[cerveza_fiesta]

I always wonder what hardcore right-minded people think about left-leaning news. I watch shows like "daily show" of course whose entire humor style is based on making fun of the right, and when I actually watch a newscast from a right-leaning network like FOX I can't help feeling a bit of rage at the false information and heavy heavy spin being touted as true fact.

I have a really hard time examining the left-leaning news from my viewpoint because I agree with most of it. It immediately comes off as educated and truthful sounding and maybe I just don't see all the layers of spin (I realize there are some of course) because it works on me. How do conservatives see left-leaning news?

My view of FOX:

As a news source, FOX is spun like no other. The way its written and the style of the anchors plays on the heartstrings of the "common american" or whatever you call the typical average-witted uneducated denizen of the USA. The arguments they present more often appeal to the conscience or emotion of the viewer rather than any kind of logical thought process. For the most part, especially with hosts like O'Reilly, the content on FOX is spun so strongly to the right that everything comes off like a conspiracy theory. On the occasion they have one, Liberal-leaning guests and pundits can't get a word in edgewise over the ridiculous and fallacy-filled arguments of the rest.

On a recent clip from FOX news they actually called the Obama health care plan a tactic of the Nazi regime. I mean, when you are spinning an issue so hard that your newscast degrades to Goodwinism on national television...you're doing something horribly wrong. People watch and believe what they say because journalists are supposed to have integrity. If you tell them Obama is a nazi, a lot of people believe it because they haven't been taught to think for themselves. Belief that your president is a nazi is a really really bad thing...and not what the USA needs at a time when the president is trying to save the nation from whatever oblivion its currently headed for.

I know conservatives are trying to "get back" at democrats for 8 years of bush-bashing, but unfortunately with Bush it was very very well deserved. The man by any measure was a terrible president that made poor decisions and came off like a complete buffoon at public events.

FOX unfortunately does not have a shred of the integrity they purport in their "fair and balanced" slogan. I view 90% of the content I've seen as misrepresented to the point of being false....but with just a hint of truth to fall back on that they can still call it fact.

/rant

Now that's my opinon as a left leaning educated critically-thinking person. I realize that there is a shred of truth reported on FOX news and I can usually pick it out through the layers of emotionally-charged BS. Someone without the ability to think critically however would have a very very hard time.

Do conservatively-minded folks see left-leaning news in the same light?

[MTS]

I find it hilarious that, in the opinion of some conservatives, on Monday Obama's a fascist, Tuesday he's a communist and Wednesday he's a socialist. It is mind-boggling that these people truly believe Obama manages to embody three conflicting ideologies at once. I mean, what a politician, right?!

I think the liberal media contains the same flaws that the conservative media does. It would have to - idiocy transcends political ideology. If you want a better example though, check out Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann. I don't think they take it quite to the extreme that people like O'Reilly and Limbaugh do, but perhaps I'm blinded by my blasphemous liberal sympathising. Still, the bias exists. They attack conservatives in quite the same manner, and there's the occasional conspiracy theory thrown in for good measures. Conservatives deride Olbermann and Maher for their "blatant liberal propaganda", so the same line of thinking definitely exists.

[Mushroom]

While your on the topic of Fox;

Don't know if you have seen it or not but this is fairly interesting, http://www.outfoxed.org/
and the full movie http://video.google....097743434902428


In regards to Media Bias.
It is shocking how some are so blatant about projecting a particular political agenda. While Fox is definitely the worst of the lot and on the Right Side there are some on the left that are bad too.

I generally go channels/places like our Government funded ABC and SBS for local content, whose content completely independent of the government and usually most critical to the governmnet. It is kinda like the equalivent of your PBS.

For World news my iGoogle has; The economist, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, International Crisis Group, The Independent, The Age, BBC, New Scientist, and Top Stories from Random Outlets. As you can see thats generally a left leaning set of news places politcially and probably kinda right economicly.
I also make a point of getting news sources from Academic /more Professional sources as well; Like say Crisis Group and RAND Corporation and the like. These are almost always bi-partisan and very good quality.

