# Is it ok to dismiss someone for watching FOX? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2010, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593 "2010-07-13T21:21:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/101 "2010-07-14T19:08:03Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, now, since the evidence has surfaced that the entire O’Keefe-Breitbart project was a total pack of lies, is Fox News forthrightly admitting their error? Revealing the truth is what those _lefty_ news organizations do. Fox is there to bring you the _other_ side of the story. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/102 "2010-07-14T19:20:50Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Those who think Fox is ‘more’ biased than the other MSM channels are either delusional or trying to push an agenda. I’m sure that Fox considers themselves the lone island of reasonableness in a sea of liberal media. Nonsense. They outright lie, they are often simply factually wrong; lying or being wrong isn’t “bias”, it’s lying or being wrong. And there is no “sea of liberal media”; there’s barely a pond. There is the “mainstream media”, which is right wing, and there is Fox which is an outright propaganda tool for the far right, and there isn’t much else. There’s little “center” out there, much less liberal media or liberal anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/103 "2010-07-14T19:30:12Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Who made sure that the story that took them down was propogated? Who gave it airplay? Hint: it wasn’t Keith O. You really don’t understand what we’re talking about do you? The ACORN story wasn’t news. It was a lie, created by that simpleton O’Keefe and eaten up by the FOX News team. Lies aren’t news. News organizations are supposed to state facts. Opinion commentators are supposed to offer opinions on facts. FOX News doesn’t see it that way. If a given person trusts FOX News, they are most likely an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/104 "2010-07-14T19:34:23Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Really? [Who broke the Lewinsky scandal, then?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewinsky_scandal) > > Debunked indeed. > > Edit to add: I tend to group Fox and Drudge and Breitbart into the same camp. I trust the lefties here do too. IMHO it was when Clinton was exonerated in the Senate. The overall point was that the Republicans and fox just succeeded on embarrassing themselves on assuming that was supposed to be a winner with the American people. It was not. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/105 "2010-07-14T19:49:48Z")
There are ways to make lies news. One of my personal favorite Fox meme is the “people are saying” gambit. “People are saying that Obama is a Nazi Communist bent on destroying America”, says Sean Hannity. Which is true, people are saying it. Then they bring on someone who says it, to illustrate the truthiness. So, they have created the news and reported the news in one swell foop. Then Sean puts on his serious face and says something like maybe its true, maybe it isn’t (balance!), but there sure are a lot of the American people who are saying it, so you could say the American people believe it. OR at least a whole lot of them do! Then Sean glances over to see Glen Beck has finished eating his lunch… ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/106 "2010-07-14T19:54:13Z")
Suppose I get most of my news from 3 sources: The ABC Nightly News, TIME Magazine, and teh St. Paul Pioneer Press. What then can be said about the extent of the bias that I’m subject to and the degree to which I’m missing out on important information and viewpoints? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/107 "2010-07-14T20:00:02Z")
You are likely to be one of the few Americans who are informed about the supply crisis in cream of mushroom soup and its impact on American cuisine. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/108 "2010-07-14T20:06:45Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think the bigger issue is what people consider “news”. Very little of what you see on FOX or MSNBC is hard news. Most of it is editorializing. FOX’s editorializing leans right, MSNBC’s leans left. Very true, and yet you hardly ever see anyone here complain about the bias of NBC or MSNBC. Instead, you see heaps of derision and condescension toward those who watch Fox News. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/109 "2010-07-14T20:09:15Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > There are ways to make lies news. One of my personal favorite Fox meme is the “people are saying” gambit. “People are saying that Obama is a Nazi Communist bent on destroying America”, says Sean Hannity. Which is true, people are saying it. Then they bring on someone who says it, to illustrate the truthiness. So, they have created the news and reported the news in one swell foop. Then Sean puts on his serious face and says something like maybe its true, maybe it isn’t (balance!), but there sure are a lot of the American people who are saying it, so you could say the American people believe it. OR at least a whole lot of them do! > > Then Sean glances over to see Glen Beck has finished eating his lunch… I used to consider Aljazeera the epitome of biased news. They had this system where they’d give a headline that reads something like, “Israel Grinding Up Palestinian Babies To Make Bread.” You couldn’t help but click on it. The story would then read, “I think Israel is grinding up Palestinian babies to make bread,” says Mahmoud Alami, a Gazan taxi driver. Then they’d fill 7 or 8 paragraphs about the plight of the Palestinians. Now Aljazeera is at best the 5th more biased news agency. