The opposite of "news."

As I write this, the White House Correspondents Association is deciding which news organization should get the coveted front-row center seat in the White House briefing room, recently vacated by venerable journalistic legend, Helen Thomas. Back in the real universe, it went directly to NPR, without any debate or hesitation. Because NPR has the distinction of actually being a news organization. It’s filled with real live actual journalists, committed to informing people.

But that’s back in the real universe, the sane one. Not this crappy universe we’re in now. In this pathetic excuse for a universe, they are actually considering giving the seat to Fox, which is not and never was, and, barring the intervention of benevolent deities or aliens, never will be, a news organization. They are, in fact, the exact opposite of a news organization.

When people listen to NPR for an hour, they will know more than they did an hour earlier, unless they were listening to Car Talk. If people listen to Fox for an hour they will actually know less than they did when they started. Because Fox's mission is to ensure that people are misinformed. They are anti-journalists, at an anti-news agency. I would not be surprised if their staff is composed of positrons and anti-protons, and that, were they to come into contact with an actual journalist, they’d be annihilated in a great explosion of gamma rays.

Note to Fox viewers. That was a reference to something called "science," another concept foreign to Fox, along with truth. Science is the same thing that tells people called scientists that the Earth is actually more than 6,000 years old and that global warming is real. It also makes toasters work. Go ahead: Try praying for your bread to turn into toast. Not very effective is it? Now try science. Hey now, look at that! You’ll be amazed to learn that this “science” gizmo also works with understanding the atmosphere!

Fox has an agenda, and the agenda is not to inform people. Some surveys conducted shortly after Bush's gulf war was launched revealed that a majority of Fox viewers believed that inspectors had found WMD's in Iraq and that Saddam Husein was linked to Al-Qaeda and the attacks on September 11. These things are not true and not a shred of evidence has ever emerged suggesting otherwise. But somehow Fox viewers were convinced of the truth of those two demonstrably false things.

Just to keep things straight:

People who watch or listen to actual news: Correctly believe that no WMDs were found.

People who watch Gilligan’s Island reruns all day: Do not know whether or not WMDs were found. Do not care. Want Doritos.

People who watch Fox: Believe that WMDs were found.

Therefore watching Fox is actually less informative than watching Gilligan’s Island. Or even listening to Car Talk.

Similar studies today would undoubtedly show that a majority of Fox viewers believe that there is evidence that President Obama is not an American citizen or that he is a Muslim. Or that the recently passed health-care bill contains provisions for the erection of “death panels” that will decide to haul your grandma off to slaughter. This is only true in the case of one US citizen: Tripp Johnston.

This is not a case of reasonable people differing reasonably on matters of opinion. These are gross misrepresentations of basic facts, which is Fox's bread and butter. (They don't have toast. Toast requires science.)

A friend of mine suggested that the large number of people that consider Fox to be a valid source of news and information gives it journalistic legitimacy. I could not possibly disagree any more strenuously, certainly not without dynamite anyway. Truth is truth and a lie is a lie, no matter whether one, a thousand, or a million people believe it.

Fox is not news. It’s not a reliable source of information. It’s a source of lies, deceit, and disinformation. They do not employ journalists. As noted, journalists would probably explode if they walked onto the premises. They employ propagandists. Professional liars who are very good at making people believe the world is different from the way it actually is.

A few national treasures like Al Franken, John Stewart, and Bill Maher manage to point out this sickening state of affairs while still maintaining a sense of humor, something I try and often fail to do. I need to learn their secret, or I really might explode.