Thursday, November 17th, 2005
Fox News
My leftist friends like to complain about Fox News. I sometimes press them on why, and their usual answer is that the information coming out of Fox is biased. God forbid, a news service with a bias. I don’t think it’s Fox’s lean that bugs them, it’s that there’s now a major news network that leans to the right. For the first time the left doesn’t have control over that voice shouting in the people’s ear, and I think it scares them. I try and tell them not to worry, they still have CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, Reuters, and the AP piping out hot steamy news with a solid lean to the left, but that never seems to console them completely. At least I try.
I’m all for Fox News, I think balance is always a good thing. Personally I don’t watch Fox, I usually watch CNN. But I know most of my conservative friends stick to Fox. More power to them, they have a right to news with a bias they prefer just like my liberal friends.
What I would prefer over any bias is even reporting. (Like PBS’s NewsHour for instance.) But I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.
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November 17th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Gary said:
Okay you knew I would have to reply. Your post makes the assumption that all other news organizations are biased “left” and that by implication it is good thing to have Fox news be biased right to balance all the other major networks. You also make the assumption that all other news channels are biased left/liberal in that Fox News is a required voice. I had to chuckle for that is *exactly* Fox News positioning; for without them everyone would be getting news from the “left wing establishment”; this assumption on its face is falaicious: “all other news organizations are biased therefore we need to be biased as well”
I think what irritates most moderate and perhaps liberal leaning news consumers is how blatant and unabashed Fox is in their reporting and bias. It smacks of propoganda for the administration and is not a news channel but rather an opinion/editoral channel. It is the masking of “news” for bias and opinion that I think is the root of the concern.
Additionally there is a concern about the blending of “corporate news” with honest on the ground reporting of the facts and the blending of opinion into news itself in whatever direction the slant is. News is being served up interpreted and could be argued is furthering the divisions in the country.
A famous propogandist once said:
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
and
“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”
At the end of the day perhaps that is the bigger and larger concern.
November 17th, 2005 at 1:25 pm
Gary said:
One follow-up. You also assume that consumers of news are watching all channels in order to get a “balanced” view. If my worldview is being framed via a single organization using the marketing slogan is “fair and balanced” and who by your own omission is “balanced right” then I am getting a slanted viewpoint on world events. I am having news presented to me with opinions that polarize one group aganist the other. I cannot understand how this is a good thing…
November 17th, 2005 at 1:41 pm
Jim Mathies said:
“I think what irritates most moderate and perhaps liberal leaning news consumers is how blatant and unabashed Fox is in their reporting and bias. It smacks of propoganda for the administration and is not a news channel but rather an opinion/editoral channel. It is the masking of “news” for bias and opinion that I think is the root of the concern.”
The exact same comment has been made from the other side - the left slant in AP and Reuters reporting for example is also blatant and unabashed. Overall, I think if you take the sum of the slant on the left, and weight it against the sum of the right, the left side falls.
“You also assume that consumers of news are watching all channels in order to get a “balanced” view.”
No I don’t, I think I made that clear in the post. Righters watch Fox, Lefters watch other stations.
“If my worldview is being framed via a single organization using the marketing slogan is “fair and balanced” and who by your own omission is “balanced right” then I am getting a slanted viewpoint on world events. I am having news presented to me with opinions that polarize one group aganist the other. I cannot understand how this is a good thing…”
I’m not sure I follow your argument, the same can be said for people who only watch CBS or CNN. Do you watch Fox? If not, are you getting a balanced view? Probably not. My point is that whether people watch Fox or CBS, they get a particular spin on things. Fox simply balances things out, the left have their left leaning networks, the right has theirs. I am not saying that this is a “good thing” though. I put forward that unbiased is best, but that just doesn’t exist because it seems people don’t want it. They like biased, they like the spin. It makes them feel good, makes them feel like somebody is on their side. Regardless of which side they are on, boths sides exhibit this behaviour.