Come to think of it, Fox Business Network isn’t much of a business network
October 22, 2009 by William K. Wolfrum
Since the Obama Administration took the offensive against Fox News – breaking the nationwide ban on telling the truth about Fox – many have vociferously complained. Ok, aside from Jake Tapper, the only ones complaining vociferously are Fox Newsians, but there has been some push back.
Of course, there are others that believe that Team Obama didn’t go far enough. After all, how could he just slam Fox News for not being a news organization without pointing out that the Fox Business Network isn’t really a business network.
The heroes at FBN’s Happy Hour decided to prove their utter worthlessness by interviewing Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne about the SEC:
Byrne was his typical, charming self. He invented a story about an anonymous “friend’s” dealings with the SEC. He managed to mention Overstock.com’s official media arm “DeepCapture.” He again claimed SEC officials are, or were, on the take.
What Byrne – and the Fox Business anchors – didn’t mention in this probing interview about the SEC? That Byrne’s company, Overstock.com, has been subpoena’d by the SEC and is being investigated on Overstock’s previously-announced restatements of its financial statements in 2006 and 2008 and other matters. It is the second time in three years Byrne and Overstock have been investigated by the SEC.
But that was apparently not worth mentioning during a discussion with Byrne about the SEC.
In the end, you may disagree with the Obama Administration’s war against Fox News. But when FBN can’t bring themselves to mention a massive conflict-of-interest from one of their guests – who happens to be a long-time Republican – there’s really no need to treat FBN like a real business network.
–WKW
[...] Read more here. Posted by Chris Roush | [...]
Much like Fox News, FBN refuses to let facts and reality stand in the way…
Same old, same old. Pat is a failure who has turned maybe a 2-for-1 profit on invested capital over a decade, in an environment where it rained money on competent people. He needs to blame someone.
And FBN is a failure in the making. Does anyone watch it?
Since stocks move on what’s really happening — not what is ideologically satisfying to pretend is happening — FBN can’t use FNC’s formula. There’s no proof as unambiguous in politics of success or failure as a stock price. If FBN doles out manure, people will know what it is and be relatively unattached to a network that loses them money.
If, on the other hand, we don’t find WMDs in Iraq people can rationalize. Or they can pretend some obscure document from Niger proves they still really must be somewhere. Or whatever. If FNC doles out nonsense, you can always blame the liberals. Because the point of FNC is to satisfy a need or desire for affirmation, not news.
Which is pretty much Pat Byrne’s act, by the way. It’s the business equivalent of saying Saddam and Qaeda (to Pat, the SEC and short sellers, plus the press) are the same team. Maybe that’s why the two of them are increasingly joined at the hip. You just can’t put him on with Liz Claman since she called out his fantasy about the secret short-seller’s fax machine at CNBC. Pat is trying to do the FNC thing on FBN, but it doesn’t work. The profit and loss is still what it is.
Jake Tapper is not going to like this column, WKW. Not one bit.
[...] William K. Wolfrum Chronicles Bill Wolfrum’s world of news, satire and commentary « Come to think of it, Fox Business Network isn’t much of a business network [...]
Well, their business is the same as that of Fox News – propaganda.
Perhaps when Fox News noncho Roger Ailes is president, FBN will attract more than a dozen viewers at one time. Ailes knows as much about business as he knows about mounting a successful satirical challenge to The Daily Show.
[...] WK Wolfrum has a good write up of what is a quintessential Fox story (albeit one from the utterly viewerless Fox Business Network rather than Fox News). The FBN Happy Hour decides to have a chat about the SEC and rather than interviewing someone from, oh, I don’t know, the SEC, they interview Overstock.com CEO Pat Byrne. That is enough of a WTF on its own. But the entire segment – Byrne predictably trashing the SEC and throwing around baseless accusations of bribery and hearsay from “a friend” – passes without noting the fact that, you know, Byrne and Overstock.com have just been subpoenaed as part of an SEC investigation into the company’s continued “restatement” of its past numbers. Could anything be a better snapshot of the kind of production and journalistic “ethics” behind Murdoch’s empire? The most logical person to invite on the air to talk about the SEC is a guy who is on the verge of having the SEC break it off in his ass. And why bother mentioning that Byrne just might not be an objective, disinterested observer here? [...]
I bet they(Fox News) don’t even know Stormy Simon provided all that christmas infotainment video a few christmases back or what it cost overstock.con investors.i bet they don’t even know why they ran it over their station over and over day in and day out or if they got any money for doing so or that the money came from a stock fraud.i bet they didn’t even realise it was an overstock.con stock ad.i bet they don’t even realise jon huntsman jr got his biggest campaign donation from the overstock.con fraud and don’t even know patrick byrne is behind it.i bet they didn’t even connect ex utah gov jon huntsman jr to his daddy who dropped by to brag about all he does for cancer research with all the chemicals he spews into the environment or that patty byrne’s campaign donation to make him governor has led him on a path to represent his father’s chemical company and its stock price in china as our ambassador and on and on…
i bet fox news hasn’t even figured out newsmax.con is connected to james dale davidson and everytime they lead their viewers to that scam wingnut site jim davidson tries to sell them pluristem rlacents stem cell shares that he runs with russian israeli mafia and patrice lumumba murder susepect frank carlucci of carlyle corporate fraud fame.
i bet they still don’t know ollie north enriched himself selling shares in a non existent bullet proof vest company or that their mideast experts mansoor ijaz and lt.thomas mcInerney
and mansoor ijaz(whose advise cost daniel pearl his head)ran a stock scam on the london stock exchange aim market with right wingnut and ex cia chief james woolsey that claimed to build underwater hotels in dubai and oman and monaco and under swimming pools in las vegas,etc,but mainly built offshore and isl of man accounts from themselves as investors got fleeced.i bet they still don’t realise their middle east or at least israel expert narc i mean marc ginsberg ran a scam with his israeli pals to defraud americans called xybernaut that vowed to place every american in a straight jacket with a casmera and computer attached to them so benjamin netanyahu could be sure he had their attention.or that was also a stock fraud against their fellow americans their station claims to inform and the israeli yahus behind that including the american and fox news middle east expert are still running free to our detriment.
we want even get into what cnn and wolf blitzer ignore ……not that i’d rely on cnbc to set them straight.
And did I mention Steve Forbes of Fox News whose Forbes magazine and internet digital rag promotes the lie of ‘naked short selling’, as he does himself without ever noticing the fact that the erroneous and unproven naked shorting claim has now gone from penny stocks such as Endovasc and Genemax of his NTU or National Tapayers Union founder James Dale Davidson(whose NAANSS was replaced by Patrick Byrne’s NCANS)on to outragous claims that even dividend paying stocks such as at first Novastar Financial to now according to the official SEC website,sec.gov,
and ex SEC Chairman Christopher Cox – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG and Goldman Sachs and a whole list of dividend paying stocks that were shorted or dumped in 2008 were instead – ‘naked shorted – a complete lie and the fact that all shareholders received their dividends right up to the collapseor time the ‘companies’ suspended issuing them
WERE NEVER NAKED SHORTED AT ALL OR SOME SHAREHOLDERS WOULD NOT HAVE RECEIVED THEIR SHARES !
No wonder SCUM LIKE PATRICK BYRNE ARE SO CONFIDENT THE SEC WILL DO NOTHING – AFTER ALL THE SEC AS CAN BE SEEN ON THEIR OWN WEBSITE,PROMOTES THE NAKED SHORT SELLING’ LIE ON ITS OWN WEBSITE IN COLLUSION WITH THIS ORGANIZED CRIME GROUP.