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White House: "Fox News is not a news organization"

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JoeBoy101 said:
Sure. Again, I've been clear in that I hardly see Fox as an objective outfit. They clearly have an ideological tilt. I just take issue with the denial that other organizations don't have a leftward one.

It's not even worth comparing because the other networks aren't nearly the propaganda outlets that Fox is.
 

Alucard

Banned
This is stupid on the part of the government. They're giving more ammo to right wing advocates who already think the government is trying to silence voices of dissent.
 

GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16
MaddenNFL64 said:
MSNBC brought up as the counter. Olbermann is a bombastic ass alot, but that's his schtick. Has he been accused of making shit up every night? Doubt it. Schultz is the same. Matthews is left, but is he considered a straight idealogue? I've never seen him that way. And Maddow... the nicest partisan on TV. Too fucking nice.

And how can we forget the 3 damn hours of Joe Scarborough.

Now, if anyone can show that their news gathering, and news reporting are ideologically tinged, please spit it out.
Mattews is left, but he doesn't really care about ideology. He just loves the political game, and it's unfortunate, because he really knows his stuff and could be a competent hard-hitting journalist if he didn't love playing the game.
 

methos75

Banned
empty vessel said:
The problem with conservatives, American in particular, is that they are prone to delusional and conspiratorial thinking. They are anti-empiricists who reject that knowledge about the world can be accumulated through the senses. They live in their heads and in the world of ideas, and certain ideas have inherent rightness and wrongness, regardless of how the external world presents itself, which is in the end irrelevant to their worldview. Things that do not accord with their idealism are summarily discounted as "liberal" within this delusional system. In this world, media organizations that are empirically-oriented, and thus that contradict the ideas deemed inherently correct, are "liberal."

Fox News certainly has a right to exist as a propaganda outfit. Its claims to being a news organization and to being fair and balanced make sense only within the deluded worldview of the American conservative, however. Perhaps one way to better analyze media is to categorize them based on whether they are empirically-oriented (PBS, NPR) or non-empirically-oriented (Fox News).


this whole topic shows that libs are just as delusional and prone to conspiratorial thinking
 

BowieZ

Banned
methos75 said:
this whole topic shows that libs are just as delusional and prone to conspiratorial thinking
I'd have said this ages ago, but it would only have discredited that particular point of view, as I'm not taken seriously.
 
beelzebozo said:
2a0hqmr.jpg


HE'S GOT A POINT THERE

I loved this movie as a kid!:D

About the topic, I laughed when I read it, but I agree with Rubx; I don't much trust any of the news organizations at this point.
 

Masaki_

Member
The problem with conservatives, American in particular, is that they are prone to delusional and conspiratorial thinking. They are anti-empiricists who reject that knowledge about the world can be accumulated through the senses. They live in their heads and in the world of ideas, and certain ideas have inherent rightness and wrongness, regardless of how the external world presents itself, which is in the end irrelevant to their worldview. Things that do not accord with their idealism are summarily discounted as "liberal" within this delusional system. In this world, media organizations that are empirically-oriented, and thus that contradict the ideas deemed inherently correct, are "liberal."

Fox News certainly has a right to exist as a propaganda outfit. Its claims to being a news organization and to being fair and balanced make sense only within the deluded worldview of the American conservative, however. Perhaps one way to better analyze media is to categorize them based on whether they are empirically-oriented (PBS, NPR) or non-empirically-oriented (Fox News).

We're not liberal. We're right.
 
Good read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/20/white-house-feud-with-fox_n_327314.html

When people say that the White House has "declared war" on Fox News, what do they really mean? Is the White House objecting to the criticisms put forth by Fox's opinion-mongers, like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity? Or are they locked in battle with the actual reporting arm of the media organization

But look, it doesn't really matter, because there's very little daylight between the promulgators of opinion and the relaters of fact at Fox.

One of the things that's rather ably documented here is that when a Fox reporter wants to "raise questions" about what "some say" about something, it's their own opinion-meisters who are providing the grist for that mill. And the particular brilliance of Fox's support for the Tea Party movement is that it puts their own talking points out there in the world, and specifically in the throats of supporters, which allows the network to credibly document, "Hey! This stuff is really happening!" And that's how you manufacture consent with news content, the same way you make a painting from watercolors.

