Fox News Alert

[ecopal]

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=58

Fair and Balanced?
Two long-time press critics discuss the mainstream American media, its failings, and how it sometimes promotes bigotry

Editor's note: Although the American media is frequently accused of having a liberal bias, a large body of evidence suggests that in a great many cases just the opposite is true.

Time after time, biased, reactionary and even racist ideas ? ideas that frequently originate on the radical right ? bubble to the surface in news stories, opinion pieces, on talk radio and among the many pundits who interpret current events. Steve Rendall and Norman Solomon are long-time critics of both print and broadcast media who have focused on exposing bias in news coverage.

Rendall is senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which issues frequent reports on American press coverage, and has appeared as an expert on that topic in scores of venues. ...

Norman Solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, the author of 10 books on similar subjects, and the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a consortium of policy researchers and analysts.

The Intelligence Report spoke to both men about the media's role in helping to promote bigoted ideas, individuals and groups.

Below are excerpts from that interview:

INTELLIGENCE REPORT: Fox News has explicitly positioned itself as a conservative alternative to CNN ? what it calls a "fair and balanced" alternative. Any thoughts about this?

STEVE RENDALL: Our problem with Fox isn't that it comes from the right. In a healthy media culture, you would have media outlets coming from all kinds of points of view, but getting their facts straight. The problem with Fox is that they claim to be "fair and balanced" but are really airing a lot of ideological opinions.


NORMAN SOLOMON: There are constituencies that Fox plays to that clearly spill over into racism and xenophobia. Fox's coverage is a cause for concern, but it is also a symptom of what is out there in the population. We shouldn't simply hang it on the news media. There is a constituency that is both propagated and extended by the news media, but it's a constituency that also exists apart from the media.

.....

IR: What about the anti-immigration movement and right-wing commentators?

RENDALL: ..... Look who Bill O'Reilly [host of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor"] invites to discuss immigration policy issues ? [executive director] Dan Stein from the other FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform; see Into the Mainstream], an anti-immigrant group that has taken more than $1 million from racist funders [the Pioneer Foundation]. We've documented time after time when Stein has appeared on shows, completely unopposed, saying things that in many cases were inaccurate and in some cases hateful and even racist about certain ethnic groups....

 

[hnooe]

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=58

Fair and Balanced?
Two long-time press critics discuss the mainstream American media, its failings, and how it sometimes promotes bigotry

Editor's note: Although the American media is frequently accused of having a liberal bias, a large body of evidence suggests that in a great many cases just the opposite is true.

Time after time, biased, reactionary and even racist ideas ? ideas that frequently originate on the radical right ? bubble to the surface in news stories, opinion pieces, on talk radio and among the many pundits who interpret current events. Steve Rendall and Norman Solomon are long-time critics of both print and broadcast media who have focused on exposing bias in news coverage.

Rendall is senior analyst at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), which issues frequent reports on American press coverage, and has appeared as an expert on that topic in scores of venues. ...

Norman Solomon is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, the author of 10 books on similar subjects, and the founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a consortium of policy researchers and analysts.

The Intelligence Report spoke to both men about the media's role in helping to promote bigoted ideas, individuals and groups.

Below are excerpts from that interview:

INTELLIGENCE REPORT: Fox News has explicitly positioned itself as a conservative alternative to CNN ? what it calls a "fair and balanced" alternative. Any thoughts about this?

STEVE RENDALL: Our problem with Fox isn't that it comes from the right. In a healthy media culture, you would have media outlets coming from all kinds of points of view, but getting their facts straight. The problem with Fox is that they claim to be "fair and balanced" but are really airing a lot of ideological opinions.


NORMAN SOLOMON: There are constituencies that Fox plays to that clearly spill over into racism and xenophobia. Fox's coverage is a cause for concern, but it is also a symptom of what is out there in the population. We shouldn't simply hang it on the news media. There is a constituency that is both propagated and extended by the news media, but it's a constituency that also exists apart from the media.

.....

IR: What about the anti-immigration movement and right-wing commentators?