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/110 "2010-07-14T20:11:15Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Suppose I get most of my news from 3 sources: The ABC Nightly News, TIME Magazine, and teh St. Paul Pioneer Press. > > What then can be said about the extent of the bias that I’m subject to and the degree to which I’m missing out on important information and viewpoints? I think that the maker of “Democracy now” makes a good point here: What you are missing is mostly negative views or reports critical to corporations. [http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0403-25.htm](http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0403-25.htm) > [@](#): > > George Bush must have been delighted to learn from a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll that 56 percent of Americans still think Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the start of the war, while six in 10 said they believe Iraq provided direct support to the al-Qaida terrorist network — notions that have long since been thoroughly debunked by everyone from the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee to both of Bush’s handpicked weapons inspectors, Charles Duelfer and David Kay. > > Americans believe these lies not because they are stupid, but because they are good media consumers. Our media have become an echo chamber for those in power. Rather than challenge the fraudulent claims of the Bush administration, we’ve had a media acting as a conveyor belt for the government’s lies. > > As the Pentagon has learned, deploying the American media is more powerful than any bomb. The explosive effect is amplified as a few pro-war, pro-government media moguls consolidate their grip over the majority of news outlets. Media monopoly and militarism go hand in hand. > > When it comes to issues of war and peace, the results of having a compliant media are as deadly to our democracy as they are to our soldiers. Why do the corporate media cheerlead for war? One answer lies in the corporations themselves — the ones that own the major news outlets. > > At the time of the first Persian Gulf War, CBS was owned by Westinghouse and NBC by General Electric. Two of the major nuclear weapons manufacturers owned two of the major networks. Westinghouse and GE made most of the parts for many of the weapons in the Persian Gulf War. It was no surprise, then, that much of the coverage on those networks looked like a military hardware show. > > We see reporters in the cockpits of war planes, interviewing pilots about how it feels to be at the controls. We almost never see journalists at the target end, asking people huddled in their homes what it feels like not to know what the next moment will bring. > The media have a responsibility to show the true face of war. It is bloody. It is brutal. Real people die. Women and children are killed. Families are wiped out; villages are razed. If the media would show for one week the same unsanitized images of war that the rest of the world sees, people in the U.S. would say no, that war is not an answer to conflict in the 21st century. > > But we don’t see the real images of war. We don’t need government censors, because we have corporations sanitizing the news. A study released last month by American University’s School of Communications revealed that media outlets acknowledged they self-censored their reporting on the Iraq invasion out of concerns about public reaction to graphic images and content. > > The media organizations in charge of vetting our images of war have become fewer and bigger — and the news more uniform and gung ho. Six huge corporations now control the major U.S. media: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (FOX, HarperCollins, New York Post, Weekly Standard, TV Guide, DirecTV and 35 TV stations), General Electric (NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Bravo, Universal Pictures and 28 TV stations), Time Warner (AOL, CNN, Warner Bros., Time and its 130-plus magazines), Disney (ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, 10 TV and 72 radio stations), Viacom (CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Simon & Schuster and 183 U.S. radio stations), and Bertelsmann (Random House and its more than 120 imprints worldwide, and Gruner + Jahr and its more than 110 magazines in 10 countries). > > As Phil Donahue, the former host of MSNBC’s highest-rated show who was fired by the network in February 2003 for bringing on anti-war voices, told “Democracy Now!,” “We have more [TV] outlets now, but most of them sell the Bowflex machine. The rest of them are Jesus and jewelry. There really isn’t diversity in the media anymore. Dissent? Forget about it.” > > The lack of diversity in ownership helps explain the lack of diversity in the news. When George W. Bush first came to power, the media watchers Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) looked at who appeared on the evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC. Ninety-two percent of all U.S. sources interviewed were white, 85 percent were male, and where party affiliation was identifiable, 75 percent were Republican. > > In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, there was even less diversity of opinion on the airwaves. During the critical two weeks before and after Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations where he made his case for war, FAIR found that just three out of 393 sources — fewer than 1 percent — were affiliated with anti-war activism. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/111 "2010-07-14T20:20:26Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Very true, and yet you hardly ever see anyone here complain about the bias of NBC or MSNBC. Instead, you see heaps of derision and condescension toward those who watch Fox News. Well, one problem is that the viewers of FNC (as exemplified in this thread) fail to see how biased it is. When challenged their response is, “look over there.” The correct answer is, “hell yes it’s biased, so I take what the say with a grain of salt.” I think it’s a matter of scale. FNC has developed a cult following that they are aware of and feed. If it’s okay for FNC to dismiss their viewers as drooling idiots, why can’t the rest of us? I propose we give the viewers of Hannity and Beck EXACTLY the same respect that Hannity and Beck give them–which as far as I can tell is none. I mean come on, a black board, the weeping, “The Great American Panel.” Starting and ending sentences with, “America is the bestest, freest, greatest, country in the world…” An intelligent conservative wouldn’t put up with that shit. Which leaves the gullible and ill-informed conservatives–who should be dismissed. And does anyone even watch MSNBC? I’m not even sure what channel it’s on. It’s always brought up in these threads as if it’s relevant. Comparing FNC with MSNBC is giving MSNBC way too much credit. Nobody gives a shit about MSNBC. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/112 "2010-07-14T20:21:59Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Very true, and yet you hardly ever see anyone here complain about the bias of NBC or MSNBC. Instead, you see heaps of derision and condescension toward those who watch Fox News. Well, I do agree with the OP, if a person watches FOX and \*\*also \*\*believes that FOX is fair and balanced it is OK to dismiss that person. Likewise if I see one that only relies on MSNBC for their information and believes that MSNBC is unbiased I would think that he/she is coming from La La Land. So, yes, I still will condescend to people that want to still say that FOX is unbiased. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/113 "2010-07-14T20:27:04Z")
