Poll: If you could topple FOX news would you?

[Hamster at Dawn]

I so want to say yes but you got me with the free speech thing. I'm going to have to say that I wouldn't and then would spend the rest of my life trying to convince myself it was "for the greater good" and probably go insane. I guess maybe I could at least take them to court over misuse of the word "news".

 

[Cipher1]

No I thankfully live in a country where if a major news network where to come out with the same garbage fox news does they would be so publicly ridiculed that they would have to change.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Meanwhile, everyone at Fox News would vote to take down the Escapist (if they knew what we were) in a heartbeat, because they would say the same things about us... how we're poisoning the youth with video games and dragging their name through the mud.

There are two sides to every coin and it's laughable that people would want to take down an entire corporation just because it has a slant. I doubt many of you even watch Fox News past the occasional video of an idiot spewing nonsense about video games that gets posted on the Escapist.

The fact is, even if it was gone forever, another news station would pop right up saying the same exact things.

And if there lies affect the opinions of millions, turning them into racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes, what then?

....That's a genuine question by the by, I'm curious about this....

I'm not that guy, but I agree with what he has to say, so I'd like to answer this question as well.

Watching television doesn't turn anyone into anything, just like playing Gears of War doesn't make you a space marine. Chances are, if you agree with what they have to say, that's part of your personality.

For instance, I used to think I was against universal health care because that's what everyone else at my school believed (this was a couple of years ago... I can assure you, I'm the polar opposite of what I was back then). Then someone told me to watch Michael Moore's SiCKO. As much as I hate Michael Moore, I gave it a shot and I actually learned a whole lot about health care and myself. It has nothing to do with the movie or Michael Moore brainwashing me (seriously, the movie was so biased it was funny), but I sort of realized that this is what I believed all along, despite what everyone else believed. The movie itself didn't change who I was, I just though, "Hey, I agree with this!" and then thought about it for myself a little.

What Fox News doesn't do is turn people into zombies. What it does is explain things that it thinks is right and the viewers are people who think it's right as well. It's not making people agree with them, it's attracting the people who do and can even open people's eyes to ideas that they believed all along and just didn't realize it.

 

[UnderCoverGuest]

Yes, in that I would change it, not destroy it.

All I would do is add a content advisory next to the Fox Logo, so that no matter what program of theirs is airing, it'll clearly state:

"THIS STATION IS FOR OPINION PURPOSES ONLY, AND IS NOT MEANT TO BE TRUE OR FACTUAL."

Cause, you know, we've got this constitution thing, and it would be hypocritical and unconstitutional to shutdown Fox News for voicing their opinions, however much misinformation they share.

 

[Snowy Rainbow]

hmm topple isn't the word i would use. purge with fire and salt yep that's the word

Fire isn't enough! Napalm, baby. Napalm.

Even if they lie,
even if they suck,
even if they're horrible human beings,
even if they are working for the reapers,
even if they sacrifice newborn babies to Cthulhu every new moon,
even if they try to destroy you and everyone and everything you love,
even if they are the demon spawn of Satan,
even if they made you lose the game,
even if they play consoles,
even if they listen to Beiber,
even if they must feast on the flesh of virgin girls to maintain their immortality,
even if they are worthless as a source of news,
even if The Onion is more reliable,
even if they are all sons of bitches,
even if they are racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes,
even if they led the Covenant to Earth,
even if I disagree with them

they have the right to free speech. All idiots do. I signed up to fight and possibly die to maintain that right. I would not take that away from them.

Actually, most of the things you listed are illegal and would get them shutdown, lol.

 

[Cormitt]

What horribly cynical people you three are.

I'd actually hope that we all are fairly cynical of the "news" media.

Honestly the problem is systemic. Ever since news began to be funded solely based on ratings it was downhill from that point. So in a sense, yes if I could go back in time and stop that from happening then I would.

