Escapians who watch Fox News...why?

[TheIronRuler]

They are biased to the right and they have a really dunb habit of not checking their facts and pulling in specialists that have nothing to do with the case or have little knowledge of it, but they are still a legitimate news Outlet.

IMO that disqualifies them from being a valid news outlet. A proper journalist will fact-check properly, make sure they have appropriate experts, know what the fuck they're talking about, and most importantly won't let political bias spin every single phrase they utter.


Sorry, but Fox News is no more legitimate a news outlet than my cat.


Then again I don't really follow the news at all. Well, not the TV news anyway. I don't really care, first of all, and if something happens I do want to know about I'm perfectly capable of googling for more neutral sources myself, as the left-wing TV news outlets aren't any better than Fox.

.
If there is an earthquake in Manhatten, they will report it.
If something that does not fit their agenda happens, they will usually ignore it or try to spin it. They cover the news, but when they cover politics they do it with a bias, like every other news outlet, besides your cat, because he doesn't learn towards the right or the left... why? It doesn't matter to him as long as you give it food.

 

[Ken Sapp]

If you are going to delegitimise one source based on the fact that they have a bias, regardless of which way that bias leans,

Strawman. I'm not delegitimising Fox due to which side of the political spectrum their coverage falls to.

And again I will state that when you separate the commentary/opinion shows such as Hannity, O'Reilly, and Beck from the actual news reporting shows you will find no more bias in the reporting of the facts than you will anywhere else when the same standards are applied.

Okay, one, that's bullshit. Their news team gets cited as often as their commentary team.

Two, yes, you will find more bias. And more lies. And more people misinformed when Fox is their primary news source. More people who believe we found WMD in Iraq, even after Bush said we were wrong about them. More people who believe Saddam was behind 9-11, because that was the line they wanted to push, and not just the commentary team.

Huh. Funny that.

You are delegitimising them based on "bias' which does not lean in the direction you prefer. Since you have not denied that other news channels also operate with bias I will assume that you agree that they do. That indicates that your delegitimization of Fox News is based purely upon them having a bias which you do not share.

And concerning your second point...
Caches of chemical weapons have been found in Iraq(they fall under the definition of WMDs) and Saddam had used them in the past. I don't recall ever hearing any reports from Fox News stating or implying that Saddam was involved with 9/11. Anyone who believes Saddam was involved with 9/11 either came to that conclusion on their own or found it elsewhere.

As for Saddam and Iraq, intelligence agencies of other countries as well as our own at the time believed that he had ties to terrorist organizations, and that he was attempting to obtain nuclear materials to build nuclear weapons. Saddam had also interfered with UN investigators and blatantly ignored UN resolutions requiring him to cooperate with them for over a decade.

Whether or not we should have gone into Iraq is another discussion though so I won't go into it here.

 

[Rofl-Mayo]

As biased and uninformed as Fox News is, they still are a legitimate news source. I personally don't watch Fox News much though to be honest.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Freedom of choice. If I can choose my news source, so can they. If it doesn't matter that Fox is incredibly bias to them, whatever. It does to me so I don't watch Fox programming.

 

[Flac00]

Actually, I'm sorry to say this but they are not as legitimate as any other source. MSNBC, maybe is on an equal level. But CNN, PBS, CBS, and such all are more legitimate than fox news. Why? Because they report the news without major bias. Yes, their editorial and commentary might be biased, but that is separate from their news reporting. Fox does not have this clear separation. Instead it is all opinion, all the time. Do you want true, real, reporting with barely any bias? Go onto the radio and listen to NPR (or at least look up WBUR online).

Sorry to say (not really) but I have to call bullshit. People get an impression of fox because of its opinion commentators (O?Reilly, Hannity, etc) but that does not mean that everyone is the same. Besides if fox is completely bias then why are there people from both the left and right invited onto their shows? Why are there so many round tables with different people and commentators? There is no such thing as news without major bias and yes that includes NPR. How about this, prove to me that fox is so much more bias than everyone else that it makes their average news stories less legitimate CNN.

OK, here is a good example. The coverage over the trip Obama took to India. Fox news reported that it would cost 2 BILLION dollars per day to arrange, including a full escort from an aircraft carrier and CAS. In reality it cost 2 million per day, and there was no reason to have any sort of military support other than the secret service. This was of coarse reported on only by Fox as it is TOTAL BS.
Example 2 (this is a more general thing): Fox uses words such as "Obamacare" to describe the Affordable Care act, despite the fact that no other news agency calls it that.
Example 3: In covering the tea party protests, Fox dedicated almost 33% of their time during many days for the coverage. How about the Occupation movement. The highest was 10% at best, and most of that coverage was negative, describing the protesters as "ruffians" or even as "unpatriotic".
Example 4: Fox claimed that Cash for Clunkers would give the US government full control over your computer and credit card accounts.

