Does anyone think Fox news is fair?
I normally watch BBC news but recently I’ve been watching CNN, ABC, and Fox news and was astonished by Fox news at how bias it was.
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No one with more than half a brain would consider intentionally biased news to be fair.
All cable news is biased. That’s why I’ve blocked all of those channels.
Not anyone who has any critical thinking skills.
Fox News is a joke. I’ve seen hardcore conservatives online defend their watching of Fox News as being the only “honest news station”. Are we so divided along political spectrum lines that we need to have everything filtered and biased for us?
I think we are to some degree. Ever been to the Yahoo! Answers “politics” section? 95% conservative and 85% idiotic. Most of those people there are extremely divided along political spectrum lines and refer to all people as either “conservative” or “liberal”. Are we ever going to move past these hollow labels? /rant over
@DominicX
I don’t want to create a new question so maybe you can’t help me out.
I don’t know if this will sound stupid but I’ll ask anyway. Why do some countries have presidents and other have PM’s? Is it down to the type of government in that country? What makes me more confused at why France has a PM and a president.
@allansmithee
It varies from country to country, but from what I have read in the past, I’m pretty sure that a prime minister is appointed by a governing body and a president is elected by the people. That’s the main difference in most cases. In the case of France, the president appoints the prime minister and they both have similar functions, although the president has more power. In the UK, the prime minister answers to Parliament for the most part and Parliament can remove them if they want to. You know more about the UK than I do, though. :P
Have you ever seen this news source?
I don’t think any news is fair. It’s just that some are better at cloaking their bias than others, and others don’t even care to cloak their bias. Actually, I think the latter are more honest than the ones who pretend to be unbiased, and since they are more honest, you can trust them more. You know exactly how they are lying.
@daloon
The BBC has no reason to be bias? It doesn’t gain any money by being bias.
It’s news is run by many different people, changing every year, even if one had a bias it wouldn’t been enough and the people can complain at the BBC being bias and get people fired.
Every reporter and every editor has their own opinions which bias their coverage of stuff they are reporting on. You may think BBC has no reason to be biased, but they have an agenda, too. It just may not be easily apparent. Biases can be subtle—it can be done in editing, or in a pattern of what is not covered (which is really hard to detect). Beebs probably has a bias towards England and towards English business. It also seems to be biased towards the US, as well.
@daloon
Most of the BBC reporters read from a script gone through by the people running the news section, they have many people working on the news not just one or two so it’s unlikely all of them are bias.
@allansmithee The second B in BBC stands for Biased. I thought that everyone was aware of that.
@allansmithee I’m not sure you share my understanding of the meaning of “biased.” The way you write the term “bias” suggests that English may not be your first language.
Have you ever played “telephone?” It’s a game with a number of people. One person starts by whispering a message into the next person’s ear. Each person then tries to recreate the message as precisely as possible to the next person. The last person states the message aloud. It is often virtually unrecognizable when compared to how it started.
I tell this story to show you how your idea of “many people working on the news” is actually more likely to introduce bias instead of removing it. Each person slightly misunderstands the message, and restates it using their understanding (or bias) about the way life works, and passes it on. By the end, it probably resembles the thoughts of the intervening people more than it does the vision of the original reporter.
Bias is the nature of being a human being. We all see (and can only see) things from our own perspective. There is no such thing as an unbiased observer. The only thing we can do is to try to be as aware of our biases as possible, and to let other people know what we think our biases are, so they can correct for them when seeking to understand what we are reporting.
I firmly believe that people like Rupert Murdoch deliberately influenced the media in such a way as to move the center closer to the right, which makes the left seem radical and nuts. This allows the far right to make themselves seem only slightly right of center. It also explains why Democrats are such moderate wussies and we have no real liberal policies in this country anymore.
@drdoombot Yeah, but Murdoch is not the only one who can play that game. Nor, in fact, is he the only one playing that game.
It’s absolutely biased. All other news channels I’ve watched are, too, but Fox is a special brand of agenda pusher. They make me want to barf. I feel sorry that many non-conservatives identify all republicans as being that way.
Fox News is a joke. I enjoy watching it, especially that O’Reilly guy, he’s got some serious issues. I think most reporting has a degree of bias but the BBC World Service are probably the best of a bad bunch.
I’d like to add I fully support the BBC in most of their choices, and I personally think the BBC is the best television channel in the word by a fair amount (I’m biased for the BBC)
I just wanted to add that Glenn Beck may be one of the dumbest human beings ever given his own show. I watched part of one episode and was horrified by his stupidity. Then I grew depressed because I realized that there are people that actually believe what he’s saying and agree with him.
