OutFOXed Debate: Is FOX News a Republican Fraud?

Joe, I realize you would have no way to know this, but what bad timing to post about Fox News. You’ve probably heard by now that two of their correspondents were kidnapped in Israel today.

What always amazes me when people want to discuss Fox, is first, they don’t openly declare who Democratic the NBC block of stations are. Oberman is blatant, for someone who is supposedly “neutral.”

What also amazes me, is that perhaps many don’t check bios. Since when did Greta Van Susteren, Geraldo Rivera, Alan Colmes, Bill O’Reilly and others become Republican?

Van Susteren’s bio talks about the Democratic fundraisers she and her husband host on their yacht. Rivera is big time buds with Bill and others.

I will agree that many of the liberals at Fox weren’t as thrilled about John Kerry as they were former Pres. Bill Clinton.

So maybe this is a good way to get this discussion started. Why would Colmes and attorneys Rivera and Van Susteren front for the GOP? Megyn Kendall is another.

I do think the employees like Fox, given the comments they make about how glad they are to be out of CNN and especially anything connected to NBC. However, my understanding that has to do with the amount of control they have over their programs, not their political affiliation.

Cavuto’s book is a good inside look at Fox. And for those who don’t know and love to take cheap shots at Cavuto, perhaps you might consider what your head or other body parts may or may not look like after surviving cancer and living with M.S.

Joe-

I knew there would be no way you’d know about those kidnappings. They were just announced this afternoon – and they aren’t saying who.

Cavuto is in charge of business. Probably not even in the info you mentioned above. He “Built the business shows on CNBC” and he and his crew gladly jumped ship to Fox when they started.

Lots of people like to take cheap shots at Cavuto about how an arm, his head or different body parts my look “weird” to them. It was my statement to anyone that perhaps one more time, it is a good idea to get the facts before making judging a person, if one is qualified to judge another at all. I seriously doubt many really understand what he’s gone through and stayed on the air, except all the crew who left CNBC with him to join Fox.

Cavuto is the anchor of his own show, “Your World with Cavuto.” He is the VP for business news on Fox. Check out Brenda Buttner and Terry Keenan sometime – some very smart, wise Wall Street women anchors/reporters. Not everyone promotes women as much as Cavuto. However, those two were two of his strongest supports at CNN when he had his acute cancer tx.

Suze Orman is smart too, but it’s different with these two. Terry Keenan makes the world a little more real when people are complaining about the cost of a galloon of gas and she says, “Now is that a half or a whole Grande at Starbucks? And what could you have added in it for $2.50 or $3.00.” At least for me, she reframes some thinking of what people pay for other things and think nothing of it.

Interesting thoughts, Jeremy. I’ll need to think about them a bit more.

When you say, “Tucker,” I’m guessing you mean Tucker Carlson of MSNBC? Or is it someone else. I don’t recognize the name, except for him. He does claim to be a conservative on MSNBC.

Also, from what I’ve read/heard, CNN is seen more in the “middle” ground these days. MSNBC is the far left.

You might be interested in this, and I apologize for not knowing the exact numbers off of the top of my head. In the most recent sweeps for cable, Fox News ranked in the top 10, CNN was in the 20s and MSNBC was in the 60s. But, MSNBC is no surprise, the person in charge of their cable recently “resigned” (probably with encouragement from the board), as they use to enjoy a much larger market share.

Do you watch and have you read Neil Cavuto’s books? Or, were your comments based simply on what is listed above?

O’Reilly is an interesting guy. Certainly, he offends guests. But, what is so strange, is if you’ve watched his progam you know at the end of it he reads some e-mails. Usually, he picks a person who thinks he’s slanted to the conservative side and also a person who is slanted to the liberal side. Both watched the same interview. He is a registered Independent.

Do you think all news capitlizes on fear? I’ll have to give that one more thought. The business tip of what stocks are moving are useful to me. I don’t see how they qualify as fear. Maybe you can help me out where I’m confused with that one, let alone other positive things on cable news.

