Poll: Hate for Fox News

[Smokeydubbs]

I've noticed a TON of hatred of this network, especially in the last 2 years. It gets bashed by other networks, bloggers, the current President's administration, and many people at this site. Most of the hate is from the left, which is understandable because Fox is mainly a Right viewpoint.

All I want to know is why.

Some common reasons of hate are:
-It pushes a viewpoint.
Yea. So? Doesn't MSNBC push a left viewpoint, and less so on CNN?

-It presents non-facts as facts.
There's a few things to ask here. First what show was the fact presented on and second, have you done the research yourself and know or did you hear the fact from some other source? In general, I don't really trust "facts" on any source. In American media, there is a possible spin on ANYTHING stated as fact, it's hard to trust news from anywhere. So what makes Fox different?

-"I hate Glenn Beck/O'Reilly because..."
Wow, just wow. These are opinion shows. They relate topics to their opinions and run a show off of them. Theses shows are not hard news shows that are meant to be taken as fact. So essentially the reason is they just disagree with them. Why single these guys out? Plenty of other shows on other networks are opinion based. Hell, the President states his opinion all the time, and I disagree most of the time. Does this make me hate him with a passion? No, I respect him just don't agree with him.

So I ask again, why the hate?

P.S.: If you don't watch the network, and have opinions about the network, I ask you to please watch instead of getting your opinions through other sources. Ignorance is horrible.

 

[ENKC]

Bias. Plain and simple. Fox doesn't set out to report the facts as they are. It sets out to portray stories in the way which reflects best upon their right wing and mostly Republican viewpoint.

 

[Yureina]

I just don't watch it, along with all other TV or US media sources. Nothing really malicious about it. It's just something i'm not interested in doing. My dad however does watch Fox News, and I sadly find that more often than not I end up in debates with him over news events either because he does not learn all the details I have about a story or because the news itself is incomplete. But... that tends to have more to do with "knowledge gaps" (aka, I am better informed about world events than he is) than it might have to do with Fox itself.

 

[YouCallMeNighthawk]

Never watched it and don't plan to either. But from what i hear from other people it's pretty crap!

 

[alf2142]

I watch it and i find it hilarious, i cant believe people take that channel seriously!

btw there should be an other poll option: I watch fox and laugh at it. xD

 

[Mr. Grey]

I don't really care... I consider what the stations do to each other as slap fights. Frankly I'm tired of pretty much all forms of news media lately, there's always something they want to hide to make someone look bad... and I hate that on a slow day that the worst they can give us is that a charity didn't quite make their goal. It seems they're driven to make the world seem worse than it is for the sake of ratings, evil begets evil and this certainly doesn't help any.

I can really only think of one station that actually tries to make our state better and tries to show something funny to brighten our spirits. So yeah, I'm tired of this whole mess and have stopped caring about what they do.

 

[robobengt]

I don't have access to it here in Sweden, but from the parts I've seen I'm not impressed. I don't like the way debates are handled and the total lack of understanding of anything that isn't directly helpful to the opinions of the shows that I've seen.

 

[Pingieking]

Hate is a bit strong of a word. I'd say that I'm... immensely annoyed and emotionally disturbed by Fox News.

As to the reasons of why I "hate" Fox News, it mostly comes down to me not liking the sensationalism and over-exaggeration of just about EVERYTHING it reports on. It also completely f*cked up the approach of "fair and balanced". Most notably, there are some issues that just don't have two reasonable viewpoints. There's no need to be "balanced" to those things. In fact, in a lot of cases you have to give up fairness in order to achieve balance, and vice versa.

Now, one more thing to keep in mind is that I've not once said that any other American news channels are good (perhaps less awful, but none of them are good). My criticisms extend to just about every American news channel. They can learn a few things from the BBC.

Also, there is no defence for A NEWS CHANNEL presenting non-facts as facts. IT IS THEIR JOB TO PRESENT THE FACTS WHENEVER POSSIBLE! If they're not going to present facts as they are, they can move their shows onto Comedy Central. Oh wait; there's too much truthiness and actual news going on over there.

Lastly, I don't hate Glenn Beck or O'Reilly, but I don't like how the network handles them. This is Fox News, meaning that anything that's NOT news shouldn't be on there. Especially given how unrealistic and non-fact-based those two people can be sometimes. I would be perfectly happy if those two were moved to another channel that didn't have the word "News" plastered all over it.

 

[Yvl9921]

-It presents non-facts as facts.
There's a few things to ask here. First what show was the fact presented on and second, have you done the research yourself and know or did you hear the fact from some other source? In general, I don't really trust "facts" on any source. In American media, there is a possible spin on ANYTHING stated as fact, it's hard to trust news from anywhere. So what makes Fox different?

They published an ad in a newspaper claiming that their rival news companies had not covered the tea party protests in Washington. The ad contained a picture taken by CNN.

Every episode of Bill O'Reiley ever. For extra comparison, look at Bill's take on "Proposition 8: The Musical" compared to Keith Olbermann's "countdown" of the same subject and you'll see Bill taking aim at the wrong person for producing the play just because they had more star power. It's one thing to have an opinion, it's another thing to talk out of your ass while having no facts to back it up.

