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Fox News- obviously journalism!

El SkidEl Skid The frozen white northRegistered User regular
edited July 2012 in Debate and/or Discourse
As a simple Canadian watching the US elections from afar, I can't help but wonder... isn't there some sort of journalism standard required in US law/regulations to call oneself a "News" program?

I mean... I realize that the people who frequent these forums are somewhat left-leaning, but the content I'm seeing coming out of Fox news (along with everything I've ever heard about them anecdotally) makes it pretty clear that they are pretty much just a GOP propaganda machine, and often (I can't say always due to insufficient information) provide views on issues that are so spectacularly one-sided that it boggles my poor little mind. And it seems like there are a whole bunch of people who watch the stuff religiously and aren't even aware that there might be some other points of view out there worth listening to.

So yeah, I was hoping some people with a better knowledge of US law/culture that could help tell me why they are able to pretend to be doing journalism when they're seemingly not even trying to see any more than 1 side of things. I'm sure constitutionally there are protections offered them to say whatever the heck they want, but surely we'd have the "Communist news channel", the "So you like small boys news channel", and the "GOP are a bunch of silly geese news channel" as well if things were that easy...right?
Probably not right, but I'd like help figuring out why :P

El Skid on
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Posts

  • Magus`Magus` The fun has been DOUBLED! Registered User regular
    If there is (and I'm honestly not sure) no one pays attention to them.

    Also Fox is very fond of doing that 'We don't know if this is true, but what if it WAS?' bullshit.

  • kildykildy Registered User regular
    Fox defends itself by claiming the bullshit is from their "opinion" section. Foxs News the News channel is actually just a few of their shows.

    The insidious part is that they can say bullshit on the opinion piece (Is Obama a Communist?!?) and then on the News piece say "People are saying Obama may be a Communist!" without mentioning that the only people who actually said it are.. their own network.

    I doubt it will ever change, but the basic idea is that it's nearly impossible to quantify News to the point of requiring anything that calls itself news must contain X% news content. There's also a lot of bullshit allowed before lies become libel/slander in the US political(or general public figure) arena due to being a very very protected form of free speech. Fox is a media product, not News. It's News segment isn't all that atrocious and the local Fox affiliates are nowhere near as bad, but most of the good and bad attention are paid to it's opinion content.

    tl;dr: Fox News is just a channel name. Fox NEWS is about an hour of programming a day that justifies the name of the channel.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    I can only hope that more people look into locking that channel out when they get stuck with it in their TV packages. Best way to deal with them is to not watch them and hope that Robert Ailes gets embroiled in a scandal that ends up destroying the station's credibility.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Oh, excellent a Fox News thread!

    I was just thinking about creating one after a friend linked me this to make fun of: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/12/america-coming-civil-war

    Instead it just made me angry as shit.

    The bile, inaccuracy, privilege, and proud willful ignorance contained therein made me want to punch a puppy.

    and I love puppies.

    It's an "opinion piece" but seriously, fuck that guy.

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  • InvisibleInvisible Registered User regular
    I've literally heard people call Fox News their only source of news and the only trustworthy source. And not just one this was actually a couple patients at a dentist office. And even if he's not on their network anymore I had someone tell me they can only follow politics if Glenn Beck breaks it down for them in easy to understand bites. These were all serious people.

  • GrombarGrombar Registered User regular
    Fox News actually went to court in 1997 to prove that they had a right to lie on the air.

  • El SkidEl Skid The frozen white northRegistered User regular
    edited July 2012
    Interesting. So they have a NEWS channel devoted to 1 or 2 hours of content that is able to be called news, and the remaining hours of opinion pieces that have the "fox news" little stamp in the corner, which is of course only the network name and is not at all intended to imply that the program currently running has any jounalistic merit. *wink wink*

    That makes slightly more sense, I guess.

    So the situation is really that there's a loophole that allows Fox to do this, and getting the loophole closed would be opposed by most right-leaning people, meaning it'll never get done unless Fox goes way out of line?

    El Skid on
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Yeah, Fox News calls itself that because Shep Smith somehow survives (it used to be Chris Wallace but he's drowned himself in the kool aid now).

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  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    Grombar wrote: »
    Fox News actually went to court in 1997 to prove that they had a right to lie on the air.

    Oh okay, someone brought this up already. But yeah, there we go. Even though there's freedom of the press, I would think that slanderous and libelous material would be against the rules. Nope. Go for it, so says a poor court judgment.

  • kildykildy Registered User regular
    Because news is somewhat subjective, the branding thing can't fall under the usual regulation stuff "Bob's Almonds! (contains 1% Almonds)" and just becomes the channel name which has nothing to do with the channel content, even if any sane person would say it's deliberately trying to obscure the reality.

