FeedFox News – Not Opinion – Is Biased
Written by: adamfeser
October 20, 2009 in Uncategorized Tags: Bill Clinton, Fox and Friends, Fox News, Mark Foley, Mark Sanford, Media Matters
You often hear that it is the opinion guys on Fox News that have an agenda, but I believe it goes beyond that. For instance, have you ever seen them “accidentally” label Republican politicians caught in a scandal as Democrats? A quick google search and in 15 seconds I saw they did it with Mark Foley (the sex texter pedophile guy) and Mark Sanford (the escape to South America for my mistress guy). And who could forget about the terrorist fist jab? Anyway, the Huffington Post (which is admittedly ideological) has a compilation of the worst Fox News reports (not from the opinion guys). You can sift through the ten videos and pick the worst of the worst.
My opinion is that the quotes out of context are just about as bad as it gets. Any news organization that uses someone quoting someone else and claims it’s that person’s opinion knows what they’re doing and just doesn’t care about how big of a lie that is. I’m specifically talking about them saying Biden claimed the fundamentals of the economy are strong when he was just saying what McCain had said. Same for the supposed Obama quote that was simply him repeating a question before he said the opposite. It’s dishonest and they obviously cut it for political reasons. But the rest were pretty horrible, too.
Here is a video by Media Matters (also admittedly ideological) about the supposed difference between Fox opinion and Fox News:
They even used the Russian music in the supposed “news” story. How is that unbiased reporting?
I’m not really sure what category Fox and Friends falls into (probably opinion) or if it’s even a news show, but remember when they doctored photos to make people that committed the heinous crime of saying others were catching up to Fox News to make them look much worse? Even if that’s an opinion show they actually narrowed faces, yellowed teeth, and moved back their hairlines. On a fair and balanced news network.
And how about when Fox News reported on Bill Clinton’s effort to save the American journalists from North Korean prison and hard labor? Their focus almost immediately turned to how bad it was for us and how good it was for North Korea. Not letting those women suffer was a huge mistake made by Clinton and the liberals.
I understand people like Fox News. But don’t tell me it isn’t ideological. That’s just not the truth. And don’t write underneath about MSNBC. This isn’t a defense of MSNBC, just as ridiculing that channel isn’t a defense of Fox News. I’m no fan of 24 hour TV news in general. I wrote this because it should be obvious that Fox News has an ideological agenda.
Enjoy some angry comments.
Adam Feser
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October 21st, 2009 at 5:13 am
Look Adam, when you report news 24/7 you’re bound to have some issues with context or perfect labels at the bottom of the screen. You can find a list of mistakes! Wow, I’m proud of you. I’m still not convinced, and I’m pretty sure you could find similar lists for the other 24/7 news channels, and I’m pretty sure you could send it to the White House and they still wouldn’t attack the others like they’re attacking Fox News. I think it’s a crock that they won’t talk to Fox News and that Obama won’t grant interviews there. Even toward the end when things were rough, Bush still talked to the stations hitting him hard, and they did hit him hard. I saw tonight that Palin will be talking to Oprah, come on, Oprah was a die hard Obama supporter, there’s no way she agrees with Palin on much of anything, but Palin is still doing the show. If Obama really believes that Fox News is so wrong and does it on purpose, why won’t he just do an interview and tell them how wrong they are? Why doesn’t Dunn go there? Why doesn’t Biden go there? Why the childish tactics they’re taking? I thought Obama was a master negotiator, why will he not sit down on Fox News and address the channel and its viewers in his defense? When his staff stands up at the White House and accuses the network of being a part of the Republican party and makes it sound insane with no examples at all, not even some lame google search like you have Adam, all it does is piss of and alienate the people who enjoy the news coverage on the channel rather than engage in any sort of productive conversation or debate on any legitimate.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:05 pm
I find no excuse for bad reporting or mistakes in the use of on-graphics…. But Adam, your complaining about the “agenda” of Fox News shows your bias. We get an entire post about how bad Fox is, complete with examples… and then five lines saying “don’t comment on this post” because MSNBC is also bad…If you really wanted to play media watchdog you would cite examples of the media agenda from both sides of the issue. Objective reporting is NOT 500 words on how bad the “conservative agenda” is followed by 50 words that there might also be a “liberal agenda.”
Give me the list of how bad MSNBC is… show me the CNN liberal agenda, show me how ABC got the label All Barack Channel… Cite all of them in your report, then let us, the readers, decide which side is doing more to attempt to influence public opinion instead of just report the news… But then again, you’re trying to influence public opinion instead of just report the news, so it would be unfair to ask you to do that.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Not at all. If they were simple mistakes, they would affect both parties, not just portray one negatively.
Palin loves publicity, and Oprah has a huge audience. It makes sense. Obama went on O’Reilly.
Fox wouldn’t even air Obama’s speech to Congress when every other station did.
Why would he go talk to people that will hate him and portray what he does negatively regardless of what he does? They helped host and organize protests against his policies.
