The NYTimes published an article about Fox News' declining market share. Fox News' Fox and Friends got irked about it, and complained about the "hit piece" in the NYTimes.

During their segment, they altered the photos of the journalist and editor behind the story to make them uglier. Media Matters showed the actual images next to the edited images. Here they are.

Below is a screenshot of Fox & Friends featuring the photo it used of Steinberg, with the original photo on its left. Comparing the two photos, it appears that the following changes have been made: Steinberg's teeth have been yellowed, his nose and chin widened, and his ears made to protrude further.



Similarly, a comparison of the photo of Reddicliffe used by Fox News and the original photo suggests that Reddicliffe's teeth have been yellowed, dark circles have been added under his eyes, and his hairline has been moved back.

Now, my opinion of Fox News is not very high. But even I didn't think they'd stoop to the photoshop equivalent of drawing little mustaches on their perceived enemies. Is it a coincidence, as jgische pointed out to me, that they exaggerated the nose and ears of the guy with the Jewish name?

Oh, and they didn't even do it well. Check out the modified hairline on Reddicliffe, with the blurry top of his forehead, as if the top of his head just isn't in focus. C'mon, guys, I suck at photoshop and even I could do better than that.

Fox News has done very well over the last 8 years by being friendly with the people in power, and very unfriendly to liberals and Democrats. Apparently, it's time to pay the piper.

Obama and Clinton pulled out of a Fox News-sponsored debate, following Edwards. It's not going to be much of a draw with the three leading contenders ignoring it. Obama has some history with Fox News.

On the one hand, I did chortle at Fox's predicament. They have spent a long time deliberately preferring one end of the domestic political spectrum, and now that the other end has something they want, they are out of luck. On the other hand, the fact that they were sponsoring the debate could mean that they actually want to repair that relationship a little, in which case it would be foolish to deny them.

...nah. Those jerks should pay.

On the O'Reilly Factor last night (thanks to The Raw Story, which has a link to the clip if you care):

Bill O'Reilly: "The truth of the matter is, our correspondents at Fox News can't go out for a cup of coffee in Baghdad."

Condoleezza Rice: "Bill, that’s tough. It's tough. But what -- would they wanted to have gone out for a cup of coffee when Saddam Hussein was in power?"

So let me get this straight. Condi's defense of our invasion of Iraq is that it makes the place more newsworthy? By that metric, we should thank the hurricane for making large swaths of Louisiana a much more attractive place for reporters.

In Fox News' coverage of the Valerie Plame miniscandal, it's hard to find any mention that the issue revolves around Rove. Coverage of the Rove angle could be found on the AP, CNN, Reuters, Google News, etc., for days before it showed up on Fox. Now the latest of their coverage:

Valerie Plame bought some concert tickets. She bought them from ACT, a Democrat election organization group, so there's some political angle.

Actually... what would the political angle be? It turns out that you're allowed to make political contributions, and after you've been outed by the administration, is it weird that you might make contributions to the opposition? Also, as contributions go, $372 to buy Bruce Springsteen is pretty minimal.

The general public has a number of misconceptions about the Iraq war: that Iraq was involved with the 9/11 attacks; that most of the world supported our invasion; and that we found WMDs in Iraq. The Pipa Poll looked at these, and among other things, cross referenced beliefs with where people get their news. Here's what they found.



If you get your news from Fox, you get lots of things wrong, as expected. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that NPR is the best source of news, at least as far as these specific misconceptions are concerned.

Not that that necessarily makes up for how annoying it is during pledge drives.

Lots more analysis of this issue at the Democratic Committee's site, where they unsurprisingly have some spin to put on results like these.