Media Matters Furious That Fox News Calls Government Option the "Government Option"

Bill Sammon, manager of Fox’s Washington Bureau, sent out an email instructing staff to call the “public option” the “government option.” Renaming government projects and entities to falsely reflect public ownership (and suggest choice, when in fact, there is none) isn’t new. Germany had the Volkswagon which literally translates to “People’s Car,” then there’s the People’s Republic of China.

So Sammon had no interest playing a game of semantics devised by the left to curate public favor by renaming what the option actually is – and? Media Matters is furious that Fox refused to play the game according to the frame that Media Matters is desperately trying to set.

Luntz argued that “if you call it a ‘public option,’ the American people are split,” but that “if you call it the ‘government option,’ the public is overwhelmingly against it.” Luntz explained that the program would be “sponsored by the government” and falsely claimed that it would also be “paid for by the government.”

Media Matters is upset that Fox didn’t use a term that would skew the field to the left.

It’s precisely the thing for which they are attempting to criticize Fox but this irony eludes them – but not the rest of us, which is what makes this so amusing. How is Fox incorrect in calling it a “government option?” That’s exactly what it is. Is Media Matters more interested in truthful identification or sugar-coating it so as to assist Democrats? Perhaps that’s what Soros gave them $1 million to do.

Media Matters accidentally shows their cards here in that by protesting the term “government option,” they are implying that the term has a negative connotation – which means that they know something is incredibly wrong with a nationalized, a.k.a. socialist, health care system. Either they’re ignorant of the concerns or they ignore them thus making their reporting more disingenuous than previously categorized. It’s a tough position in which to sit: ignorance or dishonesty? Media Matters lobbied hard for government-run care; they should embrace its accurate description and congratulate Fox for their commitment to honestly identify the policy.

While Media Matters obsesses over semantics and parades a bunch of “anonymous” sources, the President signed the biggest case of institutionalize fraud in our generation. Media Matters chose to be complicit by neglecting the job it claims to do: journalism.