The distracting benefits of ACORN hysteria

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/17/acorn_hysteria/index.html
Earlier this week, I wrote about how the Fox-News/Glenn-Beck/Rush-Limbaugh leadership trains its protesting followers to focus the vast bulk of their resentment and anxieties on largely powerless and downtrodden factions, while ignoring, and even revering, the outright pillaging by virtually omnipotent corporate interests that own and control their Government (and, not coincidentally, Fox News). It's hard to imagine a more perfectly illustrative example of all of that than the hysterical furor over ACORN.

Snubbed By Obama, Fox News's Chris Wallace Calls White House "Biggest Bunch Of Crybabies I've Ever Seen"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/19/snubbed-by-obama-fox-news_n_292254.html
Why is Fox News hatin' over this? Better yet, why is Fox acting surprised?

Jeff Hoard calls it: The Million Moron March

Wallace crops VHA doc to falsely suggest Obama administration pressuring vets to end their lives

http://mediamatters.org/print/research/200908230014
from Media Matters for America

SUMMARY: On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace repeatedly cropped quotes from a Veterans Health Administration (VHA) document to falsely suggest that the Obama administration is pressuring veterans to end their lives prematurely and to accuse Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth of lying about it. In fact, contrary to Wallace's false assertions, the document he referred to does not require doctors to direct veterans to what conservatives have labeled the "Death Book for Veterans."

i guess no one on that channel is redeemable

Advertisers deserting Fox News' Glenn Beck

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/advertisers-deserting-fox-news-glenn-beck-2009-08-14
I've seen reports that say Beck has lost 20 advertisers, but I can't confirm that.

Anybody know for sure?

Twitter is 40% ‘Pointless Babble’: Report

Do you TWITTER

What?

 

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Yes

 

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No

 

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Rarely

 

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Twitter followers are more likely to hear about what people are having for their lunch than read anything actually interesting or worthwhile, according to Pear Analytics.

Less than one in ten tweets have any real "pass-along value" and more than 40 percent of tweets are “pointless babble,” a study by the research firm showed.

The research carried out by Pear Analytics was designed to take a snapshot of what people actually used the booming social networking site for.

They delved into the endless steam of tweets every 30 minutes between 11 am and 5 pm Central Standard time on weekdays over two weeks to collect a total of 2,000 messages.

They then grouped the messages into one of six categories: news, spam, self-promotion, pointless babble, conversational and those with pass-along value.

Messages classed as babble included such gems as “I’m having a sandwich,” Pear Analytics said.

Only 8.7 percent of messages were found to have pass-along value. Pointless babble was the largest category with 40.5 percent. Conversational tweets were 37.5 percent, but self promotion and spam only grabbed 5.9 percent and 3.8 percent respectively.

Fears that the site was becoming overrun with spam and self-promotion from companies getting on the Twitter bandwagon were refuted by the findings, Pear Analytics said.

"With the new face of Twitter, it will be interesting to see if they take a heavier role in news, or continue to be a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else," Ryan Kelly, founder of Pear Analytics, said of the findings.

Fox News Focus Group FAIL!

Focus group backfire! Guest tells Hannity protesters are "getting bad information from Fox News."

Gotz to be more careful.