Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 04:41 pm
Since they no longer have Glenn Beck to fill the role of chief anti-Obama propagandist, Fox News has tapped Sarah Palin to claim that the media is boosting Obama’s popularity.
Here’s the video from Media Matters:
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When asked about Obama’s approval ratings, Palin said, “Because the media is relaying these numbers that I don’t believe are accurate when it comes to job creation. I still think that this is a jobless recovery that is affecting America right now. Yes, it’s 8.3% of unemployment rate, which is an improvement from a year ago, but it’s still a lot worse than when Barack Obama took over. That number though reflects many many millions of Americans who are underemployed, or just really even muster the gumption the enthusiasm to get out there and look for a job. So that 8.3% unemployment number is an indicator to President Obama and his allies in the media to make it look like things are getting better. But look at the price of gas, look at the price of a barrel of oil, look at the manipulation of our domestic oil supply, via our president’s actions to lock things up, and you start getting a clearer and truer indicator of how our economy is going.”
Palin’s Fox News backed claim that there is a liberal media conspiracy to reelect Obama doesn’t match reality. In October 2011, a Pew Research study of 2012 election coverage found that only 9% of the Obama stories in the mainstream media were positive. In contrast 31% of the media stories about Palin herself were positive, and 22% were negative. Obama also received the most negative coverage (34%) from the media. Then there is the fact that Republicans outnumber Democrats on the Sunday morning news programs 6 to 1, and Palin’s wacky pro-Obama media conspiracy completely falls apart.
The media has been overtly anti-Obama for the exact opposite reason that Palin and Fox suggested. The mainstream media wants a close election. They have a financial interest in the 2012 election being good television. If they have to knock Obama’s popularity down in order to accomplish their goal that is fine with them. The media doesn’t care about partisanship. It is all about money, and the corporate owned media has decided to follow the Fox News model and pander to the right for cash.
Obama’s rising approval numbers have nothing to do with positive media coverage. President Obama is more popular because the economy really is getting better. Fox News and Sarah Palin managed to ignore a pile of good economic data released today, and continued to argue that this is really a jobless recovery.
With their dreams of sabotaging the economy in order to defeat President Obama evaporating by the day, Fox News has been reduced to trotting out the paranoid queen of anti-Obama hate to ease their viewers into their collective psychotic break with what little shred of reality they have left after Obama wins a second term.
It is time to go back into the Obama hate bubble, and cognitive dissonance noise machine known as Fox News along with Obama hate flight attendant Sarah Palin is ready to help the right escape reality for another four years.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