Given that, it's hard to argue that Fox is doing their viewers anything other than a disservice. Or they would, anyway, if the product that they were producing was, in fact, "news." But the truth of the matter is, Fox has only a minimal stake in the production of news content. They've actually rather brilliantly solved the problem of how to sell an unpredictable commodity by abandoning that business altogether. What Fox sells now, essentially, is self-esteem. Having successfully defined themselves as the go-to source for the conservative base, Fox feeds those eyeballs with pure Soma, allowing their viewers to bliss out, have their worldview validated, and feel good about themselves. (What's really genius about this is that Fox News chairman Roger Ailes gives liberals exactly what they want, too: a source for consistent outrage that reinforces their worldview as well. No matter who you are, it's impossible to watch Fox News and not feel like your point of view is the right one!)
 
You honestly think that Fox hates all the attention that the White House is giving it? It's rapidly growing ratings must say otherwise. Why do you think more folks watch it every day than MSNBC or CNN? Guess there's a bunch of "non-news" on that network that folks want to watch, eh?
 

devilhawk

Member
It really is threads like these that prove how genius Murdoch really is. Even if you aren't watching Fox News for information, you are watching Fox News just to cry about it. Fox News has morphed into some kind of boogieman in the left's eyes. They've done this all the while acting the victim themselves. Even the White House has taken the bait.

Absolute genius, I say.
 

PistolGrip

sex vacation in Guam
DiatribeEQ said:
You honestly think that Fox hates all the attention that the White House is giving it? It's rapidly growing ratings must say otherwise. Why do you think more folks watch it every day than MSNBC or CNN? Guess there's a bunch of "non-news" on that network that folks want to watch, eh?
Ratings will grow among its own watchers of course... that is expected. The really win for the whitehouse like its been mentioned 1000 time in this thread is that more educated people will second guess the garbage coming out of this network. Believe it or not, most people diddnt think FOX was a right wing propaganda machine. They hear news, they think it is real.

Ratings will die down once the controversy is over but the doubt that FOX is complete garbage and not news will not..

Also I just want to say we need to put pressure on all the networks as well:

Check out this clip opposing Lou Dobbs. If that doesn't give you goosebumps and make you want to stand up to these Right wing Hate Mongerers that exist in FOX and in CNN, then I dont know what will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqKvSxmUoVQ&feature=player_embedded
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
devilhawk said:
It really is threads like these that prove how genius Murdoch really is. Even if you aren't watching Fox News for information, you are watching Fox News just to cry about it. Fox News has morphed into some kind of boogieman in the left's eyes. They've done this all the while acting the victim themselves. Even the White House has taken the bait.

Absolute genius, I say.


Yeah it is money wise. But what about their reputation?
 

BowieZ

Banned
devilhawk said:
It really is threads like these that prove how genius Murdoch really is. Even if you aren't watching Fox News for information, you are watching Fox News just to cry about it. Fox News has morphed into some kind of boogieman in the left's eyes. They've done this all the while acting the victim themselves. Even the White House has taken the bait.

Absolute genius, I say.

PistolGrip said:
Ratings will grow among its own watchers of course... that is expected. The really win for the whitehouse like its been mentioned 1000 time in this thread is that more educated people will second guess the garbage coming out of this network. Believe it or not, most people diddnt think FOX was a right wing propaganda machine. They hear news, they think it is real.

Ratings will die down once the controversy is over but the doubt that FOX is complete garbage and not news will not..
Indeed; what remains to be seen is whether this is genius in the long-term.
 
PistolGrip said:
Ratings will grow among its own watchers of course... that is expected. The really win for the whitehouse like its been mentioned 1000 time in this thread is that more educated people will second guess the garbage coming out of this network. Believe it or not, most people diddnt think FOX was a right wing propaganda machine. They hear news, they think it is real.

Ratings will die down once the controversy is over but the doubt that FOX is complete garbage and not news will not..

I have to agree. For those of us who are politically conscious and spend time debating and chatting with mostly other politically conscious people, we lose sight of just how many people out there (the great majority) are not tuned in like we are. You hear about the right-wing echo chamber, right? The concept behind it is to reach into the minds of those who aren't really paying attention, those who just pick up some of the background chatter and incorporate it in their water-cooler talk. Simply by posing the question of whether Fox News is a news organization, and thereby starting a debate within the media itself about whether Fox News is a legitimate media source, the White House has used its large megaphone to create background chatter that will sow a kernel of doubt in the average person's mind anytime they are waiting for the dentist and look up to see Fox News on the television. They probably won't even know why they are doubting, but they will think they heard somewhere that Fox News wasn't really news, and that will be sufficient for them to not treat it as on par with other networks. This is exactly the propaganda model on which Fox News operates (Terrorist Fist Jab?) and it has been turned against them. Their reputation and effectiveness as a propaganda organ will be damaged by this when the minuscule changes of attitude created by the White House's statement is aggregated across millions of people. This is notwithstanding whether Fox News's deluded base (a substantial, albeit overwhelming minority of the population) becomes more attached to it--they have already drunk the koolaid and are impossible to reach. Granted, Fox News will live on, but mission accomplished I say.
 

