Fox News criticizes - and misleads viewers on - Tesla, Fisker DOE loans
Fox News on Fisker, Teska DOE loans - Click above to watch the videos after the jump
Pop quiz: what country is Tesla Motors based in? England? Wrong. What about Fisker Automotive? Finland? Wrong again, but if you gave those two answers, you might be qualified to be on Fox News and criticize the Department of Energy for giving loans to these two companies, both of which are based in California. Fisker got $528.7 million and Tesla Motors was awarded $465 million.
Of course, the DOE loans are intended to be used to bring manufacturing and engineering jobs to the U.S., a bit of information that Fox just barely mentions. Fisker will conduct engineering work in Pontiac, MI and its Irvine, California headquarters for Project Nina, the company's lower-cost plug-in hybrid. Tesla will use the money to bring the Model S to market through a manufacturing facility, most likely to be built somewhere in California.
Fox news anchor Martha MacCallum also seems to enjoy harping on the "Karma" name, as if it's just a hippie car or something, She also made sure to highlight the connection between Fisker and Al Gore, but didn't mention Colin Powell's connection to the company. Watch the video after the jump and read the transcript of the exchange over on Media Matters.
UPDATE: Fisker responds.
[Source: Fox News, Media Matters via Hybrid Cars]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
KK 12:01PM (10/02/2009)
They're not the only ones fixated on Al Gore's connection to Fisker. A recent headline on Wall Street Journal read:"Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan To Help Build A Hybrid Sports Car". Huffington Post repeated that headline on their page too (with a link to the WSJ article).
Reply
wincros 1:27PM (10/02/2009)
Both Fox News and the Wall Street Journal are owned by Rupert Murdoch. Their editorial concurrence is not surprising.
Lad 1:46PM (10/02/2009)
Fox spends their time bashing Democrats and MSNBC spends their air time reporting on wrong-doing by the Republicans. If you put the contents together, it adds up to the entire Congress being full of crooks and con men, run by lobbyists with company special interest money...and you know what? they are not far from being right. But, I don't care; if I want to know what's really going on in Congress, I tune in BBC America.
Ghen 2:39PM (10/02/2009)
Lad: Both news channels should be forced to put a banner at the top of their broadcast stating the lack of real facts in their news. What disgusts me more is the people on both sides of the fence that actually believe this sewage.
Tohe 11:16PM (10/02/2009)
@Ghen
I'm sorry but MSNBC consistently is NOT akin FAUX News.
Nick From Montreal 12:01PM (10/02/2009)
I'm sure glad we don't have these extreme right-wing TV channels in Canada. Tell you what Fox News, send us your electric car companies in exchange for those GM shares that we have and we'll take care of them for you. Deal?
Reply
Avro 12:19PM (10/02/2009)
Completely agree. For whatever reason, our (Canadian) news sources never stray too far from one side to the other and I have never noticed a definite bias of one news source over an other.
"Propaganda is the dissemination of information aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of people"
hmmmm... now why does that seem to apply so well to american news stations..
Propaganda should be banned from news networks. Am I alone thinking it scary that the citizens of one of the most powerful nations are subject to so much of it??
Throwback 2:13PM (10/02/2009)
"Propaganda should be banned from news networks."
Avro, please define propaganda. How is propaganda different from opinion? Should we ban all opinion except for government approved opinion?
Joeviocoe 4:09PM (10/02/2009)
Um... he started out defining "propaganda".
And there is a clear difference between someone's opinion being delivered as opinion and what fox news (and others) does by taking opinion and delivering it as journalism.
How many blatantly false headlines do you see on fox news that is displayed as real news while they put a question mark at the end to show that the statement is not verified?
"Obama will destroy the U.S. economy?"
shaunehunter 4:52PM (10/02/2009)
Way give us their electric car companies? So our conservative government can make up excuses not to license them on our roads. Don't agree? I'll meet you at the local Zenn dealer to discuss it.
Nick From Montreal 5:16PM (10/02/2009)
Actually, Zenn is a penny stock play and a poor excuse for a car company. They are more interested in pump & dump schemes than coming out with real functional working cars.
Pump & Dump schemes are most effective when used to prop a company dealing with a revolutionary technology that is still far off from working out. This way, new investors can be duped while delays are accumulating. They live on investors' hope.
Until recently, electric cars were perfect for scams like this. Legitimate companies such as Nissan, Tesla, GM & Fisker entering the fray has spoiled the pond for scammers. This is why Zenn is now going into vaporware batteries now.
Nozferat 1:50PM (10/05/2009)
@THROWBACK:
Propaganda is not different from opinion?
OH....ok...now I completely understand why FUX news can get away with what it does. That explains a lot.
Mohannair70 12:08PM (10/02/2009)
Yawn! What more can you expect from Faux Noise?
Reply
Carney 12:12PM (10/02/2009)
The Citizens Against Government Waste spokesman on the segment did point out that the program began under Bush.
Reply
nrb 12:14PM (10/02/2009)
Both sides have valid concerns. Shame on Fox News for slanting it one way. Shame on ABG for slanting it the other way. It'd be nice if we had media that was actually neutral on the issues.
Reply
Carney 12:21PM (10/02/2009)
Right, and Media Matters has its own agenda too.
Yes Fox slanted the story, but none of the "refutations" have admitted that the Karma is indeed made in Finland, and the Roadster is assembled in the Lotus factory in England.
Joeviocoe 4:31PM (10/02/2009)
And none of the counter-refutation admit that the stipulations for the DOE loans are not to finance the Roadster or the Karma.
The money is for the Model S and Fisker's newest sedan. I will admit that I don't know where the new Fisker will be built or how far along in development it is.
But before you label this a fraud because Rupert Murdoch says it is, remember this. You can't ever get a loan with out a contract. There are no blank checks. If the DOE loans were meant to create U.S. jobs, then that is what the money will be allocated for.
polo 4:32PM (10/02/2009)
I didn't know mediamatters had a "news" channel to push their own agenda, and that they regularly pass off easily disproven lies and disinformation to their viewers.
Carney 1:04PM (10/05/2009)
polo, MediaMatters doesn't need its own newschannel. The entire media establishment accepts MediaMatters' basic premises and assumptions, and agrees with MM's complaint that it is failing to slant the news to the left ENOUGH.
MM's careful failure to mention just where the Karma is manufactured and the Roadster is assembled speaks volumes.
The real media watchdog, which provides a check on the broader media's center-left or left conventional wisdom, rather than obsessing about the only outlier TV news channel and various commentators (as opposed to purportedly objective news providers) is the Media Research Center.
beavis1a03 12:19PM (10/02/2009)
This is so wrong on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. But let's just jump to the conclusions.
Fox News is crap and their anchors are uneducated tools. End of discussion.
Reply