[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Allright, I'll play. First, you should know that I'm an atheist, pro-legalization of drugs and prostitution, pro-life, small government, relatively conservative person. Obviously I don't pigeon-hole well into the regular conservative niche. I do get the majority of my news feeds from Fox, but that's all it is - a feed. I've never been anyone to swallow everything someone feeds me. I prefer to check facts first (although if I'm shown incriminating video, I tend to take the person(s) incriminating themselves at face value). I don't have time to check facts on every story I see, but I most definitely check them on the ones that pique my interest. Now, I'm not really "educated" I've only got about 80 hours of very fragmented post-secondary education and am in fact a high school drop out. I am rather intelligent, though. I've a wealth of experience to draw upon, am generally well read and actually edit all my wife's graduate papers (MS - Clinical Psychology and MA or MS - Special Education) for grammar, spelling and content - she aces every one. I do see a slight right bias in Fox, but they do seem to make an honest effort to bring the other side of every issue in for debate. What I've seen of CNN was similar, but with the bias to the left instead. What I've seen on MSNBC, however, was EXTREME left bias, with little to no interest in opposing views. From here, I'll go ahead & start looking for examples off of each website & look for interesting points to speak specifically to. If I'm going to play, though, I'd request the same from all players; to wit, no talking points, no feelings, no bloviating, just cold hard facts as in the post by Terez above.
I did research the ad he referred to. IF that ad were made in the spirit Fox's representative intimated, " "Generally speaking," Michael Tammero, Fox News's vice president of marketing, said in a statement, "it's fair to say that from the tea party movement . . . to ACORN . . . to the march on 9/12, the networks either ignored the story, marginalized it or misrepresented the significance of it altogether." (from: http://www.washingto...9091801102.html )", then it was poorly worded and misleading. I have no idea, honestly, how much coverage the other networks have given those issues because I don't pay that much attention to them. I DO believe that the Tea Parties, the ACORN scandals and the 9/12 march deserve an inordinate amount of airtime though, and don't see the amount that Fox has given them and continues to give them as "promoting" them. Honestly, if the others haven't reported on them at least half as much, they're doing a dis-service to their viewers.

This post has been edited by Grand Goombah Graeld: 25 September 2009 - 02:46 AM

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Except the part where FOX basically organized the Tea Parties in the first place....

[Terez]

I've always thought CNN leaned rather to the right. Especially lately... MSNBC has an extreme bias, but they do not get into the misinformation business like Fox.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Adjutant, I hate to disabuse you of your notions, but the tea party protests weren't organized by Fox; they just weren't marginalized by Fox. From good old wikipedia: "On February 19, 2009, in a broadcast from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, CNBC market commentator Rick Santelli, criticized the government plan to refinance mortgages as "promoting bad behavior", and raised the possibility of a "Chicago Tea Party".^[27][28] This is where the name "Tea Party" for these protests originated." To be fair, these weren't the first protests against the spending of this administration. Protests were held on 2/10 outside a town hall where Obama spoke, 2/16 in Seattle, 2/17 in Denver and 2/18 in Mesa, AZ. The 2/10 one was by a Mary Rakovich, a "FreedomWorks activist who's also a leader in the "America Coast 2 Coast" conservative advocacy group; she was subsequently asked to come on to Niel Cavuto's show on Fox. From there, Fox most definitely took the ball and ran with it in regards to reporting on these protests. Obviously, their reporting made others aware, who then joined the protests. To say Fox organized them, however, is false. If I'm wrong here, please feel free to prove it, because I can't find any FACTS to support your assertion.

Terez, while I agree that the ad you posted the link to definitely misinforms, whether intentionally or not, I have yet to have seen any other examples of misinformation from Fox. Please provide examples if you can. Obviously, I haven't researched every word that's been uttered there, but what I have researched has been factual, if sometimes spun a little.

It should also be noted that I, and many on Fox, were outraged by TARP - when Bush did it. We continue to be outraged today. Have any of you actually went and read any of the stimulus bill, cap and trade, cash for clunkers or any of the proposed health care legislation? Every bit of them has been odious.

BTW, I didn't supply any facts to support my assertion that the legistlative actions I listed above were odious, only because the actual discussion here is about media bias. If you'd like some, just let me know.

Mod Edit: Merged posts~Bubba

[AlanH]

Ah, the great Faux News...

I don't know if anybody has said that yet, but oh well...

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

AlanH, on 25 September 2009 - 05:18 PM, said:

Ah, the great Faux News...

I don't know if anybody has said that yet, but oh well...

Why Faux News? Can you provide some factual evidence to back up that assertion? I'm willing to listen (read?) and investigate. Throw me a frickin' bone, not just a talking point.

[Morgoth]

I don't think there's many examples of fox news directly lying (outside of Glenn Beck, O'reiley, and Hanity, but then they might not be included in the whole fox news lable). What you do find is quite a disturbingly blatant bias, more so because fox news is by far the most popular news station around. Take the murder of that abortion doctor not too long ago. I remember being in the US at the time, and whereas CNN, and the Chicago times for that matter, talked about what had happened and tried to speculate on how the US has to come to a point where such a thing happens, Fox news spent half a min talking about how terrible the murder was followed by half an hour of brining in people to talk about how this should not be used against the anti abortion camp. Do you see the difference here?