Cloudy

Banned
Simply by posing the question of whether Fox News is a news organization, and thereby starting a debate within the media itself about whether Fox News is a legitimate media source, the White House has used its large megaphone to create background chatter that will sow a kernel of doubt in the average person's mind anytime they are waiting for the dentist and look up to see Fox News on the television.

You might be right. The really telling thing is that the rest of the MSM aren't vehemently attacking the WH for calling out a "news" organization. Everyone knows Fox is propaganda but no one with any real influence has had the balls to call them out till now...
 

Amory

Member
Charles Krauthammer made some good points the other night concerning why Fox News is so hated by the left. One thing he said that I found interesting was this.

Look, CNN was patted on the head by the Obama administration as objective. CNN is an organization that a few weeks ago had a fact-checking on a "Saturday Night Live" skit that was mildly critical of Obama, but did no fact checking on wildly, grotesquely, libelous racist statements allegedly made by Rush Limbaugh which were not made by Rush Limbaugh.

…That's not a matter of sloppiness. That's a matter of ideology.

Not fact-checking Rush's supposed comments, and then reporting them as fact, was instrumental to his inability to purchase a stake in the St. Louis Rams. Love or hate the man, that's slander.

The fact is that just about every other news organization is slanted to the left. If you'd prefer, by all means watch them. It's hypocrisy, however, to bitch and moan about Fox News playing to its conservative base.
 

devilhawk

Member
BowieZ said:
Indeed; what remains to be seen is whether this is genius in the long-term.
The best way to marginalize something is not to cry about it. It can only work if there was a precise instance where the public can be instantly swayed away from Fox News. Unfortunately for the White House, this isn't one of those times. It is wishful thinking by anyone who believes this will actually diminish Fox's ratings or even reputation by the masses.

I don't actually believe the White House sees this as nearly the deal PoliGAF wishes it is.
 
XCell9200 said:
Charles Krauthammer made some good points the other night concerning why Fox News is so hated by the left. One thing he said that I found interesting was this.

Look, CNN was patted on the head by the Obama administration as objective. CNN is an organization that a few weeks ago had a fact-checking on a "Saturday Night Live" skit that was mildly critical of Obama, but did no fact checking on wildly, grotesquely, libelous racist statements allegedly made by Rush Limbaugh which were not made by Rush Limbaugh.

…That's not a matter of sloppiness. That's a matter of ideology.

Not fact-checking Rush's supposed comments, and then reporting them as fact, was instrumental to his inability to purchase a stake in the St. Louis Rams. Love or hate the man, that's slander.

The fact is that just about every other news organization is slanted to the left. If you'd prefer, by all means watch them. It's hypocrisy, however, to bitch and moan about Fox News playing to its conservative base.

Ironically to your point, though, CNN was fact-checking a criticism of Obama that was made from the left.
 

PistolGrip

sex vacation in Guam
devilhawk said:
The best way to marginalize something is not to cry about it. It can only work if there was a precise instance where the public can be instantly swayed away from Fox News. Unfortunately for the White House, this isn't one of those times. It is wishful thinking by anyone who believes this will actually diminish Fox's ratings or even reputation by the masses.

I don't actually believe the White House sees this as nearly the deal PoliGAF wishes it is.
Yes if someone with a lot of popularity starts a rumor about you raping a girl, the best thing to do is stay quiet... oh wait... WTF are you talking about.

FNC lives of misinformation and controversy and calls itself a news outlet. People tend to believe stuff they see on the news... They think of newscasters as authority on the subjects. Inflicting doubt in the channel is the best tool against it. Why do you think people like media matters exist, or a number of other sites that have popped up recently? If it was not for the movie outfoxed I would have never even thought about it let alone research it for myself ... to me it was all news. I am sure a lot of this happened to people in this thread. How many eyes do you think were opened by these new media watch dogs? From my personal experience and the many here, you are 100% wrong is this case.
 

