Well, I find the OP’s post confirms something I’ve suspected for a long time, and from now on I will ignore FOX News. Oh, wait, I always HAVE ignored FOX News. Damn.
Uh, does this mean I can’t watch FOX Sports any more either?
When bias on the news appears as a topic, usually someone like Beagle appears complaining about the left bias in CNN, ABC etc. Please check places like:
http://bartcop.com/
http://www.mediawhoresonline.com/
http://www.americanpolitics.com/index.html
To see what true liberal bias is.
But the “media is liberal” crowd always ignores one practical example of TV/infotaiment news: The issue of replacements:
It amazes me how many Fox viewers think Hannity and Colmes, and O’Reilly shows are news, and since I have seen accusations of liberal bias launched to mainstream reporters, this test of bias looks be very reliable:
On FOX, check who the “unbiased” newsman is replaced with, when the he/she is not available; we get people like Bob Dorman or William J. Bennett in his seat.
And what happens when Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw are not there? We get a “who the heck is this guy?” always. If you still want to pretend there is a liberal bias, I would expect something like this:
“Replacing Peter Jennings tonight: Jesse Jackson!!”
As much as I would love to see the right, crapping in their pants at the sight of that :D, it is just wishful thinking, just like thinking that there is a liberal bias.
Remember good old-fashioned propaganda evaluation techniques? (God bless you Mrs. Hicks (my 1957-58 civic’s teacher) wherever you are.)
I posted this a few weeks ago; quote from a bloke att he BBC:
"I have just returned from the Arab Media Summit in Dubai, which is a chance for Arab and Western journalists to meet, argue, debate and possibly even learn a little of each other.
And I’m still reeling from one Arab delegate who said that the Arab media were not dangerous because everyone knows Arab journalists write nonsense and no one believes them anyway, but the western media are truly dangerous - he passionately argued - because we in the West suffer from the delusion that we are truly free. Moreover, people DO believe what they see and hear on the western media.
Food for thought."
- well, I thought so.
Not to hijack my own thread, but if you truly believe the L.A. Times wanted to derail Schwarzenegger’s campaign, then ask yourself this: Why did they wait until the last weekend before reporting on the sexual assault allegations? Wouldn’t it have been more effective (if the Times had an axe to grind) to get the news out earlier?
To support rjung, I do remember that many exit polls showed the majority of voters had made their minds a month before the election.
“News delayed is news denied” – Orwell
Indeed. And did you notice that everybody else essentially “forgot” to investigate Ahnold?
I listen to NPR, and I hate Fox News, but I want to see a cite for this claim. After all, I wouldn’t want to believe this just because it’s so darn tempting.
And did you notice that there has been nary a peep on the subject since the election? I mean, c’mon, 15 women came out and stated that he assaulted them somehow many years ago at what was essentially the last possible second, and there’s been no follow-up on that? It was national news then, why isn’t it now?
It was an obvious 11th hour attempt to sway the election away from Arnold.
Well, that’s a perfectly reasonable presumption, AD. Another perfectly reasonable assumption is that after Arnie got elected, everybody pretty much lost interest. What with the war, and all.
Arnie’s election is good for California for one very important reason: the Bushiviks will be eager to have Arnie perceived as a success story, and will rush to his assistance. Seems they were rather slow to rush to the assistance of Grey Davis:
"U.S. Rejected Davis on Aid to Clear Trees
FEMA spent six months studying the governor’s request, then turned it down hours before fires began, saying state was already getting funds"
Psst, Airman Doors, USAF, I am not sure if you noticed, but you are actually confirming that if there is a bias, but it goes actually the other way around. Follow-ups are happening in the alternative media:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16993
Nothing in the mainstream; now, if they were liberal…this actually follows the same pattern of the media regarding the controversial bits of George W. Bush past: All of those reports are now down the memory hole, after a very late acknowledgement of their existence.
IMHO the LA times just did it for the oldest reason in the book: to sell more newspapers, after the election, the true colors appear: it was not good for business to continue with that line of investigation, regardless if it was the truth.
Here is a report from the Philadelphia Inquirer on the study and here you can look at the study itself.
One of the most damning parts of it for Fox News was not only how pathetically misinformed their viewers were but rather that there was a positive correlation between how misinformed they were (i.e., holding these misconceptions) and how closely they said they watched! I humbly suggest this new slogan for Fox: “The more you watch, the more you know…that just ain’t so!”
[By the way, among viewers who got their info from other TV and radio sources there was little correlation either way between how closely they followed the news and holding the misconceptions. I believe it was only with those who used the print media as their main source that the more closely they followed the news, the less likely they were to have the misconceptions.
I would like to pint out that that CNN’s “The Most Trusted Name In News” is based on a Pew Research survey (U.S. broadcast and cable news outlets) and is not simply an empty slogan.
Pew Research - November 4, 2000
A nice little summary from the LAtimes with additional info on Roger Ailes. I’m not sure if you must register.
This is good - a complaint about bias in Fox News that quotes Salon as a straight news source.
Regards,
Shodan
Once again, Shodan falls for the genetic fallacy.
He’s a total sucker for those chromosomal arguments.
I disagree. A free and democratic country should allow journalistic independence, but should certainly not mandate it. That is not freedom. Yes, I realize that I introduced “freedom”, not you, but I think that democracy is one element of freedom. Another aspect of being free is that you should be allowed to run a media company to be as biased as you want (without contravening the laws on libel etc.).
The particular issue in the OP is that Fox claims to be balanced, is not, knows it is not, but denies it.
Another indictment against the common-held myth of “the wisdom of the American people”. Either that or irrefutable evidence that “polls” are nothing more than tools used to shape the public opion of those who are susceptable to ideas that are deemed fashionable.
“The Most Trusted Name in News”-- Ha, this from a network that aired a fraudulent documentary about the United States military using poison gas against deserters.
The motive behind this fraud was to equate the United States military policy with that of Saddam Hussein’s. If you still trust CNN, face it, they’ve got you right where they want you.
The question isn’t what should be allowed by a democratic government. I don’t think anyone in this thread has advocated that the government should force Fox News to cease being biased. Rather, what people are saying is that journalistic ethics requires that Fox News not be biased, and that they’re lying scumbags for presenting themselves as independent when really they have an extreme political agenda.
When LC points to the centrality of journalistic integrity to democracy, he’s pointing out that in the absence of accurate and reliable information, voters cannot make informed choices, and hence democracy actually breaks down. You don’t have true rule by the people when the people don’t understand what they’re voting for. This means that we should be extremely critical of news organizations willfully misleading their audience.
But that is not the same thing as saying that news organizations shouldn’t be free in the sense of free from government coercion to engage in such practices.