ThatGuamGuy

Be fair, though; while O'Reilly *himself* is honest and open and says he's a pundit not a journalist, Fox News deliberately obscures that line by running ads (billboards mostly, but also some TV spots) saying "Come watch our news team" and the people shown will include O'Reilly and Hannity & Colmes, neither of whom are news people.

I have no problem with what they're saying, but I think Fox News should be more honest in how they advertise those shows, since I know O'Reilly doesn't call himself a journalist, and I tend to doubt Hannity & Colmes would (since, clearly, they can't be debating over objective journalistic facts, can they?).

lucasorion

I don't really care if someone officially calls themselves a newsperson. If they represent themselves as "truth-tellers" when they are cherry picking facts and statistics and misrepresenting the context of issues it bothers me just as much as if someone who calls themself a journalist does it. I believe people who get the opportunity to present anything to the public, whether it is entertainment or information, are responsible for the integrity and reasonably predicted effect of their presentation.

Shemp

"O'REILLY: There's no bitterness to a journalist's anger. If you're not teed off about problems in our society, you have no business being a journalist. The profession was set up to challenge the ills of our society and the mistakes of those in power.

I understand the Primetime story concentrated on trying to portray me as someone who's in a constant state of fury. It's true that I get passionate about things that are wrong and hurting people in this country. In my opinion, that's what makes me an effective journalist."

abcnews.com

He been calling himself a journalist since his days on 'Inside Edition'. In fact, on one of his radio shows, he called Rush Limbaugh an 'entertainer', and not a journalist like himself.

I would also take exception with you calling him honest and open. If by open, you mean he readily expresses his thoughts and feelings, then fine. But if you mean open, as in open-minded, I strongly disagree.

In this movie, there is a section about O'Reilly and Jeremy Glick who signed a petition against the war in Iraq, although his father died on 9/11. Read the transcript and see how open-minded he is.

As for honesty, this movie shows clips from almost a year later where O'Reilly talks about Glick's appearance. He claims Glick made outrageous accusations about Bush I & II, which Glick never said, it just helped his arguement.

Transcript

ThatGuamGuy

I merely meant that I've heard him, many times, make the distinction between what he does, which is *commenting* on news, and actual people delivering news. The "journalist" thing was sloppy writing on my part, I'm saying, he's open about the fact that he's not just delivering news, but that Fox News itself obscures that in the way they advertise him.

You don't need to convince me of his honesty/lack of ... I mean, it pretty much says it all that he claims to have been a registered independent (possibly modified to "until 2000" or a random year of his choosing) when he was factually, by the evidence, a registered Republican at least as far back as 1992. He feigns far more independence than he actually has. But he's always been pretty consistent, as far as I've seen, about the difference between commenting on news and delivering it.

Mike Lowrey

The issue here is folks is that unlike most other news networks, Fox News has news analyst shows. Shows that analyze the day's news using both the conservative and liberal points of view.

And quite frankly, ratings show that people like these shows, and they prefer that they tend to lean a little to the Right.

For example, when MSNBC tried doing the Phil Donahue Show, in which Phil who is just slightly to the right of Joseph Stalin, the show failed big time. Although it has decent ratings for an MSNBC show, it was still mediocre when compared to other shows in the same time slot on other channels. He was competing with O'Reilly, IIRC, and he was being killed in the ratings.

O'Reilly, despite what some of you say is indeed an Independant as he claims to be. It's obvious by the viewer email he gets. Some call him a hack for the Democrats, while others call him one for the Republicans. Sounds right in the middle to me.

I am as conservative as they come now and O'Reilly takes many positions that I don't agree with, but he also takes many that I do agree with. In fact, I'm shocked at times at the position he takes on certain issues.

Now yes, Sean Hannity is an admitted conservative as is Alan Colmes an admitted liberal. There's no mystery there. And with regarding this "Outfoxed" documentary, there's supposedly a snippet which shows Hannity saying that there's so many days before the election in which people go to the polls to re-elect George Bush. And they leave it at that, trying to portray Fox News as a conservative network. However, just like Michael Moore, they fail to mention that Alan Colmes does the same thing substituting John Kerry in the statement instead.

And so from what I understand is that this documentary uses lots of one-sided comments like this to make its point. This is extremely disengenious. So to challenge this, Fox News has said to all news organizations that if they release all of their so-called "news reporting guidelines", that Fox News will release all of theirs. Which would allow the public to decide if Fox News is truely "Fair & Balanced" and if the others are truely aren't.

ThatGuamGuy

So, logically, if more people called Michael Moore a shill for Republicans (like, say, because he supported Nader in 2000, or because he was criticizing John Kerry back in 1998), he'd become fair and balanced?