    Pretty much everything horrible you see linked will be from one of their opinion shows, or Shep Smith staring in horror at the shit that just came out of someone's mouth.

  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    kildy wrote: »
    Pretty much everything horrible you see linked will be from one of their opinion shows, or Shep Smith staring in horror at the shit that just came out of someone's mouth.

    I feel so bad for that guy. I'd love to see how much medication he takes daily to cope.

  • MarathonMarathon Registered User regular
    Mill wrote: »
    I can only hope that more people look into locking that channel out when they get stuck with it in their TV packages. Best way to deal with them is to not watch them and hope that Robert Ailes gets embroiled in a scandal that ends up destroying the station's credibility.
    What credibly? This assumes they had any to begin with.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Well the perceived credibility that morons are still willing to give them. If anyone wasn't willing to consider them credible, they wouldn't be doing very well.

  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    Make no mistake by the way, people working for Fox News don't necessarily buy into it. I've heard Megan Kelly or whatever her name is outside of the world of Fox and she's relatively sane. She'll say, for the sake of defending having a career, she's conservative, but the way she carries herself, the things she talks about, nowhere near her Fox News persona. I think they get paid damn well and that's why they do what they do. Not to say there aren't people there who do buy into that shit (see Glenn Beck) but they're probably a minority.

  • BethrynBethryn Unhappiness is Mandatory Registered User regular
    I can't remember exactly how overblown this was, but as I recall they're either protected, or argued they were protected, by the First Amendment to distort and lie in their news.

    http://ceasespin.org/ceasespin_blog/ceasespin_blogger_files/fox_news_gets_okay_to_misinform_public.html

    ...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
  • kildykildy Registered User regular
    Megan Kelly also had that hilariously out of character rant about how the government needs to mandate maternity leave or whatnot. Bill Oreilly also had a few lucid moments on TDS where he seemed to totally not buy all the shit he said on Fox.

    It's performance art. Manufactured bullshit. Beck's issue is that he takes it too far. I don't think he buys half the shit he says, he just doesn't have the same filter on him that causes him to stop saying shit. Same with the Fox and Friends producer/whoever all was involved in that campaign ad of a morning show that went over an invisible line even for Fox's standards of monetizing insanity.

  • ObiFettObiFett Use the Force As You WishRegistered User regular
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

  • El SkidEl Skid The frozen white northRegistered User regular
    Grombar wrote: »
    Fox News actually went to court in 1997 to prove that they had a right to lie on the air.

    Oh, but Fox actually lost this court case? I assumed the opposite before I checked the link.

    Still... just wow. O_o

  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    Bill O'Reilly is the goddamn enigma for me. The dude wrote, early in Obama's presidency, about Obama being a positive role model for kids. About how even those growing up in a tough life, if you fight against it and have enough support, you can achieve great things.

    And then he goes on TV demonizing the shit out of Obama.

    I'm not going to say which is the 'real' Bill, because neither of those are. The real Bill is a guy who doesn't give a shit about being misleading.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    Bill O'Reilly is the goddamn enigma for me. The dude wrote, early in Obama's presidency, about Obama being a positive role model for kids. About how even those growing up in a tough life, if you fight against it and have enough support, you can achieve great things.

    And then he goes on TV demonizing the shit out of Obama.

    I'm not going to say which is the 'real' Bill, because neither of those are. The real Bill is a guy who doesn't give a shit about being misleading.

    Billo likes money. He will do things for money. He gets ratings for being crazy. That's all you really need to know about Bill O'Reilly.

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  • ScooterScooter Registered User regular
    ObiFett wrote: »
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

    Fox's bias is political, while other station's biases tend to be towards manufacturing crap that will get people to tune in.They're not really the liberal media that Fox likes to call them as a justification for acting the way they do.

  • Sweeney TomSweeney Tom Registered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    Bill O'Reilly is the goddamn enigma for me. The dude wrote, early in Obama's presidency, about Obama being a positive role model for kids. About how even those growing up in a tough life, if you fight against it and have enough support, you can achieve great things.

    And then he goes on TV demonizing the shit out of Obama.

    I'm not going to say which is the 'real' Bill, because neither of those are. The real Bill is a guy who doesn't give a shit about being misleading.

    Billo likes money. He will do things for money. He gets ratings for being crazy. That's all you really need to know about Bill O'Reilly.

    The guy lies to people on a daily basis, and he gets paid for it. I'm sure a lot of people would love to have that privilege.