There are many, many, many more, I just don't have the time to list them. Needless to say, Fox has many examples of its bias which no other news channel shares.

Now, to address your previous points.
-Inviting people with dissenting views onto your shows does not make you unbiased, in fact the way in which those people are treated and outnumbered in itself shows Fox's bias
-Yes, there is such thing as news without major bias
-Yes, NPR is an example of news without major bias
-Good news has always been as close as it can be to unbiased, Fox has only really started this new trend of falsifying news.

 

[Flac00]

[Alright, I'm sorry but you need citation and this fancy stuff called "EVIDENCE". Statements without evidence are worth as much as a bucket of spit. Yes, graphs can be skewed, but this is why we check up on our evidence and ensure it is correct.
Next, gut feeling is not a legitimate way to prove that the media has a liberal bias. I would like to hear some actual examples and maybe even (god forbid) quotes of this.
Finally, the idea of a liberal media is a LIE. There is no such thing as the "liberal media", especially with the recent popularity of Fox news, which technically makes them the "main-stream media". Look, here are the facts, good news reporting requires total lack of opinion. Thus, a good news reporter does not have a vocal bias. "Boring" channels like CNN or PBS don't use this vocal bias, therefore they are not bias in reporting. Fox does the opposite, it puts bias into even the vocabulary people use. Words like "Obamacare" instead of "The Affordable Care Act" is bias. Comparing Fox to legitimate news channels is like apples to apples, just fox is an extremely rotten and racist one.

Actually you don't really need evidence when your dealing with something that is common knowlege, and especially when the very nature of what's being discussed means you wouldn't find any verification anyway.

In the end the bottom line is that saying the left wing controls the media is like saying the sky is blue. The only evience needed is to listen to it and look at the results, it's right there. It is in of itself self-evident. Argueing this point is like poking your head out the window, seeing the sky is blue, and then still asking someone to prove it above and beyond the evidence of their own eyes. To the right crowd it can be amusing, but that's all it is.

But then again I should have expected to get trolled here, and really I'm not going to respond to any other messages on thi paticular subject, since feeding trolls isn't usually the wisest course.

Except its not common knowledge. Even if it was, that doesn't make it true. Its also common knowledge that Napoleon was a midget, Einstein failed math, and that evolution states humans came from monkeys. (for a reference point, all of those statements were false). I will repeat it as I did before. YOU NEED EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT ANY CLAIM. If you cannot bring forth evidence, your claim is worthless and hollow. Yes, there are ways to prove bias. In fact there have been a multitude of studies on this, and they have found Fox's "news" reporting is almost 80% biased, while NPR's is close to none.
To sum up. By saying that the media being biased is "self-evident" and "common sense" cannot prove anything. Give me an example, otherwise you have not proved anything.

Edit: Also, facts are not trolls, nor are they inherently liberal. Its sad you would refuse a conversation (which I am willing to have without insulting one another) just because I have an alternate opinion.

 

[Aulleas123]

Perhaps I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but I believe that you're trying to suggest that I'm exonerating Fox News because every other news station has a bias as well.

That's nice. It's too bad that other stations do not have a bias even close to Fox News.

Yes they do. If you watched the news, you'd know this. If you do watch the news then you should listen to reporters when they make commentators like Cenk Uygur (creator of Young Turks talk show), Kieth Olberman, Rachel Maddow, and Jennifer Granholm and then say that other news stations aren't as biased. (of course Fox has Hannity, Beck, and several other talking heads on the other side)

However, if people claim that Fox News is the only station that makes up information for political gain then it doesn't seem fair to hate them alone.

People aren't really claiming that Fox is the only biased news. They're claiming, correctly, that they are an outlier.

"Other stations do it" is neither an defense of Fox, nor an honest comparison. The latter is what got me, but yes, if you're using this argument, you're validating Fox, even if your intent is not to do so.

Yes, I am validating Fox News because I think that all news is bullshit. Hating on one news channel because it's bullshit is a waste of time.

Basically, what I'm trying to suggest is: if you choose not to like Fox News then cool; hate them for their politics, not for their methods.

Which is still bullshit.

What's bullshit, the politics or my opinion? If it's the politics, then feel free to hate on conservative politics, I'm not going to defend them. If you're hating my opinion, I'll remind you that I'm only showing you what I observe as a moderate, which is that the press will have biases no matter who is paying the bill. Educated Americans shouldn't use Fox News as their only news source, but they also shouldn't use MSNBC or CNN either. They should look at several different sources that may or may not be "mainstream" and that come from a variety of viewpoints.

I think we're mostly in agreement, you're just getting hung up on the point that Fox News is guilty therefore they are bad and bad alone. In my opinion, I think they all are equally useless.

