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Thursday, May 15, 2014

#Benghazi yes. #Bringbackourgirls no


Pink ribbons and walk-a-thons don’t eliminate breast cancer. Peace signs don’t end wars. 

And #BringBackOurGirls – a Twitter campaign launched for the nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls stolen by terrorist group Boko Haram – isn’t intended to cause the leader of Boko Haram to give himself up. All of these symbols, as well as others, and the campaigns that accompany them, are largely about awareness.

But Fox News says “phooey” to Twitter efforts to raise worldwide awareness of the kidnapped Nigerian girls; on Fox News Sunday, in response to Chris Wallace’s query as to whether the BringBackOurGirls hashtag campaign is nothing more than a “feel good” exercise, commentator George Will remarked, “It’s an exercise in self-esteem. I do not know how adults stand there, facing a camera, and say, ‘Bring back our girls.’ Are these barbarians in the wilds of Nigeria supposed to check their Twitter accounts and say, ‘Uh oh, Michelle Obama is very cross with us, we better change our behavior’?” 

Brit Hume chimed in, eliciting a chuckle from the panel when he exclaimed, “It’s trending! It’s trending on Twitter!”

Funny, a search of Fox News’ site shows no sign at all of chuckles and giggles around the hashtag campaign #WhatAboutBenghazi, which conservatives have launched in response to the photo of Michelle Obama promoting the #BringBackOurGirls awareness campaign. 

And despite its massive following, Fox commentators are undismayed by the #Benghazi campaign launched by right-wingers, and some of Fox commentators, in fact, have even attempted to tie the Boko Haram kidnappings to the right-wing-manufactured Benghazi “scandal.” Tweeted Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham: “Same Islamist ideology behind #Benghazi attack is behind Nigerian kidnappings.”

Fox stalwarts (as in Republicans) have used – and overused – #Benghazi, without a peep out of Fox & Friends, The Five, or any of the other “fair and balanced” Fox News hosts, commentators or anchors.

Evidently, women dying of breast cancer, and black schoolgirls being kidnapped and sold into slavery, are of no import to those on Fox News, and such low impact issues are not worthy of their respect – or, Fox-supported hashtag campaigns. 

Benghazi, on the other hand, is worthy of any number of hashtag campaigns, and nobody on Fox is showing any level of snark around it at all – unlike #BringBackOurGirls, about which Fox News recently tweeted, “Rep. Rogers suggests administration needs tougher foreign policy than #bringbackourgirls
FoxNewsInsider tweeted, “Bill O’Reilly on #Benghazi: Obama Admin Is ‘Completely Derelict and the Press Doesn’t Give a Damn’.” Well, no worries – Fox is always there to fill in the information gaps on what the “press,” and the American public, doesn’t give a damn about.