Im not so much bothered by the blatant expression of a political viewpoint as opposesd to the massive fusion between news and entertainment. Places like Fox (which created the Fox effect to make other outlets make news 'entertaining' such as), CNN, CNBC. When you get these hopeless people on say morning shows who have absolutely no idea about politics/economics making assumptions it has a bad effect on the audience. People who hired not so much for their journalistic integritiy or knowledge but more so for their entertainment value. Newstainment.
News/politics/economics/finance is NOT supposed to be made 'entertaining'!

[Asheroth]

I always thought 'Fair and Balanced' was the only bit of tongue-in-cheek humour that Fox News allows itself.

I guess I just can't imagine anybody, no matter how stupid, no matter how hard the wool has been pulled over their eyes, ever thinking that Fox was either fair or balanced. I dunno, I'm Australian and Fox News is kind of our national shame (curse you Rupert Murdoch!), so even considering that Fox might mean that 'fair and balanced' slogan seriously fills me with acute embarassment :S

[Terez]

I know it's hard for you guys to imagine, but trust me, most people around where I live won't watch anything else, because they're so convinced that the 'liberal media' is doing....exactly what Fox is actually doing.

I remember being a conservative, and not liking to watch the 'liberal media', but in truth, most of it is just neutral media. They just don't like it when their political heroes are treated fairly instead of being sugar-coated, but the 'liberal media' does the same thing with liberal politicians.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Life in America was better back when every town had two newspapers. One for party A, and one for party B. Democrats and Republicans, Federalist and Anti-Fed. And they were honest about their bias. There's no such thing as "neutral media".

It is impossible to fill a 24-hour television newscycle with anything except wild speculation and inexpert interpolation. The facts of the day are few and far between, no matter who you watch. You watch Fox, and you get 2 minutes of facts every 20 minutes of OReilly or Hannity jerking themselves off on camera. You watch MSNBC, and you get 2 minutes of reporting for every 20 minutes of sniping, conspiracy, and Obamagasming.

People watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report because there's only about 4-5 minutes of jokes that can be had for a given story, so in total more news is actually conveyed per half-hour.

If you watch televised national news, you don't actually care about news. You want to be told exactly what you believe, and often. You want to feel smart.

This post has been edited by Adjutant Stormy: 02 September 2009 - 07:34 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

Well put Stormy. I watch MSNBC because I like my bias. I refuse to watch Fixed News because it angers me. CNN has morons like Nancy Grace and her psychopathic twin on during Headline News, so I boycott everything on their actual news channel, due to that fact.

In the internet age, if you want information, it is literally at your fingertips. The sad truth is that most people, at least in the USA, don't want the information. They don't care to spend the time to figure it out. So, they, therefore, identify with something and then trust it to provide them with the broad spectrum of views that simply doesn't exist in American politics outside of political science journals.

[Asheroth]

HoosierDaddy said:

the broad spectrum of views that simply doesn't exist in American politics outside of political science journals.

I'm taking a political philosophy subject at uni, and our lecturer keeps pointing out that the writers we think of as reasonably conservative (Walzer on humanitarian intervention is the example he gave) are considered by many Americans to be dangerous leftists. The theorists that we think of as reasonably liberal (David Luban on the same topic, for example) are actually espousing views that are unheard of in the US. You guys live in a strange place

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Americans largely subscribe to the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil method of political intercourse. If they can't see it on their doorstep, they don't care. If they haven't heard about it, why worry? So when they choose a news-source, they're choosing their political alignment: most of them won't stray far enough from home, or read widely enough to actually form educated political opinions, so the ones they get from TV are the ones they espouse.

Boring, yes, but when I catch people parroting verbatim what some pundit says on some issue, I can't help but jump on it and say AH HA!!