 

[Stoneface]

I just dont get the whole thing of having political news channels anyway. In Britain we don't have them, sure certain news programs have their slight leanings every now and then, but there isn't a 'tory' news station or a 'labour' news station. I mean if someone came up to you and said, "hey how'd u like to watch some news with an obvious left or right wing poltical bias to it!" then hopefully you'd say "what? thats not news, thats just propaganda"

 

[Pyramid Head]

I don't view Fox News as an actual news source. Because their harsh bias gets in the way of the reporting and they skew facts intentionally, i'm going to state they don't qualify as news. I know some people are going to make claims that it's meant to balance a left leaning media, you should ignore those people, they're talking completely out of their ass. From what i've seen, if media isn't drowning under sensationalism it's got a business focus and rarely pays attention to the plight of left wingers until things get violent or have been going on for over three fucking weeks. Or it's Fox News and is nothing more than a public relations branch for the Republican party.

 

[dickywebster]

For entertainment or to remind myself why i really shouldnt put much faith in the media, as fox is a shining example of how to run a news company with as little actual news as possible.

Having said that, i only watch when friends link me really daft bits of it, otherwise cant be bothered to waste my time with it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I don't watch it often, but during election years and other times when the right wing is doing something big, I'll occasionally tune in just to see what they're doing, and what propaganda they're releasing. If you get your news exclusively from left wing biased and bias neutral sources, you're missing out on a part of the picture that is important if you're interested in what the right wing is doing. It's not a question of truth so much as what people on the right believe to be the truth. If you don't know that, it's kind of hard to combat their policies.

 

[Bluntman1138]

[

How about O'Reilly inviting on an atheist and talking to her one on one? How about Hannity inviting 2 Conservatives and 1 liberal (or sometimes the other way around) onto his show? Fox regularly invites people of different viewpoints onto their shows. You may not like it but it happens on a regular basis.

Or how about Bill Orielly having another "believer" on his show in order to blast Athiests.

And if YOU think 2 on 1 is "Fair and Balanced" then good luck to you.

I am not saying that other people with different views are mpt on the shows. I am pointing out that the BIAS of having more on the air that agree with your agenda than those that disagree. And you are right, it happens on a regular basis, but NEVER in the same numbers. THAT is the bias. In a 24 hour run, there is 50 guests that agree with the Fox agenda, and 10 that do not, is NOT being un-bias, that in itself is the definition of Bias.

And lets not forget talking time here. Sure there may be a Liberal on Hannity's show, BUT how long are they allowed to speak compared to the person that agrees with the "agenda". How many times are they interuppted or just told to shut up?

Also, When Bill O'reilly announces on his show that God makes the tides come in and the tides come out, it just shows HOW fucking stupid, or ignorant, he is. And therefore, nothing out of his mouth can be taken with even an ounce of seriousness.

 

[thiosk]

I find it hilarious when detractors of Fox tune into MSNBC every night. As long as you understand that cable news channels have obvious political slants, watch whatever you find most enjoyable.

Fox has FANTASTIC production values, even if their commentators are particularly venomous. I wouldn't watch hannity if you paid me (well, ok, you can pay me, actually, how much we talkin?), but the standard desk anchor does just fine.

 

[meat_mitts]

That's nice. It's too bad that other stations do not have a bias even close to Fox News.

People aren't really claiming that Fox is the only biased news. They're claiming, correctly, that they are an outlier.

They are an outlier, because they are one of the few news outlets that are biased to the right.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx



Bias seems to be nothing more than a buzz word these days, used to demonize those on the other side of the political spectrum from oneself. The right is quick to call left leaning news outlets biased, but hesitant to call right leaning news outlets biased. The left is quick to call right leaning news outlets biased, but hesitant to call left leaning news outlets biased.

Also, there is more than one dimension of bias that people take issue with news outlets. At least one other dimension is quality of journalism. Quality of journalism is not tied to political bias. However, since there are so few right leaning news outlets, I don't know if there technically is a right leaning news outlet with good journalism.

The most accurate statement that I can make about Fox News is that they are biased right and have marginal to poor Journalism on average.


To answer the OP's question: No, I don't watch Fox News. In fact, I don't watch any news for that matter. If 9/11 happened today, I wouldn't know about it until someone told me about it.

 

[Nico4]

I'm an Escapians who lives in Denmark and can't watch Fox News. Ahhh bless... To be fair, they are a news outlet, and for reporting news, I suppose they could be as believeable as any other news outlet. Their debates and discussions however.... ehh... let's just conclude by mentioning the study that shows, that you get stupid by watching Fox News.


http://www.alternet.org/story/149193/study_confirms_that_fox_news_makes_you_stupid/

(no offense to the ones who does watch Fox News)