice to be king.To represent that small minority of liberal elitists in ways that far over reached their numbers.Now there is another sheriff in town competing for the job.And the numbers who listen are staggering.So now all those who listen are stupid.And those who talk against the liberal agenda are disseminating false propaganda .And the hundreds of millions that are gonna soon hand Obama and his regime walking papers,are just dupes and shills for big money,big military…. blah blah blah.Your arrogance astounds me.
Michael-e there is nothing about the five testes that their answers were combined into a meta test and found that those who are Conservative tended to gravitate to Fox over any other of the networks they gave. In fact to the exclusion of all others. And if you score high on a political test written by and for Conservatories then it will certainly do well for you. But they would still be wrong. (But their way out is that all other news sources are “Liberal” even when they are Conservative. Just not the extremist Reich wing of the GOP and Fox.)
Well in a way that s correct.The other networks are not per say all-liberal .They just dont hold to what to many people is just common sense.Common sense conservatism that is.(Of course shows like democracy now don’t count)For years there was no station that just said it as many many people believe it to be.Fox more than other stations fills that void.Rush fir instance articulates very well what hundreds of millions have always felt.
The ideals of conservatism and liberalism have a stake in this countries future.We believe you on the left are wrong(notice i didn’t say stupid …or brainwashed…or evil)You feel we are wrong.So lets have at it in the arena of ideas.And vote our beliefs.Hell you voted in a completely unqualified man with radical notions(and friends)We(I) understood it.Bush fooked up big time in a number of ways…and you in effect threw the bums out.Well now we swing the other way.
I have been involved in politics for 30 plus years.Believe me these so called tests are agenda driven.No matter how well hidden that truth may be.To compartmentalize people into smart, stupid…educated ,uneducated and so on is branding not so different from the attitudes of racists.People have more information/disinformation than ever before.It is a pot peri ,a soup of swirling ideas.And it is all good.Have a little faith in the average American to make good calls.I watch democracy now.I watched Kieth O.I loved Janeane Garafolo, John Stewart and all the rest.Did not agree with them much- but that is ok.I think there is a fear that right wing shows and FOX continue to explode.Well get in the game.There are no barriers holding you back.Put on a good show,have a little bit of a sense of humor about yourselves and give it your best shot.We look forward to the debate.To helping build the path to a bigger and brighter day for ALL Americans.
“Believe me these so called tests are agenda driven.”
Questions: (all but the first two were open-ended)
• To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in removing Hosni Mubarak?
• How about the opposition groups in Syria? Have they been successful in removing Bashar al-Assad?
• Some countries in Europe are deeply in debt, and have had to be bailed out by other countries. To the best of your knowledge, which country has had to spend the most money to bail out European countries?
• There have been increasing talks about economic sanctions against Iran. What are these sanctions supposed to do?
• Which party has the most seats in the House of Representatives right now?
• In December, House Republicans agreed to a short-term extension of a payroll tax cut, but only if President Obama agreed to do what?
• It took a long time to get the final results of the Iowa caucuses for Republican candidates. In the end, who was declared the winner?
• How about the New Hampshire Primary? Which Republican won that race?
• According to official figures, about what percentage of Americans are currently unemployed?
in what world are those questions “agenda driven?”
“To compartmentalize people into smart, stupid…educated ,uneducated and so on is branding not so different from the attitudes of racists.”
uh, no. demographics aren’t racism, and besides, people aren’t born npr listeners or faux viewers…those are conscious decisions.
and as the studies have shown repeatedly, democrats who watch faux do worse that democrats who get their news anywhere else.
Give a list of facts the Heritage foundation has uncovered about Liberal duplicity and the average Democracy now listener will score ZERO.Never heard any of this stuff they would say.Polls have solid questions and agenda questions built in.My lord think of the last election.Anyone who listened to Rush would of seen how badly this president was vetted.Would of known his qualifications were nill.Would of known his school records were sealed.Would of seen and heard where we would be in 4 years.What was the knowledge of those who were able to pull the switch for him?Glen Beck told us all to sell and buy gold.You would of polled those who listen to him are stupid …as he himself is stupid.Libs laughed at him as Rome burned.Me and my “radical friends”made a fortune on that deal.How is your 401K?Keep patting yourself on the backs my elitist friends.Milk and honey is flowing for you bloody geniuses.
in what world are the questions i reprinted “agenda driven?”
When you find Liberals and liberal minded they find that none of the networks is liberal at all. If you use Fox “News” as the base then everyone else who isn’t 100% to their standards becomes “liberal.” That is who it is done. Corporate news on its face is conservative. That also included NPR and PBS news and economics. Conservative all the way. What FAIR has been pointing out for since the 1980’s has shown it to be consistent.
“Give a list of facts the Heritage foundation has uncovered about Liberal duplicity and the average Democracy now listener will score ZERO.”
Quit peddling bullshit.
“Anyone who listened to Rush would of seen how badly this president was vetted.”
Quit peddling bullshit.