I don't think that E-mails hand-picked by O'Reilly, and specifically kept "pithy" and, thus, unable to elaborate on any actual points in either direction (I often want to hear more from the people, but instead, it's just "You're a conservative shill" with no reasoning or "You go too easy on Democrats" with no reasoning), are legitimate proof that he's an independent. I'm not saying that this proves that he isn't (though I do think lying about his voting record is a notch against him), I'm just saying that it takes more than a handful of people saying "you're too liberal" to actually *be* independent.

I also question the accuracy of "Independent" if you're independently reaching conservative conclusions 95% of the time (I wouldn't say Ralph Nader is an "independent" just because he's not a Democrat or a Republican) ... it seems like intellectual dishonesty to me to cloud how you yourself lean just to make yourself seem more impartial ... but that's a whole *other* question. [Note, for the record, that "95%" is an arbitrary number which I'm not using to represent the actual number of times that O'Reilly leans one way or the other; I meant that paragraph more generally than just O'Reilly.]

Mike Lowrey

No, I'm saying that if Michael Moore actually included (in his documentaries) the answers or POV from people he doesn't agree with or that don't support his POV, he'd be fair and balanced.

It is a documented fact that anytime he gets a POV in his interviews that doesn't fit in with his agenda, he OMITS them from the documentary. Thus his documentaries are his and his only POV which is defined as propaganda.

It'd be no different than me going out making a film using only liberal "sound bites" from the mainstream media and claiming, "Look see, the media is slanted to the Left." Any independent thinking person would not buy that. Well, this is in effect what "Outfoxed" has done with Fox News, with only giving conservative sound bites to support his POV.

Well it's no secret that O'Reilly has considered himself a traditionalist. And quite frankly, the Republicans tend to hold more traditional American beliefs and so probably for the most part, O'Reilly votes Republican. But so what? If a more traditional Democrat was running for office, he'd probably vote for that Democrat. Examples of that would be someone like Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller. But the John/John ticket is documented to be the most liberal ticket in modern history, even more liberal than the '84 Mondale/Ferraro ticket. And I can guarantee you that Kerry/Edwards do not in any way shape or form hold traditional American values. They may say they do, but they don't. Kerry is pro-abortion, anti-death penalty, and although he's against gay marriage, he won't vote to permantly ban it. "I actually did vote for the $87 Billion dollars...before I voted against it."

Well, for one, Nader is FAR from being Independent. He's GREEN for Christ's sake! That's one step above Lenin! If that. Just listen to his platform. Wealth redistribution to the max, extremely anti-war. Hopefully all the Deaniacs will vote for him. All 6 million of them. (That's a conservative estimate of 2% of 293 Million) Or about 9 million @3%.

ChrisKnudsen

Jesus christ, there was a national survey done not too long ago that found most correspondents to lean towards the left but the owners and executives lean towards the right. We all bloody know that. For all the rightwingers that think the media is to the far left, watch Free Speech TV for chrissakes where it shows what you guys the radical left or what I call the radical truth but that is just me.

But anyways, this documentary is good but nothing revolutionary hence its straight to video. I did enjoy it and highly reccomend it to see the bias of Fox News could be together. ***.

ChrisKnudsen

Let's don't forget that O'Reily doesn't believe in the Death Penelty. Just an added thought. Go see this movie.

ThatGuamGuy

But that's not why people think O'Reilly is "too liberal". When they say it, it's because he hasn't stuck to strict party lines, like the rest of the network. For instance, he (albeit slightly reluctantly) apologized for not being more critical of the war in the days leading up to it, he went too easy on Michael Moore (personally, I think that interview was as good as either of them have ever come across), whatever; as somebody pointed out, things seem "too liberal" when you're overly conservative, just as things seem "too conservative" when you're overly liberal.

But that's as may be, I meant the Moore thing as a joke, I didn't mean it to be a platform for you to stand on. Though I agree with you (wouldn't put it so strongly) on all but this:

"Thus his documentaries are his and his only POV which is defined as propaganda."

That's actually not the definition of propaganda at all. Not to start a huge thing, because 'Fahrenheit' is propaganda. But that's an interesting warping of the actual definition.

See, again, you're using "independent" the way Bill O'Reilly does, to mean "a person who thinks exactly like me" ... plenty of people would watch a movie like that and say, "Hey, I understand the way this movie is being twisted, but it sure raises some issues about the 'Liberal media', doesn't it? I mean, obviously, nobody could be *that* liberal as the movie makes it seem, and they're warping things and stretching facts a bit, but it's bringing up some good talking points at the right time, isn't it? And it's showing us things we haven't neccessarily seen yet, which we really should have."

No, you miss the point. O'Reilly is free to vote however he wants; I don't know what country *you* live in, but I live in America, where people can vote however they want.

