It appears that, once again, Fox News is going out of its way to stir up anti-Muslim hatred, what with Rupert Murdoch tweeting,
Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible
and
Big jihadist danger looming everywhere from Philippines to Africa to Europe to US. Political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy
The sentiment was echoed in multiple Fox programs, as this wonderful Daily Shows spoof reports (and then turns on its head).
I was thinking about Fox News last week as I was driving back from New Orleans listening to Anthony Trollope’s The Warden. In his 1855 novel, Trollope describes a publication that wields a similar amount of influence. The Jupiter awes people by its ability to throw devastating thunderbolts at public figures from Olympian heights:
“Is this Mount Olympus?” asks the unbelieving stranger. “Is it from these small, dark, dingy buildings that those infallible laws proceed which cabinets are called upon to obey; by which bishops are to be guided, lords and commons controlled, judges instructed in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval tactics, and orange-women in the management of their barrows?” “Yes, my friend—from these walls. From here issue the only known infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies. This little court is the Vatican of England. Here reigns a pope, self-nominated, self-consecrated,—ay, and much stranger too,—self-believing!—a pope whom, if you cannot obey him, I would advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope hitherto afraid of no Luther; a pope who manages his own inquisition, who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful inquisitor of Spain ever dreamt of doing;—one who can excommunicate thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the pale of men’s charity; make you odious to your dearest friends, and turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger!” Oh heavens! and this is Mount Olympus!
Trollope is amazed at how convinced The Jupiter is of its infallibility. Always it sees who is blameworthy and always it knows exactly what should be done:
It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that The Jupiter is never wrong. With what endless care, with what unsparing labor, do we not strive to get together for our great national council the men most fitting to compose it. And how we fail! Parliament is always wrong: look at The Jupiter, and see how futile are their meetings, how vain their council, how needless all their trouble! With what pride do we regard our chief ministers, the great servants of state, the oligarchs of the nation on whose wisdom we lean, to whom we look for guidance in our difficulties! But what are they to the writers of The Jupiter?
One of the Jupiter’s leading columnists is Tom Towers, whom Trollope refers to sarcastically as a “heaven-sent messenger”:
All, all is wrong—alas! alas! Tom Towers, and he alone, knows all about it. Why, oh why, ye earthly ministers, why have ye not followed more closely this heaven-sent messenger that is among us?
Were it not well for us in our ignorance that we confided all things to The Jupiter? Would it not be wise in us to abandon useless talking, idle thinking, and profitless labour? Away with majorities in the House of Commons, with verdicts from judicial bench given after much delay, with doubtful laws, and the fallible attempts of humanity! Does not The Jupiter, coming forth daily with fifty thousand impressions full of unerring decision on every mortal subject, set all matters sufficiently at rest? Is not Tom Towers here, able to guide us and willing?
I think of all those viewers and listeners who turn only to the rightwing media for their information. Towers’ arrogance, meanwhile, is only too familiar to us as we survey people like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity (and reaching outside of Fox, Rush Limbaugh and RedState’s Erick Erickson). These men revel in the fact that GOP politicians must kowtow before them, kiss their rings, and walk back any disparaging comments they happen to make. Here’s Trollope describing Towers:
He loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the loud chattering of politicians, and to think how they all were in his power;—how he could smite the loudest of them, were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a purpose. He loved to watch the great men of whom he daily wrote, and flatter himself that he was greater than any of them. Each of them was responsible to his country, each of them must answer if inquired into, each of them must endure abuse with good humor, and insolence without anger. But to whom was he, Tom Towers, responsible? No one could insult him; no one could inquire into him. He could speak out withering words, and no one could answer him: ministers courted him, though perhaps they knew not his name; bishops feared him; judges doubted their own verdicts unless he confirmed them; and generals, in their councils of war, did not consider more deeply what the enemy would do, than what The Jupiter would say. Tom Towers never boasted of The Jupiter; he scarcely ever named the paper even to the most intimate of his friends; he did not even wish to be spoken of as connected with it; but he did not the less value his privileges, or think the less of his own importance. It is probable that Tom Towers considered himself the most powerful man in Europe; and so he walked on from day to day, studiously striving to look a man, but knowing within his breast that he was a god.
I wonder if Murdoch thinks of himself as a god. I have no doubt that Rush Limbaugh does.
When a character points out to Towers how his attacks are hurting the kindly old warden Septimus Harding and asks him to refrain, Towers’ applies a defense that we see Fox pundits regularly use. It is not he who is attacking the man. Rather, he is defending the public’s interests. He answers to a higher call:
“And now suppose for a moment that I had this power, and used it as you wish: isn’t it clear that it would be a great abuse? Certain men are employed in writing for the public press; and if they are induced either to write or to abstain from writing by private motives, surely the public press would soon be of little value. Look at the recognised worth of different newspapers, and see if it does not mainly depend on the assurance which the public feel that such a paper is, or is not, independent. You alluded to The Jupiter: surely you cannot but see that the weight of The Jupiter is too great to be moved by any private request, even though it should be made to a much more influential person than myself: you’ve only to think of this, and you’ll see that I am right.”
The discretion of Tom Towers was boundless: there was no contradicting what he said, no arguing against such propositions. He took such high ground that there was no getting on to it. “The public is defrauded,” said he, “whenever private considerations are allowed to have weight.”
John Bolt, a progressive who realizes that his naïve criticism of the warden has unleashed a monster, sees through Towers’ sanctimony. He leaves Towers’ apartment muttering about what really drives publications like The Jupiter. The only interest that Towers consults is his own:
The idea of Tom Towers talking of public motives and purity of purpose! Why, it wouldn’t give him a moment’s uneasiness to change his politics to-morrow, if the paper required it.
In all fairness, I should note that Trollope is a conservative and that The Jupiter appears to have a progressive, not a conservative, slant. (Trollope is a conservative in the best sense of the word, and I’ll write next week on his legitimate concerns with progressivism.) Media of all political leanings can be guilty of the arrogance and the sanctimoniousness that Trollope describes, and mainstream and leftist publications would love to have Fox‘s influence. In our current climate, however, they do not.
They also do not claim to be infallible. The New York Times, Rolling Stone, CBS’s Sixty Minutes, National Public Radio, MSNBC, while far from perfect, are far more likely than conservative media to acknowledge their mistakes. “Fair and balanced” Fox News, by contract, either denies, doubles down, or goes silent when it is caught out. It appears not to experience a “moment’s uneasiness” when it decides to change its politics on an issue.
I’ll note one exception. Apparently one Fox guest–Steve Emerson, Executive Director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism—did walk back his assertion that Birmingham, England is “Muslim-only” and that in
parts of London, there are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and actually wound seriously anyone who doesn’t dress according to Muslim, religious Muslim attire.
It so happens that Birmingham is 22 percent Muslim, and no one has yet found these Muslim religious police in London who are beating people up.
Emerson admitted that he was wrong so maybe Fox is making strides. Then again, I don’t know if Fox itself acknowledged publicly that his claims were over the top.