That was exactly the point he was trying to make, btw.
What’s the standard formula for TV news stations for correcting mistakes? Are Fox decent at recognising and admitting any mistakes they make?
I appreciate your directness.
If you don’t trust Fox News, then I doubt I can convince you otherwise. Especially if we’re speaking practically, even if I somehow trick you into saying Fox News is perfectly reputable, I doubt you’ll suddenly become an avid viewer.
Fox News has certainly gotten things wrong. They have probably gotten more things wrong than the NY Times. All I’m trying to say is that it appears that they’ve gotten far more things right than they’ve gotten wrong, and I doubt that they’ve gotten more things wrong than CNN, MSNBC, or the BBC (which, by the way, I love).
If people don’t like or just don’t watch Fox News, I have no problem with that. I just have a problem when people suggest that Fox News is disreputable simply because they dislike Fox News or associate it with conservative viewpoints. Turn it on at any point in the day, and Fox News is likely reporting on the same major stories, and relaying the same facts, as the other major news networks. The only major differences are the filler – which includes a lot of editorializing – which is addressed towards a conservative audience.
If you don’t like Fox News, I’m not going to tell you to watch it. But I haven’t seen anything to make me believe that Fox News is less trustworthy than any other major news network.
Try it now.
Well that seems fair, perhaps it does boil down to the fact I do not like their talking head pundits and so I distrust the entire network. News Prints (and Internet News) does not suffer from this problem, as I simply do not bother much with the NY Times Editorial pages. Maybe it boils down to the fact that it is tough to compare the two mediums. In general I find all TV news far less reliable an trustworthy than papers like the NY Times, Wall Street Journal and The Star Ledger. I would put CNN which I do trust the most of the TV News on par with USA Today. A large step down from the other three Newspapers I listed.
BTW: I love the BBC News website to get an outside perspective without the US centric view for world affairs.
Jim
I tried this one day in the midst of the whole Plame and Abramhoff stuff and their ‘coverage’ was about how illegal all the government leaking was and how it needed to be stopped.
Sure the facts they report might be the same, but its the way they frame those facts that gets people worked up.
I agree with pretty much everything here. I don’t watch a lot of Fox News either, simply because I’d rather read about the facts and make up my own mind than watch two pundits browbeat each other into submission.
I think tv news in general suffers from more mistakes, perhaps because of the 24 hour news cycle. You’re trying to get news on-air as soon as it breaks, which means there isn’t as much of a chance to fact check. Plus, most news reports appear to be extemporaneous speaking, which is a good way to mess things up.
Give me a well written newspaper article any day. Unless we’re talking about Lara Logan. I’d buy a ticket to watch her read a brochure on insurance deregulation, and then spend the next 3 hours writing “LL + AQA = Luv 4 Ever” on all my notebooks.
During the invasion of Iraq, the first internet site I stopped at every day was the BBC. It’s familiar enough that you know what they’re talking about, but just different enough that it’s invaluable.
What would you say do you find most different about the BBC? Just asking as an interested person, i’m not looking to argue with you on this.
I agree that adding a good non-American news source to your regular viewing is a great idea. It really does help you see things in a way you might never think of if you confine yourself to American news.
Most different? That’s a tough question. The obvious answer is that it focuses more on Europe and Asia. And it seems to require a different base of knowledge that each viewer is assumed to have. And while they have a large focus on American politics, they also also come at the issues from a slightly different perspective. And they’ve all got these cool accents. 
One of the things I really like is that way the stories come across as dryer, with more focus on facts and less on the emotional aspects. I’ve seen very few stories on par with the pure fluff stories that you see filling out American news programs (e.g., a waterskiing squirrel, or an old folks’ home adopting a stray dog). Sometimes the BBC leans on the emotional or human interest aspects, but they seem to be much less prevalent. But it’s possible that I believe that based solely on a smaller sample size.
Television is just not as objective as print. Fox realized this long ago and just stopped trying. 90% of the time it makes no difference where you get your news from but anytime politics enters the fray all of a sudden you think every other news outlet in the world is liberally biased (although every liberal I know took exception to that characterization during the build-up to the Iraq war) and Fox is conservative.
I’ll give you an example, I was watching Fox news this morning and they were talking about Bush going to a fundraiser for George Allen. They mentioned that the Allen campaign has struggled and is in danger of becoming a rout. No mention of WHY the Allen campaign is in danger of becoming a rout but they did spend about 2 minutes on why women don’t like Webb, starting with Webb’s article about women in the military and about his pretty young second wife juxtaposed against Allen’s wife of 20 years (also a second wife).
Did any of you all know about Webb’s pretty young wife? Was it really a significant factor before?
Columbia Journalism Review Who owns what. These conglomerates are all the same . The papers are all muted pieces of a business and have very little autonomy. The Times is as liberal as its owners allow . Im my feeling that is practically none.