# Ignorance, War, Lies, and Fox News **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 6, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959 "2003-10-06T23:46:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Weird\_With\_Words](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weird_with_words/32/385_2.png) [@Weird\_With\_Words](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_With_Words)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/61 "2003-10-07T19:55:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by msmith537 \* > **Well like most FOX programming, I imagine it’s popular because it appeals to the least common denomenator.** I’ll admit my math sucks, so I could have this ass backwards. But since it’s the news station with the highest ratings, wouldn’t it be the **most** common denominator? > [@](#): > > \*\*ABC and NBC - The smart jocks who feels the same way FOX does but know enough to keep their mouth shut. \*\* ABC and NBC - The smart jock who kinda likes the nerds, so he tries (but not that hard) to stay neutral, and do the right thing. But he knows that if he does he’ll end up being abandoned by the jocks, and he still wouldn’t fit in with the nerds and freaks anyway. He realizes that while he doesn’t want to be a bad guy, he **definitely** doesn’t want to be alone. So when he sees that big jock beating up on a little kid, he doesn’t chime in with Fox by encouraging the jock, but he doesn’t do anything to stop him either. I know it’s not as funny as your metaphors, but I think it strikes closer to the truth. ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/62 "2003-10-07T19:56:10Z")
**The hot cheerleaders all get fat and bitchy. You can have 'em** Only if we want them, Elvis, only if we want them. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ 🙂 \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/63 "2003-10-07T20:36:21Z")
MSMITH: Goes along with what I’ve always said: Life is just like High School. The only difference is that it’s not over in 4 years. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/64 "2003-10-07T20:48:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jackmannii \* > More truth here. However, the news media did of course report in detail the many doubts, here and abroad about whether WMD in Iraq existed and posed a threat to the U.S., and foreign opposition was given a big play. > There would have been more about domestic opposition except for the fact that the Democrats laid down and gave Bush what he wanted. It was naturally a bit difficult for reporters to fathom that a dictator would be so lunatic as to court his destruction, by giving the impression that he had terrible weapons that subsequent events are increasingly showing he didn’t have. > I don’t see how this translates to disproving the concept of mainstream media liberal bias. Dude, forget about guesses as to whether or not Saddam had weapons made before the war. That is not one of the 3 factual statements that was investigated here. I simply do not see how the misconceptions identified could persist to such a degree in a climate with a liberal media. Such a media should have been all over these misconceptions, tearing them apart. Hell, I don’t even see how they could persist in the climate of any neutral media that takes its responsibility to inform the public at all seriously! Sure, the Democrats dropped the ball here to a large degree. But, not all of them did so…It is just that we didn’t hear much in the media of those who were fighting the Administration. And, I would argue that part of the reason the Dems played dead was a climate of extreme popularity of the President which was fed by the media’s utter unwillingness or inability to ask tough questions and to point out when his facts were flat out wrong! I really don’t understand you, **JackMannii**. You seem to take as given the idea of a liberal media bias based on the flimsiest of evidence and yet when you have hard compelling evidence of the public being horrendously misinformed on issues, you refuse to acknowledge this might serve as evidence that the media does not have this bias even though they are misinformed in ways that shows that they have bought lies told or implied to them by conservatives. If a “liberal media” can’t disabuse most people of clear and obvious misconceptions that lead them to favor conservative policies, what exactly can it do? I mean it is a pretty fuckin’ inept “liberal media”! [And, just for the record, Iraq officially claimed that they no longer had any WMDs so your whole thing about who could have known that Saddam would deliberately mislead is kind of off the mark. You might claim that his failure to produce hard evidence of their destruction was a way of keeping people guessing, and perhaps it was. But, to the extent this was true, such theories were in fact advanced before the war started so I fail to understand why reporters could be unable to fathom this.] ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/65 "2003-10-07T21:11:34Z")
Seeing that this thread has focused entirely on the media and not on other aspects of the report… I will change direction a bit. We could discuss if Fox duped people or if duped people prefer Fox all day long. BBC being biased or not. People do tend to watch the news that reinforce their beliefs. Fact: The more of the 3 mistakes correlating to greater support for the war. You can’t get around that one. The less ignorant about those 3 aspects being less supportive of the war. So its possible to say that support for the war is based more on false/wrong premises than not. That if the US public were less ignorant about the facts that support would be much lower for it. (By definition supporting the war doesn’t make you stupid necessarily… but you’ve got more ignorant supporters around you.) Fox is responsible for not informing more thou… they are way more biased than any so called liberal media. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/66 "2003-10-07T21:49:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jshore \* > **I really don’t understand you, JackMannii.** And after all my hard work, j **S** h **o** r **e**.\*\* > [@](#): > > You seem to take as given the idea of a liberal media bias based on the flimsiest of evidence and yet when you have hard compelling evidence of the public being horrendously misinformed on issues, you refuse to acknowledge this might serve as evidence that the media does not have this bias even though they are misinformed in ways that shows that they have bought lies told or implied to them by conservatives.