? for conservatives. Is Fox News fair and balanced?

[Moonlit_Angel]

I read the book, looked up this guy's website, his organization, and form I have seen, the "opposition" to the takeover by the Religious Right is in its infancy. They are just barely starting to get organized on a national level. It's like a slumbering giant awakening. Or I hope it will be giant. There's a HUGE wellspring of people who not happy with the tone of things, and want change; only they are trying to figure out how to do it. They can't compete with the superbly organized and overfunded people like Falwell and Pat Robertson. Their message is tolerance, and we should try to build bridges instead of tearing them down. And they come from all sides of the spectrum. There's even an organization called the Common Law Network that is made of both pro and anti abortion women, who have not only opened a constructive dialogue on abortion but are are working together on many issues.

That's very good news . That is how you get things done. Bono gets that-he knows he's gotta work with people he may not agree with politically in order to really get things done. It's good to see some other people do the same thing.

Angela

 

[Macfistowannabe]

I agree, Ang. Sometimes you have to get a little dirt on your clothes in order to build the house.

 

[Irvine511]

That's quite false and laughable







Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, Ted Koppel, Dan Rather. I'm sure you think Bernard Goldberg is a big liar.

1. and because you say it, it must be true.

2. yes, Bernard Goldberg has a bone to pick with the people at CBS who fired his sorry ass. i've read the book, and it's all pretty specious. you might think you have a point with Christ Matthews, for example, he being Tip O'Neill's right hand man, but Matthews is socially pretty conservative coming from a Catholic background. as for the others ... other than right wing whipping boy Dan Rather, the rest you cannot possibly make a case for beyond paranoid coservative hearsay.

and, further, you're making the assumption that because of how someone votes, they are incapable of doing their job. just because you are a vegetarian, am i to assume that you cannot grill a hamburger?

the point here, drhark, is that Fox makes no effort to be either fair or balanced, and the other networks all try to be objective, whether or not they succeed is debatable. the result is that everything has swung to the right.

 

[drhark]

1. and because you say it, it must be true.

Kind of like your far out claim that the other networks "all try to be objective". How would you know?
I admit that Fox is conservative. Of course it is. Are you suggesting all the other networks are perfectly in the middle?
Fox's claim to be fair and balanced is based not on their newscasters opinions but their presentation of both sides of the argument, which was sorely lacking the past few decades on network news.

2. yes, Bernard Goldberg has a bone to pick with the people at CBS who fired his sorry ass. i've read the book, and it's all pretty specious. you might think you have a point with Christ Matthews, for example, he being Tip O'Neill's right hand man, but Matthews is socially pretty conservative coming from a Catholic background.

Matthews is as liberal as the day is long. I watched Hardball several times a week during the election cycle. Hardball my ass. Nobody played Hardball with Kerry.

as for the others ... other than right wing whipping boy Dan Rather, the rest you cannot possibly make a case for beyond paranoid coservative hearsay.

It's not paranoid. Ted Koppel goes to Vietnam to interview vietnamese under duress to disprove the Swift boat vets and reports that as news?

and, further, you're making the assumption that because of how someone votes, they are incapable of doing their job. just because you are a vegetarian, am i to assume that you cannot grill a hamburger?

It's not that they're incapable, they just don't have the desire.
Try Greta van Susteren. I don't watch her very often because she deals mostly with court cases and amber alerts, but during the election cycle, I didn't have a clue what her political leanings were. I hear she's liberal but I wouldn't know from her reporting

the point here, drhark, is that Fox makes no effort to be either fair or balanced, and the other networks all try to be objective, whether or not they succeed is debatable. the result is that everything has swung to the right.

I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion. Everything has swung to the right? not sure what you mean, but how would you explain the success of Fox news?

 

[Irvine511]

Kind of like your far out claim that the other networks "all try to be objective". How would you know?
I admit that Fox is conservative. Of course it is. Are you suggesting all the other networks are perfectly in the middle?
Fox's claim to be fair and balanced is based not on their newscasters opinions but their presentation of both sides of the argument, which was sorely lacking the past few decades on network news.


