"But his freedom to be biased is also freedom to be intelligent"

[KillerMuffin]

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2067193

Michael Kinsley
Third, it would not be so terrible if Stephanopoulos and This Week were overtly biased, or the other TV news anchorhoods as well. The TV news anchor I find myself watching most is Brit Hume of Fox News. He brims with bias, and it's a bias I don't share. But his freedom to be biased is also freedom to be intelligent. You get the news as filtered through an interesting mind.

Fox News is a brilliant experiment in overt, honest bias—the broadcast equivalent of its owner Rupert Murdoch's flagship right-wing tabloid newspaper, the New York Post. It has stripped a whole layer of artifice from TV news. What almost ruins everything is the network's comically dishonest insistence that it is not what it obviously is. I would love to know what Hume is thinking when he repeats with apparent sincerity the Fox News mantra, "Fair and balanced as always." Fox is usually fair but rarely balanced. In fact it is a good example of how you can be the one without the other.

It's a compliment to Fox, though, that a viewer wonders what its anchor is thinking, rather than whether he is thinking. There is a lesson here for George Stephanopoulos. Or at least for his producers.

Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? Do you watch or read biased news or discussions that you don't agree with? Do they make you think or do you just look for ways to rip holes in what they say?

Do you consider your political opposition to be valid and necessary to you? Why or why not?

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[patient1]

I agree. News contains fact as well as opinion. it also is biased in what it covers or neglects.

I think it's good to get multiple sources for a complete picture.
What good is an open mind protected from one side or the other?

 

[KillerMuffin]

I can't get that link to work.

What do you think about bias and news anchors?

 

[sexy-girl]

bias news reporting in my opinion is something we should never accept ... news reports control our lives in how we see the rest of the world ... its not just that there opinions are bias ... its that they choose what they wish to report and which they dont report


such as rupert murdoch effectively banning the reporting of any criticism (or any reporting in fact) of china with its treatment of tibet and taiwan

 

[Hamletmaschine]

I agree with Kinsley. The pose of objectivity or neutrality has always been semi-transparent anyway, and our nation was founded in part by muckrakers, "yellow" journalists, pamphleteers, propagandists, or whatever you want to call them this week.

We mistakenly assume that "the news" serves as a guardian of the facts, as a watchdog over those who might misconstrue or misinterpret the facts for their own vested interests. But nowadays, of course, when 5 corporations own over 90% of the media production and distribution "product" in this country, "the news" has some vested interests of its own that it often chooses to serve first.

At least Murdoch and Fox are fully transparent about their money-grubbing scumhood.

 

[RawHumor]

I don't think Fox News Channel is any more biased than CNN. They're just biased the other way.

But then, I'm one of those freaks who believes that there's a left-wing media bias in general.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

Raw, I know a lot of people claim to see a left-wing bias in the media, so you're not a freak. You're just wrong.

The media industry is in business for one reason only: to make a profit. The so-called bias is just part of the storyline that sells--just as the same corporations like putting in bitchy, evil women in Dynasty or Melrose Place, cause they know people love to hate 'em.

 

[RawHumor]

Raw, I know a lot of people claim to see a left-wing bias in the media, so you're not a freak. You're just wrong.

LOL Thanks for clearing that up.

Remember Watergate? Wasn't it REPORTERS who broke that story?

These days, if it happened, they'd just wait until someone else discovered it and then report it afterward. Or else, they'd rig something themselves and then claim that they're just reporting it, like with the 60 Minutes rigged car explosions and stuff.

 

[sunstruck]

like with the 60 Minutes rigged car explosions and stuff.

When did this happen?

Oh, and love the new Cartman.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

... Remember Watergate? Wasn't it REPORTERS who broke that story?

These days, if it happened, they'd just wait until someone else discovered it and then report it afterward. Or else, they'd rig something themselves and then claim that they're just reporting it, like with the 60 Minutes rigged car explosions and stuff.

Haven't you heard? Over at Fox, they're reporting that this is exactly what the Washington Post did with the Watergate story: rigged the Nixon White House to self-destruct so they could report it.

 

[RawHumor]

When did this happen?

Oh, and love the new Cartman.

It was a year or two ago. I don't remember if it was 20/20 or 60 Minutes, but they were doing "safety tests" on some vehicles that had gotten complaints of fuel lines rupturing on impact and the possibility of fires. Their results weren't dramatic enough, so they "helped" them a bit and then got caught.

No, I don't remember how they got caught.

 

[RawHumor]

Haven't you heard? Over at Fox, they're reporting that this is exactly what the Washington Post did with the Watergate story: rigged the Nixon White House to self-destruct so they could report it.

I haven't heard that. I don't have FNC for the summer.

 

[TWB]

http://slate.msn.com/?id=2067193

Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not? Do you watch or read biased news or discussions that you don't agree with? Do they make you think or do you just look for ways to rip holes in what they say?

Do you consider your political opposition to be valid and necessary to you? Why or why not?

Your questions are interesting, but what I find more interesting is the idea of journalistic bias. I don't mind editorializing journalism. I think it is important to take a stand and I think the idea of totally non-biased journalism is a very difficult ideal.

Unfortunately, FOX makes painstaking efforts to make its slant appear balanced. They become apologists for their clear right wing agenda. That is what stretches its credibility with me.

