Does anyone here agree with Dyke? Are there any dopers out there who watch Fox News? Do you believe that Fox is more or less biased when it comes to reporting world news?
I can’t really say if Fox is baised or not seeing as I don’t watch them (I tend to stick with BBC), but this is not the first time I heard about Fox’s right-wing (or in this case pro-war) slant.
What about the claim that American News stations in general are biased? Do you agree? I know that most dopers are in fact Americans so it will be interesting to hear some replies from that perpective.
It’s part of Dyke’s role to protect the BBC. What he seems to be doing is two things;
Protecting his patch, and
Continuing the build up to the BBC ‘s campaign for its Charter renewal next year (I think next year).
In other words, it’s a lot more about Dyke doing his job and a lot less about the US media, IMHO - the US angle is a convenient tool (subtext, ‘Give us the Charter or UK media goes the way of that lot over there’)
… but none of that will stop a debate from taking the usual patriotic lines so off you all go …
I’m not an American, nor have I ever seen Fox News, but I know that Fox has often been mentioned on these boards and my general perception is that people here believe it’s journalistic standards to be low whatever their own politics or attitude to the war in Iraq.
I had the same thoughts as London_Calling. It’s a guy trying to protect his monopoly. I did kind of find the implicit message amusing, though – the BBC was objectively right in its coverage so no competition should be allowed.
I don’t look at a large amount of US news but I do see on occasions the NBC nightly news, the CBS news (I think. It’s hosted by Rather) and CNBC news. All these are carried on the cable I get.
All the above news shows were way way way more patriotic and gave a more pro war feel than any of the Brit news station I saw including Sky News (A part of the Fox group). Things like the wall with pictures of serving soldiers on it, called something like the “wall of the bravest” and articles showing worried families etc. on news program jar with me as these things are not done on Brit news shows. They are sometimes done on other type of programs but not the news.
Anyhoo that’s my POV and I’m getting out of this thread quickly before it becomes another Europe V US thread.
Having watched US news regularly throughout the Afghanistan campaign and into the prelude to the Iraq war, and having continued to watch CNN since my moving back to Europe in late February, having also access to the BBC, Euronews, French and German TV, I sometimes found it hard to believe I was dealing with supposedly independent press watching CNN. And that’s saying something. If I have to draw conclusions on how Fox dealt with this war, I have serious doubts whether there are more than minute differences between them and Iraqi TV, especially given the smear campaigns Murdoch launched with other parts of his media empire.
Sorry, but Dyke is dead on, regardless what the motivations for his statements are. Even CNN drowned in gung-ho patriotism.
Fox News claims to be “fair and balanced,” but I think they clearly have a right-wing slant. More than half of their pundits are conservative. Their conservatives tend to be stronger than their liberals. E.g., the conservative Sean Hannity is a more powerful advocate than the liberal Alan Colmes, on their joint show. OTOH, Fox News isn’t as one-sided as CNN or NPR or (from what I’ve read) BBC, where nearly all of the staff are left of center.
I would agree with Dyke that Fox News coverage of the war was pro-American and “rah-rah” (very postive). I don’t see pro-American as a problem. Why shouldn’t an American station favor the American side? Especially when the enemy is a monster like Saddam and the Ba’ath Regime.
Fox’s positive spin turned out to be correct. The war did go extremely well. The BBC’s “balanced” reporting was less acurate. Dyke’s complaints sound like sour grapes. Fox News was right and his station was wrong.
I have seen surveys showing that a big majority of Americans believe that American News is biased to the left. Dyke’s complaint that they are biased to the right is a minority opinion over here. One might guess that Dyke’s political leaning is far to the left of the average American’s. What we see as a left of center position may look right of center to Dyke.
So a bais news channel is good? Especially when “the enemy” is a “monster”? Please explain, because I have trouble with this statement, it seems to be circular resoning.
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I would like to see citation for your claims that BBC was in any way “wrong” in this war and Fox was right.
I was quite lucky, as during this war I had a choice of four english-speaking news channels (not to mention many more Turkish ones, but I had alot of difficulty following them as I am quite new to Turkish) - BBC World, CNN International, Euro News and Fox News.
The BBC were pretty much their usual selfs, with no inherrant bias either way and mainly focusing on reportage with little to no editorial.
CNN (though I’ve got a feeling that CNN International has different staff to the US CNN as most of their anchors had English accents) had more editorial but from what I saw it would be unfair to call them bias in either direction overall.