Tamanon

Banned
XCell9200 said:
Charles Krauthammer made some good points the other night concerning why Fox News is so hated by the left. One thing he said that I found interesting was this.



Not fact-checking Rush's supposed comments, and then reporting them as fact, was instrumental to his inability to purchase a stake in the St. Louis Rams. Love or hate the man, that's slander.

The fact is that just about every other news organization is slanted to the left. If you'd prefer, by all means watch them. It's hypocrisy, however, to bitch and moan about Fox News playing to its conservative base.

CNN also doesn't fact check any claims made by any "consultant" that comes on the show.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-12-2009/cnn-leaves-it-there
 

Particle Physicist

between a quark and a baryon
XCell9200 said:
Not fact-checking Rush's supposed comments, and then reporting them as fact, was instrumental to his inability to purchase a stake in the St. Louis Rams. Love or hate the man, that's slander.


wait. what? not fact checking Rush.. and reporting his own statements as facts.. is slander and shows a left-leaning slant?

what?
 

Socreges

Banned
XCell9200 said:
The fact is that just about every other news organization is slanted to the left. If you'd prefer, by all means watch them. It's hypocrisy, however, to bitch and moan about Fox News playing to its conservative base.
No, it's not. This argument has been made many times, but is very tired. People have to remember that there are degrees of bias, information manipulation, and deliberate misinformation. FOX News is in a field all its own and any simple parallel drawn between it and other media organizations will inevitably miss the mark.
 

devilhawk

Member
PistolGrip said:
Yes if someone with a lot of popularity starts a rumor about you raping a girl, the best thing to do is stay quiet... oh wait... WTF are you talking about.

FNC lives of misinformation and contrevesy and calls itself a news outlet. People tend to believe stuff they see on the news... They think of newscasters as authority on the subjects. Inflicting doubt is the channel is the best tool against it. Why do you think people like media matters exist, or a number of other sites that have popped up recently. If it wasnt for the movie outfoxed I would have never even thought about it let alone research it for myself ... to me it was all news. I am sure a lot of this happen to people in this thread. How many eyes do you think were opened by these new media watch dogs? From my personal experience and the many here, you are 100% wrong is this case.
That's a crap comparison and you know it. Specifically, because I addressed it in my comment. Your rape analogy fails because that would be a singular and extravagant instance where you can cry foul over. The White House doesn't have anything analogous to it where the public can latch on to.

For the public to be swayed you need to point to one 10. Not ten 1's.
 

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
XCell9200 said:
Charles Krauthammer made some good points the other night concerning why Fox News is so hated by the left. One thing he said that I found interesting was this.



Not fact-checking Rush's supposed comments, and then reporting them as fact, was instrumental to his inability to purchase a stake in the St. Louis Rams. Love or hate the man, that's slander.

The fact is that just about every other news organization is slanted to the left. If you'd prefer, by all means watch them. It's hypocrisy, however, to bitch and moan about Fox News playing to its conservative base.
My favortite Krauthammer good point were all the ones before and after the invasion of Iraq. There's too many to cite really but take my word that this man knows what he's talking about.
 
PistolGrip said:
Ratings will grow among its own watchers of course... that is expected. The really win for the whitehouse like its been mentioned 1000 time in this thread is that more educated people will second guess the garbage coming out of this network. Believe it or not, most people diddnt think FOX was a right wing propaganda machine. They hear news, they think it is real.

Ratings will die down once the controversy is over but the doubt that FOX is complete garbage and not news will not..

Also I just want to say we need to put pressure on all the networks as well:

Check out this clip opposing Lou Dobbs. If that doesn't give you goosebumps and make you want to stand up to these Right wing Hate Mongerers that exist in FOX and in CNN, then I dont know what will:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqKvSxmUoVQ&feature=player_embedded

As I said the other day over on another forum:

Diatribe said:
Sad thing is, is that before Obama was elected, I rarely watched any news network other than perhaps Headline News (gotta love Richelle Carey). But once Obama was elected and all the other networks fell madly in love with him (thus ignoring anything not "Obama Administration Approved"), I found myself watching Fox more and more, just to hear something DIFFERENT than what was being shoved down my throat every day via TV news, newspapers, internet news.
 