\*\* Take a deep breath. (You’ll need one after that sentence). We’ve been over this subject ad nauseum in other threads and I won’t reprise the arguments here. In the very first thread I ever participated in on news media bias (in GD) I was lambasted with some justification, for stating what seemed to me then (and still does) to be the obvious. The reason? Not providing sufficient cites (which, when I did, were largely ignored). You are likewise guilty; your “hard compelling evidence” is somewhere short of pitiful since it does not exist, at least in this thread. You would have to demonstrate clear cases of Fox News, unique amongst the major news outlets, presenting false/deceptive stories which were never clarified or retracted, and _then_ you’d have to explain why Fox represents a majority of the major news media outlets all by its own widdle self.\*\* > [@](#): > > If a “liberal media” can’t disabuse most people of clear and obvious misconceptions that lead them to favor conservative policies, what exactly can it do? I mean it is a pretty fuckin’ inept “liberal media”!\*\* No big argument there. At least about the ineptness (your theory that the relative popularity of conservative thinking on some issues disproves the idea of “liberal media bias” is ingenious, if inane). I’d argue the news media’s role in straight news presentation is to present hard facts, leaving it to clearly defined editorial comment to “disabuse people of clear and obvious misconceptions”. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/67 "2003-10-07T21:51:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by elucidator > However, since you bring it up… Other posters, whose tastes are more liberal and encompassing than mine own, have noted in these very pages how often, in the Recent Unpleasantness, that Faux News rushed to advise a breathless public about the most recent discovery of the “smoking gun”, the absitively posolutely irrefutable proof of WMDs. So I guess where not going to any cites for this turd. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/68 "2003-10-07T22:18:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*Other posters, whose tastes are more liberal and encompassing than mine own, have noted in these very pages how often, in the Recent Unpleasantness, that Faux News rushed to advise a breathless public about the most recent discovery of the “smoking gun”, the absitively posolutely irrefutable proof of WMDs. \*\* _Raising hand_. Um, that would be me. You know, the guy whose tastes are more liberal than **elucidator**. My original attempt to categorize how many times Fox News cried wolf appeared in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=187112&highlight=ignoramus), but since it’s taking fifteen minutes to crack a thread open I’ll re-post it here. I need to caution, however, that many, if not most, of those links are dead by now. However, I don’t think anyone at the time called me for making false or incorrect assertions in my list. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > \*\*Said **Evil One** : > > I think it’s about time that we put Fox News in the shitcan where it belongs, because for the last three months I’ve seen otherwise cogent individuals posting Fox’s ignoramus feed as if it is something worth reading and accepting as fact. > > It is not. And here is the proof: > > March 10: [Possible mobile weapons lab found](http://www.landbou.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1346312,00.html): citing Fox news reports. > > March 17: [Iraq Arming Troops With Chemical Weapons](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,81303,00.html) > > March 24: [U.S. captures Iraqi chemical-weapons plant](http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31679): reported by Jerusalem Post; confirmed by Fox News. > > March 24: [Caution on chemical arms reports](http://uk.news.yahoo.com/030324/80/dw5o2.html): _citing the erroneous WMD report by Fox News._ > > April 10: [Troops Find Possible Evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/890329/posts) > > April 12: [Fox News passes on report of plutonium found outside of Baghdad](http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm335575.html) > > May 6: [U.S. Officials ‘Confident’ of Weapons Lab Find](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,86068,00.html) > > May 28: [U.S. Confident Saddam Had Mobile WMD Lab](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,87997,00.html) > > To date, **NOT ONE** of these reports by Fox News has panned out. Not a single one. > > You may be wondering why so many of those links go to sources which merely cite Fox News. That’s because when I search Fox itself, _I can’t find the reports_. I can find other news articles from the same date on the Fox site, so that leads me to believe that Fox may also be **removing their erroneous reports after the fact**. > > I’m tired of this bullshit. From this point forward I unilaterally declare that _anyone_ passing on an assertion by Fox News regarding WMD is **guilty of willful ignorance** and worthy of the deepest contempt by the readers of the Straight Dope Message Board. > > Every time I see someone perform the ignorant act of citing or linking to a Fox report on WMD, I will post the above list, and [THIS](http://www.stuffiveheard.com/error400.html). > > You name Fox and WMD in front of me, and I’m going to ridicule you, not _ad hominem_, but by posting the above list, which will demonstrate by itself that you are an ignorant fool. \*\* Frankly, I’m astonished that no professional journalists were keeping a better track of Fox’s weekly false alarms, because I’m pretty certain that the above is not a complete or comprehensive list by any means. If anyone can link to a citation more reputable than me, the guy with more liberal tastes than **elucidator** , I’m sure we’d all appreciate it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to contemplating my whale songs while I lament the the state of the world. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/69 "2003-10-07T22:22:54Z")
Oops, there is a bit of a typo in my self-referential quote. In the original thread, I was responding to Evil One, who in turn was citing Fox’s latest erroneous trumpeting of the discovery of mobile bioweapons labs. ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/70 "2003-10-07T22:25:54Z")
