By the way, here is a blog article on Fox News’ bias. Here is what a former editor at Fox News had to say:
And, here’s a discussion of what another former editor had to say:
Jshore, I direct you here.
Please take the time to actually read some of the information before your mind slams shut like a trap door.
People who want to committ suicide don’t strap TNT and nails to their chests (or fill their cars with TNT) and go into crowded areas. People who do that are trying to kill others. That’s why they’re suicide bombers- they are killing themselves and making the attempt to murder others. ‘Homicide bomber’ doesn’t convey that the act is self-destructive.
Evil One, cites that dub themselves “The Leader in Documenting, Exposing and
Neutralizing Liberal Media Bias” aren’t going to convince anybody of their fair-mindedness or impartiality.
OK, so I laughed my guts out at the ecer-so-slight hint of paranoia on that site. But what are we supposed to be drawing from it?
You may also be interested in reading Bernard Goldberg’s book Bias. If you feel ex-employees can be relied on to determine if a news organization is biased or not.
I would judge Fox to be somewhat to the right of the American center, as PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, the Washington Post, 99% of Hollywood, etc., is somewhat to the left of the American center.
Regards,
Shodan
I already said I’ve never watched Fox so how you can come to such a conclusion is a bit baffling –perhaps rather you should try on the notion that not everybody is an American and know of the particulars of American history (which was why I qualified my assertion).
Boy did I misunderstand this line of yours: “Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski were homicide bombers” – but you seems to be rather heavily emotional involved in this little thing since you apparently think it warrants little snide ad-hominems. This is way more than I can muster on the subject so I think I’ll just take the quick way out.
Which was why you just used it to describe Timothy McVeigh and Ted Kaczynski?
Guys, we are either going to accept web sites at cites or we aren’t. I have seen plenty of links on the board to left-leaning websites that were touted at the clarion call of truth to make someones point. Sure, the MRC leans to the right. But they do take the time to monitor the major media outlets closely. You can disagree with their political philosophy, but the fact remains that the news anchors or interviewers in question did, in fact, utter the words that are attributed to them. If you read the analysis with an open mind, you will see what I’m talking about. If you refuse to accept the idea that ideology makes it’s way into editorial decisions and interview questions, then my time is being wasted here.
Take the CBS “Kerry/McCain dream ticket” story. Why even do that story in the first place? McCain has repeatedly expressed no interest in being Kerry’s VP. So what was the point in taking up precious time to discuss something that will never happen? Other than making people feel good who want to gaze at a graphic with Kerry winning, I don’t see it.
The further left you are, the more unwilling you are to accept the idea of left-wing bias in the national media. The further right you are, the less willing you are to see right-wing bias in the Wall Street Journal. People are going to see a point of view they agree with as “the truth” and not bias, unless they are capable of taking a step back and looking at the subject objectively.
Bull. Cites that are obviously off the wall have never been accepted as valid cites. See the debates about the Berg video and links to nuthatches like the Voz de Aztlan.
As has already been pointed out in this thread, from outside the US any complaints about left-wing bias in mainstream American media seem preposterous, because it’s still right-wing by non-American standards. That’s why the MRC site seems silly.
The MRC site analyses American media and is aimed at an American audience. And since the original OP was about the bias perceived by some at Fox News, we are using American standards as the basis of discussion.
Marley23, do you think that the MRC site is “totally off the wall”?
Fox News is broadcast internationally.
OK, Rune, I’m sorry I got snarky with you. My point is, “suicide bomber” is a phrase which actually provides some information; “homicide bomber” is a phrase which provides very little information (and “Homicide bomber kills 4” is pointlessly and probably propagandistically redundant).
A Palestinian religious fanatic (or secular nationalist zealot) who straps on a belt full of dynamite and nails and blows himself up in the middle of a bus or a cafe in Tel Aviv is a “homicide bomber”. Timothy McVeigh, who parked a truck full of several thousand pounds of explosives in front of an office building at 9 o’clock in the morning, lit the fuse, and then walked away, was a “homicide bomber”. Ted Kaczynski, who mailed packages designed to explode when opened (and in some cases left innocent-looking objects booby-trapped to explode when picked up in places where his targets would find them) was a “homicide bomber”. The person–officially alleged to be Eric Robert Rudolph, who is awaiting trial–who left a pipe bomb with a timer attached to it in a crowded park in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics was a “homicide bomber”. Using the term “homicide bomber” conveys almost no extra information. If for some reason someone is just hell-bent on avoiding the descriptive term “suicide bomber” (which does provide extra information; in pragmatic terms security measures which will stop a person who needs to plant his or her bomb and get away will do nothing to stop a suicide bomber), why not just say “bomber” and “bomb” and leave it at that?
I’m not really that emotionally invested in the topic, actually, it just irritates me is all.
Are you suggesting repeating this little fantasy is a “liberal” idea? Interesting.
The only time I have seen this little titbit mentioned at all in the UK media was in a column by Andrew Sullivan, who would hardly be a representative of the ‘left’. He was touting it as the best possible outcome for the Democrats (having the bi-partisan ticket) available. It was, in his eyes, a right-wing fantasy ticket of which he seemed to approve. I find it difficult to conceive of how this could later be construed as being an idea continually perpetuated by liberal-biased media.
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I can’t really judge this personally, but the following comments by **Shodan ** strike me as being (possibly) a reasonably fair analysis of the US media - can someone from the other side of the fence confirm if this is generally considered the case, or not? (I find it difficult to judge exactly where the American public centre *actually * sits relative to, for example, the UK.)
And would therefore seem even more rightward according to international standards. I didn’t think of that. My apologies.
Tell me, does CNN strike you as right of your political center as well?
Yep - it’s comparable to the serious right-wing media here.
The OP enjoined us to debate Fox-bashing on the SDMB. Since this site has a considerable international contingent, simply limiting the discussion solely to what the US might consider “centrist” would appear to deprive Carnick of the opportunity to explore the reasonable and legitimate position that Fox News is so way out to the right that the rest of the world finds it absurd, sometimes amusingly so.
I’m sure many international dopers find Fox news way out to the right because their political standards are even further to the left than our own…hence CNN being compared to right-wing media in Great Britain.
This brings to mind my earlier point…people are going to be naturally tolerant of opinions they agree with. The further left you are, the more you dislike Fox News.
Interestingly enough, I just did a few quick Google searches, and it does not appear that Foxnews.com has ever employed the phrase “homicide bomb” or any variant thereof in conjunction with the search terms McVeigh, Nichols, Oklahoma City, Kaczynski, Unabomber, Rudolph, or Centennial Olympic Park. On the other hand, the “homicide bomb” trope seems to be used extensively to describe bombings (suicide and otherwise) carried out by Middle Eastern and/or Islamic terrorists (including terrorist attacks in Russia presumably in the cause of Chechen separatism). “Homicide bomb” is used to describe both attacks on unarmed civilians–people blowing up restaurants and subway cars and so on–and bombings aimed at U.S. troops in Iraq.
(Those were pretty quick Google searches; if someone can come up with some counter-examples, have at it.)
Oh I dunno. I don’t see it as a sliding scale of “left” and “right” but a sliding slope of how far you let impartiality in news broadcasting slip in favor of blatant propaganda.