So it’s Thursday morning and I have the day off. I get up, walk downstairs, make breakfast, and turn on the TV. Nothing’s on, so I turn it to Fox news.
Some newscaster (and I use the term loosly) is talking about how the State of the Union was so moving last night that it made his whole family weep. “There wasn’t a dry eye in my house”, I think he said. Disgusted with the obvious bias, I turn it to CNN.
They’re running a story about how some obscure Lt. Colonel in the midwest said that “war is fun” when he gave a speech to his local rotary club or whoever. “Well. that’s a tempest in a teapot”, I think, and turn it back to Fox.
click Fox:“Some scholars are already comparing the President’s speech to the Gettysburg Adress.” click CNN: “Will the President’s plan to privatize social security kill your grandmother?” click Fox: “The pope has been in ill health recently. When he recovers, should he saint George W. Bush?” click CNN: “Dr. J.J. Jingleheimershmitz is here to discuss how President Bush pours the blood of Iraqi children over his cheerios every morning. Doctor?”
Ug. Sometimes it’s tough to be a moderate. But then I get the bright idea of turning it to MSNBC. They tend to be relatively unbiased. Unbiased, because they’re running a story on “What to get your man for Valentines Day. Later in the hour, can a new invention from Japan really make your dog talk?” Unbiased, but still crap.
So my humble plea: Can we please get a decent cable news channel.?
You’re on the money when it comes to MSNBC. When they’re actually doing news, it tends to be reasonably straightforward. But half the time when I tune in, they’re doing “Headliners and Legends,” which threatens to turn them into a clone of the E! network, or “Imus in the Morning” (Imus can be entertaining, but it’s not really very good television, I’m afraid). The weekends are particularly awful.
I find MSNBC to be fairly even-handed. If FOX indeed compared it to the Gettysburg Address they are even more partisan than I thought. I don’t recall Lincoln using the parents of a dead soldier as political pawns in his speech.
If you’re really asserting that CNN is that tough on Bush, i submit that you either haven’t actually been watching CNN for the last few years, or that you haven’t understood it.
Bob, mhendo, please understand that my OP is mostly hyperbole. The weeping newcaster and the Lt. Colonel are true, the rest is completely made up. Fox leans far to the right, and after Fox gained dominance in the ratings, CNN has started to lean more and more to the left.
And no, mhendo, CNN did not actually say that Bush pours the blood of Iraqi children on his cheerios. Come on man, lighten up, liberals are supposed to have a sense of humor. Which is why I have to grudgingly admit that I get a lot of my news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
It’s the pretense of impartiality I don’t like, and both Fox and CNN are guilty of it.
Oh Jesus, it’s worse than I thought. Has their bias reached such epic proportions that you actually believed they were pondering if the Pope would saint Dubya?
I was quite aware that you were using hyperbole. But even now that you’re being serious, you’re still wrong, in my opinion.
CNN has not “started to lean more and more to the left.” In fact, over the past few years CNN has, if anything, become considerably more conservative than it once was. Sure, it’s still not as rabidly and obviously partisan as FOX, but “CNN” and “left-wing” just don’t belong in the same sentence.
I agree with you about the “pretense of impartiality” issue; i just think you’re incorrect in your characterization of CNN.
I hate Fox, can’t stand Bush. I don’t want to pick nits, or hijack the thread, but Lincoln did use the actual dead soldiers as political pawns in his speech. Sure, it was elegant, but the dead soldiers were pawns. No matter how just or noble the war, the soldiers are always political pawns.
There hasn’t been a wartime president that hasn’t mentioned the valor of the fallen soldiers in a speech. But did Lincoln ever put the parents of killed Union soldiers on display? It was cheap of Bush to do this, and worse for the parents of the soldier to whore themselves out like that.
CNN is more subtle than FOX, but the bias is still obvious if you’re a moderate. As an example, CNN is on my TV now, and the anchor just said, (actual quote) “in last night’s debate, pardon me, in last nights address…” Very subtle, but still there. You get the feeling that the producers and whoever writes the copy for the teleprompter haven’t gotten over the fact that John Kerry lost the election. You don’t honestly think a highly paid newsguy can’t read a teleprompter? On CNN, this kind of thing happens far too often for me to not think that there is some kind of bias.
It’s a systemic bias, also indicated by how the previous segment sub-posted a statistic highlating the fact that blacks die younger than whites in a story about social security. Is that really germaine to the story? No, of course it isn’t. So why play the race card?
Lib, thanks. I was going more for laughs than a serious discussion.
Early, ragging on MSNBC reminded me of something. I remember when Saddam was captured and MSNBC built a plywood replica of his spiderhole. Watching the reporter read the story from inside the spider hole was hilarious. They’re the only one of the three that doesn’t show an obvious bias, but good lord, are they ever inept. My high school media class could have done a better job than that. ::chuckle::
Aro, open your eyes. Every source of media has a political slant. This is why newspapers have op-ed pages. I’ll admit CNN is not nearly as bad as FOX (“fair and ballanced” my ass), but you have to be blind not to see the way CNN leans.
Damn, am I the only moderate left in this country?
FTR, I agree with your observation. CNN is hardly the radical leftist organization that the right paints them to be. No way would I call it “left-wing.” Not by any stretch of the imagination.
I certainly do see the way it leans, and it is firmly to the right of centre.
All you Americans can bicker and argue over the petty and miniscule differences between your news outlets ( and your political parties ), but the true difference is so tiny it barely registers to anyone outside your boundaries. CNN is right wing just as Clinton was right wing. You just have no external perspective in which to view the situation as it really is.
Ah, see now i understand where your confusion lies. You’re having trouble discerning the difference between “favoring Democrats over Republicans” with “leaning to the left.” Not the same thing.
Why is it not “germaine”? A key aspect to the debate over social security is the relative length of time that people pay into the system, versus the amount of time they receive benefits. The debate is also, on a more general level, about who does and does not benefit from the system as it currently stands. If black people are, on average, dying sooner after retirement age than white people, why isn’t this relevant to the issue? I’m not saying it’s the most important thing, but to call it irrelevant seems to me to misunderstand the nature of the debate over social security.
Yes, you poor dear, it’s just you and your gun (and your bananas) fighting a lone battle against the forces of extremism.
Fuck you, shitstain. Mr. and Mrs. Norwood are actual human beings who can make for themselves the choices they want to as regards their son.
Tell you what. You can reach them. Specifically, you can write to the:
Sgt. Byron Wayne Norwood Memorial Fund
c/o Texas Association of Counties
P.O. Box 2131
Austin, TX 78768
Go ahead. Write. Tell them they were “stooges.” Tell them they were “worse than cheap.” You are a worthless piece of garbage.
