Frankfurt’s Analysis Of BS Can Be Easily Applied To "Fair and Balanced" Fox

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Frankfurt’s Analysis Of BS Can Be Easily Applied To "Fair and Balanced" Fox
William Hare
May 23, 2005

Professor Harry Frankfurt is correct when he states with regret in his current bestseller “On Bullshit” that “B.S.” has reached dismal record levels. As an academic who teaches students to strive for communicative optimum he has every reason to feel distressed by what passes for media and public commentary in the advent of a new century where technological advancement is trumpeted at virtually every turn.

The problem, as Frankfurt would be the first person to concede, is that as we enhance the technology to facilitate communication the level of the message plummets to record lows. Marshall McLuhan was correct in the sixties when he posited that the medium was the message and the massage. If the sagacious Canadian were alive today he would assuredly agree that the message has developed so many twists and turns from disseminators that at times it becomes unrecognizable to anyone seeking precise and logical responses to critical questions.

Frankfurt, a philosophy professor at Princeton University, uses an example from the erudite British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to pose a timely point. Fania Pascal, who knew Wittgenstein in the thirties in Cambridge, penned him a message after having her tonsils removed. Pascal informed Wittgenstein that she felt “like a dog that has been run over.” Wittgenstein, who gained renown as a mathematician as well as a philosopher, believed that precision was in order. He responded with disgust, “You don’t know what a dog that has been run over feels like.”

Frankfurt bootstraps this point alongside a discussion of “humbug,” which is a palliative meant to take the sting out of erroneous communication. With terms like humbug and B.S.being used to sugar coat deception, a dangerous trend is developing. Certain statements cannot be easily refuted as lies under current evaluative standards. An example would be an individual’s insistence that he or she was in the lobby of a Manhattan building at 7 p.m. while a scientifically verifiable video camera could immediately refute this claim. The only way that the individual’s statement would not be deemed a lie would be if that person was operating under some form of delusion.

As Frankfurt notes, numerous situations arise in current communications, the mainstream media being a classic illustration, of conduct that falls short of the above illustration but is nonetheless riddled with deception. This pattern manifests itself frequently in the realm of political propaganda. Three such illustrations arise from Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News that relate to the type of conduct Frankfurt describes. The first was reportage from the latest U.S.-Iraq War, when camera crews recorded Fox reporter Oliver North beaming victoriously as he interviewed U.S. service personnel glowingly referring to victorious liberation over the forces of Saddam Hussein.

Based on battlefield reports a viewer could easily surmise that little or no damage came from those “smart bombs” that enhanced the process, and, at the time of their launching, prompted George W. Bush to hoist his fist and exclaim, “Feels good!”

At the same juncture when Fox was filming its feel good interviews conducted by former Iran-Contra architect North the Arab Al-Jazeera network was filming footage from the streets of Baghdad showing tremendous loss and devastation to persons and property. The response from a media all too currently accustomed to reporting the news as it sees fit was to complain that Al-Jazeera was engaging in propaganda. The U.S. government reacted by closing Al-Jazeera’s Baghdad broadcasting facility. Who was the actual propagandist in this case?

A second example from the network that calls itself “fair and balanced” occurred shortly before the 2004 presidential election. Neil Cavuto hosted a guest panel of individuals proposing to discuss the current U.S. economy. At a point wherein the nation had amassed a debt of some $7 trillion dollars in four short years the panelists, purporting to be economic experts, became cheerleaders rather than analysts.

The lone female panelist resembled Peter Pan preparing to leap into space as she, along with the other panelists, exclaimed, “Our economy is so strong, it’s so great!” Those awaiting some kind of explanation justifying the rosy picture, as well as a discussion of the conspicuous bump in the road in the form of the highest debt in the history of the planet, were doomed to disappointment. What was being presented was unabashed cheerleading under the deceitful guise of analysis.

Professor Frankfurt’s conclusion bears directly on the type of conduct described, and for which Fox News is notorious. Too often deceitful commentators wiggle off the hook on the unjustifiable excuse of “Oh well, that’s just B.S. and everybody does it.” As Frankfurt reveals, this type of commentary can be far more inherently harmful than an out and out lie that can be swiftly exposed.

Frankfurt is correct in stating that these “B.S.” type situations evoke more harm in the sense that they are deemed excusable because “everybody does it” and escape the mark of deception that should be attached to such commentary. The message is that as long as you can provide some obfuscation and subtlety with your message, rendering it outside the generally accepted lie zone, then the messenger can escape the obloquy of the described liar.

A final example relates to Fox bullyboy Bill O’Reilly’s outrageously deceptive invocation of his “no spin zone.” Under the rules O’Reilly has devised he immediately terminates interviews in which a guest engages in what he pejoratively defines as “spin,” which is explained by the talk show host as embodying lies and deceptive behavior. O’Reilly serves as judge and jury, providing the procedure with a definite kangaroo court element that is far removed from Fox’s “fair and balanced” claim.

When O’Reilly’s temper erupts and he cannot refute claims of a guest, as occurred with Jeremy Glick, the son of a 9-11 fatal victim, the host pulls the plug. In this case the act occurred in a state of rage without O’Reilly providing a shred of evidence of any deception on Glick’s part.

In another instance a female caller sought to discuss with O’Reilly what she perceived as “rudeness” toward guests who do not share his decidedly right wing views. He again immediately pulled the plug, explaining, “This is propaganda from the other side. You can’t get away with that in the no spin zone.” So O’Reilly has designed a technique to dodge any intellectual heat under the pretext of enforcing the truth at all times from guests. His phony act represents blatant deception rendered more disgusting in view of his lofty stated purpose of enforcing the truth.

What is currently needed is enhanced scrutiny and elevated standards. We should no longer shrug off conduct that, due to insidious use of subterfuge, fails to receive the condemnation of outright deceit that is richly deserved and necessary if present day communication is to avoid being irreparably prostituted through verbal sophistry.