We live in a country where the most-watched and, in some polls, most-trusted name in TV news (74% of Republicans, 30% of Democrats) is the U.S. equivalent of Pravda. If you don't tune in to Fox now and again you might think I'm exaggerating (a la Mr. Beck) by comparing Fox to the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union.
You'd be wrong.
Every message broadcast from Fox news -- not only the misinformation spouted from GOP party hack Hannity and radical cleric Glenn Beck, but even the chatty morning show Fox & Friends and America Live with Megyn Kelly -- clearly, carefully and insidiously twist and massage every news story into one that aids the GOP. Pravda never did it any better and made no bones about it. Fox tries to pretend that it's not owned by a famous arch-conservative oligarch and founded and still headed by the GOP's most important media consultant. Or they hope that in the fourteen years since it was launched, we somehow forgot.
John Stewart and Media Matters are doing a great job outing them, but what can the rest of us do?
We can all stop calling them "Fox News" and exclusively call them what they clearly are and have always been: "GOP-TV."
Along with GOP pollster Frank Luntz, GOP-TV has done an amazing job calling a spade a weedwhacker. They trumpet slogans like, "Fair and Balanced," "Death Panels," and most recently, "Reining in big banks is actually bailing them out," again and again and again, on every show they broadcast, until the lies go viral. That's the only way that I can account for the 30% of Democrats who regularly expose themselves to their gassy nonsense. And that's why 63% of the Tea Partiers and 46% of Republicans get most of their news from Ailes and Murdoch (compared to 18% of independents and 8% of Dems, according to the New York Times).
With CNN dying a slow death and MSNBC too small to be a strong enough counterweight, having one political party's semi-official press organ doubling as our nation's dominant news outlet is a grave danger to our republic.
We all need to stick them with the label that fits them best, GOP-TV, in print, TV and on the web, so that no one will ever forget their not-so-hidden-it-would-make-you-laugh-if-Tea-Partiers-weren't-packing-heat-at-Starbucks agenda.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| A Farewell to Arms | ||||
| ||||
Follow Trey Ellis on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TreyEllis
Mark yesterday, April 22, 2010, in the history book. It was the day American Democracy discovered the DVR. The Senate Democratic leadership found the cajones, via a video montage, to say to the Republicans: "You Lie!"
* Salman Rushdie
# Woe to that nation whose literature is cut short by the intrusion of force. This is not merely interference with freedom of the press but the sealing up of a nation's heart, the excision of its memory.
* Alexander Solzhenitsyn
# The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.
* Oliver Wendell Holmes
They defend free speech far more eloquently than I could.
I look at it this way: There's a news-and-commentary network that openly pushes the right-wing agenda: Fox. There's a news-and-commentary network that openly pushes the left-wing agenda: MSNBC. Fox has a lot more viewers because conservatives skew older, and the typical Fox viewer is more likely to use TV as their exclusive daily source of news (I was amazed at how much TV my mother watched in her old age--a woman who was apathetic toward it most of her life).
Does it really matter if most conservatives choose to get their news and opinion from the same source while liberals tend to be more scattered in the use of electronic media, just as long as both sides have ample outlets to gather information and express their opinions? (Interesting how conservative vs. liberal news-gathering habits mirror the two philosophies' approach to politics: lockstep vs. diversity.)
Or to look at it another way: The majority of voters who put Obama in the White House formed their favorable opinion of him based on news and commentary they got from someplace--and it certainly wasn't Fox. Should it matter to liberals that those millions of voters got their information from a variety of sources rather than just one? Maybe TV isn't as important as it used to be in shaping opinion.
The Wall Street Journal (before Murdoch) was conservative yet practiced good journalism. The Economist and The Financial Times are center-right but they practice good journalism.
My problem with Fox is that they're so Republican.
Ask a psychologist if that's healthy honey.
They are scared, this is the proof.
Fine by me.
:)
That was the "perfect" response.
Keep trying though.
Good work.
LOL!
:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEPq0FvFm3g
This argument that its okay for Fox to be conservative because MSNBC is liberal is ridiculous. That's like saying conservative is to Glenn Beck what liberalism is to John Kennedy. There is a huge difference in the level of insanity and flat-out lies.
Besides, if Fox is the GOP TV, then MSNBC should be called DEM TV. The only difference is that 3 times as many people actually watch Fox.
Fox is more conservative, yes. But overall, the MSM leans left. Just because every cable or network channel does not put out information that you don't like does not make the other channel always wrong. Fox is only dangerous to those who hate them.
Honey, you apparently haven't been watching MSNBC this past year- they have been bending over backwards to not be Obama-positive. Try watching Joe Scarborough, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell (Mrs. Alan Greenspan) and Dylan Ratigan. None of those people have been liberal-leaning for a long, long time. Scarborough was a Republican congressman from Florida, for Pete's sake.
Three times as many people watch GOP TV because MSNBC isn't available with basic cable or satellite- and not everyone can afford the higher prices.
Besides, being popular doesn't make a network more legitimate- it just puts it in the same category as Survivor and American Idol.
I completely agree with Ed Schultz that 90% of all news media slants to favor the GOP and against Dems.
My home webpage is MSN. And on any day, at any given time, there are headlines and stories that, although a bit subtle, are clearly designed to find an angle to make GOP lies equal with Dem's truths. And I really mean daily and that's just one small example.
The last third of the program is the best panel commentary on television. Although it is dominated by conservatives, it is respectful in tone and all the participants are well informed.
I don't watch any of the blowhards at night on any of the channels, and rather than getting all worked up about them I suggest others do as I do.....something other than watch television.
And there they are more blantant about it, it is GOP TV not trying to be anything else.