The Fox “News” slogan that thinking people laugh at

It’s no secret to fans of the Not Now Silly Newsroom that our Head Writer, Headly Westerfield, has — to put it crudely — a hard-on for the Fox “News” Channel (and its crazy Fox “News” defenders) ever since he wrote for NewsHounds under the nom de plume Aunty Em Ericann.

That’s why bad news for Fox “News” is generally good news for the Not Now Silly Newsroom. Consequently, we were delighted to read about a recent decision by a New York federal judge upholding a FAIR USE argument on behalf of TVEyes, a service that archives, transcribes, indexes, and resells every minute of every day of every news channel. Subscribers pay $500 a month for access to this treasure trove of history in the making.

Fox “News” sued, saying that a service such as this: 1). Infringed on its copyright; 2). Would affect the channel’s ratings, because the service would also allow people to watch a live channel stream; 3). Would harm the licensing and syndication arm of Fox. According to Wendy Davis at MediaPost:

U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan said in a ruling issued this week that TVEyes’ indexing and clipping service was “transformative,” and therefore a fair use, because it serves a different function from the original broadcasts.

“Without TVEyes, there is no other way to sift through more than 27,000 hours of programming broadcast on television daily, most of which is not available online or anywhere else, to track and discover information,” Hellerstein wrote of the service, which counts the White House, Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs and branches of the U.S. military among its 2,200 paying subscribers.

“The White House uses TVEyes to evaluate news stories and give feedback to the press corps,” Hellerstein wrote. “The United States Army uses TVEyes to track media coverage of military operations in remote locations, to ensure national security and the safety of American troops.”

A far more accurate slogan for Fox “News”

Little wonder Fox “News” sued. Fox “News” would prefer people don’t have an express lane when exposing the patented Fox “News” Bullshit™ to the antiseptic light of day. While there is a great deal of Fox “News” mendacity exposed on the net, rarely is it the worst of the worst. Obsessive Fox “News” watcher Headly Westerfield codified it as The First Ten Rule at NewsHounds:

Over the years a pattern has developed on Fox “News,” and more specifically Fox and Friends, that’s worth examining in detail. News Hounds has often noted that F&F is the morning agit-prop table-setter for the entire Fox “News” day. However, within that pattern lies another pattern worth deep exploration. The First Ten™ minutes of Fox and Friends is the most important part of the channel’s entire day. A number of stories are covered on The First Ten, but the underlying thread is usually that they all make President Obama or the government look bad. Under the guise of bubbly happy talk, this heavily scripted segment—with just enough tomfoolery to make it sound ad libbed—is NEVER posted on Fox’s web site. That’s a shame because The First Ten™ is where Fox “News” launch a lot of its trial balloons. Some manage to float airily throughout the Fox schedule, trailing Right Wing memes. Others sink without a trace after one airing.

While that description is still accurate for those Foxy Friends on Fox & Friends, it also applies to the Foxy Friends on Fox & Friends First and those other Foxy Friends anchoring Fox & Friends Weekend.

But wait! That’s not all!!!

Increasingly during the broadcast day the patented Fox “News” Happy Talk Jab At Obama™ happens more and more than it ever did before. It happens most often when there are two anchors sharing the screen, but not exclusively. Sometimes it’s right at the end of one of the so-called pundit panels. It also happens as one anchors throws to another. At times it’s during the (possible) ad libs at the end of a story with the reporter who covered it in the field. There are other times it feels like extemporizing during the bumper going to commercial.

You never know what crazy person Fox “News” will put on the air and what crazy crap might tumble out of their mouths.

However, no matter in what part of the day the comments fall, it’s a safe bet they’ll be excised when the segments are eventually posted on Fox News (dot) com and FoxNation. These smears, attacks and (quite often) outright lies already debunked are delivered as an aside, a
conversational transition, a segue from one thing to another. But, they are some of the more insidious statements made on the Fox “News” Channel.

Too bad the Not Now Silly Newsroom cannot afford a subscription to TVEyes. As it stands the Not Now Silly Newsroom supercomputer is kept busy collecting Headlines Du Jour and researching Race Relations in Coconut Grove, for the most part. There is simply not enough left-over computing power to record Fox “News” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, despite the installed tuner. The computer chokes on files that big.

However, with a subscription to TVEyes I could order up a specific 20 seconds of video in which, f’rinstance [and totally made up as an example, because this would never happen in real life, donchaknow?], Tucker Fucker Carlson whines about how society as we know it is about to come to an end because the Nanny State has blah, blah, blah . . .

Sorry. Got carried away.

However, if TVEyes wanted to donate a subscription to the Not Now Silly Newsroom, Head Writer Headly Westerfield would certainly welcome it.