Matthews is as liberal as the day is long. I watched Hardball several times a week during the election cycle. Hardball my ass. Nobody played Hardball with Kerry.

It's not paranoid. Ted Koppel goes to Vietnam to interview vietnamese under duress to disprove the Swift boat vets and reports that as news?

It's not that they're incapable, they just don't have the desire.
Try Greta van Susteren. I don't watch her very often because she deals mostly with court cases and amber alerts, but during the election cycle, I didn't have a clue what her political leanings were. I hear she's liberal but I wouldn't know from her reporting



I wholeheartedly disagree with your opinion. Everything has swung to the right? not sure what you mean, but how would you explain the success of Fox news?

because i live and work in washington and know many, many people in the news industry. i know the paranoia that the Right has caused with the "liberal" charge -- and i also know that Bill Kristol, son of Irving Kristol and editor of the conservative mag The Weekly Standard, has said, on record, that they pretty much made up the charge 9in the early 1990s as a way of "working the refs" in political debate. it's a political strategy, pure and simple, and by repeating the charge that the news is liberal, you give people an out when they hear news that isn't what they want to hear or that contradicts whatever entrenched worldview they might already hold. i can also guarantee you that the same handwringing doesn't go on at Fox News. they have a specific agenda complete with talking points and "emphasis" on specific aspects of stories.

i don't agree with your opinions on the various journalists you've mentioned, but you've made up your mind so i don't suppose there's any point in arguing any further. i'd imagine that you're exactly the type of viewer that Kristol was talking about and views as easy to manipulate.

you'd also be surprised -- newscasters make a lot of money, and tend to be white. rich white people vote Republican, usually.

Fox is successful for the same reason that talk radio is successful -- they give white people an enemy, someone to hate. Fox is also loud, brash, entertaining, and really much more of a drama network than a news network. drama pulls in higher ratings than do facts. the success -- measured, sadly, in ratings -- of a news network does not correlate to it's jouranlistic integrity. any serious person in washington gets their news primarily from one source that is as dispassionate, unsensationalized, and as serious as there is in American journalism: Jim Lehrer on PBS.

or the BBC.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

To be fair... I think Matthews tries to appear "fair & balanced" but he lets his liberal viewpoint come up. However, he is softball on the "stars" of the time. He may have gone SOFTBALL on Kerry but he would have gone SOFTBALL on GW as well on the last election cycle. If you're on the rise or political star, he tend to go easy on you to a degree. If you're congressman from bumfuck boonie town or a person that is known for being confrontational, he will go HARBALL on you. I actually enjoy watching Chris Matthews' show.

OUTSIDE of the opinion shows, I don't think FOX NEWS is any less biased than other programs.

Aaron Brown, Lou Dobbs, and Judy Woodruff have made value judgements on their newscasts or shows etc. If they can do it, I don't see why Fox News can't.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Keith Olberman, Chris Matthews, Ted Koppel, Dan Rather. I'm sure you think Bernard Goldberg is a big liar.

keith olberman is a sportscaster

 

[Flying FuManchu]

As for labeling the entire media as liberal... my viewpoint has changed. I used to believe it ot be so outside of a few rags like the Weekly Standard or WorldNewsDaily.net.... But i think its a little unfair to label every form of print media, TV, radio, etc... as being liberal. That would be ridiculous and un-true. HOWEVER, if you're referring to the "media" as being just major publications and TV news organizations such as CNN, the Big Three networks, LA Times, New York Times, Newsweek, etc... then IMO you can make a case for the "media" leaning liberal.

I don't think its a myth. But I don't believe the media is liberal in the way Hannity or Rush portrays it but then I could be proven wrong.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

keith olberman is a sportscaster

Well past his prime....

Olberman is doing some mish mash of hard news and satire now... I don' think he considers himself as a sportscaster anymore.

