The Fox News employee interviewed on the Daily Show basically admitted as much.
(paraphrasing)
FNC Guy: [after Jon struggled to make this accusation lightly] “Do you mean to say that Al Jazeera uses the techniques and presentation of Fox News and simply applies their own politics?”
Jon Stewart: “Er, yes.”
FNC Guy: “Well… I would say that one channel is right, and the other is wrong.”
You know, I might try getting some news from FNC, if I could tell when they’re covering news. There seems to be no discernable line between news and opinion there.
The answer to your last question is “yes”. And could you please cite someone in this thread who has said that O’Reilly is balanced in his commentary? He is a conservative commentator, just like Jim Lehrer, Dan Rather, etc., are liberals.
But, to treat your OP with more seriousness than it deserves, if you don’t want people to watch Fox News and the like, how exactly are they going to “look at both sides”? What you are saying is “you should look at both sides, except not the Right. Then make up your mind.”
I would seriously doubt if a steady diet of Michael Moore, Al Franken, and Pacifica Radio are going to give you a balanced perspective on anything. Just as nothing but Fox and Rush Limbaugh aren’t going to give you insights into what liberals push.
Liberals hate Fox News for the same reason they hate Rush Limbaugh and AM radio. For many years they had a near-monopoly on the major media. Then it was discovered that there were a lot of people out there who were interested in viewpoints other than Dan Rather and the Washington Post. And, due to the amazing power of the marketplace, even competing with subsidized media like PBS, brought us to where we are today. There is actually a major network who is not left-of-center, gasps of horror from the lockstep Left notwithstanding.
“Anyone who agrees with me” is hardly the definition of “getting all sides”. No more from the left than from the right.
Regards,
Shodan
What utter fantasy.
But like gays, you have to prove that this History[sup]TM[/sup] and Tradition[sup]TM[/sup] of the Liberal Media[sup]R[/sup] owning all news outlets should be overthrown just because some people “want” it. Nothing is free here, bub.
Lockstep? It’s been hard with all the flip-flopping you know. I put my right foot in and others have taken it out.
Oh, yeah, and :rolleyes:
What a pointless post. This means absolutely nothing. Amount of coverage does not equal quality of coverage.
Did you watch the DNC? I did - I watched nearly every minute of it Mon-Wed on C-Span, and caught bits of Thursday because I was travelling. To the average viewer, it wasn’t what one could call “riveting television”. The average FoxNews audience would have found it even less so.
Now, if they had broadcast the convention and superimposed clown hats and mustaches on all the speakers, you’d have an argument.
Mockingbird of course didn’t use those words. I was paraphrasing and exaggerating to make a point. Which is I think it a stupid OP because it has as a premise that FOX is: clearly dishonest, partisan and obvious propaganda. This is no way to start a debate if you want levelled discussion or replies from anybody else but those you already agree with. He might as well have started out calling everybody disagreeing with him idiots.
Further these FOX allegations are so severe that mockingbird should present evidence to back them up, like for instance quotations from his movie – vague references to Outfoxed doesn’t cut it in the GD. If he solely wanted to discuss a movie he should go to the cafe. BTW. My understanding of propaganda requires an ominous behind the scenes will. What political interests are manipulating FOX for their own purposes?
“Like gays”? What the hell do gays have to do with anything, and what the hell are you talking about?
But yes, Fox News and other media should exist if there is a market for their services - that is to say, because some people “want” it. If you think I am asking for Fox to be subsidized as PBS is, don’t be ridiculous. Fox shouldn’t be subsidized; neither should PBS. My point was that, even though Fox is at a relative disadvantage in that PBS is partially subsidized by the government and Fox is not, Fox News still out-competes PBS in the open market.
Well, gee, that was insightful. You’ve certainly convinced me. Although of what, I am not sure.
Regards,
Shodan
I am reminded of the Washington Post review of Maxim when it first appeared. The reviewer cited what he called the “Playboy Principle” (if you run intellecutal articles and cutting-edge journalism, you can print pictures of naked women without being considered sleazy) and derived the “Maxim Corrolary” (if you stop short of showing the nipple, you don’t need that egg-head stuff).
That’s only paradoxical for the Pat Buchanan/Pat Robertson school of big-government “social conservatism”. The faction of economic conservatives who are more or less libertarian on social issues (if only by default because they don’t give a tinker’s damn about that stuff) don’t have any difficulty with it.
One might argue that the former have been cynically co-opted by the latter – left to their own devices, they would gladly enact 99% tax rates on The Rich[tm] to pay for bedroom police, subsidized church schools, etc.
The real test is not how Fox’s coverage of the DNC compares to the other networks but how it will compare to their own coverage of the RNC.
If Fox gives more coverage to the Shrubathon than to the Kerry coronation then they surrender all claims to fairness and balance. It may be true that are pandering to a right wing audience and trying not to take a ratings dip during the Dem Convention, but that’s not what they say. What they say is that have no bias which is ridiculous on it’s face but there you have it.
