Dangerous Fox vs Invaluable Olbermann and Maddow: Part I

As I mentioned in my post on looking for conservative facts, I've been reading the NewsBusters blog. They've taken issue with Barack Obama calling Fox News dangerous while White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton called Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow invaluable. I decided to investigate a bit. First, let's look at what each side has to say about the other.

I'll start with NewsBusters' articles about Rachel Maddow, since I was already at the site. NewsBusters' search is done using a Google custom search, so this is effectively random stories. Because of this randomness, I wanted a good sample size, so this is approximately two pages worth:

• Maddow guest rationalizes Fort Hood shooter's actions
• Maddow repeats allegations from Olbermann interview as fact
• Maddow is vulgar for using "tea bagging" to describe Tea Party
• Maddow misleadingly claims to be a talk radio show host after leaving her program, but still being rebroadcast on the radio
• Maddow falsely claims Supreme Court struck down Arizona campaign finance equalizer and that she unfairly attacked Sharron Angle for opposing the fluoridation of drinking water
• Maddow gets paid a lot for rebroadcast rights to her show, and is apparently late on delivering for a book deal
• Maddow is incorrect in saying democrats aren't unified enough
• Maddow unfairly/hypocritically criticizes John Stossel for opining on Fox and advocating for conservative issues
• Beck claims Maddow lied when she said he claimed snow storms disprove global warming [I have to note here that Maddow responded with even more evidence]
• Maddow is more liberal than Ann Coulter
• Maddow is hypocritical in calling Fox News "not a news station" for promoting Tea Party protests while she and Olbermann promoted free clinics to pressure senators
• Maddow didn't fully understand what Dick Armey was referring to
• Maddow guest proposes that Biden be set free to say things Obama can't
• Maddow is liberal despite what Pelosi says, as evidenced by Maddow's softball interview of Pelosi
• Maddow is not helping the tone of politics
• Maddow distorts Jindal's comments on hurricane Katrina response
• Maddow complains that NewsBusters article was intimidating [actually, Maddow was saying that the PR firm Shirley & Banister was trying to intimidate - not NewsBusters directly, though they were a willing participant]
• Maddow plans to link McVeigh and current-day right-wing extremists
• Maddow isn't called liberal enough in Washington Post article

So, Rachel Maddow is liberal, possibly distorts a fact on her show every once in awhile, is liberal, makes lots of money, is liberal, possibly hypocritical, and is liberal. This is what NewsBusters has to say about Rachel Maddow at random times. I have to say that I wasn't too terribly impressed. NB's recent site redesign does not include a search box anymore, and this post is very long (for me) already. Consequently, I'll be skipping Keith Olbermann articles. It should be noted that Keith Olbermann is probably a more divisive figure, though.

Contrast that to what MediaMatters has to say about Fox News. MediaMatters has wonderful search functionality, and they regularly do issue-summary articles, so I didn't have to do a random sampling at all.

• MediaMatters agrees that Fox is Dangerous
• Fox News features race-baiting, birtherism, religious smears
• Fox News is anti-immigrant, using derogatory rhetoric, fear mongering, and falsehoods
• Fox's history of attacking Islam
• Fox is central to the "Ground Zero Mosque" manufactured story with biased coverage
• Fox's inaccurate economic coverage, including a war on the poor
• Fox is known to make up news, which links to this summary of Fox problems from 2009
• Fox is a GOP microphone, with more examples listed here, and
• Fox's parent company donated directly to GOP organizations
• Fox has a history of violent rhetoric, especially Glenn Beck, as further evidenced by
• Beck referencing Nazis 202 times, Hitler 147 times, fascism 193 times, Goebbels 24 times, socialism 802 times

Fox's dangerousness is pretty well documented by MediaMatters. It's a rare day when most every major program on Fox doesn't have an article or blog post on it. Most of those entries are related, showing a long history of coordinated efforts at presenting their agenda, often with disputed facts and other problems.

With the negative stuff out of the way, I'll explore the other half of the argument in my next entry: Does Maddow (and/or Olbermann) provide any sort of invaluable service? In the meantime, please comment below if you have more and/or better examples of Maddow (or Olbermann) being bad, or of Fox being dangerous. If you disagree with my characterization of any of these links, or the opinions therein, then please enlighten me!