Also, on the A.M. “feel good morning shows” on the big three, bother me. Who cares what they are doing to celebrate the holiday or whatever segments they decide to add. But, to me what is more interesting, is why the AM show on Fox beats out the CBS morning offering.

No one said cable news was intended for the same audience as the regular big three news. Actually, I hear CNN, MSNBC and FOX separate their selves from the Big 3 often.

I’ll give your viewpoints some more thought. Thanks for stating them.

Jeremy, I am so glad you treat your wife well (seriously, I’m not being sarcastic). I think many spouses could learn positive things about relating to their spouses, the way you have.

This doesn’t pertain to Fox, but in reading your post, it just struck me that you seem to have learned some very caring and diplomatic skills early on.

So have you gotten Legally Blonde yet, for your laughing pleasure and perhaps because your wife might like it?

Now back to Fox, or outFoxed. BTW – I thought your viewpoint was really interesting about documentaries about anyone. It’s a different way to think about the issue (regardless of what or who the subject is).

Sorry for wandering off for a minute, but I’m just impressed when you say things that clearly are nice things you do for your wife. I think you, or any other person who writes about nice things they do for their spouses/partners/ S.O.’s deserve some kuddos, even if it means going off topic for a minute.

Back to this documentary. I think I’m get less interested.

GREAT NEWS today!

For some odd reason I clicked my tv on and felt like turning to Fox News, as I am interested in Ernesto and Fox does updates the most of the news organizations. But, I just felt I needed to be watching Fox at that time. Probably in less than one minute after I had clicked on the station, Shepard Smith, anchorinv from New York and said the two Fox Journalists who had been abducted in the Gaza Strip on Aug. 14, had just been freed. Indeed, they showed video and live phone calls with Steve Centanni and Olif Wiig. What a relief to their families, their colleagues and to journalists at large. Roger Alies, Brit Hume and Shepard Smith all talked about how the other television stations had rallied around them, lending their support, prayers and following what Fox had to do to best ensure the safe release of these two by NOT broadcasting from Gaza about the Palestini people. Even some pleas from family members, were not aired on purpose. That must have been frustrating to the families; however, the experienced negotationers knowing what they did said it was too risky at that time.

I suspect we will learn some not so pleasant details in the next few days, as Centanni called Smith and started to tell what it was like to be held at gunpoint until he and Olif professed to have converted to Islam and what it was like to be held in the dark. The video tape where both men announce their conversion to Islam, which Alies called questionable in content, was aired two hours prior to these journalists being released. Centanni told other details, which if you are interested you can either read on http://www.Foxnews.Com or watch as Fox News broadcasts them. Contrary to what some said, these two were threatened with their lives several times.

What was fascinating to me, was Centanni’s instant remark, when talking to Smith, about despite being forced (at gunpoint) to make statements and having his life threatened, he still had the deepest respect for Islam.

Perhaps what was most interesting to me was the ongoing dialogue with Amy Kellogg in the Middle East (Jerusalem) Bureau of Fox News. She described, in guarded detail, certain aspects of the negotiations, since the two were abducted. She talked about the professional negotiaters working with Fox News on how hard to push and then when to let coverage lapse. Of course, all who have been on the air discussing this situation knew that their words are being heard around the world, so all their words about the kidknappings were carefully chosen.

Centanni’s brother talked about how the two journalists not only were in Gaza to tell the story of the Palestinian people, but they were guests of those people. Apparently, that is linked to Islamic beliefs and is one of the highest compliments one can give to another in Palestine, to be a guest. If others know more about this subject, I would appreciate you posting your insight as I have none, except what I heard on the air this a.m.

Jennifer Griffin, a journalist based in Jerusalem who has been to all the hot spots in the last 5-10 years, apparently went to Gaza and “worked the pavement and banged on doors demanding answers.” I don’t know that all journalists would do that in Gaza, but then not all jouranlist have a degree from Harvard in comparative politics either.

