They were in the same room.
OK, so The O’Reilly Factor sent some guy named Jesse Watters to New York’s Chinatown to sample political opinion there. According to one report, Watters approached people on the street and solicited their opinions on such topics as:
“Am I supposed to bow to say hello?”
“Tell me what’s not made in China.”
“Do you know karate?”
The key questions of this cycle. During the segment, Watters signaled that this was a serious news segment in his choice of music, the classic “Kung Fu Fighting”. He further showed his journalistic chops by miming karate moves for the camera. I remember when Ted Koppel used to do that on his show. You don’t see newsmen going the extra mile like that anymore.
Now, as you’d expect, the offenderati in the liberal media got all bent out of shape, calling this segment things like “the most offensive television segment I’ve ever seen”, “one of the most blatantly racist things I have ever seen”, and “beyond words offensive and disgraceful”. It’s getting to where people can’t say anything any more.
Disclaimers: 1) I have not watched the original clip yet; 2) yes, I know Media Matters is not an unbiased source.
I just watched the clip: He actually asked a shopkeeper “Are these watches ‘hot’?”
Yeah, Eric Sevareid had a mean spinning back kick.
Anybody amazed at Trump’s Teflon-ness wasn’t paying attention last year when O’Reilly was caught in all kinds of lies and embellishments about his history and reporting. He claimed to have rescued his cameraman during a riot in Argentina with bullets flying; the cameraman said there was no riot, no bullets, and no danger.
Big Bill also claimed to have seen various murders in Central America and Northern Ireland; it turned out that the closest he had come was seeing pictures of said violence.
Best of all, he claimed to have been right outside the door and heard the shotgun blast when someone connected to the Kennedy assassination killed himself in Florida. He is on tape hearing about the suicide for the first time, making it clear that he didn’t know that a gun was used, and that he had never heard of the town where the suicide occurred.
No worries. He just blamed the liberal media for trying to smear him, and stuck by his story, as did Fox News, as did the publisher of his book, Killing Kennedy. And the Fox News viewers believed him, rather than the tape and his colleagues of the time. His ratings actually went up.
So if Trump was watching, and didn’t already know it, he learned that there are millions of Americans who will believe what they want to believe, even when there is ironclad evidence that they are being lied to.
Well, Shepard Smith just confirmed he is gay.
However, Ailes was kewl with that, so it’s totes OK!
That’s interesting, but it’s just a small part of a bigger story: Is Fox News really getting better? It seems the answer may be yes, thanks in a large part to a strengthening of the news department and Shep himself.
It’s way past time we dusted off this thread. There must have been plenty of examples of Fox being “all that bad” since the last post, but I imagine they got drowned out amid all the stories of 1/2 the goddamned country being all that bad.
So here’s a little something to remind us that Fox is fucking loony. An elementary school in Pennsylvania has canceled its traditional Christmas production of A Christmas Carol. The school says it was canceled because the school no longer wanted to take the 15-20 hours it required to produce it out of classroom time.
But Fox knows better! You see, three months prior to the announcement, a Jewish family had asked if their son could be excused from the play. The school agreed. And that should have been that. A local non-story about a Jewish family who didn’t want their son to have to attend a play, and a school that later decided to just call it off anyway because it took too much time. Nope! Fox and Breitbart have flogged this story as another battle in the War on Christmas, in which godfearing Christians can’t even put on a religious-themed play in a public school without some Jews fucking it up for everyone. After seeing the stories, and more worryingly the comments, online, the family who were blamed for this has decided to leave the area, saying they feared “another pizza incident”.
Well according to Pew Research, MSNBC was found to be the most biased of the 3 cable news networks, with Fox coming in second behind CNN:
I don’t watch cable news anyway, I’d say shows like Hannity and O’Reilly are no more biased than shows like The Young Turks, problem is that partisan hacks live in their own fantasy world detached from reality around them, and view their opinion as equivalent to the word of God, therefore anything which differs from their opinion is automatically ‘biased’ by default.
And anyone who’s only “news” outlet is Hannity or Jon Stewart is to blame if they end up with a dumbed-down misinformed worldview. There are plenty of libraries, free ebook resources on the internet, etc so in the 21st century there’s no excuse for being patently uneducated unless you’re just don’t care.
Well it doesn’t help that there are indeed groups out there deluded enough to be bothered by a local school hosting a Christmas play:
Can’t totally blame Fox for possibly getting this wrong, when there have been plenty of legitimate incidents to go on. Some of these secular groups pretty much write their own “War on Christmas” stories and save Fox the trouble, lol
Legitimate? Offering alternatives to religion is not a “war”. Discussion isn’t war.
I see what you did there and I do not approve, young man.
We already have that, it’s called staying home from church on Xmas and watching NBA.
Potato potahto. Fact is there are indeed secularist groups who have their panties in such a wad that a local school in a different state hosting a Christmas pageant is enough to get them hot and bothered. So I guess if Fox just called it something other than “war” then it’d be hunkie dorie then.
So there’s only one alternative, and that’s it? No other possibilities?
This doesn’t accurately describe the recently linked article about the christmas play.
Or, Fox ‘News’ lies 60% of the time – more than any other network.
If the alternative is posting stupid billboards with stupid logos ripped off from a Trump campaign, then honestly you’d be better off just giving the priest oral favor in the confessional on Christmas.
Read up on the history of “American Atheists” and related groups, and they give more than enough to work with. They might as well just be paid by Fox for writing their own “War on Christmas stories” for them. And then atheists wonder why they’re so disliked by the average Joe, these groups which claim to represent all atheists just confirm all of the negative Fox News stereotypes about them, lol
I’m pretty sure those logos predate the Trump campaign. But if you’re right, then at worst it does nothing.
I’m very familiar with these groups. Criticism and challenges and discussion aren’t “war”.
Actually, I can’t remember if I did that on purpose or not. I’ll claim it, though!
You could find more intelligent “criticism and discussion” on 4chan than anything this group has put out. They’re to atheists what groups like “American Family Association” who protest Geico commercials for supposedly encouraging relations with animals are to religion.
But that article doesn’t show that. In fact, I can’t find anything on American Atheists attacking Christmas plays. I can find a single article from “Charisma News”, a website touting headlines like “Ex-Witch Reveals Connection Between Yoga and Satan”, claiming with no cited sources that the Freedom From Religion Foundation went after schools promoting Christianity - a violation of the first amendment. I am willing to bet that the FFRF would stop going for those lawsuits if they stopped winning or if local governments stopped using their power to support one religion above any other, which current jurisprudence rightfully considers unconstitutional. It’s not a “war on Christmas” to point out that the government cannot promote a particular religion.
Can you name a single instance where American Atheists, Freedom From Religion Foundation, or any similar group has filed suit against private citizens on their private property having anything to do with their celebration of Christmas? Can you name a single instance where they went after a Christmas celebration where the issue was not “the government is promoting one religion above any other”? This isn’t a war on Christmas. This is a war on unconstitutional behavior and undue privilege.
Well shoot, how much of a nuanced argument do you want on a highway billboard? It’s a highway billboard.