I have never heard of anyone watching Fox News unless they are Republican. Do you think there is a reason for that? Why is it not obvious?
And what conversation would they have? Obama could tell them that their opinion guys that take up most of the day have an irrational fear of him. One of their biggest personalities went on another one of their shows and said he is a racist that hates white people. Why would you engage with that? They constantly call him a socialist, they play Russian music and have images of Nazis in the background when attacking his policies. What’s he going to do? “Hey guys, I’m not a white-hating racist Nazi. Just thought I’d let you know. Also, though I know you think differently, I don’t want to kill your grandparents or children. My wife and I don’t engage in terrorist fist jabs because we’re not terrorists. I understand your journalistic practices are less-than-amazing and you didn’t investigate what you reported, so I’ll just tell you, I didn’t attend a Madrassa. We cool now?”
October 21st, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Go sarcasm Adam, I liked the hypothetical Obama speech to Fox News. If he went on O’Reilly, and O’Reilly if you haven’t noticed continues to be pretty soft on Obama, why not go on again? O’Reilly also talks to Beck frequently and O’Reilly dominates the ratings among primetime news/opinion shows, so wouldn’t that be a good place to go and voice his opinion? I watched part of “The Ed Show” on MSNBC the other night, all they did was rip Fox News, talk about how much the Huffington Post loves The Ed Show and then he had 2 other guys as part of an interview on something, both of whom agreed completely with him. That’s not a good opinion show at all. He didn’t even have an opposing view, just 2 guys who agreed with him and the three of them just got all pissed and agreed with eachother. At least Fox News will usually feature the other opinion, usually the guy with the other opinion is out-numbered, but at least he’s there. I just can’t see how anybody can say that Fox News is worse than the others when if anything, they are more biased and block opposing views even more than Fox does.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:55 pm
I don’t think CNN has the liberal agenda they’re tagged with. I also don’t think there are nearly the mistakes on MSNBC that there are on Fox News. Go ahead and prove me wrong. It just makes sense that poor journalism and lies against policies I support come across my field of vision more often. If you guys think there are as many outright lies in a one-sided direction from the other stations, you or Dr can point them out to me.
I just looked around for a little while and saw that MSNBC failed to report that guy with a gun at an Obama thing was black when questioning if there were racial issues, that’s pretty bad. Then I found an instance of them lying in favor of Republicans in favor of warrantless wiretapping. The Chris Matthews tingle up the leg thing was really creepy.
You’re right in that this blog is supposed to highlight two different perspectives. The liberal perspective coming from me and the conservative one from Dr (and the majority of commenters). I wrote this piece because I think the Obama administration’s critique of Fox News is right. The issue has come up so I thought I should write about it. I didn’t want the comments to become “MSNBC is just as bad so it justifies Fox News’ tacitcs.” If someone does a better job than I just did finding genuine horribleness in another network (and as one-sided) I wouldn’t justify it by using a Fox News comparison.
I do think the other networks are horrible, but in different ways. CNN is constantly doing stupid technological things instead of focusing on stories, for instance. I’m just not convinced there is the bias everyone seems to think there is for CNN. But I’d be glad if someone would straighten me out. But I haven’t seen anything to lead me to believe otherwise, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it.
I don’t know if I actually said what I wanted to in this comment, but hopefully I made some sense.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:00 pm
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,568747,00.html
October 21st, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I don’t know who this Ed guy is, but his show sounds like garbage.
Freedom of Speech is not under attack.
Also, I have to apologize. I was responding from the administrator part of the site, so I thought I was directly responding to comments, but mine are out of order. I understand this could create confusion, so if you’re looking for my response to anything today, you may have to find the comment I made which makes the most sense in response to what you have written.
For instance, comment 5 was meant to be a response to Kevin and comment three a response to Ray’s first comment. My apologies for the confusion. If you’re wondering where my response is, just ask me.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Freedom of speech is under attack. It’s under attack big time on the web, can’t wait to see what our brilliant congress decides in that debate….
October 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 am
Good post Adam. Fox “news” is a low-class act. Why do people watch it? Entertainment. People are interested in gossip, fear, and slander. What does that say about their audience…hmm. Perhaps fox news is biased because they feel their audience is not smart enough to think for themselves. Regardless, it is not a respectable or trustworthy news source.
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:19 am
Here is a thought, if Obama wants so badly to address those opposed to his views, like healthcare, why wouldn’t he go on Fox News? In attacking Fox News he’s alienating a good number of Americans who use Fox News as their primary world news source. Most people have a favorite, whether it’s a 24/7 news channel, website, or a newspaper. The ratings indicate that a lot of people use Fox News as their primary source and it’s coming across like the White House is attacking every one of them. Bloggers and people who comment on blogs who say the same things being said by the White House don’t help that communication issue either, but wait a minute, I thought the moderates and liberals were all about talking it out? I guess not when it means addressing conservatives on a network they watch..