Fox News seems so biased to you because youve grown accustomed to the left leanings of practically all other mainstream news sources.
That said, all news organizations lean one way or the other. Though Fox doesnt lean right nearly as much as MSNBC and PBS for example lean left.
Fox News may also seem biased to you because they dare ask how the news item will effect people in the real world.They arent afraid to mention what some government action is going to cost the people in real terms.
Fox News puts their interviewees to task, this makes some people uncomfortatable. Id suggest if they thats too much for them they can always watch Katie Couric.
The likes of Hillary Clinton refuse to be interviewed by Fox News and Co. It’s because Fox isnt going to give them easy questions that are really just a setup for them to tell the masses what they want to hear. Clintons handlers know going on a Fox News show would mean exposure and disaster.
Earlier i said that all news leans one way or the other, yet they dont speak about it. Though he doesnt represent news as its meant in this discussion, Rush Limbaugh for example comes right out and says what he is (a conservative) its one of the many reasons i find him much more credible.
@Noel_S_Leitmotiv While I agree with you that all news leans one way or another, I think that Fox, in their efforts to lean to the right, have fallen on their faces. Hillary is right not to interview with them, because she knows they won’t ask her any real questions. They’ll only ask questions that let them ride their own hobbyhorses. And, of course, from my perspective, they don’t give a shit about facts. But then, I’m a shameless liberal. I interpret Fox news thus: anything they say must be the opposite of reality as I know it.
@daloon: Of course its Clintons right to refuse interviews from Fox, no problem, but its very amusing to me that you feel they wouldnt ask her any real questions. Id submit that its because she finally would be asked some real questions that she refuses to go on.
Biased news has been around almost as long as people have. In the past century Murdoch’s and Fox’s equivalent was William Randolph Hearst and his yellow journalism. Unfortunately, in many cases it seems to me that yellow journalism has become SOP for many news outlets, and almost every television news outlet.
Today’s broadcast journalism is all about the ratings. Thus, the more scandalous the headline the better, and the yellower and yellower journalism is becoming.
@Noel_S_Leitmotiv
Not everyone watches far left news networks to get immune to their rhetoric and views, like I said I watch the BBC. I may feel this way because I would see myself as liberal though even on points I agree with them (sotomayor) I still think they were unfair and purposely hide facts.
This shows how unfair Fox is http://www.youtube.com/user/LiberalViewer
@insane fox fan
If you really think Fox is less shifted to the right than the other networks are to the left you’ve obviously never seen a news broadcast from outside the country. America’s news media is, overall, quite conservative by international standards.
There is biased reporting from most sources.
However, Fox advertises that they are fair and balanced which is a blatent lie. If they advertised that they were the right wing talking points channel, I wouldn’t have an issue with them. I just think they ought to be honest in their advertising.
@potrick welcome to Fluther. Lurve.
Fox news is simply the MOST biased. Most are.
Even Walter Cronkite used to insist that any news story about a peace protest had to end in violence.
Fox seems like a far-right propaganda machine to me. Quality is light years away from the BBC.
@Noel_S_Leitmotiv Amused you may be, but would you let Sarah Palin be interviewed by Ed Shultz or Keith Oberman?
People like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are known for asking liberals on their show, ostensibly to discuss a specific issue. Once they get the guests on the air, they sandbag them by asking their opinions on topics they know little or nothing about. They can then make their guests look very stupid whether they make up answers off the cuff, or whether they claim they know nothing about the topic. It’s a common technique that was also used by William Buckley, back when he was interviewing people like Noam Chomsky.
You might feel that you could handle the tactic (if you were aware it existed, which most liberals don’t know since they never watch conservative shows), but when a host has control of the direction of the interview, it is impossible to control. Conservatives may have popularized the technique, but I’ll bet liberal interviewers know how to use it, too. I wouldn’t take that risk on the air, and I don’t blame Hillary for not taking that risk. Especially since she is the Secretary of State, and it would be dangerous for our nation to have her made a fool of.
fixed news is anything but fair.
@whereisfreespeech
I truly believe (what doesn’t mean it is) The BBC is fair, it’s not possible to be 100% neutral but it doesn’t used propaganda like in Fox, they don’t lie on purpose like Fox and the BBC bring on the relevant people, not just anyone to make the right look good as with Fox.
yep I agree..american media totally has gone to the toilet.
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