EuroNews was pretty good, mainly because of it’s diversity (it draws all of it’s coverage from several major European broadcasters such as ITN), my favourite section being “No Comment” when they would just show footage without any reporters or comment dubbed on. Of course drawing from so many other stations it the opinion expressed on it ran the whole gammett (though perhaps slightly favoured the anri-war camp, though this was not by design more to do with the fact that it is a News monitor).
Fox News was unashamedly bias giving out a hawkish (and to me anyway), sneering point of view. I have the feeling that people who watch Fox News aren’t particuarly interested in an impartial point of view in heir news coverage, rather their own point of view. Still, though they span many issues they ceratianly didn’t ignore any.
december you do know that your concept of what Left and Right means is almost meaningless in the UK and most of Europe don’t you?
How is the BBC saying that people think the war could go badly not accurate? You always seem to have a problem separating the messenger from the message. The fact is that there was a huge anti war feeling in Europe and the media dealt with that as they should have.
Sorry, but that’s humbug. Neither can it be said now that the war did go well, since the outcome as to its political goals are entirely open, nor can it be said that the BBC’s reporting was in any way inaccurate. Unless, of course, you’d have specific reports that you can disprove.
It is entirely irrelevant to the issue at question, however, when you look at US media being largely oblivious to a lot of critical issues that raise serious concerns on the conduct of the US in the war, and to the suffering of the Iraqi people as a consequence of the war. As an example, compare a report on US TV about the consequences of the war for children with one with the same issue on German TV. The US report dealt exclusively with the traumatizing of US kids by seeing the war on TV. The German report also adressed that issue, but also included the consequences for Iraqi children, many of which now die from illnesses that could be easily treated if medical supplies got through to the hospitals, and if the hospitals had not been plundered.
Indeed. But that doesn’t change that Dyke’s position is closer to the real political spectrum than the slanted American view which lacks a substantial true left. But left or right is not really the issue here, but the fine line between patriotism and ultranationalism, which is equally slanted in the US.
Which highlights a point I made in an earlier thread. The U.S. is basically a center-right country. Europeans would laugh at the notion of what some on the American Right call “leftist.” It is quite possible to be accused of being too far to the Left in the U.S. simply for being a tiny step to the left of center–or even for not being sufficiently right of center.
Calling “all the staff” of CNN or NPR “left of center” requires that one define the center as being over on the right side of the scale. (They are certainly to the left of the current administration, but that is like saying they are left of Rupert Murdoch.)
I am a “Fox fan”. I love their news style. To me, it is entertaining and still newsworthy. My wife and I laugh our asses off when O’reilly(sp?) and Shep let their guests have it for trying to bait ans switch, or otherwise annoy them. I still watch other news when Fox starts over editorializing on certain points instead of giving the “straight news”, like on live speeches or breaking news.
All of the news channels I have seen, even local broadcast, is bias*. BBC, CBC, ABC, and every non-American major news outlet I visit regularly, does the exact same thing. They “cheerlead” for their troops as well as give partisan slants on news stories in most circumstances.
I agree with London that Mr. Dyke is trying to cause a stir for his own benefit.
Seems this is a non-story story,. And Mr Cheif just wants his 15 minutes, or has an agenda due to unknown circumstances.
*C-SPAN is the most straight-laced news I have ever come across. I go to them regularly on Live news and when I want a truely unbiased and “both sides” debate.
The separation makers no sense from his perspective; you control the message by owning the messenger - not something we’re (in Europe) overly familiar with. Thank goodness.
Quite simply: They do. They have arisen out of very specific historical conventions, and the fact that someone considers everyone to the left of Rush Limbaugh a leftist merely says something about such a person’s need for a better education rather than the political spectrum.
It would, but do you have a cite for those “facts”? You wouldn’t be putting an bias slant on your editorialising would you dear OliverH?. You must understand, that I have never seen you post anything but condescending opinions about the US. You are in most US bashing and conspiracy threads. Be careful before you are considered a OTP.
So, who “everyone to the left of Rush Limbaugh a leftist”.
I think Saddam’s government was objectively awful. I don’t think a US news station should have treated them as morally equivalent to the Coalition. Similarly, I do not think that any US news station ought to have treated the NAACP as morally equivalent to the murderers of James Byrd.
This comment mirrors Yojimbo’s “How is the BBC saying that people think the war could go badly not accurate?” It’s a matter of focus. Fox News focused on aspects of the war that were going well, which gave an impression that the entire war was going well. That impression turned out to be true. The war ended in less than three weeks, with minimal coalition civilian casualties, few oil-well fires, no attack on Israel, no spreading to other countries, and a postive reception to the coalition by many Iraqis.
From what I saw of it, BBC gave more attention to aspects of the war that weren’t going well, which gave the impression that the entire war wasn’t going well. This impression turned out not to be the case.