[Silencer]

And here in New Zealand we have a grand total of two, yes, two, news shows. We want more than that, we watch the BBC, or similar - usually only on free-to-air at some godawful hour (I should know, I've seen the BBC World News program running from 1am to 3am XD). Then again, we don't really have as much to talk about, given our population size, and the fact that both our major political parties (much as the rest try to be major - stupid MMP) are very nearly identically centralist, with slight leanings right and left. XD

[Shinrei]

Adjutant Stormy, on 04 September 2009 - 07:26 AM, said:

Americans largely subscribe to the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil method of political intercourse. If they can't see it on their doorstep, they don't care. If they haven't heard about it, why worry? So when they choose a news-source, they're choosing their political alignment: most of them won't stray far enough from home, or read widely enough to actually form educated political opinions, so the ones they get from TV are the ones they espouse.

Boring, yes, but when I catch people parroting verbatim what some pundit says on some issue, I can't help but jump on it and say AH HA!!

This is part and parcel with the two party system the US has found itself in. People who watch these pundits are content to bring up and parrot petty partison politiking (PPPP) rather than get educated and think for themselves.

Fox sux, as do all the cable news networks.

[Terez]

Shin, are you saying that all the cable news networks are as bad as Fox when it comes to spin, fear-mongering, and outright misinformation?

[councilor]

actually, fox news isn't that bad, if you watch it as entertainment that intermittently informs rather than as actual news.

[MTS]

The majority of people don't see it that way though - that's the problem.

[councilor]

the thing is though, despite my somewhat leftist views, I occasionally agree with what they say on fox.

Before i get pilloried, i will stress the word occasionally.

just because they are lunatics in the majority does not make everything they say invalid, or wrong.

[Terez]

I don't think anyone suggested that they were always wrong. It's just that their willingness to present misinformation as truth, or to spin truth, rather negates the occasional actual truth that they present, at least as far as them being a respectable media outlet. They aren't in the business of news; they're in the business of telling the Far Right what they want to hear.

[Shinrei]

Terez, on 07 September 2009 - 11:40 PM, said:

Shin, are you saying that all the cable news networks are as bad as Fox when it comes to spin, fear-mongering, and outright misinformation?

I would say CNN is a better news source than fox, but they have some real laughable news coverage too. MSNBC is pretty poor, although I hear Ed Schultz got a tv show there since I left the states. I used to listen to his radio program.

In reaction to Stormy's "newspaper for party A and party B" comment - two things:

1) Was this really the case across America? I don't remember a conservative newspaper ever existing in Madison, WI (where I'm from).

2) It's a travesty that it is only party A and party B. We should have C, D, E and so on. These days, it could not be clearer that both party A and party B are self-serving clunges.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Shinrei, on 09 September 2009 - 02:23 PM, said:

Terez, on 07 September 2009 - 11:40 PM, said:

Shin, are you saying that all the cable news networks are as bad as Fox when it comes to spin, fear-mongering, and outright misinformation?

I would say CNN is a better news source than fox, but they have somereal laughable news coverage too. MSNBC is pretty poor, although I hearEd Schultz got a tv show there since I left the states. I used tolisten to his radio program.

In reaction to Stormy's "newspaper for party A and party B" comment - two things:

1) Was this really the case across America? I don't remember a conservative newspaper ever existing in Madison, WI (where I'm from).

2) It's a travesty that it is only party A and party B. We should have C, D, E and so on. These days, it could not be clearer that both party A and party B are self-serving clunges.

I'm talking waay back. Like before television. When newspapers WERE the news source. Before any of us were born.

And yes, Terez, they are all just as bad. They present some sick parody of the news, and we love and adore them for it.

This post has been edited by Adjutant Stormy: 12 September 2009 - 09:18 PM

[Terez]

Fox does stuff like this all the time:

http://politicaltick...o-false-fox-ad/

And they get away with it, because they tell their audience what they want to hear.

The other major news networks don't do stuff like this - at least, nowhere near as regularly as Fox does.

[HoosierDaddy]

Read the comments below the article. Lol. I wish I could slap people sometimes.