Question about Fox News

[deftron]

Does thier claim of "Fair and Balanced"
mean they are balancing the general media bias
by being a conservative outlet while the majority
of other media has a liberal lean, or
is Fox News trying to imply they are
"fair and balanced" themselves, representing
both left and right points of view ?

 

[EatSpam]

They're a fundie/radical right/corporatist news station masquerading as a centrist, common-sense station - hence the fair and balanced.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

The fair and balanced claim arises from their practice of inviting people from both sides (or more if needed) of an issue to engage in open debate on the specific topic.

There are a host of liberal personalities that are brought on to debate equally conservative personalities on whatever the topic of the day is.

People often confuse the editorial slant of the network (O'Reilly, Hannity, Colmes, Snow, Gibson) with its presentation of the news.

*Flame Suit*

 

[theeedude]

Tony Snow, nuff said. You know how fair and balanced they are when their anchor is drafted to be spokesman for Bush.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: senseamp
Tony Snow, nuff said. You know how fair and balanced they are when their anchor is drafted to be spokesman for Bush.

ABC Picked up Stephanopolis. Does that mean they are biased to the left?

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: senseamp
Tony Snow, nuff said. You know how fair and balanced they are when their anchor is drafted to be spokesman for Bush.

ABC Picked up Stephanopolis. Does that mean they are biased to the left?

As far left as a big corporate news station can be, which is somewhere pretty right of center.

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Originally posted by: EatSpam

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: senseamp
Tony Snow, nuff said. You know how fair and balanced they are when their anchor is drafted to be spokesman for Bush.

ABC Picked up Stephanopolis. Does that mean they are biased to the left?

As far left as a big corporate news station can be, which is somewhere pretty right of center.

It's the exact same comparison.

 

[randym431]

There was an actual audit of this fox claim. The rate of liberal to conservative guest was actually and in truth 25% liberal 75% conservative.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: EatSpam

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: senseamp
Tony Snow, nuff said. You know how fair and balanced they are when their anchor is drafted to be spokesman for Bush.

ABC Picked up Stephanopolis. Does that mean they are biased to the left?

As far left as a big corporate news station can be, which is somewhere pretty right of center.

It's the exact same comparison.

Well, not really. Going from politics to news is different than doing it the other way around...especially when it is not done directly from one to the other (Stephanopolis was "out" of politics for a while before going to work with ABC, IIRC). Of course I view being a real newsperson to be a step up from being a mouthpiece for an administration, so maybe I'm biased in that direction.

 

[Rainsford]

As for Fox News, I would think that would be obvious...it's a marketing ploy. Regardless of the actual bias of Fox News, the fact is that their audience is largely composed of people who perceive a (liberal) bias in the rest of the media. Fox News is simply playing to their audience, by constantly calling themselves "Fair and Balanced" they are reminding their viewers just how the other TV networks REALLY do the news (or at least the viewers' perception along those lines). Fox's target audience is actually far more biased towards the right than the network itself, even if most of the bias accusations are true. The reason is that Fox is designed to appeal to a group of people who feel their views aren't properly represented in the media, a group that is made up of, by and large, conservatives. The slogan reminds people just why they should keep watching Fox News.

 

[Harvey]

Faux News uses the term, Fair and Balanced as declaration of two words they can neither spell nor understand. A good example happened, just today.

Last Tuesday, during an interview with Gen. Wesley Clark, Bill O'Reilly, slandered U.S. soldiers who died in an event known as the Malmedy massacre, a war crime committed by German troops during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, involving the murder of prisoners of war.

O'Reilly got it wrong. Faux's transcript of the segment quotes O'Reilly as saying U.S. troops committed the war crime and shot unarmed Geman soldiers.

O'REILLY: And in Malmedy, as you know, U.S. forces captured S.S. forces, who had their hands in the air. And they were unarmed. And they shot them down. You know that. That's on the record. Been documented.

What's wrong with this picture, other than blathering Bill O's outrageous slander of slain American troops? For one thing, he said the same thing on another show with Gen. Clark, last October, and he hasn't checked his facts since then.