 

[foray]

Located at the opposite side of the globe, I don't get to see Fox at all, but once it was showing on a friend's cable and I was in-cre-du-lous. I'd never seen 'news' presented in such a, shall I say, sensationalist fashion, becoming entertainment more than reportage. Plus there was this newscaster who injected his reports with his own conservative and hokey views. It was strange. I shuddered to think if Fox is actual staple in America.

foray

 

[drhark]

because i live and work in washington and know many, many people in the news industry. i know the paranoia that the Right has caused with the "liberal" charge -- and i also know that Bill Kristol, son of Irving Kristol and editor of the conservative mag The Weekly Standard, has said, on record, that they pretty much made up the charge 9in the early 1990s as a way of "working the refs" in political debate. it's a political strategy, pure and simple, and by repeating the charge that the news is liberal, you give people an out when they hear news that isn't what they want to hear or that contradicts whatever entrenched worldview they might already hold. i can also guarantee you that the same handwringing doesn't go on at Fox News. they have a specific agenda complete with talking points and "emphasis" on specific aspects of stories.

It's not just that people are repeating the charge. Groups such as Media Reasearch collect evidence on a daily basis. It doesn't come out of thin air. Say what you want about them, they get their info from the horse's mouth to make their case. The charge wasn't "made up" in the 90s, it was brought up in the 80s or earlier in an attempt to provide for a "fair fight."

i don't agree with your opinions on the various journalists you've mentioned, but you've made up your mind so i don't suppose there's any point in arguing any further. i'd imagine that you're exactly the type of viewer that Kristol was talking about and views as easy to manipulate.

Thanks for the compliment. Kristol personally manipulates me on a nightly basis on Fox News. His brand of manipulation is much more subtle than the way Bill Clinton me a few years back.

You know you're in a good position when your opponents underestimate you.

you'd also be surprised -- newscasters make a lot of money, and tend to be white. rich white people vote Republican, usually.

with the exception of rich white newscasters. Get real. Maybe I've been underestimating you with statements like that.

Fox is successful for the same reason that talk radio is successful -- they give white people an enemy, someone to hate. Fox is also loud, brash, entertaining, and really much more of a drama network than a news network. drama pulls in higher ratings than do facts. the success -- measured, sadly, in ratings -- of a news network does not correlate to it's jouranlistic integrity.

Fox and Talk radio certainly identify political opponents and clarifies that their are two sides to every story. We did not have this before talk radio and Fox. It was basically one source. People with opposing views giving me all my news.
A few people will choose to hate their enemy while most would prefer to debate. (There goes the hate card again! But there's not hate out there for Bush and conservatives, especially not on this board)
As for your playing the race card, "they give white people an enemy, someone to hate", no, they give conservatives an enemy. We're not all white. And we're becoming less white.

Drama does pull in higher ratings, but not necessarily at the expense of facts, as you implied. This is precisely the reason why the media abandoned their golden boy when they had the opportunity to sensationalize a blow job.

I'm afraid the success of CBS does indeed correlate to it's journalistic integrity.

any serious person in washington gets their news primarily from one source that is as dispassionate, unsensationalized, and as serious as there is in American journalism: Jim Lehrer on PBS.

or the BBC.

Dispassionate, unsensationalized, serious, and liberal.

I'm glad most of us aren't "serious people in Washington". we'd all be in trouble.

BBC? Get out of town!



CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, BBC are, to varying degrees, the liberal media

FOX and most of talk radio, to varying degrees, is the conservative media

It's better for everyone that we know who we're getting our news from.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Well past his prime....

Olberman is doing some mish mash of hard news and satire now... I don' think he considers himself as a sportscaster anymore.

i know what he does now... he's still a sportscaster. it's what he does best, he should go back to it.

 

[drhark]

keith olberman is a sportscaster

He does opinion news and he's as liberal as Hannity is Conservative.

