The most trusted NEWS source in America?

[BoMac]

Originally Posted by Jive Turkey

this is for real

Heaven is real. Fox News just proved it - thestar.com


This part made me laugh out loud:

Let’s get off Pop for a bit. Let’s get on to God. What’s God like, Colton? Apparently, he passed up a great basketball career to mind the metaphysical completeness of all known and unknown matter.

“Yeah,” Colton says. “He can actually fit the entire world into his hands.”

At this point, even Gretchen Carlson seems like she’s beginning to have doubts.

“Wow,” she says, after an embarrassed pause. “What about Jesus?”

“Well, Jesus, he had a rough but kind face, sea-blue eyes and a smile that lit up the heavens,” Colton says, which coincidentally sounds a lot like Jesus’s Match.com profile.

It’s also reassuring to know that Jesus is a Boston Celtics fan.

[BVS]

It's just pathetic:

Fox News gets Sitting Bull history wrong | Indian Country Today | Content

Biased and liars...

[corianderstem]

As someone who just read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, that just makes me want to cry.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by BoMac

Heaven is real. Fox News just proved it - thestar.com


This part made me laugh out loud:

You'd swear it was an Onion News report if not for the logo

[BVS]

It makes me wonder where this country would stand politically if the lies were somehow magically erased?

But it doesn't seem to matter to some folks. This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately and been wanting to start a thread about it but just haven't had time to really hash out my thoughts or find any information about it.

I've been wondering if facts really matter... I wonder about the pschology of it. Here's what I'm talking about, a person believes this, you can show them facts that say it's objectively that, yet no matter what they will believe this.

There's plenty of examples here in FYM and I don't want to get into that, but I think we all know someone like this. I'm not talking about religious views or the political grays of the world, I'm talking about cold hard facts. I know someone who keeps referencing this "law", but this law does not exist. They can't show me the written law, and I can only do so much to prove that something made up doesn't exist. Yet for years this person will keep referencing this law. They've never seen it in writing, they can't find any evidence that it exists, but they heard it somewhere years ago so they are hanging on to it...

Is it just due to bias, is it because it falls in line with what they've heard all their life, or is it just willful ignorance?

[yolland]

What so many of these stories have in common--and Fox is the boldest about this, but increasingly, our news networks in general are characterized by it, as are any number of political blogs--is the quest for credibility-destroying character smears leading any attempt at earnest critical analysis, the kind which might actually yield productive rethinks. I'm not sure children's books written by Presidents are all that newsworthy, but, since that's the most recent example here: rather than a sincere "How historically accurate are Obama's portrayals of famous Americans?", we instead get, say, an unmistakable tone of "Is Obama an America-hater who applauds the slaughter of patriotic Americans?!!?" (conveyed through ominous graphic backdrops and transparently fake 'curiosity' and 'fascination'--"You don't say!!"), followed by pathetically decontextualized "evidence" and perhaps a disingenuous disqualifier or two ("Now keep in mind folks, we're not necessarily saying..."). Likewise, had this been GWB's children's book being reviewed by certain liberal pundits three years ago, you'd get a similarly blunt insinuation that, See, he's stupid and completely incapable of complex decisionmaking--there's no other possible way to explain it!

The most disheartening part is that pointing these things out, even when done calmly, itself reads like a character indictment to many people--after all, they watch these pile-ons and enjoy them--so that often, the only response you'll get is a defensive recitation of further "proofs" that Obama really is a sinister revolutionary, or that Bush truly was an incapable imbecile, rather than acknowleding that other explanations are available and it says something rather appalling about the state of "news" that those are routinely brushed over. At that point the wolves-vs.-sheep paranoia starts to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Originally Posted by BVS

Is it just due to bias, is it because it falls in line with what they've heard all their life, or is it just willful ignorance?