What was pointed out by many, but especially Amy Kellogg, is this group that kidknapped these two were condemend throughout the world. Hamas and the PLO played a key role in securing their release. Of course the U.S. was invovled, but that is not the angle of the story Fox wanted to focus on, at least not for now because this truly is a first.

It is the first time that no major terror organization claimed invovlement or responsibility. Furthermore, all of the terrorist organizations denounced these kidknappings and demanded the journalist be set free. Additionally, even Aljazeera TV called for the release of these journalists. I didn’t know Aljazeera was capable of taking the stand that they did.

I’m writing about this here because the day Joe posted this subject was the day Steve Centanni and cameraman Olif Wiig were kidnapped, Aug. 14. I wrote the first post saying how ironic the time was for this particular posting and there was no way Joe could have known the kidknappings would happen that day. Thankfully, the day has come today when the best possible outcome possible for these two journalists has happened. Sadly, this news comes as an Israeli air strike hit a Reuters News vehicle, also in the Gaza Strip. Five people were injured. Also, a Pulitzer Price winning Chicago Tribune journalist, Paul Salopek, was charged with espionage in the Sudan.

Regardless of whether you like a particular news network or not, I really wonder how many of us stop to think what life and death risks these brave reporters take to show and tell us the real stories? How many of us would volunteer to go to these dangerous areas just to do our jobs? And will coverage of certain ares now decrease, or stop, given these abductions? I’ll leave these questions to be pondered by those who have read my comments.

Here is a clip where Fox News edited an interview with Robert Wexler to make him look bad. It shows the real video from the Colbert Report and then what Fox showed. Quite a different context.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGqPxn7njqM

Because I don’t want to be totally ignorant, I took a quick look at the first two pages of Digg.Com right now. This was one headlines, “ABC mistakenly releases ID in page probe,” and another “The Daily Show – Annual GOP BBQ and Nude Cub Scout Wrestle,” and most interesting to me, this one, “The Firefox development team returns from Redmond.” I can’t wait to read about Microsoft and Firefox!

Maybe I searched incorrectly and instead of going to page one I should have gone to the last page. I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting that these were the headlines now.

If Fox comes up tomorrow, it will be fascinating to see where it fits in with these headlines.

What is with ABC “accidentally” releasing information about the pages and Foley?

Gee…sounds pretty serious. Maybe they should have consulted Dan Rather at CBS. I hear that he is good at making stuff up even when he does check facts.

Big deal. The lawsuit will go no where. I am sure CNN has had people sue it as well….remember the case of Richard Jewell and the rush to judge him in the Olympics bombing….now that is serious stuff. I think the superintendent will overcome the ham sandwich episode just fine and could have got a few laughs out of it too. Pardon me Mr. Superintendent…but would you have any Grey Poupon for your sandwich?

People are too serious in this day and age. Just like the DC judge that sued for 54 million over a pair of pants. Absolutely ridiculous.

No way. No one should be threatened. I think that people on both sides of the debate need to cool it.

No problem with fact checking. That should have been done too. All I am saying is that you can slam the PR, CNN, CBS, they all have their moments. This just happened to be Fox’s.

Good that no one got hurt…but certainly the potential was there and this is certainly not acceptable. I certainly hope that they hire some more fact checkers for future stories.

The science fair joke was just an example. FOX is hardly the first news organization to report a joke story that resulted in threats and harassment involving religion.

So, you point out some mistakes that were made. Did Fox censor the word coming out of the speakers mouths?I have noted similar mistakes on CNN before. They put Joe Biden as a Republican when he pushed his plan on splitting Iraq. The article posted was grasping at straws to put big-bad Fox News down with the weakest of points. I can’t believe you even gave this site or the article the time of day. Normally, you present more substance.