October 22nd, 2009 at 7:47 am
People that use Fox as their primary news source already have an irrational fear and hatred of Obama, probably due in large part to lies they heard from Fox News pundits.
I’m obviously willing to address you, Ray, but you haven’t given much of a reason for me to believe Fox isn’t partisan. You tacitly agree with me every time you point out that its viewers are all of one party that listen to it for that perspective.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:15 pm
They have a larger percentage of conservative viewers because they are more balanced. They do provide liberal and moderate perspectives, which at times to be honest is annoying, but I appreciate that they do it. When you watch MSNBC or CBS, they only give you the moderate and liberal views on most issues. CNN isn’t as bad as the other two I mentioned, but they aren’t good at presenting conservative views. Something I’ve noticed with a lot of liberals is that they don’t want to hear opposing views, which is the only reason a place like MSNBC stays in business. I’ve also noticed that many liberals and moderates I know don’t like world news, they hate watching it or talking about it, a lot of them like newspapers, which in most cases don’t report much world news. Take the Aberdeen newspaper for example, I like it just fine, but it doesn’t spend a lot of time on world news.
Fox News isn’t perfect, but I firmly believe that it’s more balanced than its competition on showing opposing views. Even the opinion guys like Hannity and O’Reilly are very good about getting guests who don’t agree with their conservative opinions, they get other voices on the air. Beck doesn’t do a whole lot with guests, he does mostly straight opinion stuff and uses a lot of video and sound clips, pieces of articles and interviews, and other evidence to push his ideas, but doesn’t really give many other people on either side of the fence a spot on his show. The thing is that Beck goes for a specific audience, like Rush Limbaugh on the radio, it’s just a different type of show. To be fair you have to also point out that Beck was until recently an employee of CNN and did a lot of the same type of stuff he does now, it’s not like Fox News created him. One could also note that Beck didn’t support Obama or McCain in the last election, more than any other candidate he supported Bob Barr, the libertarian candidate. I struggle with the White House idea that guys like Beck are working for the Republican party when Beck is not a Republican.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I don’t agree with you that liberal perspectives are presented in a balanced way. I don’t care if it is opinion, most of prime time you’ll hear liberals referred to as nutjobs that hate America. They certainly aren’t balanced. MSNBC has the same problem. I don’t think you can say either is fair.
I hated Beck when he was with CNN, but it was a natural transition for him to make to Fox.
Obama’s point (I think) is that Fox News repeats Republican talking points against Obama’s agenda. But it does seem diversionary.
October 23rd, 2009 at 1:20 am
Fox also played Democratic talking against Bush. I don’t buy that they’re out to get Obama just because they play more Republican talking points against him than say MSNBC which doesn’t play any.
I didn’t say that Fox was completely balanced, but I believe that of the big 3 they are the most balanced.
I’m not surprised that you’ve always hated Beck, but my point was that he is a Libertarian. The White House said:
“What I think is fair to say about Fox — and certainly it’s the way we view it — is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party,” said Anita Dunn, White House communications director, on CNN.
I don’t know, I still say that the guy who’s really attacking Dunn hard is a Libertarian. I don’t think he’s out to help the Republican party, he has said that Hillary would have been better than Obama or McCain, and he supported Barr, not McCain in the election and the Libertarian candidate usually pulls votes from the Republican candidate. It’s also interesting that Beck spends a lot of time hitting the stimulus packages and debt spending and to this day doesn’t leave Bush out of it, he hits Bush and Obama for insane spending. I don’t understand Dunn’s logic, but hey, she’s Obama’s buddy, I’m sure she isn’t just talking in an irresponsible way.
October 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 am
Ray, it’s interesting the points you bring up about liberal news and opposing views. I would have said the same things about conservatives; especially about world news. To me, it seems like conservatives don’t care about anyone other than their own country. They don’t seem to take into account any other country’s viewpoints. They certainly don’t seem to care for the UN.
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:45 am
When I talked about paying attention to world news, I didn’t mean that everybody who pays attention to it embraces the UN, there is constant corruption and demonstration of a total lack of ability to follow up on anything in the UN. I didn’t realize that you had to like the UN to care about world news.
I saw an interesting clip on O’Reilly tonight, it was from the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC where one of the guys was actually sort of defending Fox News. He asked the question of how many conservatives work for CBS or NBC news? It’s interesting to hear somebody bring that up. Fox News is bad because they have conservatives working for them right, but Obama has no problem with NBC and CBS only having liberals working for them. Isn’t that a little hypocritical?
October 24th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Do the Obama supporters reading this agree with his effort to let every major news channel except Fox News interview Kenneth Feinberg? It’s awesome that the other four said that they wouldn’t interview him if Fox News wasn’t included. One has to conclude that the other networks aren’t ready to bail on Fox News knowing that any one of them could be next to be cut off from White House access if they step out of line. I hope to see more of the major companies pushing back against White House attempts at controlling the media.