Why do you suppose Fox News is as popular as it is? And what should be done about a news organization with a political bias?
People prefer a nice simple black-and-white world to the complex reality?
What should be done by whom?
By the government? Nothing, of course.
By advertisers? Boycott, if they care about morality over profits. Of course, none do, and so hence none will. Such is life.
By viewers? Watch, if you’re a pathetic syncophant who cannot tolerate the fact that reality might not coincide with your worldview. Or, if you’re interested in the truth, don’t watch (or rather, watch only enough to form an accurate opinion about the network), thus depriving the network of ratings. And feel free to criticize the network for their partisan nature in public forums.
Ain’t free society grand?
We would realise just how un-biased all of our news really is?
Since I am not a Salon subscriber, any more than I am a Fox News viewer, perhaps someone could reproduce some compelling examples of Fox news reporting bias based on “word from on high”. The only “example” I see is the claim that network reporting unfairly trashed Trent Lott, which is not the most convincing evidence of right-wing bias that one could hope for.
Of course it would be far worse for a Fox story on the environment to present both sides and give the last word to some industry spokesman, than for one of the four other major domestic networks to slant in the other direction. Much worse. After all, Fox has a much bigger share of the viewers than all the other networks combined, right?
And of course Fox News sprang from the devious plots of the right wing, much as Athena did from the brow of Zeus. Its rise in popularity has had nothing to do with like-minded viewers being repulsed by left-wing bias emanating from the other networks, whether directed by memo or just reflecting the views of most reporters, editors and producers.
Of course, recognition of bias in news reporting invariably is the result of gross partisanship, and has nothing to do with supporting professional standards in reporting and the desire to see opinion confined to clearly labeled commentary.
And elucidator makes a lovely Queen of Romania.
Groening recently admited that this was not true, that he was joking when he said it.
Fox has a bigger share of the cable viewers. The regular networks stil lhave a bigger share overall, or at least that’s what I heard.
First, a correction. The cite that I gave for the Pew report was incorrect. They do these media surveys every couple of years and I got the wrong date from a previous survey. The most current survey can be found here: http://people-press.org/reports/print.php3?ReportID=159 (August 4, 2002)
Apparently mainly on the Republican side.
emphasis mine.
It’s interesting that even among Republicans, CNN is rated as more credible than FOX.
Muad’Dib (does the name mean something? I’m really curious), the BBC is, in general, an excellent, largely unbiased news source. The US really doesn’t have an equivalent. It gets accused of lefty bias sometimes, but not, in my opinion, with much justification.
It means “the mouse”, referring specifically to the kangaroo mouse of Arrakis.
All I see is Fox News being outed by a lefty for doing for the right wing what the other broadcast networks have done for the lefties since Vietnam.
In essence the lefty broadcats networks, being staffed with lefty muppets from lefty universities, never had to tell their employees to slant story to the left.
Fox, being novel enough to be a rightists network, and a relative newcomer compared to NBC, CBS and ABC, has to make clear to the newsroom staff (mostly lefties; that’s about all the broadcast journalism schools crank out these days) how they want their news slanted.
What’s the big deal?
[mother of all hijacks]
The Maud’Dib thing reminds me- I wanted to start a thread to discuss the entertaining similarities between our current situation in Iraq and Dune. Ya know “The spice, I mean, oil must flow,” etc. (If only Saddam were really fat, and Udey could think multidimensionally to predict the future). Would that go in MPSIS? I think it would be a Great Debate, but I feel selecting sharp vs. mild cheddar requires a Great Debate… It involves a book- CafSoc? Would GW = Feyd Rautha?
[/MOAhijacks]
As Gorsnak has kindly comprehensively responded to the point directed at me by amarone, I’ll just add information that might enlighten the issue further:
This is a thoughtful and interesting perspective, The Fourth Estate:
<snippet>
"According to Marr, the BBC’s political editor and a former editor of The Independent, “the only way to keep the huge power of the market and the political elites in some kind of check is through an informed, active and occasionally difficult citizenry. And this, in turn, needs public-sphere journalism, even if it doesn’t always realise it.”
