John Gibson (political commentator)
John Gibson is a television talk show host, hosting the weekday edition of The Big Story and The John Gibson Show on Fox News Radio. He has also filled in for Bill O'Reilly on both The Radio Factor and The O'Reilly Factor.
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. Critics of this argument say that Christmas was originally a secular holiday and was actually hijacked by early Christian Roman leaders in order to garner support for their new religion.
Controversial statements
Media pundit John Gibson's controversial statements brought criticism when he referred to religions, other than his own, as "wrong". [1] He is also known for making similarly bombastic statements with regard to race. [2]
- When London was chosen to host the 2012 Olympics, Gibson said that he regretted that Paris had not been chosen because it would have subjected that city to the threat of terrorism.[3] He also has stated that no one would care if France was a victim of a terrorist attack. [4]
- Following the positive HIV test of porn star Darren James on April 13 2004, a new HIV scare led to a search for all potentially infected partners of the actor, as well as a two-month shut down of adult movie production in Los Angeles. Commenting on this on April 29 2004, Gibson said that the actors "should not be surprised, considering what they do" and noted that "this was bound to happen to them sooner or later". [5]
- On the July 12 2005, edition of Fox News's The Big Story, host John Gibson said that White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove should be given "a medal" for outing covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, adding that Plame "should have been outed by somebody." [6]
- On the January 19 2006, edition of Fox News's 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.'" [7]
- 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."[8]
- On the May 10 2006, edition of Fox New's 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." [9] This flap is particularly amusing to critics of Gibson because Ahmadinejad is from Iran's most conservative party.
- On the May 11 2006 broadcast of "The Big Story", Gibson called for caucasians to have more children. His reasoning appeared to be in part 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.[10][11][12]
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"[13][14]. 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". [15]
Gibson's criticisms were rejected by Ofcom when it investigated viewer complaints of Gibson's item. [16] 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
- ^ Fox's Gibson: Christians tolerate those who are "following the wrong religion ... as long as they're civil and behave"
- ^ Gibson: "Make more babies" because in "(t)wenty-five years ... the majority of the population is Hispanic"
- ^ 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?"
- ^ [1]
- ^ Fox's Gibson: Rove deserves "a medal ... Because Valerie Plame should have been outed by somebody"
- ^ Bin Laden's Talking Points From Far Left? Editorial by John Gibson, published on FOXNews.com on January 19, 2006
- ^ [2]
- ^ Fox's Gibson, Barnes equated Iranian president's letter with positions of Democrats, progressives
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5]
- ^ [6]
- ^ [7]
- ^ 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.