Do you mean “where," as in “Where did that turd come from?” Or do you mean “we’re,” as in “We’re not going to get any citations?” Come on **Scylla** , are we back to the demand that somebody reinvent the wheel every time something come up that rubs you the wrong way. I have a clear recollection, early on in the invasion, of Fox News telling all and sundry on a nearly daily basis that a weapons plant had been discovered, that stock piles of poisons had been discovered, that missiles that might be loaded with poisons had been found, that samples of the Tigris River contained traces of anthrax, etc., etc., etc. As I remember there was no similar announcement that it wasn’t that at all. The stories were just left hanging. It is no surprise that the inattentive an those who wished to be persuaded concluded that the suspected weapons plant was in fact a weapons plant, that the suspected poison was in fact poison, that the suspected anthrax, or mustard gas compound, or botulism compound, or nerve agent, was just what it was suspected to be. Fox certainly seldom went out of its way to tell us that yesterday’s discovery was not what they reported that it was suspected to be. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/71 "2003-10-07T22:29:55Z")
Thanks, **Sofa**. I _really_ didn’t want to have to slog through all that crapola on the fool’s errand of changing the adamantine mind-set of friend **Scylla**. Futility depresses me. I’ve resolved to try to remain both sane and sober, but it often seems like I have to choose. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/72 "2003-10-07T22:36:52Z")
From Sofa King’s list: **March 10: Possible mobile weapons lab found: citing Fox news reports.** Here’s the first paragraph: > [@](#): > > The discovery of two Iraqi truck trailers equipped with fermenters is the strongest evidence yet that Saddam Hussein (search) had a biological weapons program, a U.S. intelligence report said Wednesday. **But officials still have found no such weapons.** My bolding. Man, if that isn’t a slam dunk shill for Bush, I don’t what is.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/73 "2003-10-07T22:38:09Z")
No problem, **elucidator**. Although I occasionally have problems with your rabidly conservative jungle-paving ways, we are all united in the pursuit of the truth. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/74 "2003-10-07T22:41:10Z")
Oh my God! [CNN is just as bad as FOX!](http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/13/sprj.irq.mobile.lab/) > [@](#): > > MOSUL, Iraq (CNN) – U.S. forces in northern Iraq have found a second suspected mobile chemical weapons laboratory, an American military official told CNN Tuesday. > > There is “pretty conclusive evidence” that this is a mobile chemical weapons lab, the official said. Sofa King: Better investigate CNN, quick. I see Right Wing bias! ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/75 "2003-10-07T22:44:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Weird With Words \* > I’ll admit my math sucks, so I could have this ass backwards. But since it’s the news station with the highest ratings, wouldn’t it be the **most** common denominator? > \*\* Actually it should be “lowest” common denominator. The smaller the denominator, the greater the number of fractions that can be divided by it. Basically appealing to those traits that are common to the greatest number of people. Anyhow…as long as the news continues to report on events I can largely do little or nothing about, it mind as well entertain. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/76 "2003-10-07T22:47:42Z")
Uh, **John Mace** , you may notice that the article from my list which you cite is not from March 10, it’s from [May 28](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,87997,00.html), in that difficult transition period when the collective was being reprogramed to believe that the reason for the war was because Iraq had WMD _programs_, rather than weapons themselves… You know, the weapons programs which apparently could be completed [within 45 minutes](http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/30565/). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/77 "2003-10-07T22:57:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sofa King \* > Uh, **John Mace** , you may notice that the article from my list which you cite is not from March 10, it’s from [May 28](http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,87997,00.html), in that difficult transition period when the collective was being reprogramed to believe that the reason for the war was because Iraq had WMD _programs_, rather than weapons themselves… Better go back and edit your post, then. You have it listed as March 10. Or you can just use the **virtually identical** CNN article I provided in the cite above. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/78 "2003-10-07T23:08:45Z")
Aha! CNN did the same thing! Which is proof positive that…that… What is that proof of, anyway, **John?** ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/79 "2003-10-07T23:30:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*Aha! CNN did the same thing! Which is proof positive that…that… > > What is that proof of, anyway, **John?** \*\* 1. If you actually read the FOX News article, it clearly states (even in the very first paragraph) that no WMDs have been found. It also clearly states that certain experts doubt that the labs were actually used for chem weapons. So, I don’t see the “right wing bias” or “pro-Bush” slant. But let’s, for the sake of argument, say that the FOX News article demonstrates “right wing bias” and “pro-Bush” slant. Sofa King’s asertion is that FOX News cannot be used a credible cite for that reason. 1. One would then have to conclude that CNN cannot be used a credible cite. My newspaper, the SJ Merc, reported the same stories. I guess I can’t use the Merc as a credible cite. What’s left? Sofa King’s and your opinons? But you knew exacly what the point was. I didn’t have to spell it out for you. At least I hope not… ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959/80 "2003-10-07T23:38:51Z")
**Sofa** cited 8. You cited one. Rather an extravagant extrapolation, don’t you think? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ignorance-war-lies-and-fox-news/205959.md?page=5)