I find CNN much more biased than the news here (here being Norway) but Fox News just makes my jaw drop. There's no news. There's political commentary with a serious right leaning slant. I remember a survey done in 2006 by... PIPA? on the invasion of iraq. About 20% of the US population believed that the US had UN support in attacking Iraq. More than 60% of those who listed Fox News as their main (or only) source of news believed the US had UN support.

More than 70% of fox news viewers believed WMDs had been found in Iraq to less than 10% in the general population. Mind you, these numbers are quoted from memory, but the trend is clear.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Morgoth, on 26 September 2009 - 03:53 PM, said:

I don't think there's many examples of fox news directly lying (outside of Glenn Beck, O'reiley, and Hanity, but then they might not be included in the whole fox news lable). What you do find is quite a disturbingly blatant bias, more so because fox news is by far the most popular news station around. Take the murder of that abortion doctor not too long ago. I remember being in the US at the time, and whereas CNN, and the Chicago times for that matter, talked about what had happened and tried to speculate on how the US has to come to a point where such a thing happens, Fox news spent half a min talking about how terrible the murder was followed by half an hour of brining in people to talk about how this should not be used against the anti abortion camp.

First, Kieth Olbermann's dissertation and discussion:
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related
He excoriated O'Reilly for voicing his opinion, and stated in no uncertain terms that O'Reilly was culpable in the murder of Dr.Tiller. What ever happened to personal responsibility? The ONLY person(s) responsible for this murder were the guy who pulled the trigger, anyone who supplied him logistically and anyone who ever told him anything along the lines of, "yeah, go do that" or "someone should just shoot him", etc. O'Reilly advocated PROSECUTING Dr.Tiller, demonstrasting against him, NOT killing him. Yet, in the examples O'Reilly provides in the first link below, which is from the evening of the day after the murder, pro-choice advocates in the media are blaming O'Reilly for the murder. If people were blaming you for murder, wouldn't you defend yourself? I would.
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related
Please note, Juan Williams is liberal. He's pro-choice. He does like O'Reilly, granted, and he's pretty center left, but still left.
In this one, Beck points out the parallel between what O'Reilly and Fox have said about Tiller and what Olbermann and MSNBC have said about our troops in Iraq, and between the murder of Tiller and the murder of a recruiter in Arkansas by a muslim extremist (American, relatively recent convert). He points out that Olbermann bears no more responsibility for the recruiter's murder, despite everything he's said about our troops, than O'Reilly does for Tiller's murder.
http://www.youtube.c...feature=related
Please also note, most of those videos were posted by left leaning persons as "evidence" for their point(s). I'm asking you to view it more objectively. Niether O'Reilly, Beck, Olbermann or Hannity claim to be reporters. They ARE commentators, it's their job to express opinion. In a 24 hr. news cycle, you'd run out of news if you didn't also provide commentary. Please though, show me some instances where these guys have told a lie. Not simply been wrong on something, but deliberately lied. I'll listen, investigate, and most likely write to them to call them on it.

Morgoth, on 26 September 2009 - 03:53 PM, said:

There's no news. There's political commentary with a serious right leaning slant. I remember a survey done in 2006 by... PIPA? on the invasion of iraq. About 20% of the US population believed that the US had UN support in attacking Iraq. More than 60% of those who listed Fox News as their main (or only) source of news believed the US had UN support.
More than 70% of fox news viewers believed WMDs had been found in Iraq to less than 10% in the general population. Mind you, these numbers are quoted from memory, but the trend is clear.

Fox does lean to the right, but has more people on to represent the view from the left than the left leaning networks have people to represent the view from the right. I think. That's how it appears to me...
I'm going to have to come back to posting about PIPA, as I'm still doing research on them. It's not looking good, though...

This post has been edited by Grand Goombah Graeld: 26 September 2009 - 08:03 PM

[Terez]

Grand Goombah Graeld, on 25 September 2009 - 03:11 PM, said:

Terez, while I agree that the ad you posted the link to definitely misinforms, whether intentionally or not, I have yet to have seen any other examples of misinformation from Fox. Please provide examples if you can. Obviously, I haven't researched every word that's been uttered there, but what I have researched has been factual, if sometimes spun a little.

This site has a good collection of them. They also report on spin, but there is a great deal of direct misinformation cataloged there as well. I love their slogan: "We watch Fox so you don't have to."

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Terez, on 26 September 2009 - 10:51 PM, said:

This site has a good collection of them. They also report on spin, but there is a great deal of direct misinformation cataloged there as well. I love their slogan: "We watch Fox so you don't have to."