They repeatedly made racist remarks against then-Senator Obama during the 2008 election, even joking about killing him.

Every time I turn on Fox News, it's always something like "Why aren't the other news stations paying attention to Biden's cursing?" or other such retarded, irrelevant junk.

Want I should go on?

 

[CouchCommando]

I actually regard most US mass media news sources sceptically, From the little I've seen it seems to be a concentration of sensationalist tabloid fear mongering crap and uninformative. As opposed to say BBC or as over here in Australia the ABC. Personally I don't regard it or any of the other American networks as even been note worthy as a trusted news source.

 

[Queen Michael]

There were these guys, US soldiers, who were accused of treating Muslim war prisoners in horrible ways. It turned out that they hadn't done that; actually they had treated the Muslim prisoners in other, worse ways than the ways people had accused them of. Fox News's comment about it all? "US soldiers not guilty of accusations". 'Nuff said.

 

[Yvl9921]

Simply put: they call themselves news when they aren't. All they have is shows with commentators who give their OPINION on the day's news. Other news stations simply report the news, and allow you to decide for yourself, even if their tone or whatever else is slightly suggestive. Faux "news" spins the story as they're reporting it, and then they have some random person make further comments which reflect their network overlords' take on the story.

This simply isn't true. They put downright stupid emphasis on the slightest slip-up from the left, and have commentators on their primetime hours, but there is real news buried in that cesspool of a channel somewhere.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Hate is far too strong a word. Dislike due to its blatant bias, yes.

News stations have a duty to report the facts, and coming from England, Fox News is still in amateur league when it comes to misrepresentation.

To match the common views though:

I'm not from the left: I'm central. Loathe the Left as well.

It pushes a viewpoint: Just because other stations do doesn't make it right. It makes it as bad.

-"I hate Glenn Beck/O'Reilly because..." they're televised bigots. Also see Jeremy Kyle, or any celebrity book that has over 2/3rds of the cover devoted to their face.

I spent a morning watching people like Bill O'Reilly shout down Geraldo Rivera (who I used to consider a spit for the Fernando Martinez character in Vice City), and by the end of it, I was liking Geraldo...which scared me. Purely because O'Reilly was blaming a girl's death on the mayor who hadn't exported a Mexican.

Then there was the incident with Montell Williams, where he wanted to let people know about another senseless death in Iraq, while the commentators wanted to talk about Heath Ledger.

MSNBC doesn't even post a left viewpoint, they post celebrity trash - and I'd really like to be able to see a clip where CNN distorts the debates as much as Faux News does.

In summary: "Terrorist Fist Jab"

 

[Aedrial]

Bias. Plain and simple. Fox doesn't set out to report the facts as they are. It sets out to portray stories in the way which reflects best upon their right wing and mostly Republican viewpoint.

From what I've gathered and seen about Fox News, it basically sounds like this, A thoroughly conservative news program.

 

[Erik C]

Gotta Agree with the OP. Everyone should probably state their political bias because it does affect how you think about the channel. So...If your a left leaning person and your watching a right leaning network your obviously going to disagree with them. But hate them, Comeone guys, Hates a very strong word. Please let me know how fox has disrupted your life our caused you personal hardship. (whiny statements like, they made me feel bad so I cried in my Nancy Pelosi body pillow does not count)

 

[Kpt._Rob]

-"I hate Glenn Beck/O'Reilly because..."
Wow, just wow. These are opinion shows. They relate topics to their opinions and run a show off of them. Theses shows are not hard news shows that are meant to be taken as fact. So essentially the reason is they just disagree with them. Why single these guys out? Plenty of other shows on other networks are opinion based. Hell, the President states his opinion all the time, and I disagree most of the time. Does this make me hate him with a passion? No, I respect him just don't agree with him.

The fact that they're "opinion shows" might be legitimate except for one point, their target demographic DOES NOT REGARD THEM AS OPINION SHOWS. I have my beefs with O'Reilly, but he's not the worst, that award goes to Glen Beck (though I think Rush Limbaugh is just as bad as Beck [he's not on Fox, but he's from the same genre]). The problem is that ignorant violent hateful and all around societally destructive groups, case in point here would be the Tea Bagger movement, draw a lot from these shows. Now, don't get me wrong here, you do have some points that the left has some challengers, on more than one occasion I've felt that Keith Olbermann has crossed some lines, that said, even Olbermann does not stirr up the sort of dangerous hatred that Beck does.

My point is that the problem with these shows is that they are part of an increasingly dangerous (and by dangerous I mean militant) counter-culture, that on the whole they do a lot of damage, and that they stand very much in the way of making this world a better place.

 

[Mr. Grey]

Also, there is no defence for A NEWS CHANNEL presenting non-facts as facts. IT IS THEIR JOB TO PRESENT THE FACTS WHENEVER POSSIBLE!

Hate to burst your bubble, I really do because I agree with you, but they are not legally required to do so. They cannot be sued for not doing so as they had already won that court battle. So it is not their job to report the truth, it's their job to get people watching the news -- no matter what.

As it is for every news station out there.