Well, just for starters, there's a lot of research suggesting that giving people 'more information' seldom changes their political views, and in fact may even reinforce them; that what really works is appealing to their emotional loyalties. With reference to "the media," one obvious corollary of this is the temptation to appeal to the basest emotions of all--YOU'RE doing everything right, it's just that your opponents are all evil and stupid!--while with reference to political parties, another associated problem is the difficulty of knowing which emotional loyalties you're supposed to appeal to when your voter base is quite different from what it used to be.

[Vincent Vega]

from the amazing Colton:
“Nope,” says Colton. “Just young adults.”

That wasn't written clearly I think, from the way he has difficulty reading it to say it into the camera.

[MrsSpringsteen]

Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem's unborn child referred to as an 'anchor baby' by Fox News - Pop2it - Zap2it

FOX News regularly makes headlines with their headlines, and now they're at it again. The outlet ran a story on Dec. 10 with the title, "Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem Are Having an Anchor Baby."

Cruz recently told a television program in Spain that she and Bardem planned to have their baby in Los Angeles. FOX News has been admonished for using the term "anchor baby" before, with the Rocky Mountain News stating that the term is "derogatory, even racist, because it implies that Hispanics are having children as a way to stay in the U.S."

Considering Cruz and Bardem are A-list Hollywood movie stars with no signs of burning out any time soon -- and considering they're both legal U.S. residents -- we're pretty sure they don't need a pregnancy to stick around in Los Angeles.

Baby Cruz-Bardem will be eligible for dual citizenship if born in the U.S., as Spain will grant citizenship to a foreign-born baby if one of the child's parents were born in Spain.

Somos Republicans, a Latin conservative group, slammed Fox's use of the term in a statement. "Fox News Latino is being insensitive and their actions are reprehensible.The term 'anchor baby' is equivalent to other defamatory terms such as 'wetback,' 'pickaninny' and 'tar baby.' Media outlets should never use these demeaning terms in connection with precious babies, and it is unfortunate that we have to inform FOX News of this when they are typically viewed as conservative."

[BVS]

Will some Fox lover please come and defend this?

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by BVS

Will some Fox lover please come and defend this?

Or we could try to not goad the opposing side into arguments.

[solemole]

Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News - NYTimes.com

December 17, 2010, 4:18 PM
Study: Some Viewers Were Misinformed by TV News
By BRIAN STELTER
News organizations can educate voters about public policy and economic conditions, but they can also misinform voters. As if to prove the point, a study released Friday found that “substantial levels of misinformation” seeped out to the electorate of the United States at the time of the midterm elections this year.

The study was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org, a project that is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

According to the study, which can be reviewed online, in most cases, the more a person watched and read the news, the less likely they were to have been misled about the facts. But “there were however a number of cases where greater exposure to a news source increased misinformation on a specific issue,” the study’s authors wrote. In particular, they found that regular viewers of the Fox News Channel, which tilts to the right in prime time, were significantly more likely to believe untruths about the Democratic health care overhaul, climate change and other subjects.

The study found other cases where greater exposure to media meant greater misinformation on a subject. Regular viewers of MSNBC, which tilts to the left in prime time, were 34 percentage points more likely than non-viewers to believe “that it was proven that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was spending money raised from foreign sources to support Republican candidates.” Consumers of public broadcasting were 25 points more likely to believe the same.

But the study found many more instances that involved Fox News.

“Almost daily” viewers of Fox News, the authors said, were 31 points more likely to mistakenly believe that “most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit;” were 30 points more likely to believe that “most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring;” and were 14 points more likely to believe that “the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts.”

They were also 13 points more likely to mistakenly believe “the auto bailout only occurred under Obama;” 12 points more likely to believe that “when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it;” and 31 points more likely to believe that “it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States.”

The study’s authors continued, “These effects increased incrementally with increasing levels of exposure and all were statistically significant. The effect was also not simply a function of partisan bias, as people who voted Democratic and watched Fox News were also more likely to have such misinformation than those who did not watch it — though by a lesser margin than those who voted Republican.”