Getting back to Faux, though the transcript has it right, NOW, earlier, the transcript had been edited to substitute Normandy for Malmedy. I found the evidence. proving Faux changed the transcript! I searched google for "O'Reilly"+"Wesley Clark"+Normandy, and the top return says:

FOXNews.com - Ex-NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark on Afghanistan ...
Wesley Clark on Afghanistan and Iraq Troubles, A military man reacts to the two ... O'REILLY: And in Normandy, as you know, US forces captured SS forces, ...
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,197635,00.html - 41k - Cached - Similar pages

Somehow, the actual cached link was missing, but that's enough to prove the point.

Fair and balanced... Faux... Uh-huh! :roll:

It sounds a lot like the title of Al Franken's book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. :laugh:

 

[NTB]

Actually, that's a typo. What it's supposed to say is "Fairly Unbalanced"

Nate

 

[theeedude]

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy

Originally posted by: senseamp
Tony Snow, nuff said. You know how fair and balanced they are when their anchor is drafted to be spokesman for Bush.

ABC Picked up Stephanopolis. Does that mean they are biased to the left?

No. Stephanopolis worked for Clinton.

 

[dmcowen674]

The Supreme Court and FEC just gave their thumbs up to PNACs and people like Murdock controlling U.S. Media and the Elections.

The U.S. is literally now an Official Corporate Controlled Bananna Republic

 

[daveymark]

Originally posted by: randym431
There was an actual audit of this fox claim. The rate of liberal to conservative guest was actually and in truth 25% liberal 75% conservative.

link?

 

[BlancoNino]

Originally posted by: randym431
There was an actual audit of this fox claim. The rate of liberal to conservative guest was actually and in truth 25% liberal 75% conservative.

That's because they have Dick Morris on there all the time and they're probably counting him as a conservative because he doesn't slam Bush.

 

[BlancoNino]

Seriously folks, I think i'ts funny that movies like Outfoxed and websites like moveon.org use lies and disorted truths to try and prove that Fox News uses lies and distorted truths to further the right-wing agenda.

If people don't want to watch Fox News, turn off the damn TV...but for crying out loud people cannot stop complaining about Fox. The term "fair and balanced" which is referring to news reporting is probably true. It can be weighed anyway...it's such a generic phrase that I don't understand why people even bother to challenge it. Ever heard of free speech? Yeah...deal with it. Oh and I'm fully aware that Fox tried to block Frankens use of fair and balanced in his book...which is crap too.

Oh and for the people who complain about Bill O'Reilly: Honestly, why don't you start watching his show everyday? Or do you just like to hear about his occasional slip up every once in a while that gets thrown all over the undoubtedly liberal internet to try and defame his character more? O'reilly isn't my favorite guy in the world, but he's a great speaker and asks great questions. Those of you who watch his show regularly would know this and that he DOESNT screw up that often. I guess he just pays the price for having the highest ratings. I'll bet Olberman screws up too, but nobody cares because he's not Bill O'Reilly so it goes under the radar.

 

[Excelsior]

Almost all news is biased to some degree.

/thread.

 

[DealMonkey]

Fox leans to the right, every other cable channels leans to the left. /thread?

 

[kage69]

People often confuse the editorial slant of the network (O'Reilly, Hannity, Colmes, Snow, Gibson) with its presentation of the news.

Please. If you really think that explains the agenda and bias of FOX, then you sir are the confused one. Fox is notorious within the news community for running filler during unpleasant times for the GOP. FOX has undertaken pretty much every opportunity to dumb down, invalidate, or to plain ignore anything in the news that is contrary to the GOP agenda.
FOX is it's own category in American media.

 

[shurato]

My local fox news channel also seems to slant heavily to the right. The editorial pieces especially at the end of the show is a very right wing biased it's not even funny. So I'm going to assume that fox is a gop mouth piece for the national cable as well as the local shows? I think my local fox channel is owned by the Sinclair group, who ran that negative documentary on Kerry right before the election.

 

[Stunt]

Fair and Balanced means they consider the fascist Republican stance and the Libertarian stance.
That's kinda like liberal spending (pro-state) vs. conservatism (reduced state) right? :laugh:

 

[astrosfan90]

If Fox has such a right-leaning slant, how come so many voted in favor of lefty favorite Bill Clinton in a Fox News poll?

Text

 

[Aisengard]

That's because most people actually like Clinton.

 

[astrosfan90]

Originally posted by: Aisengard
That's because most people actually like Clinton.

Looking at the ratings of the news networks, it seems most people actually like Fox News, too.