What happened to the news where they simply reported the facts? Editorials were left to a separate section of the newspaper where you could be opinionated and decide how the facts are to be judged. Now you have entire news venues that you know are going to be a conservative view or a liberal view of an event. Depending on who’s side you are on can even determine how exploitative you want to present an event. Take all the protesting going on in Egypt now. There are conflicting reports coming in depending on who’s side the editors are on. We need the facts not someone’s view of the facts.

 

There was a secretly liberal FOX News producer who tried to anonymously reveal that news organization’s right wing ideology who got caught and fired. So, he wrote a book about his ordeal. It is called An Atheist In The Foxhole. So, what do you do when you are offered a great job but it is for a company that does not believe in the same things you do? Do you take the job anyway?

He took the job even though he knew he would be working for the enemy. He was a die hard liberal working for a conservative news organization. His name is no secret now. He is Joe Muto. He hated their ideology but managed to stay on the job for 8 years. It could have been like sleeping with the enemy but it wasn’t because he loved the day to day operations of a news organization.

A television news show can be more interesting than a newspaper. Just getting praise from that cranky Bill O’Reilly character is an achievement in of itself. Bill is six feet four inches of volcanic Irish fury in your face who demands attention like a little child. Joe reports that he would get angry on at least one staff member each week and you were just satisfied that it wasn’t you. Do people still get away with treating people this way? I guess when you are Bill O’Reilly and you have the number one show on FOX you get away with treating people disrespectfully.

Bill had his own sexting scandal involving a woman in a shower fantasy but somehow his in digression story got smothered while the liberals Clinton and Weiner can’t escape public scrutiny. I am not condoning anyone’s behavior over anyone else’s actions just pointing out how even some people are dragged through the dirt while others skate by in the news reporting department of our lives.

Bill O’Reilly’s affair was first reported on The Smoking Gun website. Even the late night comics seem to not even make any jokes about his affair. His mistress disappeared because it is rumored that he even got FOX to pay her off a seven figure monetary amount of money to not report her side of the story. So, Bill has the affair and everyone else in the office had to take an ethics course in order to retain their jobs. Figures.

In the book Joe writes that FOX News is there to push their own right wing agenda. Although the brass there will not admit it, everyone knows even the super conservative producers know that they are NOT there to report the news straight. They are there to put their own spin on it and try to stir up their fan base. So, the news department will willfully disregard the facts. For example, Bill O’Reilly reported that the IRS Commissioner visited the White House more than 150 times. The fact was that it was only 11 times. To Joe’s knowledge, Bill has done nothing to correct his faulty reporting of the facts. So, what is the public to do that only wants the truth?

People like Bill O’Reilly are never letting the facts get in the way of a good story. His books are full of mistakes but yet they are still on the bestseller list. The problem is that these people are calling themselves fair and balanced in the reporting of the news yet they are not. There are rules at FOX news. Rules like you can show a gay couple at the alter getting married but never show them kissing. The audience hates it and will call and write that that is disgusting and get it off the air.

We need accurate news about the people bringing us the news. Period.