Oh, and I forgot that serious journalist, Ron Reagan Jr

 

[pax]

Guys, let's try to keep this non-personal, all right?

I say guys 'cause it looks like the parties arguing are, in fact, guys.

 

[financeguy]

BBC? Get out of town!

Hey! Don't knock the BBC. (I admit that it is left-leaning.)

 

[Irvine511]

CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, PBS, MSNBC, BBC are, to varying degrees, the liberal media

FOX and most of talk radio, to varying degrees, is the conservative media

It's better for everyone that we know who we're getting our news from.

okay, for the sake of argument, let's think about degrees of liberalness and conservativeness.

on a scale of 1-10, let's say what you label the "liberal" media are, in fact, liberal. they're about a 2 or a 3.

Fox is about a 7, and talk radio is about an 8 or a 9 on the conservative scale.

it's not even a contest. you seem to think you're getting both sides of an argument -- as well as you're making the false assumption that there are onlyl two sides to an argument -- but what you're getting is a centrist/slightly left-of-center view and a right wing/hard right wing point of view.

and even that's going on YOUR self-reinforcing/justifying assumptions.

and, yes, the liberal media claim did surface in the late 80's/early 90s and, yes, it was a political tactic.

rich white people tend to vote republican. not all white people are republican, not all republicans are white, but most republicans are white.

Clinton as golden boy? hilarious.

but this is like arguing with a brick wall. let me know when you're ready to have a serious discussion. i recommend turning on Jim Lehrer once in a while.

 

[drhark]

Hey! Don't knock the BBC. (I admit that it is left-leaning.)

Not knocking them. Nothing wrong with admitting which way they lean. I wish there was a way for newscasters and news organizations to inform the public of their biases but I would not advocate any sort of ratings system as that would be inaccurate and ridiculous so I'll leave it to the bloggers, pundits, watchdog groups, writers, opinion journalists who have thus far managed to get all sorts of opinions and truths out there that were previously unavailable.

 

[Teta040]

The BBC are actually very good.

I am trying to look up the website of that womens' group I mentioned. I want to buy that book..."God's Politics: Where the Right Gets it Wrong And The Left Doesn't Get It" by JIM Wallis (got the name wrong)....it costs $30 and I'm broke. So I tok it out of the library and I didn't copy down the full name. I emiled someone on Wallis' organization website, www.sojo.com, (or net, forgot which), asking for the address, b/c that is ne group i want to join.

I know people will get sick of this, but I can't push this book enough on people. It has changed my life. It isn't a long book, but it tells what is REALLY happening behind the scenes.

 

[Flying FuManchu]

okay, for the sake of argument, let's think about degrees of liberalness and conservativeness.

on a scale of 1-10, let's say what you label the "liberal" media are, in fact, liberal. they're about a 2 or a 3.

Fox is about a 7, and talk radio is about an 8 or a 9 on the conservative scale.

it's not even a contest. you seem to think you're getting both sides of an argument -- as well as you're making the false assumption that there are only two sides to an argument -- but what you're getting is a centrist/slightly left-of-center view and a right wing/hard right wing point of view.

Is this basically the scale your making up?

v-------------------------------v------------------------------v
liberal----------------------centrist---------------------conservative


The ratings you give are confusing.


You bring talk radio into this... talk radio is an effective medium unfortunately you cannot compare it to the viewership, readership of the NYT, LA Times, CNN, MSNBC, the big three networks, etc... Do you believe conservatives, as much as they benefit from AM radio (LOL), wouldn't trade the meager influence of AM radio for that of major networks and print media?

Its not about whose/ what is most conservative/ liberal, it is about "pervasive influence."

Walter Cronkrite, Newsweek Editor in Chief Evan Thomas, a journalist from the Washington Post or LA Times, etc... have all said the media does lean to the the left. Hell, estimations were made that the White House press pool (on MSNBC) voted were primarily leaned left.