I wouldn’t have a problem with an openly right wing network (although the myth of the “liberal media” is complete bullshit) as long as they’re honest about it and tell you up front, “hey, we’re not here to inform you, we’re here to pimp for the GOP.” What makes them a joke is not their bias in itself but their pretense to objectivity.
Even on the commentary shows which purport to show both side (Hannity and Colmes), they have a way of loading the discussions ina completely disingenuous way (“Has John Kerry stopped molesting hamsters? We’ll hear both sides”).
Despite the ravings of countless dittoheads, there is nothing comparable on the “liberal” side, certainly not CNN.
Right! At least Pravda always said right at the top of the front page: “Organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.”
And they’d have had a better show! I’d pay to watch that sort of coverage on either party convetion.
Yea! I agree! After all, pravda is a word which means what exactly, I forget…
It’s all marketing. Fox found a niche market and exploits it. If you think Fox is fair and balanced you probably think the same of Rush Limbaugh. There is money to be made in telling that segment of the audience what it wants to hear, as simple as that. CNN and MSNBC as well as the broadcast networks don’t appear to be aiming at specific political demographics and tend to offer more diverse opinion.
I don’t get the near universal right wing disdain of Dan Rather. Does it all stem from his standing up to Nixon (“No sir, are you?”) at that press conference? In the early days of the Iraq War he seemed to me to be almost a cheerleader for the war. He seems to me to be equally deferential and polite to whoever he interviews, be they Saddam Hussein, Ronald Reagan, or Howard Dean. In my book, Dan tells it like it is in the CBS tradition of Walter Cronkite. I think the conservatives try to have it both ways- they want us to think that the evil government is the enemy and they will fight it by cutting off its revenue, but the evil media are also the enemy because they criticize the government.
Did you actually watch Fox’s coverage of the DNC? From what little I saw they covered it in as much depth as the other major stations did (I was switching back and forth between CNN, NBC and Fox to get perspective…and even saw a segment on BBC if you can believe it). Not only that, they used Democrats in many segments to commentary (admittedly O’Rielly was also there). I think the REAL test is will the other major network news stations cover the RNC as much as they covered the DNC…and will they use Republicans to give commentary. And will they gush as much over RNC speakers as they did over Clinton and Obama?
Again, I found Fox’s coverage of the DNC to be reasonably well done, and as indepth as the other major news outlets. Much of the commentary was informed and they used non-regulars in many segments who were enthusiastic about the Democrats (and who also gushed over Obama for example). Will CNN and NBC do the same at the RNC? Perhaps they will…perhaps not. We shall see.
Just wanted to throw in my two cents about the ‘liberal media’ thing thats been debated ad nausium on this board in the past and is making the rounds in this thread. I think one thing that hanging people up about the ‘liberal’ press (i.e. CNN, NBC, etc) is that many of the people on this board are VERY liberal, so to them CNN for example is right of their position…i.e. to them its certainly not liberal. Many people on this board are also from other countries where there ‘center’ is at a different relative position from our own.
When judging whether or not CNN is ‘liberal’ and Fox is ‘conservative’ you have to take into account exactly where the relative center is for who you are evaluating it for…and try and take into account your own position on that particular scale. Its all relative to your frame of reference, so if you are evaluating CNN by, say, European standards, its certainly not a ‘left wing’ or ‘liberal’ organization.
By US standards (and using my own subjective evaluation) I think its pretty clear that CNN (to continue to use it as an example) is left of US center and Fox is right of US center…using THAT frame of reference. CNN is not RADICALLY left of center…but then Fox is not radically right of center either, by US standards.
My own evaluation, purely subjective and based on my own opinion watching them both is that they are each about the same distance from the center relative to each other. Thats why I watch both of them, as well as NBC (both the cable varient and the national one), and the BBC (for a ‘world’ perspective)…and even occationally the english varient of Al Jazzera (well, their web site anyway, mostly because of US involvement in Iraq and the ME). Balance is what I want, data so I can digest it, evaluate it from various sides…and make my own (hopefully informed) decisions about it.
-XT
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t they legally obligated to provide equal time? I thought the way conventions worked was that in lieu of providing X numbers of Republican hours tacked onto the end of each DNC night, you provided X numbers of Republican hours covering the RNC.
I would cease all my criticisms of Fox News if they’d simply tag all their material with the disclaimer, “Unofficial mouthpiece of the Republican party.”
I wouldn’t mind the bias as long as they’re upfront about it. I mean, you know Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11 is biased, and you can take that into account when you watch it; but Fox News still clings to its fig leaf of being “fair and unbiased,” and will insist on being an impartial outlet, even when their biases are proven over and over again.
That’s the part that irks me, that they’re insulting the viewer’s intelligence by serving up crap and insisting it’s steak.
If you look at the link on the first page to mediamatters.org, you’d see that Fox 'News" carried 90 minutes less than CNN and even less than CSPAN.