Yes. Transparently biased is a good way to put it, fadeaway. All news sources, in all the media, have some sort of bias, even if they're making a concerted effort not to be. But Fox, at least in the States, is the most transparently biased of all the major news outlets. That's my opinion, of course, but I have conservative friends who laugh when the subject comes up. They will readily agree with the assessment, but shrug, because it is beneficial, from their point of view. Keep D&D Civil!!
if bigtexxx is saying Fox is the least biased and the rest of them are liberal, that's a good indication that Fox leans right. Right? people like to listen to the news they like and even bigtexxx won't deny that he's a conservative. I majored in political science and did quite a bit of study on the media, so I kind of watch all the big news stories equally to see how much they covered. Fox is clearly right, CBS is surprisingly moderate but they tend to have moodswings, CNN is slightly left, NBC is also slightly left. If you want to watch less biased news (as unbiased news doesnt exist) watch BBCnews, they are clearly unswayed by Americans in their newsroom and don't get these far left or far right "experts" to give opinions. Otherwise, CNN is pretty good, not for their experts and layout so much, but for their international news coorespondents.
The BBC? Are you kidding me? Have you already forgotten about their incident where they fabricated a story intended to harm Tony Blair and his case for war? They had to issue an apology to 10 Downing St and a few of the senior people there had to step down.
I met her when we went to atlanta, and stayed at the the cnn center. I didnt know she broadcasted from atlanta, but IM not complaining. They have this spanish channel corespondent, who is like DAAAYUM.
Sorry, but you are simply wrong. The BBC is very biased. It's run by a bunch of loony lefties, and they just hired some former Al Jazeerists to make their Arab service even more anti-American.
left in america perhaps. moderate in the rest of the world. thats why they're the most respected news media in the world. even after the fiasco a couple months back.
Sorry, but you are simply wrong. (putting your words right back at you) As for the "Blair Story," in my opinion, it's no different than the NY Times "scandal" awhile back, that were the actions of a reporter, but was used to villify the entire newspaper, by those who don't like it's coverage. The BBC is one of, and very probably the most repected news source, worldwide.
Slightly? who's that bald guy at CNN who joined Kerry's group? I can't remember his name. But I don't think it's right for him to do that.
Why I believe that ALL CABLE NEWS IS BAD: 1) TV Cable News is more susceptible to market and ratings forces than any other news media.... amongst radio, internet, television, newspapers, and magazines. Cable News is therefore the most aggressive in their desire to increase ratings and are the most susceptible to telling people "what they want to hear" to get those ratings. 2) TV Cable News DOES NOT RUN NEWS STORIES. Newspapers, magazines, and news radio (not talk radio) run news stories. That means they collect large amounts of information, reduce and edit that information down to what is pertinent to the particular topic that is being addressed, and present that in a form that can be educational. Once again, Cable News DOES NOT RUN NEWS STORIES. It has been reduced to: -Impromptu and heated roundtable discussions -Live footage w/ "expert" commentary You can watch cable news for 4 hours and not be able to gather the same amount of information you can from absorbing one or two good NEWS STORIES in 15 minutes. Cable news has 24 hours a day to fill with information... there aren't enough resources to provide dense information in that amount of time. THE ENTIRE MEDIA FORMAT IS FATALLY FLAWED. Stop watching cable news! Fox is terrible. CNN is terrible. MSNBC is terrible. It doesn't matter that they are biased, because their incompetance transcends any bias they may have. It is like two doctors bickering about how to treat a paper cut for an ER patient who is bleeding to death from a head wound. ---------------------- The reason that these bickering matches are so common is because of a culture war. Not because Fox is conservative and CNN is liberal. Those two channels just tell people what they want to hear, and they go after demographics. ---------------------- On the subject of the original post... This is beyond absurd. The intelligence agencies may be incompetant, but any sources of information your imagination has decided are untapped resources on terrorist activities are already being pursued to the fullest extent allowed by law (and probably WAY BEYOND - we don't want to know kinda stuff). As for marching into Al Jazeera and executing people... do you not approve of the first amendment and the US Constitution?