Asked for comment on the study, Fox News seemingly dismissed the findings. In a statement, Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: “The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”

Mr. Clemente oversees every hour of objective news programming on Fox News, which is by far the nation’s most popular cable news channel.

For the record, the Princeton Review says the University of Maryland ranks among the “Best Northeastern Colleges.” It was No. 19 on the Review’s list of “Best Party Schools.”

The study was backed by two parts of the University of Maryland, the Center on Policy Attitudes and the Center for International and Security Studies.

This is an interesting article. It might not surprise some, but I am surprised that this hasn't been posted yet.

[Diemen]

Asked for comment on the study, Fox News seemingly dismissed the findings. In a statement, Michael Clemente, who is the senior vice president of news editorial for the network, said: “The latest Princeton Review ranked the University of Maryland among the top schools for having ‘Students Who Study The Least’ and being the ‘Best Party School’ – given these fine academic distinctions, we’ll regard the study with the same level of veracity it was ‘researched’ with.”

Aka "I know you are but what am I?"

Tellingly mature response from the Senior Vice President of News Editorial for Fox.

[2861U2]

Nice slight-of-hand by Maryland. Notice how they're presenting what the "viewers believe" as opposed to pointing out actual examples of misinformation presented by FNC. It's a bogus study done to get attention. These people chose their desired outcome long before they ever analyzed any "data." And as far as the example of healthcare not worsening the deficit, I think (at best) the jury's still out on that one...

They're making false correlations. If someone who watches FNC believes Obama wasn't born here, they're certainly not getting that idea from FNC, as no major personality there (Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly) has suggested he wasn't. All in all, a terrible study.

[Irvine511]

i am impressed at how quickly you were able to dismiss the study using questionable criteria and attribute nefarious motives to someone who gave you information you didn't want to agree with.

that's precisely the Fox News model.

[solemole]

you know, most trusted NEWS source and misinformed viewers aren't necessarily contradictory... or exclusive.

[KhanadaRhodes]

my dad's alma mater is university of maryland. my dad's a republican.

 

yes obviously i know there's always exceptions etc. etc.

__________________

[Irvine511]

also, it wasn't a critique about the information on Fox, but about the VIEWERS themselves. so people who choose to find news that will confirm their biases flock to Fox, a station that gives them a product they love.

THAT's what the study showed.

[adam4bono]

Originally Posted by Irvine511

also, it wasn't a critique about the information on Fox, but about the VIEWERS themselves. so people who choose to find news that will confirm their biases flock to Fox, a station that gives them a product they love.

THAT's what the study showed.

So how is watching MSNBC any different with people like Keith and Rachel? As bad as Fox news is, they take this kind of journalism to a whole new level.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by adam4bono

So how is watching MSNBC any different with people like Keith and Rachel? As bad as Fox news is, they take this kind of journalism to a whole new level.

because the ENTIRE Fox News cast frames issues to suggest a way for viewers to confirm their biases. look at how they frame global warming, or the bank bailout, or the stimulus. it's deliberately framed -- via memos from above, from Roger Ailes and Murdoch -- for right wing consumption.

"liberal" media, by which we might mean a total of 2 hours on MSNBC, vs. the whole day on Fox, is not nearly as liberal as Fox is conservative. there's really no equating the two as simply two sides of the same coin, though it is clear that MSNBC deliberately tried to counterbalance the Fox prime time entertainment line up with a liberal counterpart.

finally, where is the proof that viewers of Maddow and Olbermann are as ignorant as viewers of Fox News? *that's* what's being talked about here -- not the quality, or not, of the broadcasts, but the (deliberate, willed) idiocy of the viewers.

[2861U2]

^ I hate rehashing this whole argument, but do you really believe it's just those two hours on MSNBC with a liberal agenda? It's the whole operation. The whole day.