Sen. Jay Rockefeller confuses MSNBC facts and Fox fiction

Jay Rockefeller (4.00 / 2)

Jay Rockefeller: wrong on the Patriot Act, wrong on illegal wiretapping without a court order, wrong on Iraq, and wrong on the environment/EPA/MTR/Clean Water Act. All of these wrongs don't seem to make him a big fan of individual freedoms or human rights. He's dead wrong in parroting this laughable false equivalency. To equate FOX with MSNBC is a display of pure ignorance. His statement, "Out. Off. End. Goodbye" spoken in the same sentence with a call for more choice in channel selection calls into question Rockefeller's ability to reason. Moreover, he seems to have forgotten his numerous appearances on MSNBC during the health care reform debate.
Time to retire, Jay or is it time to retire Jay.

---

by: DB @ Fri Nov 19, 2010 at 23:33:00 PM UTC

Jay and reason (4.00 / 2)

Jay has some good moments and some not so good moments.

During the health care debate he had some brilliant moments in calling out Republican obstructionism. He's also has a long history of fabulous leadership on CHIP.

Then at other times he's been in a fact free zone in support of King Coal like about things like how much coal is left in the US.

---

by: Clem Guttata @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 00:23:34 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Except for 1972 he had coal lucidity. (4.00 / 1)

---

by: MadAnne @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 02:20:43 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

and some of those brilliant moments (4.00 / 1)

took place during interviews on MSNBC programs last year.

Jay knows better than the B.S. he's spouting here.

---

by: heath_harrison @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 01:54:42 AM UTC

Opinions of Fox and MSNBC aside... (4.00 / 2)

I think it is absolutely dangerous to throw around comments about having the FCC censor a news/opinion organization.  I may disagree with everything Fox News puts out but I'd fight like hell for their right to spew that garbage.

---

by: Jeremiah @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 06:28:30 AM UTC

take a deep breath (0.00 / 0)

He said "a little bug inside" him, not a raging conflagration. This is much ado about nothing. Jay knows the limits of the FCC's power and also the implications of the 1st amendment. What he said was correct - there is a little bug in many of us that resents the public's airwaves being used to willfully dupe the public. I'm an avowed liberal. And I think MSNBC was right to punish Olbermann and Scarborough because I support the notion of ethics in journalism.  

---

by: twilight campfighter @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 15:07:19 PM UTC

that same little bug (4.00 / 1)

came out and voted when the USA PATRIOT Act was giving federal law enforcement the authority to tap our phones; shop for warrants; and look at our library records.

---

by: Jeremiah @ Sat Nov 20, 2010 at 16:14:41 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think he's saying the same thing Jon Stewart said. He didn't say (0.00 / 0)

either network lied.  I hope you all were just as indignant when Stewart said the same thing.  Rachel Maddow is an excellent researcher.  I don't see why she has to have segments where to make her point about someone on the right she uses a strange, mocking voice.  I think Rockefeller's and Stewart's point is we used to have news, now we have news for the left and news for the right.  It's not like someone watches Fox news and hears Obama's trip is going to cost 200 million and then switches to MSNBC and sees that isn't true.  For whatever reason Fox news connects with a lot (most) of our fellow West Virginians.  

---

by: MadAnne @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 02:43:03 AM UTC

Stewart vs Rockefeller (0.00 / 0)

Jon Stewart is a comedian with a parody news show.  Senator Rockefeller is the senior Senator from the State of West Virginia.  Are you really making the comparison?

In other news, I heard Paulie Shore took out a revolver and shot the Cap and Trade bill.  The humanity!

---

by: Jeremiah @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 03:09:08 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

When Jon Stewart did the interview with Rachel Maddow (0.00 / 0)

he was not doing it as stand up.  When he did his CNN crossfire interview about the same thing he wasn't doing comedy.  I know Jon Stewart is a comedian, but it doesn't mean he can't make serious points.  I think I've seen politicians do comedy.  My main point though was I think Rockefeller was talking about partsian news.  If MSNBC is going to be the voice of the Dems, it ain't playing well in these parts.

---

by: MadAnne @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 04:06:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

confusion on MSNBC (0.00 / 0)

They are not the partisan voice of the Dems. In fact, they've got a Republican on for as many hours in the morning as the liberals in the evening.