Now this is an idea I can get behind. But since we don't even have the flying cars we were promised in the 50s / 60s, I'm not sure when we are going to get time travel. But still, it's a nice thought.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

Yes. Because they purposefully misinform.
It's one thing to be allowed to say what you will, it's another to purposefully deceive people into believing lies to the detriment of others or themselves.

Basically, so long as they are the slanderous piece of shit news channel they are they do not deserve their place. Their actions are highly detrimental and their persistence in blatantly lying to their audience is something which needs to be addressed. If someone told harmful lies about somebody else they would be told to stop, it's slander. Fox news does the same thing but does so under the guise of something reporting events rather than making up lies.

 

[Jabberwock King]

Yes. How is this even a serious question? Bias is one thing, but Fox Noise gets things wrong on a regular basis on purpose, also known as lying.

I will now provide proof to support my claim.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5914682&mesg_id=5914819
Click the link and be amazed, as those screen captures are real.

Nothing in your link suggests that what they did was on purpose. It looks like typos to me.

Not to say Fox News doesn't lie, just that your argument in support of your position is weak at best. I seriously doubt they labeled John McCain a Democrat on purpose.

Bullshit. This has happened too many times and with way too convenient a timing for this to be anything but blatant deception. Circumstantial evidence is still evidence, you just need a lot of it. Also, the mislabeling of Ted Stevens and Mark Sanford came after their sex scandals, a big no-no for any "good" republican, so why wouldn't these sleaze bags try to ease the minds of their ignorant viewers, telling them that the guy that just fell into a pool of steaming hot shit isn't one of their own.

See, now you're introducing hearsay evidence into the equation. "This has happened too many times" is a statement of fact not backed up by your link. If it happened many times, why not post those links too? I know that Fox News runs their banners often, and just as often there are typos in them. Sometimes they misspell words, sometimes the banners don't match the story. Admittedly I'm not on Fox News often enough to know if there is a pattern of mislabeling a person as a Democrat when they do something bad, but your evidence does not convince me at all.

Your argument fails to prove your point, so the only way someone is going to accept it is through a bias-confirmation fallacy. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY FOX NEWS IS BAD, only in your case, it's anti-Fox News bias doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING. You're a hypocrite.

Not backed up by my link? Are you seeing the same pictures as I am? Skepticism is perfectly fine, but I don't have access to Nazi style note taking of Fox News' internal procedures with which to definitively prove that they are assholes. I understand the desire to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but if a particular person spills hot coffee onto your crotch every other day at a cafe, one would feel inclined to suspect that they don't like you and want to hurt you. [small]Why you would keep going to said cafe is an entirely different question.[/small]

 

[ZtH]

I would change them so that they did fact checking. That is all....

 

[Oracle144]

It isn't just a matter of free speech. FOX claims to be a news organization, and that's the problem. Sure, I'm all for freedom of speech, but lies and slander are another story, especially when they're coming from an organization that people take seriously as a news outlet.

I mean, WE don't take them seriously. But there are people out there who do.

Ultimately though, stopping news organizations from lying is tricky business. There's a lot of gray area, and it would eventually come down to arbitrary censorship. So the owness isn't entirely on news stations.

The education system needs to be improved, and kids need to be taught how to think critically about news from an early age. It's suprising, the amount of people out there who think that just because something was on the news it must be true. ANY news. Whether it be FOX or CNN or whatever. Scary. As a society, we need to improve media literacy.

But in the meantime, there needs to be some more accountability from news stations.

EDIT: fixed sentence fail.

 

[castlewise]

Depends on what you mean. Would I ban fox news from appearing on the air? No, free speech means people are free to say things you don't want to hear. If I could get enough people who hated them that they could boycott and shut them down, would I? Sure, why not. People are allowed to say stupid things, but that doesn't mean that they can't get kicked in the balls for doing it, metaphorically speaking.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

If by "topple" them you mean expose their flaws so thoroughly that they gave up the effort or improved so as to be unrecognizable - then yes. They should not be doing what they do - even though it is permitted as free speech, there's "can" and "should" and they should choose to provide accurate information and balanced reporting. However, since they can, and I'd like them not to, the only way I'm getting my way and keeping the system of protections that I also enjoy intact is to persuade them to either stop all together or improve dramatically while continuing. Topple was a bit of a strange verb for this question, in my opinion.