Additionally, I now get an idea where you get some of your ideas at from this Daily Kos site. This is the same site that uses profanity with no problem. It also has pictures of President Bush engaging in beastiality with a sheep. Now, if Obama were posed in a doctored photo having sex with a cow would that be acceptable? I think not. It would be widely criticized. Not so here.

In fact, we are taken to a link of this far left-wing hate site. This site is full of more than just disagreement of ideas. It is a hate speech directed at conservatives and even Democrats that don’t tow the far left wing line. They lambast Hillary Clinton and call her a ‘f’ing c___. I don’t like Clinton, but she doesn’t deserve to be called names like this.

So, if you think this is a worthy site to use and post here then why is it that the Daily Kos site violates a number of the rules you set up for this site? Is it okay to dael with profanity on-line? Is it okay to deal with beastiality on-line? In my opinion, in your blind hatred of Fox News or any conservative media outlets you looked past the real content of this site. It’s not okay to talk about religion, but we can enjoy all the foul and hateful language plus beastiality that we can get our hands on, right?

In closing, I believe it is all of this hatred that is going on in politics that continues to divide us all from meaningful discussion to solve problems. It’s construed as Right v. Left. This is the wrong approach in my view. We need to move towards Right v. Wrong.
The Daily Kos site is a political hack site and not representative of rational and meaningful thought in many cases.

Fox News makes mistakes just like anyone else. CNN makes mistakes too. Let me ask you a question, do you really think that the country is worse off by having Fox News? If you answer yes then ask yourself the same question about how Pat Robertson feels about CNN. Do we want to get rid of alternative news sites? I don’t think so. I just don’t feel that we need garbage like Daily Kos in the debate. You seem to feel strongly that religion not be talked about here. Why not the same standard for recognized dispicable topics?

I read the Alternet article. It is about a “journalist” travelling around the country running into Republicans who make statements about gassing liberals and executing them. Certainly, if true-not appropriate.

However, as I kept reading there was one little detail that kept creeping up on every paragraph. There was an absence of identifying names to any of these Republican and conservative people he happened upon at the beach, and even on a cruise where he paid $1200 to go with National Review readers. Come on! What liberal would pay $1200 to go on cruise with National Review readers…what journalist has time to hang out at all these places. This article was and is a set up job and reads like fiction. Yet, you bought it hook line and sinker. Not impressed.

So Jon Hari places himself on a cruise and talks with conservatives. Even if true, big deal. What is so novel about the fact that there is friction amongst conservatives? FOX NEWS ALERT—Columnist Jon Hari reports on arguments erupting amongst conservatives! Maybe he should cover the Democrats too on the Iraq war funding issue and how there was/is friction there. The point is there are appalling comments made on both sides. I recall a right wing idiot by the name of David Duke that made all kinds of absolutely insane statements. The point I am trying to make here is that lumping all one’s criticism onto Fox or other conservative sites is as misleading as media reports that lavish praise on the left and give them a free pass on issues that conservative groups would get nailed for, i.e. the example of beastiality. Another good example of this treatment is how CNN, NBC, and CBS treated the Ward Chruchill firing. He was labeled more as a hero and first amendment defender. The ACLU even came to his defense on the grounds of academic freedom. They glossed over the facts that he is a plagarist and academic fraud for his research and ’scholarly’ work stolen from others or made up. Yet, when the President of Yale made a comment last year in reponse to a question about why women don’t do well in science and math. The Yale Pres. said that perhaps there are innate differences between men and women. He was lambasted by the faculty and forced to resign by no confidence votes. The ACLU didn’t stand up for this guy. The media layed this guy out as being sexist.

So, in the end analysis it is less about truth or freedom of speech and more about how to distort the truth and deny freedom of speech by labeling people as bigots, fascists, communists, whatever the label–somebody is using it and that is the wrong way to approach any type of rational or meaningful discussion. You can come up with links to degrade somebody and so can I. So many people are turned off by this action that the only people left standing are the bomb throwers. How do we get past this? Wish I knew. I think alot of us on this site are after workable solutions. Unfortunately, myself included, fall into the easy trap of throwing bombs.

