LAT: Fox News' faux documentary sets new low
Sean Hannity's Sunday report, 'Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism,' relied on innuendo and guilt by association to label the Illinois Senator a dupe of the shadowy forces of the left.
By James Rainey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 10, 2008
....Fox host Sean Hannity and his producers served up a heaping portion of (conservative) red meat Sunday night on "Hannity's America." And they've since been making lame defenses of the faux documentary, which bore the subtle title: "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism."
Fox's hourlong screed is just the kind of media coverage that has contributed to the increasingly angry and irrational tone on the campaign trail. Even by the low standards of this election's advocacy journalism, the program plumbed new depths -- relying on innuendo and guilt by association to paint the Illinois senator as a dupe of the shadowy forces of the left.
Much of Hannity's report was based on interviews with half a dozen partisan commentators, whose main qualification seems to have been a previously expressed disdain for Obama....
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(W)hen Hannity wanted to know what Obama did as a young community organizer, (Andy) Martin was ready with a pithy answer: "I think a community organizer, in Barack Obama's case, was somebody that was in training for a radical overthrow of the government."
Martin offered no evidence. None. But, when I called him, he helped me understand why this was not a problem. "I do involve with the facts," he began, "but when the facts aren't all there, and the perpetrator has concealed all the facts and is basically refusing to testify, you are allowed to draw an adverse inference."
It sounds to me as if he's saying: When you can't prove something, you're allowed to make stuff up. And does that also mean you might as well assume the worst? I asked. "The proof of the pudding," Martin responded, "is that they are on the verge of taking over the government."...
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Now I'm starting to get it. Take opinions and present them as facts. Stitch them into patterns. Then pretend to your viewers -- as many as 2 million typically watch Hannity's Sunday show -- that those patterns reveal the truth. But that was merely mortar for the program's building blocks: Obama's relationships. And if Obama knew them -- Ayres, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi -- it's pretty obvious (darn right!) he must subscribe to their most controversial ideas....
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-onthemedia10-2008oct10,0,3594309,full.story
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