> [@](#): > > …Nobody gives a shit about MSNBC. _Awww goldurn contrary_, as they say in Lubbock! MSNBC is the home to the delightful Rachel Maddow, she of a swans neck and a bear traps mind, with a girly giggle as she harpoons another tighty-righty lie! Oh, and that Olbermann guy. He’s OK, too, I guess. Sorta. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/114 "2010-07-14T20:33:06Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > _Awww goldurn contrary_, as they say in Lubbock! MSNBC is the home to the delightful Rachel Maddow, she of a swans neck and a bear traps mind, with a girly giggle as she harpoons another tighty-righty lie! Oh, and that Olbermann guy. He’s OK, too, I guess. Sorta. Her? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/115 "2010-07-14T20:56:07Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Who thinks that? I could just as easily have inserted Celebrity Mud Wrestling or the Itchy and Scratchy Show. The point was that most of Fox news simply isn’t news, its entertainment that presents itself as news. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/116 "2010-07-14T22:06:35Z")
> [@Meatros](#): > > There are always going to be extremists though. I suppose my point was more in line with the idea that while most media is a little bad, some (ie, Fox) is quite a lot worse then the others. I doubt it. It is just that Fox is biased to the right, and so is that much further from the position of most of the posters on the SDMB that it looks extreme. I don’t think FoxNews is further from the center than most of the other MSM. It is certainly farther from the liberal position. But that is the source of most of the bias in the US media - they assume and assert, that the liberal position _is_ the center. Any deviation from that is “bias”. Lather (especially when they get caught), rinse, repeat. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/117 "2010-07-14T22:10:24Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I doubt it. It is just that Fox is biased to the right, and so is that much further from the position of most of the posters on the SDMB that it looks extreme. I don’t think FoxNews is further from the center than most of the other MSM. It is certainly farther from the liberal position. > > But that is the source of most of the bias in the US media - they assume and assert, that the liberal position _is_ the center. Any deviation from that is “bias”. Lather (especially when they get caught), rinse, repeat. > > Regards, > Shodan So what you’re saying is that FNC isn’t biased, because they are actually closer to center? Who is the MSM? ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/118 "2010-07-14T22:15:37Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > And this is what is significant. To hear that a person watches FNC and thinks it’s fair and balanced gives a pretty good indicator of what they believe and how they converse. I know what topics to avoid. > > I also do the same thing with people that listen to a lot of NPR. There is a pretty good chance I can guess where their views sit. NPR is not the analog of FNC. I’m not saying you said it is, but even as a comparator it simply isn’t valid. It’s not that they do the same things from opposing political perspectives, they don’t do the same things at all. NPR is a news outlet, in what I consider the truest sense of the term. FNC is a propaganda outlet, with all the baggage that suggests. Although NPR reports on politics, the network does not itself engage in politicking. It reports the news in as unbiased a fashion as I’ve ever witnessed, and can and does present excoriating exposes on Democrats and liberals as well as laudatory reportage on Republicans and conservatives. They’re not in the tank for any political ideology. No, you won’t hear hours and hours and hours of programming every day on NPR denigrating Obama and everything liberal as you do on FNC, but that’s not what NPR does, and the idea that because NPR doesn’t rip liberals a new one every chance they get they’re a liberal news outlet is ridiculous in addition to being intellectually dishonest. NPR doesn’t purport to be fair and balanced, because there’s truly no way to live up to such a standard when your job is reporting what’s actually happening in the world. One thing NPR does, and consistently, is tell the truth, which is something FOX News can only say as a demonstrable lie. As far as those who watch and get their world view from Fox News, I don’t know if I’ve gone as far as to dismiss them, but my esteem for them does lessen somewhat because of it. Is it right? Probably not. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/119 "2010-07-14T22:17:21Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I doubt it. It is just that Fox is biased to the right, and so is that much further from the position of most of the posters on the SDMB that it looks extreme. Show me some examples from the other side that are equal to [this](http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001915/), [this](http://mediamatters.org/research/200907170017), or [this](http://mediamatters.org/research/200907170028). ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593/120 "2010-07-14T22:31:00Z")
> [@x-ray\_vision](#): > > Show me some examples from the other side that are equal to [this](http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001915/), [this](http://mediamatters.org/research/200907170017), or [this](http://mediamatters.org/research/200907170028). This is why I’ve asked repeatedly which part of FNC we are talking about. Hannity is not a journalist, he is not reporting the news. He is no more biased than Jon Stewart, because they are both commentators/entertainers. So perhaps we can have a more centralized rule: It is okay to dismiss someone that thinks commentary is news media. ETA I only looked at the last two links that showed Hannity being Hannity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-dismiss-someone-for-watching-fox/546593.md?page=7)