  • MillMill Registered User regular
    It's a real shame that PBS Newshour is probably the only American news worth watching at this point. Part of the problem is that it's a society level problem. There are too many people who don't think. Plenty of people like Robert Ailes that have no qualms about manipulating the sheep to further their own ends. These people often have enough money to hire shitheads like Bill O'Reilly who probably know how vile some of this stuff is, but are so lacking in ethics that they'll parrot it for the right price.

  • Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    El Skid wrote:
    As a simple Canadian watching the US elections from afar, I can't help but wonder... isn't there some sort of journalism standard required in US law/regulations to call oneself a "News" program?
    hahaha silly Canadians. So cute and naive.

    No, a wealthy corporation like News Corp can basically say anything it wants. Proving libel/slander under U.S. law is incredibly hard, and even if that happened they would just pay a small fine. The bigger threat is that politicians would stop giving them interviews ("controlling access"), but they're so influential that even Democrats basically have no choice but to interview with them occasionally.

  • ObiFettObiFett Use the Force As You WishRegistered User regular
    Scooter wrote: »
    ObiFett wrote: »
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

    Fox's bias is political, while other station's biases tend to be towards manufacturing crap that will get people to tune in.They're not really the liberal media that Fox likes to call them as a justification for acting the way they do.

    Most of that "manufacturing of crap" tends to skew towards the liberal viewpoint, though. You'd be hard-pressed to find actual criticism of Obama on many of the "news" channels during any point of his term. The few times he has been criticized, its usually very lenient and handled with kid-gloves.

    I consider myself as independent as they come. And watching any news channel on TV immediately gives me a headache from the obvious bias, consistent logical fallacies used to get across their agenda, and refusal to treat "their politicians" with the same microscope that they treat their opposition's.

  • KageraKagera Imitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered User regular
    It's called the free market they are just giving the people what they want, a validation of the obsolete fears and prejudices in the guise of reality.

    My neck, my back, my FUPA and my crack.
  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    Scooter wrote: »
    ObiFett wrote: »
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

    Fox's bias is political, while other station's biases tend to be towards manufacturing crap that will get people to tune in.They're not really the liberal media that Fox likes to call them as a justification for acting the way they do.

    No, there is pervasive liberal bias in the other networks. I mean, CBS tried to destroy a presidential candidate with forged documents. MSNBC is all liberals all the time. NPR has been doing a running series where they play an Obama campaign commercial, talk about how awesome he is, and then... they go on to the next news item.

  • El SkidEl Skid The frozen white northRegistered User regular
    edited July 2012
    Soooo... It's not just Fox then? It's more of an endemic problem with the national-level news channels. Fantastic. :-/

    Before I go curl up into the fetal position and suck my thumb trying to forget I know any of this, has anyone given any thought on how to set the USS News back on course? As a Canadian I'm used to fairly strict regulations regarding what's allowed to go on TV, but I'm going to guess that "suggesting more regulations" = "government telling me what to listen to" = "political suicide for anyone who would dare to suggest such a socialist/communist thing".

    I guess hoping that someone or a group of someones who have a lot of money and are politically neutral start up a new, unbiased news channel is the answer?

    El Skid on
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    El Skid wrote: »
    Soooo... It's not just Fox then? It's more of an endemic problem with the national-level news channels. Fantastic. :-/

    Before I go curl up into the fetal position and suck my thumb trying to forget I know any of this, has anyone given any thought on how to set the USS News back on course? As a Canadian I'm used to fairly strict regulations regarding what's allowed to go on TV, but I'm going to guess that "suggesting more regulations" = "government telling me what to listen to" = "political suicide for anyone who would dare to suggest such a socialist/communist thing".

    I guess hoping that someone or a group of someones who have a lot of money and are politically neutral start up a new, unbiased news channel is the answer?

    Unbiased news doesn't sell.

    Murdoch has created a horrible monster and in America there's no BBC to counterbalance it.

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  • MillMill Registered User regular
    Well I've been doing my part to boycott them for the most part. I'm sure the internet might force them back to sanity if they keep losing market shares to internet based news sites. A better education system that turned out people who actually enjoyed critical thinking would do wonders as well but that's going to be a hard thing to achieve.

  • LucidLucid Registered User regular
    spool32 wrote: »
    Scooter wrote: »
    ObiFett wrote: »
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

    Fox's bias is political, while other station's biases tend to be towards manufacturing crap that will get people to tune in.They're not really the liberal media that Fox likes to call them as a justification for acting the way they do.

    No, there is pervasive liberal bias in the other networks. I mean, CBS tried to destroy a presidential candidate with forged documents. MSNBC is all liberals all the time. NPR has been doing a running series where they play an Obama campaign commercial, talk about how awesome he is, and then... they go on to the next news item.

