The information coming out of Fox News is often misleading or clearly incorrect. People ask me, “Spocko, is there anything we can do about this? Can’t the FCC do anything? What about the FTC and truth in advertising laws?”

How can Fox employees get away with calling themselves journalists when they are acting more like lobbyists or employees of a PR firm?

Are there every any negative consequences for people who intentionally lie while calling themselves journalists?

I’ll bet you 10 quatloos that if you eat Thanksgiving dinner with right wing relatives one or more will make the baiting comment, “You know, the police never had to use tear gas on the tea partiers.”

TV news loves conflict. It’s exciting! What they don’t love is doing actual research and real reporting about the conflict. “We’ll leave that for the suckers at Frontline six months from now. Look! Behind you! A fire and people in hoodies running away! Are you getting all this?”

Information like who is causing the conflict, their motives and objectives are not really their forte. They do love the shots of rocks and tear gas being thrown, they don’t really care who is throwing them.

The police will object to this kind of video for many reasons including the fear that an undercover cop might be in danger if he is in another undercover operation. That’s really not our problem. The police made a decision to use an undercover cop in this way and they got caught. The MSM might agree with the police and refuse to run a story which would amplify the undercover cop’s identity, but now the protesters know and some of the public following along at home will find out, giving them more sympathy for the protesters and more suspicion of the police’s claims.

This morning there was a raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment.

Yesterday morning a retired military officer friend (RMOF) and I were conversing about what might happen next with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Since Michael Westen of Burn Notice or Annie Walker from Covert Affairs weren’t available, he offered some thoughts from the point of view of a non-fictional character who studies this stuff. I, as a media watcher and activist wanted to talk about how the media and power players will deal with the various actions and what we can do to predict the media’s actions so we can get ahead of news and prepare. I also have delusions of influencing the narrative, but I’m afraid that shuttle craft might have left the ship.

Here are a few of his thoughts and some of my questions, predictions and suggestions.

Yesterday I was sitting on my brother-in-law’s deck in sunny Santa Barbara reading Maria Armoudian’s new book, Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World. I was incredibly grateful for the sun because the first three chapters are grim. She covers the media’s role in the Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust and the Bosnian war. Thankfully I could look up and see hummingbirds after every chapter. Then she moved onto where the media worked constructively by aiding the peace process in Northern Ireland, rebuilding democracy in Chile, bridging ethnic divides in South Africa, improving the lives of women in Senegal –by changing the attitude toward female genital cutting (FGC), and boosting transparency and democratization in Mexico and Taiwan.

Today Fox and Glenn Beck’s production company said that Beck, “will be transitioning off his daily Fox News program.”

I’m very happy to hear this (don’t let Bones see me smiling). Beck and Fox are trying to spin this as some kind of “moving on to greater things” action instead of what it is; a big defeat for them and huge win for us. Beck is going off the air at Fox because of a successful, sustained action to convince advertisers that Beck is bad for their brand.