Worse yet is the O'Reilly factor's "no spin zone" monikker. It is doublespeak at its finest, trying to relabel spin into no spin. It is so silly I wanna start my own tv show.

I just wish that journalists would stop being apologists for their opinions.

 

[miles]

Everyone is biased. It seems silly when someone pastes an article on the BB and people accuse the source of being biased. Of course it is.

George Stephapoopoo is a lousy TV journalist or reporter or whatever they are. He's a celebrity, and a wooden one at that.

Fox definitely leans to the right, but they have a lot more liberals than CNN has conservatives, so they are more balanced. What bothers me is when Dan Rather and Peter Jennings deny they are biased when it's so patently obvious.

 

[Purple Haze]

Everybody wants the news their way, I prefer it cold, dry and uncolored, Cronkite-style. I've stopped wishing, and I don't watch television news anymore, (if I'm the one holding the remote) because these so-called "journalists" are more concerned about whether it will entertain me and keep me tuned in for the next hour or so.

It doesn't. I'm pretty sure there isn't a political bias in the news for political reasons. I see very little good in a newscast that gives Vanilla Coke as much coverage as a pipe-bomb in Israel.

I was at a friend's house tonight, he had the evening news on. I never thought I'd rather have Nixon as a President, do you see why I hate the news? I don't think they have the real story, or ever will. They just speculate most of the time and try to make it entertaining to Joe Lunchbucket.

There isn't anything scarier than someone who watches or listens to the "news" all day and thinks he's well-informed.

 

[Azwed]

It was a year or two ago. I don't remember if it was 20/20 or 60 Minutes, but they were doing "safety tests" on some vehicles that had gotten complaints of fuel lines rupturing on impact and the possibility of fires. Their results weren't dramatic enough, so they "helped" them a bit and then got caught.

No, I don't remember how they got caught.

I think the vehicle you are refering to is the GMC/Chevy trucks from two generations ago that had duel fuel tanks. There have been two redesigns since this designs production run ended in 1989 or so.

Basicly GM was trying to save space by putting the fuel tanks outside the framerails. By putting the tanks outside the framerails they could use much larger tanks but those very same tanks now had no protection from a sideimpact crash. When a car hit the truck from the side it would crush the tank agianst the very hard structural steel of the framerail.


If the tank was very full and/or slightly corroded from being old it could rupture in a crash. There were plenty of documentations of the fuel tanks rupturing and a few of them catching fire afterwards. I think it was 20/20 that did the show on it. They tried to renact the crashes and get them to explode but they just would not. The crash needs to create enough sparks right at or just after the tank ruptures in order to explode and that does not happen often. They used model rocket engines to ignite the gasoline after the tanks reptured.

They screwed up big time by doing that. They were going for a big sensational story with lots of pictures of exploding trucks. Just the fact the GM was stupid enough to put a gas tank where it had almost no protection in a crash and was almost certain to rupture should have been news enough.

 

[RhumbRunner13]

Az......

....as I remember the story, you have it completely correct!

Did they use model rocket engines or a stick of dynamite?!

Rhumb

 

[Azwed]

Re: Az......

....as I remember the story, you have it completely correct!

Did they use model rocket engines or a stick of dynamite?!

Rhumb

Yeah the explosions were pretty spectacular but they just used model rocked engines. They were pretty big ones though. I think they used the D class rocket engines which if you have never done model rocketry are about the largest engines you can buy at least for normal commercial models.

The D engines are about 3/4's of an inch in diameter and a little over three inches long.

They make larger engines for the very large custom rockets that they set off in the desert that can go thousands of feet up. I think you have to have a special permit to buy those.

 

[Ishmael]

Fox definitely leans to the right, but they have a lot more liberals than CNN has conservatives, so they are more balanced. What bothers me is when Dan Rather and Peter Jennings deny they are biased when it's so patently obvious.

That's the crux of it. And not only that they claim no bias, but stories that are newsworthy that don't fit their agenda are not reported at all.

When half of the 'news' is actually an editorial, there is little incentive to watch at all.

Ishmael

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by RawHumor
. . . No, I don't remember how they got caught.

They were caught by a small tongue of flame that erupted from below one of their "crash test" vehicles just before the collision. When the segment was run frame-by-frame, it was clearly obvious but quite easy to miss at normal projection speed.

 

[Azwed]

They were caught by a small tongue of flame that erupted from below one of their "crash test" vehicles just before the collision. When the segment was run frame-by-frame, it was clearly obvious but quite easy to miss at normal projection speed.

Yeah thats right. Do you remember who noticed that?

 

[Ishmael]

Yeah thats right. Do you remember who noticed that?

Yep, General Motors engineers noticed it. They sued the network and the producers of the show. And won.

Ishmael

 

[Marxist]

It was "Dateline" you tools.

"60 Minutes," along with "Frontline" is at the pinnacle of network investigative reporting.

"Dateline" is cheap TV-filler for NBC and they practically admit this by re-broadcasting crap from CourtTV.




Television news is for profit. How much do we really need to know anyway?

Think, what does the search for the Smart kid have to do with the other thousands of kidnappings that will happen this year? Do we really need a news crawl at the bottom of the page?