John Gibson (political commentator)
John Gibson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1946 |
| Occupation(s) | Commentator, Author, Journalist, television and conservative talk radio personality |
| Website | [7] |
John Gibson is a conservative American television talk show host, hosting the weekday edition of The Big Story and The John Gibson Show on Fox News Radio.
Prior to joining Fox News, Gibson hosted news talk programs on MSNBC and covered the Lewinsky scandal at length. He began his career in the late 1960's as a staff reporter for the entertainment gossip magazine, the Hollywood Reporter, and was a reporter and weekend anchorman at KCRA, the NBC affiliate in Sacramento, during the 1980's. He later joined NBC News as a correspondent before moving to MSNBC.
Books
Gibson is the author of Hating America: The New World Sport (2004), and The War on Christmas (2005). The War on Christmas argues that "a cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists and liberal, guilt-racked Christians, not just Jewish people..." are trying to secularize Christmas.
Controversial statements
- When London was chosen to host the 2012 Summer Olympics, Gibson said that he regretted that Paris had not been chosen because it would have subjected that city to the threat of terrorism.[1] Gibson's underlying theme was that France would then have to resort to counter-terrorism measures it condemns other contries for engaging in, not that he hoped Paris would suffer an attack. He also has stated that no one would care if France was a victim of a terrorist attack. [2]
- On the January 19 2006 edition of The Big Story, after the release of a tape by militant Osama Bin Laden, Gibson stated, "(Bin Laden) is talking to America's far left and saying, 'You know what. We're on the same side. So why don't you work on that hardhead George W. Bush? Bin Laden told us Thursday that our far left has been working for him. It's their poll results he quotes.'" [3]
- In his defense of Ambassador John Bolton and repudiation of the United Nations and the Third World, referring to the Third World, "That latter group includes a huge number of so-called nations, little more than spots on the map that would get invaded, taken over, subsumed, eliminated, except no-one wants to get stuck with their problems of poverty, disease and corruption."[4]
- On the May 10 2006, edition of The Big Story, after the release of a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to U.S. President George W. Bush, Gibson compared the letter from the Iranian President to talking points and positions by Democrats. Gibson said, "Terry McAuliffe and the other Democrats should pay close attention to their talking points these days. That nut job running Iran, President — let's see if I can pronounce it — Ahmadinejad, sent President Bush a letter, and if it weren't postmarked Tehran, it might have been mistaken for a crank letter from an angry leftist in L.A. or Boulder or Cambridge, Massachusetts. Christians are not acting like Christians, says the Iranian president. Democrat talking point. WMD lies, says the Iranian president. Democrat talking point. Human-rights abuses in Gitmo. Another Democrat talking point. The gap between haves and have-nots. The Iranian president and the Dems in lockstep on that one, too." [5]
- On the May 11 2006 broadcast of The Big Story, Gibson called for Caucasians to have more children. Never did he use the word "caucasian". His reasoning was to prevent Hispanics from ever being the racial majority in America. It is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau that persons of Hispanic descent will make up well over one-third of the U.S. population by the year 2050.[6][7][8]
- On the January 18th, 2007 broadcast of The Big Story, Gibson highlighted a right-wing report alleging that Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) attended an Islamic madrassa as a 6-year-old child. In a memo released January 24th, Obama’s office specifically called out Fox News host John Gibson for discussing the story “without any attempt to independently confirm the charges.” On his radio show that week, Gibson refused to back down. He claimed the CNN reporter who debunked the false report “probably went to the very madrassa” as Obama. Gibson implied that CNN’s report had covered up religious extremism at the school:
GIBSON: What did they see when they went to the madrassa where Barack Obama went to school?
HOST: Kids playing volleyball.
GIBSON: Playing volleyball, right. They didn’t see them in any terrorist training camps?
HOST: No.
GIBSON: No. Um, but they probably didn’t show them in their little lessons where they’re bobbing their heads and memorizing the Koran.
HOST: I didn’t see any tape of that, no.
- After CNN Senior International Correspondent John Vause, dispatched to Indonesia specifically to investigate[9], debunked the story of Barack Obama's alleged attendance at an Indonesian madrassa as claimed in The Washington Times-owned Insight Magazine, then repeated on Fox & Friends, Gibson continued the Insight magazine "madrassa" media controversy fray by insinuating the false report had merit[10].
- On the May 31, 2007 broadcast of The Big Story, Gibson, commenting on the tuberculosis infection of Andrew Speaker, remarked, "It seems every time a story pops up about somebody who has suddenly contracted some strange or incurable disease, it's somebody who is either from the third world, or was traveling through some godforsaken hellhole, and somehow managed to contract ooga booga fever."
Gibson vs. the BBC
An outspoken critic of the BBC, Gibson claims that the British Broadcasting Corporation is anti-American, accusing the BBC of having "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest"[11][12]. He also claimed that reporter Andrew Gilligan, who was covering the 2003 Iraq War for BBC Radio 4 in Baghdad, had, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American military". [13]
Gibson's criticisms were rejected by Ofcom when it investigated viewer complaints of Gibson's item. [14] It was found that the words he attributed to Gilligan were false, and "the manner in which John Gibson delivered these lines and the fact that he indicated that Gilligan said it "on-air" gave the distinct impression that he was quoting Gilligan directly. It did not appear that he was summarising Gilligan’s reporting. Furthermore, Fox News failed to provide any evidence, except that it felt that Gilligan’s reporting of the U.S. advance into Baghdad was incorrect, that supported this statement."
References
- ^ Missed Opportunity Editorial by John Gibson, published on FOXNews.com on July 06 2005.
- ^ Fox's Gibson on "golden opportunity" missed: If France had been selected for 2012 Olympics, terrorists would "blow up Paris, and who cares?"
- ^ Bin Laden's Talking Points From Far Left? Editorial by John Gibson, published on FOXNews.com on January 19, 2006
- ^ [1]
- ^ Fox's Gibson, Barnes equated Iranian president's letter with positions of Democrats, progressives
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ CNN debunks false report about Obama CNN, January 23, 2007
- ^ Fox’s Gibson: CNN Reporter Who Debunked Obama Smear Probably Went To The Same Madrassa Think Progress, January 24, 2007
- ^ [5]
- ^ [6]
- ^ Liar, liar. Editorial by John Gibson., published on FOXNews.com on January 29 2004.
- ^ Standards Cases - Upheld Cases - The Big Story: My Word - Published in Ofcom Broadcast Bulletin Number 11 on June 14 2004.
Bibliography
- Gibson, John. The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought. (Sentinel, 2005). ISBN 1-59523-016-5.
- Gibson, John (2004). Hating America: The New World Sport. (ReganBooks, 2004) ISBN 0-06-058010-0.