Clevinger

Member
I especially like how they neglect to mention that he served in World War II, and that he saw the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, an experience that framed much of his writing and world-view. I guess they have a hard-on for soldiers until they come back as pacifists.
 
Fox News is headed by one of the masterminds behind the Willie Horton ad, which is basically where all this GOP dishonesty and fearmongering started for the most part. No other news organizations are headed by political operatives like Ailes.
 
methos75 said:
this whole topic shows that libs are just as delusional and prone to conspiratorial thinking

This. I can't believe all the paranoia and conspiracy theories that come out off the left when it comes to fox news. I don't really think it does the White House much good, perhaps other than firing up the troops by attacking the big bad Fox News. After the media's criticism of the Bush administration Obama complaining about Fox seems childish.
 

Salazar

Member
Clevinger said:
I especially like how they neglect to mention that he served in World War II, and that he saw the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, an experience that framed much of his writing and world-view. I guess they have a hard-on for soldiers until they come back as pacifists.

Chris Hedges, who I think is a pompous ass in any case, made similar remarks of a similarly contemptuous/condescending stripe in a recent interview. Troops who returned from service in Afghanistan or Iraq with a campaigning horror for American policy were 'self-aware'; those who did not were not.
 

bob_arctor

Tough_Smooth
ALeperMessiah said:
This. I can't believe all the paranoia and conspiracy theories that come out off the left when it comes to fox news. I don't really think it does the White House much good, perhaps other than firing up the troops by attacking the big bad Fox News. After the media's criticism of the Bush administration Obama complaining about Fox seems childish.
Yeah. It doesn't get more labrynthine than "They're a bunch of lying douchebags". Talk about convoluted. And you have to admit that it was nice of the media to hold off on critcizing Bush until after they helped him launch a pointless war.
 

tekumseh

a mass of phermones, hormones and adrenaline just waiting to explode
devilhawk said:
It really is threads like these that prove how genius Murdoch really is. Even if you aren't watching Fox News for information, you are watching Fox News just to cry about it. Fox News has morphed into some kind of boogieman in the left's eyes. They've done this all the while acting the victim themselves. Even the White House has taken the bait.

Absolute genius, I say.

It's really important to remember just exactly what kinds of viewership numbers are actually at stake here. Fox may have the largest cable viewing audience for news, but that is extremely relative. O'Reilly is historically their top draw, and his audience share is about 3.5 million viewers. In context, that's less than 1% of all the residents of the country. By comparison, the 3 networks all average anywhere from 5.5 to about 8 million viewers each night. It's worth a mention that those numbers all come at least 2 hours earlier in the evening, at a time when many people still may not be home from work yet.

It's also interesting that either yesterday or the day before, Dana Perino acknowledged that, particularly later in the 2nd term of Bush, that White House provided very little, if any, access to MSNBC. What's good for the goose, I guess....
 

methos75

Banned
bob_arctor said:
Yeah. It doesn't get more labrynthine than "They're a bunch of lying douchebags". Talk about convoluted. And you have to admit that it was nice of the media to hold off on critcizing Bush until after they helped him launch a pointless war.


that is something that has always killed me, the media is quick to denounce it now, but they were the biggest pushers of it back in 2003 and they all tried their best and kissed ass to get embedded with the troops. i guess when it comes to ratings time war=good, but as soon as its not its time to attack something you did just as much to provoke as anyone.
 

Phoenix

Member
Cloudy said:
CNN thinks objectivity is letting both sides (regardless of who clearly right) get equal time. They are almost as bad as Fox IMO...


As a former employee of CNN (been a while) I can say that you're waaaaaaaaay off here.
 

devilhawk

Member
tekumseh said:
It's really important to remember just exactly what kinds of viewership numbers are actually at stake here. Fox may have the largest cable viewing audience for news, but that is extremely relative. O'Reilly is historically their top draw, and his audience share is about 3.5 million viewers. In context, that's less than 1% of all the residents of the country. By comparison, the 3 networks all average anywhere from 5.5 to about 8 million viewers each night. It's worth a mention that those numbers all come at least 2 hours earlier in the evening, at a time when many people still may not be home from work yet.

It's also interesting that either yesterday or the day before, Dana Perino acknowledged that, particularly later in the 2nd term of Bush, that White House provided very little, if any, access to MSNBC. What's good for the goose, I guess....
Of course. 99/100 of the US couldn't care less about the exact bias of Fox News and the White House's reaction to it. Overall, it is quite trivial.
 
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