Allright, I'm checking it out as I reply now. Going to their site, the first headline I see is:
http://www.newshound..._words.php#more
This article gives me this link to where Fox Nation has a headline claiming that Katie Couric said "It's depressing that I'm smarter than everyone about healthcare" The headline wasn't a direct quote, it was their take on paraphrasing her. To be honest, it was not a generous paraphrase. She did state that "The one thing I really don't like are opinions without portfolio or judgments without knowledge or basic information, and I think we have a lot of that." So, she didn't say she was smarter, but she absolutely did intimate that people opposed to the proposals are without real knowledge, which is actually pretty insulting to someone like me, as I actually read proposed legislation. Spun, in my opinion. It looks to me like they were (FoxNation) giving their opinion/interpretation. They did have her actual quotes.

Next article:
http://www.newshound...orrupt_past.php
This one's about how "Sean Hannity brayed about the alleged criminality of ACORN" (No bias in that statement, eh?), while never showing any outrage over criminals from the GWB administration. I believe their statement is false here, as I can remember him tlaking about at least a couple of the ones listed. It also brings up that one of the members of his panel is a former mayor convicted of racketeering conspiracy. The guy in question maintains his innocence (no surprise there, eh?), but i"ll give them that one and raise them a liberal who will go unnamed, who frequently appears on Hannity's show and was convicted of soliciting a prostitute in the past (that should be legal anyway). If they felt it so important to point this guy out, wouldn't the criminal liberal also be important?

I'll keep going through more of their stuff later, but they CLEARLY have an agenda against Fox, and are in business to pick them apart. What I'm looking for here are true LIES Reading through all the headlines here, all I'm seeing are attacks for what they consider to be hypocrisy from different Fox Commentators - not reporters, but people whose job it is to offer opinion.

[Terez]

Grand Goombah Graeld, on 27 September 2009 - 08:33 AM, said:

I'll keep going through more of their stuff later, but they CLEARLY have an agenda against Fox, and are in business to pick them apart.

Indeed. I never said otherwise.

GGG said:

What I'm looking for here are true LIES Reading through all the headlines here

There are quite a few - I can remember seeing several from their page. Their YouTube videos regularly show up on blogs I read.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Sorry, but the ONLY stuff I saw on that site was their OPINION of how Fox is hypocritical. While they did point out some disingenuos content, they provided much more disingenuous content of their own. If I see an actual LIE, that would lend credibility. I haven't.

[HoosierDaddy]

Could you clarify just who on Fox you view to not be commentators?

[Morgoth]

Also, I wonder how we ended up having to prove that Fox news lies? We know that O'reiley and beck lies, they've been caught out many a time after all, but I don't see where the statement was made that fox news lie? Presenting incredibly biased news, yes. Outright lies? I have no idea.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Morgoth, on 27 September 2009 - 09:02 PM, said:

Also, I wonder how we ended up having to prove that Fox news lies? We know that O'reiley and beck lies, they've been caught out many a time after all, but I don't see where the statement was made that fox news lie? Presenting incredibly biased news, yes. Outright lies? I have no idea.

Ah, we ended up there because my dumb a** mistook Terez's "misinfomation" statements as "lying" statements. When I went & looked up misinformation, I found I wasmistaking misinformation for disinformation. Disinformation is lying, misinformation is just being wrong. I clumped that into the Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity lie comments for all of Fox.
Where you said Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity lie, though, WHERE have they been caught out many times? I've never seen it, so please show me. I'll look objectively at anything.

HD - They're almost ALL commentators at some point. Each commentator does some reporting, some more than others. Each commentator offers opinion, once again, some more than others. From what I understand, the number of them with actual journalism degrees could probably be counted on one hand. It's just the nature of that beast. I can't think of a single person on Fox who's NEVER offered an opinion at some point. I also can't think of anyone there who purports to only report facts and no opinion. If they have, let me know.

[Shinrei]

I caught some of CNN's "Latino in America" agendamentary today. Now, I am actually FOR amnesty, because anything else is patently ridiculous IMO.

However, the bias towards "ohhh, look at the poor illegal's plight" was definately a left-slant. (It just happens to be a left-slant that I agree with).

This wasn't MSNBC, this was CNN.

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

Yeah, CNN isn't as far left as MSNBC at all. As far as illegals go, I've got no problem with amnesty - as long as the flow of new illegals is cut off. In my experience, immigrants are usually more driven and hard working than most people who were born here & we need that spirit. My problem is I want them competing on a level playing field from a wage standpoint and paying taxes like the rest of us. Not for nothing, illegals are FAR from being the whole story of "Latino's in America".

[Adjutant Stormy~]

People are dumb. There should be no such thing as a "commentator" or "political analyst" or "underpants gnomes."

They're worthless. In fact, I sometimes wonder why we even let people on new shows. Or why we even have news shows.

[Sinisdar Toste]

i'm still waiting for the elusive pure facts-leaning news. or maybe not-leaning news is what i mean
i'll probably wait forever

This post has been edited by Sinisdar Toste: 22 October 2009 - 09:03 PM

[Grand Goombah Graeld]

For pure non-leaning news you'd alomst have to have someone who just doesn't care at all about what they talk about, so they have no agenda at all. Nobody honest enough to do it otherwise wouldn't be watched.