Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Fox: UBER MAJOR Right-wing bias
CNN: Very strong left-wing bias
MSNBC: Lowest Common Denominator bias

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Fox was founded to be the voice of a specific party. There's nothing revolutionary about that -- nineteenth and early twentieth century newspapers had the same shtick. The critical test is, would an outlet cover a story that would hurt their side. Fox would not, unless it came with an ocean of rationalizations and counterclaims. CNN, for all its grievous faults of being junk food news, would. The WSJ, for all its bias, would.

Fox is not "the right wing x" for anything. It's unique, unless you want to compare it to down market rags like Workers World.

I've never heard it argued that Fox was specifically founded as the mouthpiece of the Republican Party. I can understand how that could be the perception, but I think it's more just a case of them being so heavily tilted one direction that they report little or nothing in favor of the other side. Under your definition, is MSNBC the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party?

I know it's common, for example in England, for the major papers to be the mouthpieces of the various political groups, but I haven't seen that model followed specifically in the U.S. If you have a link or something on the Republicans specifically founding Fox with that purpose, I'd be interested. I think it's just a general confluence between conservatism and the Republicans that can lead to that general perception.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Actually, I don't think that's it at all.

Fox is constantly crowing about how they're killing CNN and MSNBC in the ratings, but the truth is that, in the grand scheme of things, no one watches Fox, either. Not compared to American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, or how many people saw the latest blockbuster movie or whatever.

I should preface this by saying that I don't watch enough of any cable news to call myself an expert. Now and then I'm tempted -- but that's why I have MLB extra innings.

From what I have seen, Fox is clearly different in that they're pro-active. Led by their editorial folks, they try to get out in front of the news. MSNBC is much more reactionary, in contrast. They respond to what Fox puts out there. They spend their evenings throwing <s>red meat</s> Cliff bars to their core audience, but they don't really try to get out in front on issues.

Maybe their lower ratings make that more difficult, but I don't think that's the full explanation. MSNBC, for better or worse, isn't that ambitious. Are they still slanted? H*ll yes, of course.

Although I think you're right, I don't think MSNBC would resist the chance to be "the Fox of the left." I just don't think they're organized or well-funded enough. There is a ton of money behind Fox, for obvious reasons. What they do isn't news, but what they do they do very well.

MSNBC in contrast feels like short season single A. I'm sure there are enormous resources that could theoretically fund them, but for whatever reason either it isn't forthcoming or more likely it just isn't cost effective. Liberals don't seem to react the same way (see the talk radio gap), or maybe it's because we have to get up early to go to jobs to support all those welfare bum red staters.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Although I usually want to subscribe to your curmudgeon newsletter, I think dialogue has just moved somewhere else. If we judged the Founders era by what went on in the broadsheets, we'd think it was a period as anti-intellectual and sensationalistic as any other.

If there is a forwarding address for such dialogue, could you please identify it? I haven't been able to find it. Even on a one-on-one level, I find people are much more polarized and unwilling to engage in respectful, reasonable dialogue with those on the other side of issues, than it used to be.

I don't do twitter, so maybe that's where substantive dialogue has gone?

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Fox: UBER MAJOR Right-wing bias
CNN: Very strong left-wing bias
MSNBC: Lowest Common Denominator bias

Don't agree with CNN, if only to the extent you can find some news segments untouched by its left-leaning editorial staff. I'm not sure Fox News ever shows simply news.

Fox and MSNBC you've nailed.
The 3 major networks are all left-leaning, but like CNN you can find actual non-politicized news, too.
Headline News is just trash these days.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Although I think you're right, I don't think MSNBC would resist the chance to be "the Fox of the left." I just don't think they're organized or well-funded enough. There is a ton of money behind Fox, for obvious reasons. What they do isn't news, but what they do they do very well.

MSNBC in contrast feels like short season single A. I'm sure there are enormous resources that could theoretically fund them, but for whatever reason either it isn't forthcoming or more likely it just isn't cost effective. Liberals don't seem to react the same way (see the talk radio gap), or maybe it's because we have to get up early to go to jobs to support all those welfare bum red staters.

One major difference is that there aren't a lot of major media outlets competing with Fox for the conservative viewer, whereas MSNBC, to varying degrees has to share the liberal viewer with CNN and others. Really, apart from partisan considerations, Fox was a brilliant business undertaking, as there was an obvious market out there that basically no one was reaching the way Fox does now.

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

I'm not sure Fox News ever shows simply news.

The Daily Show did an interesting case study on a situation where the Editorial side of the Fox News channel began commenting on hearsay/gossip and drawing wild conclusions out of it, then the News side of Fox News began repeating those conclusions in their reporting: effectively making the Editorial department the source for the News department.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

If there is a forwarding address for such dialogue, could you please identify it? I haven't been able to find it. Even on a one-on-one level, I find people are much more polarized and unwilling to engage in respectful, reasonable dialogue with those on the other side of issues, than it used to be.

You're on it.

In personal conversations I find the opposite -- everybody knows the morons and crazies have the loud speakers, so whenever anything political comes up in a real setting, face to face, we are all walking on egg shells. Putting it another way, despite being in a work environment where I'm ideologically outnumbered about 50:3, I've very rarely experienced anything like a dismissive or defensive tone in a face to face political discussion, and on those rare occasions it felt like the guy I was talking to would act the same way if the topic was laundry detergent.

"People" are jerks. Or maybe everybody is a jerk on the internet. A person, in the flesh, is almost always nice.

 

[amherstblackbear]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Although I think you're right, I don't think MSNBC would resist the chance to be "the Fox of the left."

No argument.

As for the history discussions...let's put it this way. Fox has never had an identity crisis.