However, it is a fact that O'Reilly has said on many occassions that he was a registered independent. This was a lie, he was a registered Republican until the year 2000, when he was called out for repeatedly saying he was a registered independent, at which time he *did* register as independent. I don't criticize this as a values thing (big deal, a celebrity lied!), but the point is, I see no point to this lie other than to feign more of a lack of bias than he actually had.

Sorry, Mike, this thread is for discussion of the DVD release of 'Outfoxed', couldn't you tell?

Quote:

Well, for one, Nader is FAR from being Independent. He's GREEN for Christ's sake! That's one step above Lenin! If that.

Well, again, the Nader reference was a joke, it seemed obvious to me, but, for another ... I've never been a Nader fan, I was the one talking people out of voting for him in 2000 for the sensible reason that the guy's a loon who's as full of shit as any politician ... but, all the same, it always makes me laugh when conservatives show how little they actually understand communism, Marxism, and socialism. At the risk of setting off another eight paragraph diatribe about things only tangentially related to the subject, comparing Nader to Lenin because of superficial similarities makes about as much sense as comparing Bush to Hitler.

But, seriously, is this thread still not locked?

EDIT: One afterthought, and I throw this in not so much to prove you wrong as because I really, really dislike Nader ... Nader's *not* Green. Even the Greens want nothing to do with Ralph anymore. He's running for himself and nothing else.

Bugg

I can't belive anybody would trust Fox News for their information.



http://www.protectorganic.org/sasf/medialie.htm

DrOBoogie1

By whom? Fox News? I'm asking you nicely to STOP using this forum to promote your own political opinions. You make all kinds of outrageous accusations with no facts to back them up. You're clearly a right-wing true believer, but you're not convincing anyone of anything here.

Jaime_Weinman

Well, that depends on what you mean by "the right." The thing to remember is that corporations and corporate executives are not right-wing. Not monolithically so, anyway. Corporations are "right-wing" on certain things that benefit them (they want lower taxes, less union power, etc). But they are generally to the left of The Workers (tm) on many issues, particularly social issues. Corporate fat cats are far more likely to be in favour of abortion or gay rights than the hard-hat workers, for example. And because social issues increasingly define politics these days -- hence the term "culture wars" -- following corporate interests is likely to make a news network seem "left-wing" to a lot of lower-middle-class and poor viewers. Indeed, even Rupert Murdoch is to the left of a lot of Fox News's viewers on social issues.

Eric Alterman, a left-wing writer who wrote a popular book on why the media is not liberal ("What Liberal Media?") actually admits this in the book itself, writing:

He adds that he doesn't find that bias as overwhelming as conservative critics do, but the thing is, the issues above are the ones that define "liberal" for a lot of people. I have many older relatives who are what we might define as liberal on economic issues -- taxes, labor unions -- but who are conservative on social issues: religion, crime, the death penalty. These are the people for whom FNC was created. (Fox News's belligerent super-patriotic style is also more of a "social issue" thing, in that a lot of socially-conservative viewers felt that the mainstream media was too neutral and didn't have a sufficiently rah-rah attitude, regardless of what they were actually saying.)

I'm not a social conservative (nor a conservative), but I think it's good that Fox News is out there appealing to the many socially-conservative people. And the fact is that the network succeeded because there are people out there who like what it has to say. Despite the portrayal of Murdoch as Dr. Evil, the fact is that Fox News didn't start off with a big operation or a lot of money poured into it (the article on Fox News in the New York Times Magazine a few years back mentioned how tiny it was at the beginning, compared with the giant CNN). Murdoch's basically just a greedy businessman who won't spend money unless he thinks he can make it back; he didn't pour the kind of money into Fox News that, say, Ted Turner poured into the Goodwill Games. Fox News took off and grew in size and influence because it found an audience. I think that's a good thing. Just as the success of Farenheit 9/11 is basically a good thing.

majorjoe23

Really? So he included Terry Nichols brother and Charelton Heston in Bowling for Columbine and went to great lengths to attempt to interview Roger Smith in Roger and Me because they agree with his POV?

I guess if it's a documented fact.

ThatGuamGuy

Hey, if you want to get technical, Moore changed his entire thesis halfway through 'Bowling For Columbine' when he realized that Canada had just as many guns but virtually no gun violence. Instead of ignoring those statistics, he changed his mind. I'm sure you remember that, all the conservatives went after him for "flip-flopping".

PS: Don't forget the Nike guy in 'The Big One'. Yeah, they *totally* agreed. And Moore *totally* didn't show when the Nike guy explained to him how it winds up helping the countries he sends jobs to. Other than the part where he showed that, I mean.

ThatGuamGuy

Disagree on the "gay rights" thing; quite a few corporations have voluntarily adopted (just for instance) healthcare plans for gay couples, but, by and large, the corporations don't want to be forced to provide healthcare for gay lovers, because (as you say) it doesn't benefit the corp to do so. It costs them money.