    Have some evidence to support this? It seems conspiracy theory minded.

  • Captain CarrotCaptain Carrot Alexandria, VARegistered User regular
    spool32 wrote: »
    Scooter wrote: »
    ObiFett wrote: »
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

    Fox's bias is political, while other station's biases tend to be towards manufacturing crap that will get people to tune in.They're not really the liberal media that Fox likes to call them as a justification for acting the way they do.

    No, there is pervasive liberal bias in the other networks. I mean, CBS tried to destroy a presidential candidate with forged documents. MSNBC is all liberals all the time. NPR has been doing a running series where they play an Obama campaign commercial, talk about how awesome he is, and then... they go on to the next news item.
    Yes, those noted liberals Joe Scarborough and formerly Pat Buchanan. Also, remember that was Dan Rather, not CBS, and he got fired for that.

  • Pi-r8Pi-r8 Registered User regular
    El Skid wrote: »

    I guess hoping that someone or a group of someones who have a lot of money and are politically neutral start up a new, unbiased news channel is the answer?

    I don't even think there is such a thing as "unbiased news".

    I mean, I guess you could just dryly report facts and not explain them. But that would just be confusing and frustrating to the average viewer, not to mention boring. Proper news requires some sort of analysis, and that analysis will always be called a "bias" by anyone who disagrees with it. If we had some magical truth-telling device that would be great, but as it is we're stuck with human opinions.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Lucid wrote: »
    spool32 wrote: »
    Scooter wrote: »
    ObiFett wrote: »
    Every news channel in the US is so horribly biased as to be almost completely unwatchable at this point. Rarely is there an actual rational discussion of truth and facts. There is always severe bias, twisting of information, and absence of information that refutes that channel's agenda. Best place to get unbiased news and truth is the internet now.

    Fox is the worst offender of conservatively biased "news" and shouldn't be watched by anyone. Same goes for nearly every other "news" channel out there now on American TV.

    Fox's bias is political, while other station's biases tend to be towards manufacturing crap that will get people to tune in.They're not really the liberal media that Fox likes to call them as a justification for acting the way they do.

    No, there is pervasive liberal bias in the other networks. I mean, CBS tried to destroy a presidential candidate with forged documents. MSNBC is all liberals all the time. NPR has been doing a running series where they play an Obama campaign commercial, talk about how awesome he is, and then... they go on to the next news item.

    Have some evidence to support this? It seems conspiracy theory minded.

    Rathergate is the CBS story, but the rest is kind of bollocks.

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  • El SkidEl Skid The frozen white northRegistered User regular
    Pi-r8 wrote: »
    El Skid wrote: »

    I guess hoping that someone or a group of someones who have a lot of money and are politically neutral start up a new, unbiased news channel is the answer?

    I don't even think there is such a thing as "unbiased news".

    I mean, I guess you could just dryly report facts and not explain them. But that would just be confusing and frustrating to the average viewer, not to mention boring. Proper news requires some sort of analysis, and that analysis will always be called a "bias" by anyone who disagrees with it. If we had some magical truth-telling device that would be great, but as it is we're stuck with human opinions.

    Well, I mean you can never be wholly unbiased, but you can cover both sides of a story relatively dispassionately. I think the CBC in Canada, and probably the BBC in the UK do a pretty fair job of this (of course, they're run by the government instead of individual millionnaires/corporations, so that may be why).

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Though to be fair, MSNBC does lean liberal but not nearly to the extend that FOX does.

    This is the point of the conversation where I point out the fact that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed in the nation.

    Because Fox just fucking lies.

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  • HenroidHenroid Mexican kicked from Immigration Thread Centrism is Racism :3Registered User regular
    It's not just that it lies. It's that it promotes a method of argument that involves shouting over the other person, or dodging questions, or claiming evidence to the contrary to be made up, etc.

  • LucidLucid Registered User regular
    edited July 2012
    Living in Canada, seeing people claim any American news media leans liberal is kind of weird. Even the CBC, Canada's socialist utopian news organization has fools like Kevin O'Leary.

    Lucid on
  • Sweeney TomSweeney Tom Registered User regular
    The "winners" of the arguments on Fox News are the ones who talk loudest.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Henroid wrote: »
    It's not just that it lies. It's that it promotes a method of argument that involves shouting over the other person, or dodging questions, or claiming evidence to the contrary to be made up, etc.

    Well that isn't really why they're misinformed. It is why they stay that way.

    I'm skeptical that Fox and the Republicans will have to face reality any time soon.

    They've got a nice little insular zone going on.

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