 

[Lionsfan]

No, Fox News deserves as much free speech as the next group, no matter what type of info they put out there. And if people are just gonna blindly follow them, well that's their choice too. A rather poor choice, but it's their choice all the same. Freedom of Speech is the 1st Amendment for a reason, and if the American Nazi party is allowed to hold a rally in a Jewish Town [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Party_of_America_v._Village_of_Skokie] then Fox News is allowed to say whatever they want, as long as it's not Libel or Slander

 

[Terminate421]

I wouldn't but I would try to show the world that Glenn Beck isnt a bad guy.
Even on or off set.

 

[WoodenPlanck]

Now this is an idea I can get behind. But since we don't even have the flying cars we were promised in the 50s / 60s, I'm not sure when we are going to get time travel. But still, it's a nice thought.

At least you can take it in good step.
Maybe time travel will come when we get jetpacks and go to Mars.

The difficulty in finding real or decent journalism these days makes me wish the poll was asking about how to constructively improve the media people ingest every day. Get us thinking about how to turn all the silly blogs out there into some constructive, crowd-sourced force of mighty journalism.

Oh well.

 

[Callate]

I'd like them to stop describing themselves as a news organization while spreading lies, distortions, and propaganda. Some words should have meanings.

 

[Kryzantine]

Now, I'm one of his former constituents, and my respect for the man has been lost, not in that he got caught sending photos of himself to women over Twitter, but that he resigned over this stupid mess. He should have waited another year for Congressional reelection, because even if only 10% of the country likes him at this point, I can guarantee you 80% of his former district still likes him more than the next guy. And really, that's all that matters

This goes to the point made by an earlier poster, about confirmation bias.

Here's a guy who was not the least bit shy about lying to the face of anyone he talked to if it served his purposes. He did it in Congress to smear those who opposed him, and he did it in news interviews to weasel out of it and blame everyone but himself for his own problems. So in the end, you really have no idea if this guy is telling the truth, or half of it, or just flat out lying to your face, because he does all of it with equal amounts of passion. You are forced to fact-check him on anything of substance just on the sheer fact that you have no way to take anything he says at his word.

And yet, (at least some of) his constituents are saying, WE KNOW he's a perv, and that he will tell ANY lie to anyONE and not think twice about it, but we don't care if he's completely untrustworthy, he's OUR cad.

So even if we accept all these accusations against Fox News as true, as the other poster said, there are people who will stand by the things they believe in.

For my part, I'll trade you Fox News for MSNBC. They both make their living off their pundit shows (which I will note is a source of a lot of this news-rage going on), and frankly, the pundit shows have all but destroyed my prior fascination with the American political process, and I just don't watch any cable news any more. I won't miss it. But if they don't go away on their own, I wouldn't presume the authority - legal or moral - to force them out.

He might be a lying SOAB, but he's a lying SOAB that has done everything he can for the district he represents. The fact is, he sticks up for his constituents and doesn't fall on party-line politics. There are quite the # of Democrats that hate him for that reason alone. That he is so liberal is only a testament to how liberal his constituents are.

And I wasn't just talking about FOX. I'm talking about a lot of "news" sources, both liberal and conservative. They should be categorized differently. I know there are very few sources that don't slant either way too much, but they exist and should be promoted.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

As much as I would like to stand by free speech and be honourable, I would, probably, take them down. Of course, that would probably break the 'don't feed the trolls' rule, as other, similar, organisations would take up the mantle and use it as added firepower to the morons' cause.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I'd like them to stop describing themselves as a news organization while spreading lies, distortions, and propaganda. Some words should have meanings.

Yes. I mean, if they started calling themselves "Fox Variety Show" or "Fox Circus Circus Time" then I'd have no problem with them what-so-ever. The fact that they claim to be journalists reporting the essential News of importance to our society is what makes them a target of so much of my anger.