I am glad that we have alternate forms of media. If we aren’t going to play nice then we have to have competing forms of media to counter-balance the other side.

http://www.polisci.ucla.edu/faculty/groseclose/Media.Bias.8.htm

-One of many interesting scholarly studies I’ve found as a university student emphasizing in this sort of thing. Note how it, like most others I have found, pit FOX News as being actually closer to the center than most of the other mainstream media outlets. It’s just the contrast from our ever-leftward-leaning cynical society that makes us skeptical of anything positive about government (incl. the current administration). People tend to believe satirists who poke fun at FOX News, believing them as credible sources. The bandwagon of non-conformity/anti-authority is scary.

No one’s afraid of Fox News, we just question whether they can be considered a good source for accurate information, or not.

There’s plenty of evidence that they use RNC & Administration PR press releases & talking points to further an agenda. I see that agenda as neo-conservative, so I question the accuracy of the information they push.

I have seen plenty of people who use Fox News as a primary source for information, & they seem unaware of many important aspects of certain news stories. To me, that suggests Fox doesn’t present a fully-formed account of these stories.

As far as the television personalities of Fox go, I just hope folks don’t think of pundits like O’Reilly & Hannity as news journalists. They are not. And they’re certainly no substitute for actual news reporters covering the issues facing us today.

I’d like to see the evidence showing some of those other networks reporting “word for word” DNC talking points, such has been shown to be a fact with Fox News.

Do you have such information, or are you just assuming, since Fox does it, that the other networks do it too?

Seems I hit a nerve with Mike! Unfortunately for you, I don’t watch CNN & the only pundit I like on MSNBC is Olbermann. I don’t really get any of the hard news stories I follow from TV that much at all. Kinda blows your rant against all those other cable news shows.

The point you seem to be missing is this: Fox News took partisan propaganda to an entirely different level than has ever been seen before. Sure, there’s been backlash against Fox within other cable news outlets, but it’s mostly been things like firing Phil Donahue & pushing neo-cons like Tucker Carlson.

This discussion began with the question about Fox specifically in response to the many videos available that critique Fox’s “newsworthiness.” Are there such videos criticizing CNN? Probably, & I would probably agree with most of the criticisms. Does that take away from the dirty tricks employed by Fox News? Hardly, IMO.

“…I applaud Fox for putting Alan Colmes up against Hannity.”

Diversity of opinion, yes, but this is a great example of how FOX News subtly (or not) subverts balance to try influencing your opinions.

The video “outfoxed” actually poses the same question. For the conservative viewpoint, they bring out the all-american handsome, and for the liberal opinion they bring out a weaselly-looking dude. It’s not the worst crime, but it’s one example.

OMG!!!!!

FOX NEWS ALERT.

FOX just reported the story on Larry Craig. I can’t believe it. Why didn’t they censor the story?

Oh, well….maybe somebody was asleep at the wheel or maybe the RNC just wanted them to get Craig out….surely it must be a conspiracy now?! Whatever………

Got any memos on CNN……on wait….let’s see, Wolf Blitzer played patty cake with the Dems in the last debate. No follow-up questions to Clinton on the illegal immigrants getting drivers licenses. At least Tim Russert followed up and tried to pin them down. Hmm….Anderson Cooper and his staff getting outfoxed by Clinton operatives and/or being in bed with them to stack the deck with Dems asking questions at the Republican debate. Larry King who didn’t have a clue about why Seinfeld was off the air–insinuating Seinfeld was cancelled. The list goes on. CNN has as many problems as are purported for Fox. There is no objectivity by anyone. Once we all accept that then we can move on.

what do you think?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC2DJR8IJLo