But I agree with your larger point, I just had that one minor quibble with one of your specifics.

Chew

What forum am I in again?

majorjoe23

I had totally forgotten that this wasn't a Michael Moore thread. I'll refrain from any more comments that are not about this film.

If DDD currently shipping the movie? $6 seems like quite a deal.

Mike Lowrey

I can't believe anybody would trust anybody else. Hell, there are numerous stories that Fox News reports that the other networks won't even mention. Why? Because they're usually helpful to President Bush. The mainstream media would never report anything that would benefit Bush, because they clearly want Kerry to win.

The fact the mainstream media puts bad news about the President on the "front page", but then buries positive news about the President on the back pages, is ample proof that the mainstream media is Leftist.

Example, Abu Graib on the front page of all the major newspapers for well over two months, but any positive news out of Iraq gets buried on Page 8 or worse.


And for those that still believe "What Liberal Media?", have you not heard of Bernie Goldberg's books outing probably the most liberal network, CBS?

markdclark43016

>>Gannett requires writers to get a quote from a minority regardless of what the story is about. It may have absolutely no meaning, but it has to be there. They call it "mainstreaming."

ThatGuamGuy

Yeah, unless the President in question is a Leftist. Then, but somehow *only* then, you're willing to admit that the news media is driven by motivation of profit first and foremost. Because it certainly couldn't be a conservative bias (yet you're willing to leap to the opposite conclusion).

Here's the thing; the media is predominantly lazy. I apologize to individuals in the thread who serve the media, but I'm speaking of "the media" as more or less an entity; I'm not speaking of individuals. My point is, the major bias of the media is laziness. Once a story has been decided, it takes A LOT to get them to change it. Once "Monica-gate" becomes the Story, it's the Story whenever there's down time. Once Kobe Bryant, once O.J. Simpson, once the Scott/Laci Peterson case becomes the Story, that's the story. That's what they talk about. But people ignore the media as a whole and focus on specifics (tunnel vision, limiting what they're discussing to just "the media on politics"); a few months back, the story, as far as Iraq, was "Good! GOOD! Everything is great." A few people dug deeper, found a few problems, but the basic story was THE WAR IS FINE. [Some liberals claimed this was evidence of the conservative bias in the media.]

Then the prison scandal hit (almost a year after the media had been told about it, but wouldn't talk about it, because it wasn't The Story). That became The Story. Suddenly, *everything* was going bad in Iraq, because that was the Story. [Some conservatives claimed this was evidence of the liberal bias in the media.] Once people believe the Story, it becomes significantly easier to continue the Story, rather than attempt to convince people of facts/truth/etc. [For an example of this, read up on Watergate; the Story became "These reporters are smearing us to help with the election!" so the reporters backed off until after the election, at which point, that Story died, but the Watergate scandal went on.]

If you look at the media, *really* look at it, you'll see that as the deepest bias of them all. Fox News has a definite conservative tilt (if you added up the liberal leanings of all the other networks, it might add up to the same tilt as just Fox News has), but even they are not immune to the Story. (If you ignore political stories, they're the biggest proponent of it.) Even they generally admit that Iraq could be going much better.

As for the Truth, the Truth is too complicated to be explained in a thirty second sound bite (Iraq is going better than the news now would generally lead you to believe, worse than previous news would've had us believe), so it gets lost in the Story. Which is weird; we've created several 24-hour news networks ... to repeat the same Story 580 times a day in little thirty-second clips. It seems backwards to me ... but I guess I've ranted enough.

PS: I take it, from the quote above, that you somehow *don't* think that the most popular cable news network is "mainstream". Which I chalk up to your bizarre, ever-shifting, double-face definitions, like "Independent" to mean "conservative", or "Trotskyite" to mean "Democrat".

ThatGuamGuy

I figured the thread'd be closed in an hour, but after two days, I started chiming in.

Best guess I've got is that it's such a gray area as to whether this is threadcrapping (since it's pretty difficult to discuss even the DVD release apolitically, since it's being released by a political group) that the mods figured "just let it go". I could be wrong, but this has been the theory I've been operating under within this thread. Anytime they want us to stop, I figure they'll lock the thread. All that I ask is that I'm given a warning if I ever get close to suspension.

Chew

It's not threadcrapping, it's just off the main topic. IMO nothing I've seen from you would warrant suspension. You might have a lot more fun in the "Other" forum though.

There I go pretending I'm a mod and going off topic.

Newfrd

Don't forget the Nike CEO - I always new MM was a sweatshop type of guy

Bugg

Unless you associate lying and deception with being conservitive, I don't see how you came to the conclusion I was commenting on Fox's political leanings.

The mainstream media always puts bad news on the front page and any kind of good news on the back, that has nothing to do with political slant.