Your outrage meter may be at zero, but your obfuscation valve is wide open.
It’s simple: Did Fox suggest something nefarious about Rauf because of his financial ties to “this guy”? Yes.
Is “this guy” also a part-owner of News Corp? Yes.
That’s it.
For giggles, though, the Daily Show added the coda of a photo of Senor and Perino’s boss, W, pallin’ around with “this guy,” and the coup de grace was a Moment of Zen with Neil Cavuto welcoming onto his Fox show his honored guest, “this guy”, and singing the praises of the Kingdom holding company.
It’s not complicated, unless you try hard to make it so. Even then, the simplicity of it will undo your best efforts.
Why what’s true? That you couldn’t get away with this sort of thing in the UK?
You probably could, especially in the tabloid print media, but there is a much stronger culture of oppositional (to the point of combativeness, in the case of Messrs Paxman and Humphries) journalism in the UK than there is in the US. One can often see a guest on news shows such as Newsnight being challenged about their positions, only to have the interview turn to a different guest holding opposing views and challenge them on their position. I can’t remember the last time I saw something like that on US television.
This may or may not be linked to the level of challenge that occurs within Parliament itself; MPs making ridiculous statements are far more likely to be called on it by their peers on the opposite benches than occurs in the mindless blathermill that is the US Congress, and of course Prime Minister Questions require the PM to stand up and face questioning from the other party leaders within Parliament. Even considering the usual rhetorical evasions and equivocations it does support the idea of a certain level of accountability for one’s positions.
Note: I don’t watch Sky News, which is News Corps’ UK news channel, enough to compare it to FoxNews, although from what I’ve seen it is nowhere near as heavyhandedly biased as its American counterpart. I do recommend to anyone researching this that they check out the exchange between Sky’s Adam Boulton and Labour political advisor/spin doctor/pitbull Alastair Campbell during the last UK election. Hilarious.
You mean the bit about not being able to get away with it in the UK? I would refer you to the Ofcom code of conduct. There are several portions which would catch Fox News out in the UK but this specific sub-section would cause problems for that segment IMO:
(bolding mine)
The constant branding of the Mosque as a ‘terrorist training camp’ and other such groundless allegations are constantly promoted as fact and Fox make no effort either to verify their facts or to seek appropriate comments from those they are making the allegations against. There is never any language to make it clear to the viewer that what they say is merely an allegation, conjecture or opinion.
In the UK both the Mosque and the Prince would have extremely strong grounds for a complaint to Ofcom about unfair representation. Ofcom have the power to levy monetary fines and theoretically to remove the broadcasters license. Unlike the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct (which covers newspapers) these rules are almost always followed.
Well, you don’t have to tell that to me. Tell that to the multiple posters in this thread who keep harping on the fact that they didn’t mention his name or show his picture. I’m just noting that it really isn’t particularly odd if you watch the entire segment.
Now, I don’t think this guy, Senor, is a credible witness. As noted by myself and others, he made some pretty detailed accusations (many damning) about the history of this MCC without one shred of evidence. And there was no one on the show to rebut anything he said. It was a set-up piece that was agenda driven. Not something that could credibly be called “reporting”. I don’t know if they consider “Fox and Friends” to be news or analysis, but it ain’t news, if this is the way they run it.
Thank you. That is what I meant. I’ve been concerned for sometime that it seems so easy for media companies to spread falsehoods by exploiting the “opinion piece” aspect of 24 hour channels. There seems to be no accountability and they can throw out any garbage they want as a suggestion, and make some vague reference and innuendo , while the public eagerly swallows it.
I was hoping the public itself would be disgusted by this behavior and reject the practice but that hasn’t happened. I wouldn’t be adverse to some similar regulations that force media companies to maintain some level of responsible honesty even on opinion shows, or to distinctly seperate the opinion pieces from the factual.
It’s far to typical for much of Fox news channel. Allegations without evidence, tenuous associations, and a distinct lack of balance when examining a person or issue.
In reality, likely none. But clearly, Fox News is making up their own 'verse, and so for purposes of this discussion, we’re indulging them and playing by their own, non-reality-based world.
Me neither. As someone on FARK (of all places) put it, “Why didn’t black people just stay at the back of the bus? They had to know it’d upset white people!”
They are people who want to keep their paycheck, especially in this economy. Someone’s got to clean the sewers, if the wage is high enough; someone has to do the mortuary jobs; illegal immigrants come in to do stoop farm labor: Murdoch might even find some illegal aliens to blather bullshit if all Americans refuse to do his work!
The problem isn’t the Fox News staff. The problem is allowing so much power to a single man, who, at the risk of hyperbole, reminds one of a villain bent on world domination from a James Bond movie.
Fair enough. I was really thinking of his children, specifically James Murdoch who is chairman (I think) of Sky in the UK. He is as desipicable as his old man but mainly I hate him for his hostile stance towards the BBC. If James had his way you wouldn’t be able to watch TV without paying Sky a subscription, and even then you’d have to sit through 10 minutes of ads every half-hour.