There was a time when MSNBC joined Fox in criticizing CNN, and they tried to position themselves in the middle, as the independent voice - the American voice. I remember they stuck the flag on every corporate logo they could. That was back when they had Scarborough on in primetime, Pat Buchanan was more prominent, and they still employed Tucker Carlson (if memory serves).

That failed miserably. So they drew the (probably correct) lesson from Fox that "news with a view" sells. The conservative side was taken, so they re-made themselves as a "progressive" news outlet. It's the story of an organization stumbling around and falling into a certain role based on their read on the market. Small wonder they're so far behind Fox.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

As for the history discussions...let's put it this way. Fox has never had an identity crisis.

LOL.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

You're on it.

Yikes!

If USCHO is the best we can hope for in dialogue in this country, we're doomed for sure!

People are certainly nicer in person. But there really isn't a lot of meaningful dialogue/discussion between people with very different views on things. My experience is that people mostly talk to people with the same views, thereby just cementing that their own views are correct. Real, substantive discussion between folks on very different poles is, in my experience, a very rare thing.

 

[eaglehockeyrules]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

No, military service is voluntary. There is no draft. You don't seem to understand this. In the unlikely event of a draft, you can claim conscientious objector status or get a deferment (ask Dick Cheney)... or Joe Biden

Q. Where are the two million job that Obama promised?

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Incidental bias vs explicit artificiality and literal disregard? cough, cough, cough. That's probably the worst analogy I've ever seen you put out there Kepler.

Only the highly partisan can't recognize that Fox is pretty far right, MSNBC and others are pretty far left, and most of the other majors tend left, but not as far. It's always interesting how people seemingly can't step back from their partisan positions to recognize the biases on their side. As some have probably observed, I tend to lean conservative on a number of issues (though far from all), but I can't stand Fox for the most part (or the others that slant heavily the other way). Give me some substantive reporting and I'll tolerate moderate bias. But such reporting has gotten harder and harder to find unfortunately.

Well said Bob. I don't watch fox because I don't respect the effort or integrity of the channel, with the exception of NFL football (although I do hate their pre-game and the robot guy on the promos).

I do watch other news channels...the point I tried to raise via my question was not a relative comparison of Fox to other channels but instead just considering the other channels alone. Most folks on the left view the non-Fox stations as 'normal' and Fox as some right wing nuthouse (which isn't inaccurate)...the same way catholics view their religion as 'correct' and the rest as heathens and atheists.

I was only trying to see if they had any thought whatsoever that they soak in the non-Fox news as 'fair and balanced' when it likely isn't. Just because it isn't as over-the-top as Fox doesn't make them 'correct' anymore than a catholic thinks the existence of the Muslim religion makes Presbyterians etc. 'correct'.

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Well said Bob. I don't watch fox because I don't respect the effort or integrity of the channel, with the exception of NFL football (although I do hate their pre-game and the robot guy on the promos).

I do watch other news channels...the point I tried to raise via my question was not a relative comparison of Fox to other channels but instead just considering the other channels alone. Most folks on the left view the non-Fox stations as 'normal' and Fox as some right wing nuthouse (which isn't inaccurate)...the same way catholics view their religion as 'correct' and the rest as heathens and atheists.

I was only trying to see if they had any thought whatsoever that they soak in the non-Fox news as 'fair and balanced' when it likely isn't. Just because it isn't as over-the-top as Fox doesn't make them 'correct' anymore than a catholic thinks the existence of the Muslim religion makes Presbyterians etc. 'correct'.

Agreed. My experience is that liberals are all over the board as to recognition that their new channels are also biased. I know people who will claim that none of their news is biased, but I also know liberals who will admit that their news sources are tilted their direction.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

People are certainly nicer in person. But there really isn't a lot of meaningful dialogue/discussion between people with very different views on things. My experience is that people mostly talk to people with the same views, thereby just cementing that their own views are correct. Real, substantive discussion between folks on very different poles is, in my experience, a very rare thing.

Part of this is that both political opinions and circles of friends are overdetermined by many biographical experiences. But it is possible to actively seek people with both an opposing view and a functioning cerebellum and deliberately have a responsible debate. Some of us succeed some of the time (the 10% of exchanges that are interesting), all of us fail some of the time (the 90% that are silly and/or disappointing), and some of us fail all of the time (which is why God made ignore lists).

 

[huskyfan]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

I hate that robot guy on Fox football too.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

I hate that robot guy on Fox football too.

Show of hands?

 

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Let's face it, we should just get our news from Comedy Central.

<table style='font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='360' height='353'><tbody><tr style='background-color:#e5e5e5' valign='middle'><td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;'><a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com'>The Daily Show With Jon Stewart</a></td><td style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;'>Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c</td></tr><tr style='height:14px;' valign='middle'><td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'<a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-26-2010/lost-in-race'>Lost in Race<a></td></tr><tr style='height:14px; background-color:#353535' valign='middle'><td colspan='2' style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right'><a target='_blank' style='color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/'>www.thedailyshow.com</a></td></tr><tr valign='middle'><td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><embed style='display:block' src='http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:341186' width='360' height='301' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='window' allowFullscreen='true' flashvars='autoPlay=false' allowscriptaccess='always' allownetworking='all' bgcolor='#000000'></embed></td></tr><tr style='height:18px;' valign='middle'><td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><table style='margin:0px; text-align:center' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='100%' height='100%'><tr valign='middle'><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/'>Daily Show Full Episodes</a></td><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.indecisionforever.com/'>Political Humor</a></td><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/videos/tag/Tea+Party'>Tea Party</a></td></tr></table></td></tr></tbody></table>

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[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Kudos to Paul Ryan. If only someone would listen to him.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XIII: It's all Bush's fault.

Kudos to Paul Ryan. If only someone would listen to him.

C'mon, its the party of no, all he wants is no entitlements