Okay, so FOX News did another one of their silly “oh my goodness! we put the wrong information up! right on the screen! and then talked about it! for a long time! but that’s okay because, now, in the last minute of the show, we’re correcting that. (Not correcting that old graphic of course, just telling you.)”
Misinformation is consequential and FOX knows that. People are in the street fighting for their future and other people are getting angry about it. And FOX says a Gallup poll says the exact opposite of what it actually said.
Gallup asked if respondents favored or opposed taking away collective bargaining rights. The poll showed 61% saying it was wrong to take them away and 33% said okay, take them away.
Here’s what FOX put up (and then used to bolster their own position)
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
I remember when I actually defended FOX News from liberal anger and sieges on the grounds that all media is biased and its own inadequacies will eventually force it to clean up its act. But now I think I may have gone a smidge too easy on them…
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Well, Moe…I do not presume to know everything, or to come across like one who thinks he does. But I do know this, and beyond the shadow of a doubt…
Fox News is no better or worse than MSNBC, CBS, Washington Post, NY Times, or any of the other vast number of media sources that lean left of center. All of your major news networks and media outlets are ALL guilty of the same hypocrisy.
All press will outright lie to further serve themselves and their agenda. But, that is not the worst of it!
Objective reporting?
Gone. For good.
The worst of it is that the press will arrive at a desired conclusion (one that furthers their own end), and work backwards from there in an effort to reinforce their own bias.
In fact, I would more so liken the journalist of today with an artist. Without fail they can be counted on to continue in their daily efforts to “paint us a picture”. And believe me when I say that the liberal media has THAT down to a “fine art”.
But you see, in an “everything is relative” type of mindset that is totally devoid of an absolute moral standard, it is easy to give oneself over to a brand of self righteousness so foul that it permeates the core of a person, rendering that person totally incapable of objectivity. It is such a mindset that brings reality to the cliche “the end justifies the means”. It is these actions and this mindset that has affected western media like a plague. A plague that continually wields it’s unique power over the masses to further their own end.
The liberals, like the conservatives, are eat up with it.
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Sam, I’m going to disagree strongly. FOX is NOT like other news organizations. CBS (since post WWII) , NYTimes (since before The Civil War) and The Wash Post (almost all of the 20th century) and dozens more are hugely successful with the vast majority of Americans because they are trusted. Today, polls will tell you taht the most trusted news organization on TV is The News Hour on PBS, which is a major target of the right.
My point is that these organizations have proven their trustworthiness, their value to the reader or viewer. The Times maintains full reporting staffs in the Middle East and North Africa and always have. They are the people who know what’s going on on hte ground. Where do you think FOX gets its news. They’re constantly saying “The NY Times says”. The papers you’re assigning a ‘left agenda’ to? Wash Post has evolved into a conservative paper. CBS has no opinion arm; they’re news only. NYT has a clearly liberal editorial page – the rest of hte paper is pretty much just factual reporting on everything from business, to movies to cooking to war to the congress.
I’ve been around a while, and I’ve never seen anything like FOX – ever, anywhere, at least not in this country. They are the only national propaganda network I’ve ever seen.
MSNBC is the closest, but it’s just a wannabe – it came a decade after FOX and adopted FOX’s format of multiple opinion shows. However, they never even pretended to put up a news organization – after all they had NBC for that. FOX did put up a news organization and does actual reporting.
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Even if this is true, Moe, it still does noting to change my point. Even if you are right in what you say, that Fox is like nothing you have seen, then it just proves my point again.
The media has power that they ought not to have. Power to mold and to shape. Power to usurp and stir up.
And if Fox can do it, they all can do it.
This is not freedom of press, Moe.
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[Power to usurp and stir up. ] – Sam, that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do and is why the Founders added the First Amendment to the consitution. Go read Ben Franklin’s newspapers or The Federalist Papers by Madison and Hamilton. It was entirely about shaping opinion. When the Aemrican revolution began, fewer than 20% of people supported it. Newsppaers changed their atittudes. When the consittution was being debated, people didn’t want a strong federal gov’t, but the Federalist Papers changed their minds.