Again, obviously the OPINION shows on FOX are slanted and filled with bias as they are OPINION shows (O'Reiley, Hannity & Combs, Cavuto's show, etc.). But that is not any different from Lou Dobbs, Crossfire, etc. on CNN. If people compare the slants of Aaron Brown and say Brit Hume... I doubt there would be a difference. Also, to JUST watch Fox News alone or to JUST watch CNN alone as your news source would be ridiculous IMO. Just as it would be ridiculous to trust 100% the reporting of the Associated Press or Reuters. Media is all about making money these days through the use of entertainment...

 

[Irvine511]

firstly, everyone check this site out: www.mediamatters.org

what i am saying, even though i don't agree with the "liberal" charge -- and let's not forget, what conservatives mean when they say "liberal" is very far from what liberal means, and it's now become a word defined totally on conservative terms -- the media that is labled as "liberal" is much less "liberal" than the conservative media is conservative. it's not a direct comparison. you can't say "i listen to CNN to get the left perspective, and Fox to the the right perspective." you've set up a false binary opposition. and you yourself say that people might "lean left." that's very different from unabashed conservativism.

and, again: is someone who is liberal incapable of doing their job as a journalist? trust me, people -- i've worked in television, i've done shows that have been very political. the producers go to great lengths to be as objective as they possibly can be ... there is tremendous angst and hand-wringing about presenting the most complete picture possible.

you know -- they're DOING THEIR JOB AS JOURNALISTS. do you think the same thing goes on at Fox?

Aaron Brown? i've watched his show, repeatedly, and if anything, he's on the conservative side of things, and he goes to great lengths to appear "unbiased."

look at the others ... Lou Dobbs does a show about money -- do you see any shows on labor unions on CNN? of course not ... you could argue that, by definition, it's a conservative show. Crossfire is hardly liberal (it's also cancelled). for christ's sake, it's the left and the right shouting at each other and one making about as much sense as the other.

i will concede, though, that the majority of people who work in news do have some bias.

these are smart, educated, driven people with college degrees who are well read, urban, and sophisticated. they do probably agree, as a whole, with the following assumptions:

-- all things being equal, there is no difference between the intelligence of the races
-- sexual orientation is not a choice
-- women are as capable as men and should be afforded the same opportunities, which is to say that there is no "natural" sex role for women to fufill
-- life is complex, reality is shades of grey

if such assumptions, to you, are "liberal," they you might have a case about the make-up of people who work in the news.

most of us would probably call such assumptions "mainstream."

 

[wizard2c]

reply

Personally I don't care about any of the cable news......I get my news ahead of time....even before it breaks.

 

[learn2kneel]

these are smart, educated, driven people with college degrees who are well read, urban, and sophisticated. they do probably agree, as a whole, with the following assumptions:

-- all things being equal, there is no difference between the intelligence of the races
-- sexual orientation is not a choice
-- women are as capable as men and should be afforded the same opportunities, which is to say that there is no "natural" sex role for women to fufill
-- life is complex, reality is shades of grey

are you saying that these are things the "conservative" media don't abhere to.

(and also tom brokaw didn't graduate from college and peter jennings was a high school drop out)

 

[Irvine511]

are you saying that these are things the "conservative" media don't abhere to.

no. i am saying that these are beliefs carried by the vast majority of urban, sophistocated, educated people out there (the converse isn't true, you could be rural and uneducated and still believe those things, obviously). these are beliefs held by the vast majority of people who work in the news. if that is a "liberal" bias, then you might have a point. the point that no one can make is that said "liberal" bias translates into more positive coverage of Democrats than Republicans, or that newscasters are shaping the news in order to fit some specific dogma.

the reverse, in this second case, is true. members of the conservative media are every bit as educated and sophistocated as the members of the mainstream media; however, they *do* give positive coverage of Republicans and shape their news reports to fit a very specific dogma.

what i'm essentially saying is that you don't have liberal media and conservative media, that such a binary opposition has any sort of meeting. you have the mainsream media, some small left wing media (air america, the Nation, etc.) and a growing right wing media that fashions itself to be a conservative "alternative" not to the liberal media but to the mainstream media -- they are, in effect, giving creedence to the charge that the MSM is liberal, when it is not in any meaningful sense.

