If Obama is president, FOX will slip back into the original role it had during the Clinton years: a home for angry white out of power Republicans. I think that if there is a black man in the white house, FOX will really go off the deep end and engage in some truly outrageous behavior (one of their comentators already joked about killing Obama).
Because it’s on television, dummy. (Acknowledgements to the late Paddy Chayefsky.)
Stranger
The actresses reading the fake news are often very pretty.
Nah, then it’ll be a mixed bag of whitewashing the Bush years “It was so much better back then!” and exaggerating everything bad that happens during the Obama years. “The Mississippi floods - is it because God is angry about Obama being President? Here’s Special 700 Club Correspondent Dick Butthole with a special report!”
-Joe
I (rarely) tune in to Fox News for the same reason I might read the American Spectator or what some other right-leaning publication or website is saying.
It’s good to know what others are thinking. One might gain a new perspective. One might also fart or belch in response, but having an open mind is good, even if it only leads to an appreciation of just how many dolts don’t believe as you do.
I actually watch TV news and opinion shows very little. Mostly I read newspapers or go to news websites and blogs.
It would be even better if we could get a different perspective without it being dishonest.
Though the attacks on Fox news and conservative radio are the main attacks Obama will have to deal with this election. That alone is enough to make them relevant enough for me to find out what they are.
If I weren’t interested in politics, and just into policy, I never even think to watch a dishonest news source. It would be a total waste of time.
Maybe the person’s television malfuntions, and the only available channel is FOX News!
I think many people watch Faux News because all of their commentators are a bit louder than other networks’ news people. That way the viewers can hear it more easily through their white hoods.
I watch FOX news to find out what conservatives want me to think about and what opinion they want me to have about their stories.
I listen to NPR to find out what liberals want me to think about and what opinion they want me to have about their stories.
It balances out, mostly.
In general, I find that when you get news from diametrically opposed (and biased) sources, you wind up with a double dose of crap that obscures the truth even further.
For instance, if you depended on Wiliam Kristol and Paul Krugman for your opinions, instead of arriving at the facts you’d wind up babbling unintelligible bullshit.
Having just gotten back from Italy where the only English speaking channels on TV were news shows - BBC News and one other (CNN international or Aljazzerha) what is really striking is how little news is on any American channel compared to other countries. Here, for every minute of news programming there are 10 of talking head opinion shows. That was missing from the international broadcasts and it was a blessed relief.
The Aljazzerha channel appeared less biased than Fox. There was a feature on it that explained how Russia was responsible for the current oil crisis, but other than that they ran news stories. There is no equivalent O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, or Chris Matthews shows when I was watching. I didn’t miss them.
People who make claims about how slanted and biased NPR, The New York Times, CNN, and the major networks news divisions are, clearly never read/listen/watch those sources, and cherry-pick the record of those sources to make their case.
Those who say that NPR or the NYT are “liberal” in the way that FOX News is “conservative” are just repeating what FOX news and conservative radio have told them.
A huge concept that people who slam NPR and NYT don’t get is that reporting, by it’s nature, is liberal, at least in the traditional sense. . .suspicion of authority, attention to nuance. That “liberalness” gets conflated by the conservative media into the contention that the media is pro-Democratic party.
I love it. . .right now both NPR and FOX have stories about Jessica’s law. They both ran the same AP story. That’s all that NPR ran, but FOX News’ lead photo, and primary “click” is a still shot from a TV broadcast captioned with the copy “Mass. State Rep. James Fagan opposes ‘Jessica’s Law’ — he’s also a defense attorney who’s outraged child advocates with a vow to ‘rip apart’ young rape victims.”
Right, he vowed to “rip apart” young rape victims. That’s it. He requested a list of all young rape victims so that he could travel around the US ripping them apart. That’s what he does for fun in his spare time.
Not that he’s a defense attorney, and that as a defense attorney (and speaking for other defense attorneys) with a client on death row, he’s going to be forced to put young rape victims on the stand.
Why would we do that? We only have a man’s life on trial, but we just “know” he’s guilty, right? Why would we have to put his accuser on the stand.
Being “Fair and Balanced” (tm, etc), I assume that this is the one time that Fox is attacking a Republican, right?
-Joe
No.
“Rep” is representative. He’s a democrat.
“No, no, no, you’re not too rough on them. You’re part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.” – Jon Stewart on Crossfire, shortly before it was canceled.
Stranger
I listen to NPR all the time. I never hear this liberal bias that supposedly exists. I hear a news source that strives hard to present the facts and to cover views from both sides of the aisle. I don’t have cable TV, so my exposure to Fox is limited but when I do encounter it it sounds like a long-format Republican campaign commercial. Facts? who cares about facts? It’s more dangerous to live in California than it is to serve in Iraq you know.
The full quotation doesn’t exactly make him sound any more appealing:
Remember, the truth has a liberal bias.
He isn’t saying he’d do it because he’d enjoy it or because he’d want to, but because he’d have no choice.