Aren’t you assuming that anyone at the RNC will give a speech as good as Clinton’s or Obama’s? I’m not saying they won’t, but the amount of praise due to any speech is a dependent variable, not an independent one.
I don’t think it’s fair to say evaluations of speeches are an accurate measure of objectivity per se unless the evaluations are distinctly out of whack with the facts.
Bill Clinton is a uniquely charasmatic figure in politics. It’s not necessarily partisan to acknowledge that he commands a room in way that no Republican has since Ronald Reagan.
Obama blew the roof off. He was an undeniably appealling and energetic speaker who managed not to sound mean or partisan.
I don’t know that the Reps are going to have anyone who is going to turn heads the way Obama did. I don’t know that they won’t, but I also don’t think the networks have an obligation to over-praise a speaker who doesn’t deserve it just to give an appearance of fairness in comparison to the DNC.
The fact that you can manage to conflate or compare Rather with O’Reily as being the same just on one side of the partisan line or the other, is more refutation of your argument than anyone needs.
If I didn’t think that you know already you are just maintaining a unbelievable fiction purely for appearances’ sake, I’d feel sorry for you.
I’ve listened to Air America Radio. Specifically the O’Franken Factor and the Randi Rhodes Show. They have been critical of democrats at times as harshly as they’ve been critical of some republicans. Randi had Pat Buchanan on her show and was extremely friendly to him, and I had to experience a momenty of intense cognitive dissonance as I found Buchanan not to come off as an evil psycho.
Franken and Rhodes, just because of who they are and NOT just because Fox News will spout unsubstantiated hearsay as ‘news,’ maintain a standard of integrity and do not broadcast their personal views as news, and when putting forth something as fact give their sources for substantiation.
If you watched Outfoxed, you would have seen the memos from Roger Ailes, the interviews with former employees, and montages of clips from the Fox ‘News’ shows which substantiates the fact that they are more of an institution disseminating propaganda than a news agency. As they purport to be a news agency, they are guilty of lying to the world at large.
Um. When I watched, Fox had Newt Gingrich on as their unbiased political commentator. Do you suppose they’ll have Ted Kennedy (or someone equivalent) as their unbiased policital commentator during the RNC?
I admit I’m a bit further left than most of America, but Fox is clearly right. There are several examples in this thread of their right-wing bias, and nobody but Fox denies they have one. Can you please give an example of CNN’s left-wing bias?
To me, all of that is beside the point, though. Fox News just looks bad. I watched it a bit during the DNC so I wasn’t just dismissing it on reputation, but all of the distracting bells and whistles annoyed me far more than they do on other statoins (my favorite being the image near the anchor’s head at an angle to make it look more high tech or cool or whatever effect they’re going for, which results in the image being less clear, and therefore less useful).
I WILL admit though that Janeane Garafolo, whom I love as a comedienne and an actress, is probably the most abusive person on Air America Radio via her show the Majority Report. While she doesn’t indulge in the lies of Hannity, she does come off as a rabid madwoman and I think hurts herself publicly by not being a LITTLE* bit more balanced and judicious in her remarks and delivery.
*-By little, I mean Janeane needs to find decaf brands that are just as good. JEEZ! The woman just feeds into a stereotype of bleeding heart liberals being impassioned but not well thought out. I really hate to see her on any panel discussions because I just know I’m going to be embarassed for her and liberals in general when she shoots herself in both feet, a kneecap, and a finger for good measure.
I’m wondering if I missed any cites showing liberal bias on networks like CNN. If I did, could someone point the post(s) out to me? And if I didn’t… can people please refrain from accusing those network stations of having a liberal bias? That would be great, IMHO.
This is exactly what came to my mind, when the subject was brought up. Fox is going to have to really watch how much time they devote to the RNC, because – as several posters have already mentioned – if it’s considerably more time than was devoted to the DNC, they are going to have a much harder time convincing people of their “fair and balanced” coverage. Or rather, I would hope that they would have a much harder time.
This isn’t necessarily a direct response to your post, Shodan, but rather an observation that I would like to share. Anyone who watches the O’ Reilly Factor can certainly vouch that on several occasions (and by “several” I mean… umm… a LOT) Bill will throw in the phrase (paraphrased): “…in our effort to stay fair and balanced.” Oh yeah, and the “No-Spin Zone”.
But as several people have pointed out, shows like the O’Reilly Factor are commentaries, not “news”. As such, I believe that the commentaries should not try to pass themselves off as unbiased news sources. Maybe this plays a part into why people see Fox News as the complete polar opposite of “fair and balanced”; Fox tends to blur the line, for its audience, of where the “fair and balanced” begins, and where it ends.
And regarding Outfoxed– my wife and I have ordered it, and will be watching it as soon as it comes in the mail.
From which I would infer, not that the folks at Air America are not leftists, but that the Democrats are not nearly as leftist as the Pubbies seem to think. IOW, there is a vast swath of American opinion far to the left of the Democratic Party – but, by comparison, relatively little to the right of the Republican Party.
I wonder when Air America will branch out into television?
It appears you’re in the dark on what “equal time” means. It means that when a network shows a political event/speech (a convention, State of the Union Address, etc.), they are obligated by law to provide “equal time” to the opposition. For every hour they air of the convention/speech/etc., they have to provide an hour to the other side.
I wouldn’t think that networks flood their 11:30p.m.-3:00am airwaves with the opposition, they consider the opposing convention to be the “equal time” opportunity (or so was the question I was asking).
Just because Fox News showed less than C-Span doesn’t mean a damn thing - unless when the RNC comes around and they show twice as much as they did of the DNC (and thus don’t provide equal time).
Got it now? Seriously, get that knee checked - it’s jerking wildly out of control.
Obviously, both these sites themselves have a conservative bias, hence independant thought is required all 'round.
I’ll exclude the more strident critics from the fringe, but google on CNN bias and you’ll find hours of right-wing entertainment.
FTR my own view is that the nature of a free media market is that there will pretty much inevitably be equilibrium. Most of the TV and print media has an unintentional slightly left-of-center lean, for the reasons Daniel Okrent cited in the New York Times; in balance to that we have several outlets (Fox, talk radio) that are quite explicitly conservative. IMO, if you could multiply the intensity of bias by the number of outlets and their viewer/listenerships, and then adjust for “who watches news shows,” you’d come out even on the right-left scale.
Who does get marginalized pretty much are the fringes: the far left (Michael Moore), the far right (Michael Savage) and the Libertarians (Neal Boortz); none of those are going to last very long on TV.