 

[sulawesigirl4]

Pretty much all mainstream American media is conservative when you are looking at it from a view outside America. As for Fox, I wouldn't even dignify them with the word "news".

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Pretty much all mainstream American media is conservative when you are looking at it from a view outside America.

This is often said, but never explained.

 

[Irvine511]

This is often said, but never explained.

i would say that all mainstream American news is centered around the general idea that most of what America does in the world is for good, at least the intentions behind the actions as opposed to the results. this is perfectly natural -- and why all nation's news coverage comes from a specific viewpoint ... French news is going to naturally be more sympathetic in their portrayal of French actions in Ivory Coast, for example. this isn't necessarily a criticism, simply a statement of fact.

therefore, US news looks very conservative because of this working assumption that only becomes apparent when people spend the time to seek international news from a variety of different countries.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

i would say that all mainstream American news is centered around the general idea that most of what America does in the world is for good, at least the intentions behind the actions as opposed to the results.

I don't see it that way. If this were the given truth, I would think we would see at least a hint of good news on Iraq, such as the peace process. Bad news comparable to good news on anything isn't generally slanted towards the best we have going for us.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

Also, I don't see how the supposed "optimism" makes it conservatiive.

 

[Irvine511]

I don't see it that way. If this were the given truth, I would think we would see at least a hint of good news on Iraq, such as the peace process. Bad news comparable to good news on anything isn't generally slanted towards the best we have going for us.

you're seeing a basic tenet of all news, everywhere: "if it bleeds, it leads."

there's no question that explosions and blood make for a more gripping headline to lure a viewer, and Iraq has had no shortage of blood and explosions. there is more of an emphasis on violence and less on the "peace process" (what do you mean? do you mean the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, or something else in Iraq). however, you do not see hard questioning of American motivations or even extended inquiries into, say, Halliburton, the construction of enormous American military bases in Iraq, or, most egregiously, the fact that 26 Iraqi prisoners have been killed in US run prisons. where is the "liberal" media on that case? they've been beaten back by executives who think that their audience, while fascinated and shocked and horrified by violence on Iraqi police officers, simply can't stomach the idea of America's sons and daughters torturing prisoners to death, or at least keeping them in conditions condusive to death.

i don't want to hear that either. as an American, i'm horrified that someone from my country could do such a thing. however, i also know that American troops are no morally better nor worse than troops from other nations -- on an individual level, they might have stricter codes of conduct than other nations, but i think it's impossible to state that an American is objectively better than, say, a Canadian troop or a Polish troop -- and that if the troops in question were, say, Bulgarian, or Jordanian, i wouldn't be as disturbed.

does that make sense?

American news -- with PBS and NPR excepted, and those being the places where, i think, you get the best news because they don't have to worry about ratings -- is obsessed with competition and ratings, and as such violence makes headlines, but no news program is going to spend too much time on a piece that should make all Americans, everywhere, feel utterly ashamed of their nation and their soldiers.

i am ashamed of what has happened in these Iraqi prisons, and i am ashamed of the individual soldiers who allowed 26 prisoners to die.

but no news executive wants to make me feel that way, lest i change the channel.

 

[Macfistowannabe]

It explains your perspective clearly, so yes, it makes sense. Just to clarify my terminology on what I meant by the peace process for example:

I was lucky enough to catch MS-NBC reporting that 85% of Iraq is peaceful (this happened to be a good two years ago), with a fearless reporter greeting Iraqis who appeared to be laid back about the whole situation. Also, it's been a while since we've seen footage of the troops in their most down to earth form - greeting Iraqi citizens and letting them know they mean no harm to innocent people.

I hope that helps.