</snippet>
IMHO, you have to educate the public to expect better and for them to know they need better information, to raise their expectations and to serve those expectations.
Pesonally speaking I am sick and tired of hearing “what a big country America is” and how ya’ll “don’t get much foreign news”.
I wonder if it might also be a good idea to separate infotainment from current affairs news, but of course that’s not in the interests of the administration.
I certainly agree with this perspective (and I have read L-C’s recent supporting view). I (mis?)-interpreted the original point as being that journalists should be forced to be independent. As long as the pressure to be independent comes from the citizenry, rather than government, then I have no problem. Mind you, also have no issue with Fox News presenting “News from the right persective”, as long as they announced their stance accurately.
It is interesting to consider what would happen if every news outlet aligned itself with a particular political viewpoint. Should government mandate that there is at least one new organization with a charter to be independent, and fund that organization? I’m pretty happy with the way the BBC works out. And before anyone says “the government doesn’t fund it”, it is the government that sets the license fee.
Somehow I can hear London_Calling saying “I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not! But I’m sick and tired of being told that I am.” Apologies to M. Python
Personally speaking, I’m mystified as to what the foreign news quotient has to do with the matter under discussion, unless the temptation to get in a little xenophobic sniping was too much to pass up.
Anyway, by now I thought there’d be myriad examples posted of how Fox slants the news in the manner its ex-producer suggested. Given that this is the network that irritatingly refers to “homicide bombers” in its news stories to make what should be an editorial point, one would think there’d be loads of good examples of news reporting bias. Instead we’re left with only Fox’s dastardly campaign against Trent Lott.
** In essence the lefty broadcats networks, being staffed with lefty muppets from lefty universities, never had to tell their employees to slant story to the left. **
What, exactly, are you talking about? I realize you’re starting from the proposition that the media has been, until recently, overwhelmingly liberal. Even given that, I’m unclear how you justify your statement that virtually everyone involved in the production of news shares identical ideology and so there was never a need to tell anyone otherwise.
If your argument was true- if, in the absence of a central boss FORCING everyone to be Conservative, people who are trained to report news do so with a liberal slant - then you’d really be giving an argument against what FOX is doing. If the natural tendancy of educated individuals who are going out in the world for the purpose of witnessing events is to produce stories that don’t allign with what the armchair Republican wants to hear… shouldn’t we defer to the more informed opinion?
I can only see two ways out of this argument, once we accept that your thesis is even remotely true:
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There has been a massive liberal conspiracy to control education. This means either that, generally speaking, the most academically intelligent people out there are brainwashed en masse like mice in a maze, or that academic (logical, scientific, etc) intelligence predisposes someone to a liberal worldview - the liberal worldview is wrong, and so are the forms of intelligence that give rise to it.
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The nation was mostly liberal when it felt like it needed to be. Now we’re seeing a shift towards more Conservative times, and FOX is just one of the harbingers. Eventually we should see more Conservative opinions flourishing on their own, and it’s just happenstance that they’ve first started growing in the hearts of a controlling media executive.
I don’t find either of these escapes very convincing.
-C
Dunno how much weight you want to put on this, but in Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, he relates a story from the former head editor at Fox News – when Roger Ailes was first hired to lead the division, he went through the staff and asked everyone what their political views were, ostensibly so the non-righties could be weeded out (I’d provide direct quotes, but my copy of the book is at home right now).
And ExTank’s unsupported paranoid delusions are nothing more thant regurgitated conservative porn. :rolleyes:
Why do so many people on this thread treat bias like it’s an on/off switch when it’s more like a dimmer switch?
Is Fox News biased? Of course…I’m very much an independent with no political or personal ties to either the left or the right, but I can see the Fox News bias as clear as day.
And using that same logic…it doesn’t take long for this independent to see the bias of CBS and ABC to the left when you look at the attitudes of their news anchors and the manner and types of special/investigative reporting that they do.
Now is ABC and CBS as biased as Fox? Oh God no…they can’t even hold a candle to Fox’s methods…but I think people who believe that there is only one horse in this race are kidding themselves.