This is why I love Jon Stewart. This is why we're really, really going to miss him.
Unfortunately, this kind of deliberate distortion of the news doesn't happen just at Fox. Here in Nebraska, you're likely to hear only one side of the news in the local media, too.
Every morning, I browse the websites of two local television stations (ever since my local newspaper went behind a paywall). They present some national news, too, of course - but it's interesting what they cover and what they don't.
When it comes to the troubles in Ferguson, Missouri, every bit of violence, rioting, and... spitting on the sidewalk was noted in news articles. Well, Missouri is a neighbor, right? But I haven't seen one word about the absolutely shocking Justice Department report on endemic racism - as a financial tool, no less - in the government there.
That act of treason by 47 Republican senators - including both of Nebraska's senators? Nothing. Complete silence. Wouldn't you think that Nebraska's own senators being a part of that would make it newsworthy in Nebraska?
Of course, Nebraska's news media jumped all over the Benghazi allegations - and also participated fully in the politically-manufactured Ebola hysteria that mysteriously stopped the minute elections were over in November. And Republican politicians are always handled with kid gloves. (That email 'scandal' of Hillary Clinton? Completely different.)
Sometimes, I'm astonished at how ignorant many Nebraskans are at what's going on in their own country, but this is why. By and large, they only get the right-wing side of the news - either because they self-select (watching Fox, but nothing else) or because that's all that's fed to them by their local media.
And the right-wing seems to have absolutely no shame about any of this. (Bill O'Reilly's serial lies? Fox 'News' didn't care in the slightest about that. Heck, they pay him to lie.)
But that comes with being faith-based, I suppose. When you know you're right, that makes any tactic justifiable. 'Lying for Jesus' is an established pattern of behavior that's easily stretched to politics, too - especially when you think it's the same thing.
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