Olbermann had a long essay on this recently. Here's a relevant bit:

I have read and heard much, of late - including from Mr. Koppel in The Washington Post Sunday - about how those who succeeded his grand era of false objectivity are only in it for the money or the fame or the chance to push a political party. Mr. Koppel also implied - as others have -- that the men behind my network saw in the success of Fox News, a business opportunity to duplicate the style but change the content. Mr. Koppel implied that yesterday. In fact, nothing could be further than the truth, and the very kind of fact-driven journalism Mr. Koppel seems to be claiming he represents and I fail, would not stand for his sloppy assumptions and his false equivalence of "both sides do it."

We do not make up facts at MSNBC and when we make mistakes we correct them. Friday night I found, as we rehearsed its presentation, that a segment implying former President Bush had lifted parts of his autobiography from other works of recent history was largely based on excerpts that mostly required heavy editing and still produced only weak evidence. We killed the segment. Would Fox have? Would CNN have? A week before "Anderson Cooper 360" presented a political story in the most cataclysmic of tones. There were three guests: an on-line magazine editor, a staunch Liberal, and a staunch Conservative. They were in agreement: the story wasn't that big a deal. The segment ran anyway.

More over, while Fox may be such, we are not doctrinaire. I cannot prove it, so I'll estimate it here and if I'm proved wrong I'll happily correct it: but my intuition tells me I criticized President Obama more in the last week than Fox's primetime hosts criticized President Bush in eight years. To equate this network with Fox, as Mr. Koppel did - to accuse us of having our own facts - is another manifestation of a dangerously simplified understanding of modern news. This guy says the moon is a planetary fragment orbiting the Earth; this other guy says it's actually the body of the late Vince Foster - have them both on and let them debate. It's fair and balanced.

And to the charge that a bunch of bean-counters seized upon a business opportunity: I have been here for every moment of my network's evolution. It began in 2003 when slowly, one fact at a time, we began to challenge the government's rationalization for the war in Iraq. A year later I was told by the former president of this network that he did not want me, or us, to be a liberal answer to Fox News. The man whose hour followed mine then, was a conservative ex-Congressman. The year after that, I offered evidence that there seemed to be a disturbing juxtaposition of government terrorism warnings or counter-terrorism detentions with political bumps in the road for the Republican party. The woman whose hour followed mine then, had been hired by us away from Fox. The year after that, I did the first of these Special Comments and I fully expected that I might be fired it. The year after that I had to spend urging my employers to give my guest host her own show. Now there are three shows in primetime in which the content usually lines up with the small "L" liberal point-of-view even as it needles and prods and sometimes pole-axes the Democrats. And that conservative ex-Congressman is still on the air here, every day, and he has as much time as the three of us at night do, put together.

If this was a business plan, it wasn't as good as the one at the nearest kid's lemonade stand. This network came to this place organically.

---

by: Clem Guttata @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 08:53:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Stewart (4.00 / 1)

CA Berk and Clem pointed this out in other posts, Jon Stewart the comedian, even when making serious points, is not a U.S. Senator.  Rockefeller is chair of a Committee that has the power to set policy for the FCC and he should not be making such reckless remarks.

I agree with Rockefeller on more than I disagree with him, but Democrat or not, when someone makes remarks about censoring the press they should be called to the carpet for it by progressives.

---

by: Jeremiah @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 16:08:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Yes (4.00 / 2)

I was also "just as indignant" about Stewart. I caught a bunch of flack on Facebook about it.

I didn't bother posting about it here as it wasn't directly relevant to WV and at least Stewart did some good by otherwise bringing together people. Also, as CA Berkeley points out, Rockefeller isn't just some guy with a TV show--he's in charge of writing the laws that regulate the industry.

I don't think the problem is that people get their "news" from different sources. I think the problem is that people who watch Fox don't get news--they get Republican party propaganda that has no basis in reality.

When Rockefeller, Stewart and others confuse those two issues it makes it harder to address discuss meaningful ways to address either one.

---

by: Clem Guttata @ Sun Nov 21, 2010 at 08:43:53 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Good. I like consistency. (4.00 / 2)

I'm sticking with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.  

---

by: MadAnne @ Mon Nov 22, 2010 at 05:26:38 AM UTC

[ Parent ]