After a breather from my rant... I just wanted to point out that all media sources are biased. Most of them being slightly biased as a result of the fact that they are produced by HUMANS. There is no such thing as information in a pure and truthful form. Even the Scientific Method, which was created to uncover truth, is a METHOD... not a RESULT. You can try to be unbiased and pursue truth, but the presentation of information is an unavoidable and contaminating PROCESS. Looking beyond bias... the judgement of a news source to me is more about the quality of information that you can absorb from it. Unfortunately, Cable News is a really poor source of information, and a really great source of bitterness, political speak, and our society's worst reflection. Philosophy majors feel free to rip this apart.
The media sucks all the way around and the public doesn't help. 1. People don't read newspapers in any real numbers any longer. Unfortunately, with very few exceptions, newspapers are the only media outlets that can tell at least a large portion of the story. 2. People who do read papers rarely read past the lead. If they make it past the lead, they won't often make it past the fold or to the jump page. 3. Broadcast television news is using less and less time to tell stories. The average used to be 45 seconds to tell a story. It is now under half that. How can you tell the story of what really happened in 20 seconds? You can't. 4. There are way too many media outlets that are conveniently blurring the lines between news and politics and/or news and advertising. This has always been a part of the media - ad departments pushing a feature story on a big client - but it has gotten increasingly worse over time. 5. News outlets are more interested in scaring people than in telling the truth because their real interest is in ratings and ad revenues. Walter Cronkite said that ads during the news would be the death of real broadcast news journalism. He may be right. 6. The "in-depth" news sources are increasingly pushed to get more and deeper information on any big story because the industry has become so incredibly competitive. The result finds people making up stories or following leads most credible journalists would never follow. --- News is a joke. There are very, VERY few decent news outlets left and that number will continue to shrink and it is our fault. We watch the selacious stories and obsessively demand more information on Jon Benet Ramsey and Kobe Bryant and Scott & Laci Peterson. If we didn't watch, they wouldn't air it. So, it is ultimately our fault news sucks.
Not only that but he's a talking head that made his name working for Clinton. Same with Begala (Clinton, CNN, Kerry). Pat Buchanan worked for Nixon then became a media figure then ran for president twice then went back to broadcasting. These guys do opinion, not hard news. Bob Dole's a talking head now too. He shows up on Larry King and other shows to discuss politics and the various campaigns. If he advises the Bush campaign, is that 'not right' too? There's a lot to complain about with regard to media bias but the Carville thing's the reddest of herrings.
Yes, another MAJOR problem with cable news. It's the twofold whammy of trying to "break" the story when you are working in real time, and the inability of the network to edit itself (fact check, source check) due to the overwhelming amount of useless information that is thrown around in a 24 hour period. The same basic argument that the networks don't do stories, just stream of consciousness talk.
Breaking the News by James Fallows. The media reports whatever sells. What's hot one day, is gone the next and something new takes it's place. That's why on most, if not all local shows, the opening or lead story is a fire, or murder in the area. Sex, greed, death -- the public eats it up. The media is going downhill, i think average the average viewing/reading rates have dropped year after year. If tomorrow John Kerry came up with a plan to help Iraq, they would talk about what this does to his campaign and how it affects GWB. They won't cover what the plan involves or how it will work -- they just want the controversy. It's really sad -- the media's job is to represent the American people, and yet they confuse most Americans more than help them understand issues. In the book above, they talked about a hypothetical question that was posed to Peter Jennings and Mike Wallace. If they were allowed to follow the enemy's troops and saw that American soldiers were about to be ambushed and slaughtered, would they step in to help the Americans? "You're a reporter. Granted you're an American. I'm a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you're an American, you would not have covered that story." -Mike Wallace lecturing Jennings on why he should not help the Americans and cover the story. Later, Jennings apologized and said he got wrapped up in the hypothetical question, and that he would have covered it. That is why America hates the media.
