“It’s been a banner year for bias in the mainstream media,” Fox News’ Elisabeth Hasselbeck claimed on a Dec. 30 broadcast. She and former senator Scott Brown were joined by Genevieve Wood, a supposed reporter with the Heritage Foundation-funded Daily Signal, in their review of what they considered “the worst in media” for 2014. But the only things they criticized were truths, not fallacies or the made-up news they’re so infamous for. (See the video below.)
For example, CNN president Jeff Zucker was given a “Nothing to See Here” award. And why? Because at a May 2014 forum Zucker said that other networks’ reports on Benghazi were more of a political ploy than actual news. “If it has real news value, we’ll cover it,” Zucker said. But right-wing Wood disagrees. “Were it not for Fox News, frankly we’d have gotten no news coverage from the mainstream media.”
CBS’ Scott Pelley was issued a “Spinning the Facts”award – but because he corrected false information about the Affordable Care Act in a February broadcast. Obamacare hasn’t instigated layoffs or lost employment opportunities, Pelley said, citing a report from the Congressional Budget Office. But Wood and Hasselbeck criticized Pelley by spinning the facts on ACA even more.
CNN anchor Carol Costello was titled “Classless” for her coverage of the Palin family’s recent brawl. But in that criticism, Fox opted to skip the audio recording of a drunken Bristol Palin, who slurred and cursed during her interview with police, which was the subject Costello was reporting. “Gosh! How personally aggressive can you get?” asked Hasselbeck. Wood claimed it was “the worst show of media bias out there” for 2014.
A “Twisted Tweets” award went to Politico’s Roger Simon, based on a comical Twitter statement about Rick Perry’s demand for border control in the recent influx of child-aged illegal immigrants. “That was very much so in poor taste,” Wood said, adding criticism for President Obama (despite the fact that the reason so many children are being detained in the U.S. is because of a bill signed by George W. Bush in 2008).
But the four “honorees” shouldn’t take these awards negatively, though. Being discredited by Fox News – the network that won a lawsuit on the argument that it had legal right to knowingly provide false information – could be quite a compliment.
Here’s the broadcast:
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