FOX does the same thing but they don’t directly advocate – they do it while claiming they aren’t advocates for anthing. That’s dishonest.
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Down with the media.
The media in it’s current form is unconstitutional. It has become a power unto itself, wielding far more influence over the masses than any public office seat or government institution…and far more influence then the founding fathers would have ever dreamed.
It is not controlled by the people, but rather uses it’s power to shape the people in it’s own image. It is tyrannical, intrusive, and evil.
The press should be of the people, not over them.
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TheUnrepublican: might be time to consider a run for office…with your reading of what is constitutional and all – why you’re almost a scholar…
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Ms. Holland,
You do not see the left wing bias of the NY Times. The Times was known as the Gray Lady. It has been left wing in modern times but was respected. That changed in the late 1980s when Abe Rosenthal retired and Pinch Sulzberger took power from the father Punch Sulzberger.
Pinch is more concerned with promoting left wing causes than running a real newspaper. Not surprisingly the New York Times under Pinch is going down the tubes .
At least Rupert Murdoch knows how to run a business.
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Alan, that’s The Old Gray Lady and the paper is still called that. The Times as a news organization displays no bias at all. I’d be happy to look at a Times news story that reveals a bias if you have one you can show me. Meanwhile, a million and a half people every single day pay for their copy of the The NYT just like they do for the WSJ. T Journal has always had a right wing editorial page and remained a trusted news source. The Times has always had a liberal editorial page and remains a trusted news source. (and yes, we are talking in ‘modern times’.)
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Ms. Holland,
At the moment time considerations prevent me from honoring your request for an example of bias from the NY Times . I am surprised you would ask because I thought that even your side acknowledged the bias. I see I am mistaken.
When time permits, I do not believe it will be impossible to fill your request . In the mean time to change the subject to the collective bargaining issue you brought up. A young Senator by the name of Obama once promised to march with workers if they were ever denied their collective bargaining rights.
“I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States of America.”
I guess that promise, along with all the others like closing Gitmo was just hot air.
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Do you really think the Secret Service would allow a President of the United States to join a protest march? And do you really think it would be appropriate for a president to do that? Nonsense, of course, promises as a Senator or not.
Obama’s falling short on the promises for sure, but we’re living in a totally different world than he campaigned in in ’07 and ’08: the bank collapse and bailout happened two months before the ’08 election. And in that moment the agenda for the 44th president changed, whoever won the election.
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Moe,
You really have a great blog. It seems like you have such an eclectic group of commentators.
This is better than the more typical case with left or right wing blog where a point is made the commentators all agree, and wait for their views to confirmed again.
You’re clearly a liberal, but actually have some good discussion, not just folks confirming their pre-existing conditions.
Maybe health insurance will pay for this non-pre-existing conditions.
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Bruce, you make me blush and then you made me laugh! Thank you for the kind words; the fact is that I strive to keep the tone civil – there are a gajillion places we can go for the shouting and the flame wars. You are a wonderful part of our conversation, bringing an expertise we don’t all have and I thank you for that. I also enjoy your sincere non partisanship.
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Ms. Holland,
” Do you really think the Secret Service would allow a President of the United States to join a protest march? And do you really think it would be appropriate for a president to do that? Nonsense, of course, promises as a Senator or not. ”
I think President Obama can pretty much do anything he wants. He tells the Secret Service how high to jump. But, for the sake of argument lets say you are right. The SS says the President cannot march. Well then don’t you think a US Senator probably knew that when he made a promise he had no intention of keeping. And I do not see what the bank collapse and bailout has to do with walking a picket line in Wisconsin. Explain it, will you ?
Oh, and as far as our other little disagreement, I have the example of NY Times Liberal bias that you requested . Two Governors facing budget trouble. One the Republican Governor of New Jersey and the other the Democratic Governor of Connecticut.
The Republican gets trashed, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/nyregion/23christie.html?scp=4&sq=david%20halbfinger&st=cse
The Democrat gets a fair shake, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/nyregion/16malloy.html?sq=halbfinger&st=cse&scp=4&pagewanted=all
Same Newspaper, same author.
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