Well, idiocy is quite hypnotic.... so maybe they need the help.
I guess watching Fox is a bit like driving by a car crash and staring out the windows - you know it's dangerous, it's stupid and it's pointless, but you do it anyways.
Oh, and RE: Fox news - it's pretty biased from what I see.
This is a list of the main allegations from wikipedia;
[q]
Allegations of bias
FOX News asserts that it is more objective and factual than other American networks. Its self-promotion includes the phrases "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide". However, numerous critics claim such slogans belie a network that is slanted to the right and tailors its news to support the Republican Party. Although most critics do not claim that all FOX News reporting is slanted, most claim that the bias at FOX News is systemic.
See also: Media bias, Propaganda model
Critics of FOX News point to the following as evidence of bias:
* Rupert Murdoch's ownership of conservative newspapers such as the New York Post and The Times.
* Roger Ailes's, the CEO of Fox News, past activities including: Republican campaign work, involvement in the Willie Horton ad and his production of the Rush Limbaugh television show.
* Use of the term "homicide bomber" instead of "su
icide bomber" after White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer made the request. The only other major news organization to do so was fellow News Corporation subsidiary the New York Post.
* A ruling in a whistleblower lawsuit that WTVT had ordered fired reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson to distort the facts in a story about Bovine Growth Hormone. WTVT successfully appealed on First Amendment grounds. However, the case was against a local affiliate station, not FOX News. Appeal Decision (
http://www.2dca.org/opinion/February%2014,%202003/2D01-529.pdf) (PDF)
* John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Bush, was one of four consultants assigned by the Voter News Service to FOX News on night of the 2000 Presidential election; thus he was part of the team that recommended FOX News be the last to retract its call of Florida for Gore and the first to call Florida for Bush, which FOX News did at 2:16 a.m[1] (
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/14/politics/main249357.shtml). However, all major networks called Florida for Bush by 2:20 a.m. Additionally, Ellis admitted to informing Jeb and George Bush several times by telephone how projections were going on election night[2] (
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/14/politics/main249357.shtml).
* A report released in August 2001 by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, titled "Fox: The Most Biased Name in News," ([3] (
http://www.fair.org/reports/fox.html)) which:
o Claims that, despite his claims to the contrary, The O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly is conservative; and
o Compared guests on FOX's Special Report with Brit Hume with those on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports:
white male Republican conservative
Hume (FOX) 93% 91% 89% 71%
Blitzer (CNN) 93% 86% 57% 32%
* The Program on International Policy Attitudes reported, in the Winter 2003-2004 issue of Political Science Quarterly, that viewers of the Fox Network local affiliates or Fox News were more likely than the viewers of other news networks to hold these three views which the authors labeled as misperceptions:[4] (
http://www.psqonline.org/cgi-bin/99_article.cgi?byear=2003&bmonth=winter&a=02free&format=view) (PDF),
o 67% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization" (Compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for both NPR and PBS)
o 33% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" "since the war ended". (Compared with 23% for CBS, 20% for both CNN and NBC, 19% for ABC and 11% for both NPR and PBS)
o 35% of FOX viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favour the US having gone to war" with Iraq. (Compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for both NPR and PBS)
* Photocopied memos (
http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=8147&fcategory_desc=Fox%20News,%2024hr%20Republican%20Network) from FOX News executive John Moody instructing the network's on-air anchors and reporters on using positive language when discussing anti-abortion viewpoints, the Iraq war, and tax cuts; as well as requesting that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal be put in context with the other violence in the area.
* In an opinion piece on the Hutton Inquiry decision, John Gibson said the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military" [5] (
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109821,00.html). In reviewing viewer complaints, Ofcom (the United Kingdom's statutory broadcasting regulator) ruled that FOX News had breached the program code in three areas: "respect for truth", "opportunity to take part", and "personal view programmes opinions expressed must not rest upon false evidence". Fox News admitted that Gilligan had not actually said the words that John Gibson appeared to attribute to him; OfCom rejected the claim that it was intended to be a paraphrase. (see Ofcom complaint, response and ruling (
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/bulletins/prog_cb/pcb_11/upheld_cases?a=87101)).
* A documentary film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, makes allegations of bias in FOX News and interviews a number of former employees who discuss the company's practices. For example, Frank O'Donnell, former Fox News Producer, says: "We were stunned, because up until that point, we were allowed to do legitimate news. Suddenly, we were ordered from the top to carry [...] Republican, right-wing propaganda," after being told what to say about Ronald Reagan. The network's official response to the film is located here[6] (
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125436,00.html), while a network review of several employees featured in the film is available here [7] (
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,125437,00.html) and discusses Alexander Kippen, Frank O'Donnell, Jon Du Pre, and Clara Frenk and their employment (or in some cases non-employment) with the network.
* In October 2004, Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of FOX News, wrote a news article containing three fabricated quotes attributed to Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. The quotes included: "Women should like me! I do manicures," "Didn't my nails and cuticles look great?" and "I'm metrosexual [Bush's] a cowboy." FOX News retracted the story and apologized (
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134166,00.html), citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgement, not malice".
* A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism in 2005 found that, in covering the Iraq War in 2004, 73% of FOX News stories included editorial opinions, compared to 29% on MSNBC and 2% on CNN. The same report found FOX less likely than CNN to present multiple points of view. On the other hand, it found FOX more transparent about its sources[8] (
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33008-2005Mar14?language=printer). Full report (
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/narrative_cabletv_contentanalysis.asp?cat=2&media=5)
FOX News responds. CEO Roger Ailes publicly responded in an online column for the Wall Street Journal ([9] (
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005157)), stating that FOX's critics intentionally confuse opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor with regular news coverage. Ailes also claimed critics ignore instances in which FOX has broken stories which turned out harmful to Republicans or the Republican Party such as FOX breaking the story that George W. Bush was arrested for drunk driving.
[/q]
Oh, and there are a load of ****e British tabloids as bad as the Daily Mail.... Daily Express in particular is a load of scapegoating ****e pandering to the lowest Middle-England denominator.