RENDALL: ..... Look who Bill O'Reilly [host of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor"] invites to discuss immigration policy issues ? [executive director] Dan Stein from the other FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform; see Into the Mainstream], an anti-immigrant group that has taken more than $1 million from racist funders [the Pioneer Foundation]. We've documented time after time when Stein has appeared on shows, completely unopposed, saying things that in many cases were inaccurate and in some cases hateful and even racist about certain ethnic groups....

Ecopal..One thing I can say is I think you seem to be a "fair and balanced" person! Thanks for the enlightening, factual and very thorough political dissertation.

 

[elgordoboy]

If you really have to resort to name calling at least you could spell it correctly.
It is ?bigot? not ?beget?.

Also, I doubt that I would qualify for your label as I am a registered independent who just does not like being manipulated by the media, etc.

In particular I do not like hate mongering, name calling, and blatant distortion of the news all of which happens more frequently on Fox News than any other of the networks.

Oh by the way, ?commendable? is not spelled ?comendable?

If you really have to resort to correcting someone's spelling at least you could spell their mispelled word incorrectly just as they did. It was "begot" not "beget" for "bigot" got it? What does it make me when I occasionally find CNN too far right and Fox too far left? My own personal bias seems to weigh more heavily than theirs in my final perception.

 

[JoshMclean]

If you really have to resort to name calling at least you could spell it correctly.
It is ?bigot? not ?beget?.

Also, I doubt that I would qualify for your label as I am a registered independent who just does not like being manipulated by the media, etc.

In particular I do not like hate mongering, name calling, and blatant distortion of the news all of which happens more frequently on Fox News than any other of the networks.

Oh by the way, ?commendable? is not spelled ?comendable?

Ahhhh, an independent. Just like O'Reilly

 

[Matt J]

They are no different that the DNC news service CNN. Allowing democratic plants and refusing to even use the Governors question, twenty minutes before air time, were nothing more than examples of how they are to the other extreme. It is very difficult to find news that is not slanted for or against a way of thinking. 24 hour news that was just the facts would quickly become boring for the Nintendo generation.

Hmmm... can you name another privately owned network that ever declared a presidential winner and then used that same arugment all the way to the supreme court to get someone elected?

 

[wrobert]

Hmmm... can you name another privately owned network that ever declared a presidential winner and then used that same arugment all the way to the supreme court to get someone elected?

What argument is that? He got 537 more votes than the other guy. Every newspaper in the country that did their own study has admitted this. Unless you subscribe to the theory that steel does not melt also.

 

[elgordoboy]

What argument is that? He got 537 more votes than the other guy. Every newspaper in the country that did their own study has admitted this. Unless you subscribe to the theory that steel does not melt also.

Making this statement in earnest is . +/-.00000537..or so

 

[Teresa]

I am not impressed with any news programs on TV - the stories are just not very interesting, seem to be the same old thing, with a focus on tragic events and criminal activity, but I do look at them on occasion (no young child should view any of it). I absolutely could not imagine watching Fox News for serious news. It is so scarey that it even exists in this country.

CNN works okay for me if I really want to know what's going on outside sowal. I do believe they offer "balance" - at least as much as any serious news network.

Fox News can't be considered a serious news network. But, I do know those who believe it to be such.

 

[wrobert]

I am not impressed with any news programs on TV - the stories are just not very interesting, seem to be the same old thing, with a focus on tragic events and criminal activity, but I do look at them on occasion (no young child should view any of it). I absolutely could not imagine watching Fox News for serious news. It is so scarey that it even exists in this country.

quote]

Freedom can be scary at times. Curious though, you think we should filter what is broadcast on cable television, rather than continue to allow our citizens the use of their remote controls?

 

[elgordoboy]

Freedom can be scary at times. Curious though, you think we should filter what is broadcast on cable television, rather than continue to allow our citizens the use of their remote controls?

You seem to have inferred much from the previous post that I did not (censorship). Fox News "Around the World in 80 Seconds"..the graphics are straight from the Sunday football show, the lilting off kilter cadence of speech by Shep Smith makes me think I'm getting the sports highlights on ESPN. Zero credibility.