[Monty Python]
“Well, I didn’t vote for 'im…”
[/Monty Python]
The New York Times - a bastion of Bolshevism.
As for Roger Ailes’ advising the White House, I have heard of the one instance that had been made public. He wrote a letter to chief White House political advisor Karl Rove in the aftermath of Sept 11th, expressing outrage and had thoughts about popular support. This was in the news Nov 18th, and you picked it up YESTERDAY? CNN had it on their site (front page) a week and a half ago.
WSLer quoted MOST of a paragraph in Krugman’s NYT OpEd piece, the last line is here, added to the first part of the paragraph. I have linked the story so you can read it in context.
The WSJ Ed Board thinks it is OK. Rupert Murdoch not only says is it OK, but says
As for the content of the letter, Bob Woodward, who broke this in his new book, Bush at War, says in an exerpt printed in the Washington Post,
to which Aisles replied in writing:
FoxNEWS is DEFINITELY left leaning. Their motto is not valid.
I give you all this info so YOU can decide about this particular issue.
Of course, I meant RIGHT leaning. Come on people, you should have caught that!
Oh, so WSLer deliberately misrepresented Hume’s comment through the use of creative ommission. What is it that he’s accusing Fox News of again?
>FOXNews–Fair and balanced my ass
Did they rotate your tires as well?
Uncle Bill, you had me concerned for a minute :eek:
I’m glad you started this thread, WSLer, so I can bash the New York Times. They are simply pathetic on this issue.
First of all, for America’s “Newspaper of Record” to start a spat with a small cable TV station is demeaning. It shows the depths the Times has sunk to.
Second, their accusation makes no sense. The fact that Ailes wrote a letter to the President proves nothing. Any concerned citizen can write to the President. The Times gives Bush advice all the time in their editorials.
What does the Times think the letter prove? Presumably it proves that Ailes is conservative. But, everyone already knew that. The guy was a Republican activist. The real question is whether FNC tilts conservative.
For the record, I think FNC does tilt conservative, but less so than NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and NPR tilt liberal. One can easily list liberal commentators on FNC: Geraldo Rivera, Alan Combes, Juan Williams, Cece Connolly, Greta van Susteren, Mara Liason. OTOH one would be hard-pressed to identify half a dozen conservative commentators on any of the other stations I mentioned.
Note also Krugman’s exaggeration when he described a single, solitary letter as “Roger Ailes, the network’s chairman, has been advising the Bush administration.”
When did the absence of a thread ever prevent you from speaking your mind otherwise?
You start enough of them:)
Is Fox right leaning? Only if a pig’s ass is pork, the bear is Catholic and the Pope shits in the woods.
Drudge leans right, Buzzflash is…somewhat left of center, I check 'em both out for the links. MediaWhores is my all time favorite, as it focuses most especially on pundit shenanigans.
For instance: a recent demonstration in Washington DC, with maybe 100,000 participants. I watched Fox, they gave it the merest passing reference, and implied that it was a few hundred listless aging hippies traipsing down Pennsylvania Ave. None of the major TV outlets gave it much coverage. Seems like news to me.
Another for instance: the recent elections. Once again, the Apathy Party carried the day by landslide. But the “liberal” media fell all over themselves to shout “landslide” and “mandate” because the remaining 40% split roughly 21 to 19. If you watched Fox’ coverage, you would think the Green Party out polled the Dems.
As Mr. Krugman pointed out, as the media serves the interests of its corporate sponsors, not to mention its owners, it is far more likely to present a pro-business view than otherwise, with this caveat: if the news will attract viewers, a la Enron, it will be there, thats where the money is. The Suits will show you pictures of thier mothers as crack whores if there’s a buck in it.
“A small cable TV station”? Are you fucking kidding? It’s just a couple of guys in their basement with a camera, right? The New York Times is a respected paper but it hardly has an enormous national circulation. Most Americans get their news from TV, and Fox News is a major source. For instance, during the recent election, Fox had the highest rated news show, with 2.2 million viewers. (cite)
Actually, chula, they were the highest rated CABLE news show. No info on the Big Three there.
Funny, I haad a feeling I was going to get in trouble with that cite because I hadn’t read it very carefully. Doesn’t change my point - does anyone think 2.2 million people read the NY Times that day? To characterize Fox as David and the NY Times as Goliath is nonsense.
I didn’t even notice the source - I can’t believe I cited the Washington Times! I take it back!
In case someone missed the reference in Uncle Bill’s post, CNN had a major “Friend of Bill” as president during the Clinton Administration - Rick Kaplan. Kaplan arguably abused his position in the news industry* for political ends more than anyone at Fox has been shown to have done.
I take Fox’s reporting with a grain of salt, much as I do that of the other networks with an obvious political ax to grind. I dislike Bill O’Reilly and his loudmouthed kinfolk, but I also recognize that they are expressing opinion, as obnoxious as it may be. Let’s keep reporting and opinion separate as we launch denunciations.
*yes, I know the source here is just a wee touch to the right, but I don’t think the facts are disputed. And folks who swallow Paul Krugman’s diatribes whole shouldn’t be too quick to cry “partisan”.
The Sunday NYT has a circulation of about 1.7 million. The Boston Globe, which they own, has a Sunday circulation of over 725,000. That’s a total of almost 2.5 million papers each Sunday. If each paper is read by an average of two to three people, then the total number of readers would be 5 to 7 million.
However, the prestige of the Times comes more from their reputation than their circulation. For many decades they have been regarded as America’s leading newspaper. It’s sad to see them going downhill.
But this (the 2.2 Million) was a Tuesday. NYT Circulation more like 1.2 million, and Boston Globe is about 477,000. Your point still stands, just not quite at the same height. Election returns and analysis are certainly owned by broadcast media, and not print. On a given day, FoxNEWS would have fewer than 2.2 million, I would guess, while the papers would keep these numbers.
I am also dismayed by the lack of quality in recent years printed by the New York Times.
[MPHG]
Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down here!
[/MPHG]
True. However, I chose the Sunday circulation figures because Election Day must have had an unusually large number of viewers at FNC. It seemed fair to compare that figure to the Sunday Times, which has considerably more readers than the Daily Times. Here are some figures for top cable news shows:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020617.asp
december are you still sticking by your characterization of Fox as a little news station being picked on by the big, bad NY Times?
Although a cite shouldn’t be necessary to make this point, I feel the need to redeem myself after that crappy cite. Here goes:
Daily sales of newspapers in the United States are about 56 million. The New York Times has daily sales of around 1.1 million, which is about 2% of the market. Forty-one percent of Americans regularly get their news from newspapers, so we can estimate that less than 1% (.82%) of Americans regularly read the New York Times. (This gets around the issue of how many people who subscribe actually read it and how many read each issue.) On the other hand, 22% report that they regularly watch Fox News (and 26% “sometimes” watch). That means that 28 times as many people get their news from Fox as from the NY Times.
Wow, I wasn’t expecting the statistics to back up my point so well. Even if you find some flaw in my methods of interpreting the statistics, it doesn’t undermine my point, which is that Fox is a major contender in the news market.