[Petrarch of the VBB]

[Rictor]

lemmings?

[Kazan]

liberator have you ever been sick and had to go to the hospital? you can thank those pinko-commie-leftist-professors for teaching your doctor how to do his job

liberator have you ever been in an automobile? you can thank those pinko-commie-leftist-professor for teaching the engineers how to design, and build the car

liberator have you ever been in an airplace? you can thank those pinko-commie-leftist-professors for teaching the engineers how to design, and build the airplane

liberator have you ever seen a tv show? you can thank those pinko-commie-leftist-professors for teaching a whole myriad of things that goes into a tv show

liberator have you ever use electricity? you can those those pinko-commie-leftists-professors

[Clave]

That can't be anyone here, thier hands don't reach thier genitals....

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Liberator
Kaz, the only reason most of them teach is because they couldn't get a real job, academia is the only place that would have them.

I'm sorry, but I'd have to agree with Kaz - that is repugnant.  

  It's simply idiotic, as well; I can't think of a single defensible part of that attitude or that statement.  Especially as I've not dismissed the possibility of working in academia myself.  

And in case you're wondering, I'm working for a proper company, and alongside professors who are also part-employed by the same company, and that is largely why I consider your statement here to be incredibly insulting.

Rictor; they're meerkats.  If this threads goes tits-up into a flamewar, be prapered for more.

[Rictor]

Kaz: he was talking more about the humanities.

And for the record, I think the assesment is absolutely correct, college profs and students are mostly on the left (to varying degrees of course). And I see nothing whatsoever wrong with that. I'm just surprised that this comes as news to anyone.

edit: David Horowitz, yeah that explains a lot. The key here is to distinguish between real academics and the sleazy academia-like think tanks posing as them, of which sadly there are many. And Mr.Horowitz falls squarely into the latter category.

[SadisticSid]

I don't see any problem - if you've got any political mind at all then you know by default that higher education is a Bastion of the Left for whatever reasons. Think of the mindset of the capitalist versus the socialist - in the nicest terms, one's likely to go out into the world to improve themselves through climbing the career ladder, the other is going to improve themselves through altruism, spreading knowledge, yadda yadda. The two may not be mutually exclusive but it's always been this way.

It's the same with college students. There's no way that more than 50% of them are conservative leaning. It's the age where most people go out and have fun and maybe get attached to some (occasionally hopeless) causes. To paraphrase Churchill, I believe, "Any man under 30 who is not a liberal has no heart; any man over 30 who is not a conservative has no brain."

[Kazan]

your assessment socialist vs capitalist is false

so is churchhill's assessment

[WeatherOp]

(WARNING) Like Aldo said this is Heading to a flamewar at warp speed. Even tho I know nothing of what you guys are talking about(Mostly cause I don't care) is it worth arguing over?

[Kazan]

the repugnancy of liberator's opinion, and that of his source is worth them getting flogged

[karajorma]

It's not news. It's an attempt by the conservative press to invent a new enemy out of nothing.

"oh no. Our impressionable children are being taught by liberals. Won't someone please think of the children!"

Lib fell for it and no doubt hundreds of other right-wingers have also fallen for it. What they forget is that this has always been the case. Even in the good old days of the 50's, 40s, whenever you feel the golden age was.

[Petrarch of the VBB]

Originally posted by Kazan
your assessment socialist vs capitalist is false

so is churchhill's assessment

He's trying to argue your side, you tard.

[Thrilla]

Fox News is the only news that liberator trusts


which is absolutely pathetic since they're the most biased, manipulative propaganda network ever

stalin would have killed to have fox news for his propaganda machine

You mean kind of like CBS and their forged documents?

And kind of like how the broadcast networks did not call Ohio for the president during the election even though it was won by a larger marjain than Kerry won PA?

Propaganda network?! What propaganda? Unless you consider unaltered news presented without an opinion tagged on it and presented in a way which alows the viewer to make up his own mind.

Actually, more people watch Fox News during primetime than all the other news organizations.

I dont have a problem with hearing both sides of an issue. I think it can be healthy and reinforcing to hear what the other side thinks and believes. There problem is when they militantly march their ideas in the name of tolerance but wont except the other side and their viewpoints.

I guess when push comes to shove, the gun owners will win

[Petrarch of the VBB]

Ah well, down the hatch.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Thrilla
Unless you consider unaltered news presented without an opinion tagged on it and presented in a way which alows the viewer to make up his own mind.

Anyone got the clip of that FOX presenter going on about the Hutton Report? I think Thrilla really needs to see how unbiased they really are.

[Kazan]

CBS didn't forge the documents, they got tricked

or kinda how the STATISTICS involved in Ohio, and when the RETURNS WERE COMING IN played with that

rotfl - Fox news isn't unaltered news, it's news spun from a vast-right-wing point of view and freely mixed with OPINION - there are reams upon reams of studies showing that 80% of fox news viewers hold atleast one of three false perceptions of reality (about the iraq war) and that it's directly attributable to fox news

just because something is popular doesn't make it right

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Thrilla


You mean kind of like CBS and their forged documents?

And kind of like how the broadcast networks did not call Ohio for the president during the election even though it was won by a larger marjain than Kerry won PA?

Propaganda network?! What propaganda? Unless you consider unaltered news presented without an opinion tagged on it and presented in a way which alows the viewer to make up his own mind.

Actually, more people watch Fox News during primetime than all the other news organizations.

I dont have a problem with hearing both sides of an issue. I think it can be healthy and reinforcing to hear what the other side thinks and believes. There problem is when they militantly march their ideas in the name of tolerance but wont except the other side and their viewpoints.

I guess when push comes to shove, the gun owners will win

I can't be arsed paraphrasing today, so it's cut & paste time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_news)

NB: I'm not sure how relatively biased Fox news is, but whenever I've seen it it has definately appeared the most 'lowbrow' of news channels (compared to BBC24, ITV, Sky news, CNN, that funny European one which I never watch & another one or 2).

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." The network thus intends to provide an alternative to such news sources as CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, or CBS, for those who believe that the other networks are dominated by a liberal bias. Thus supporters and critics of FOX News seem to agree that it is to the right of other American network news. Supporters variously argue that FOX is neutral and its competition is strictly liberal, or that FOX is an anti-liberal corrective that makes American television as a whole more balanced. Critics variously insist that FOX that it has a right-wing or conservative bias, or that its news is tailored to the interests of the Republican Party.

FOX News CEO Roger Ailes defended the network in an online column for the Wall Street Journal ([1] (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 and ignore instances in which FOX has broken stories which turned out harmful to Republicans or the Republican Party.

The claim that FOX is rightist begins with Murdoch's and Ailes' own Republican connections. Critics point to Murdoch's ownership of conservative newspapers such as the New York Post and the London Times. In the case of Ailes, critics consider not only his Republican campaign work in general, but also his involvement in the controversial Willie Horton ad in particular. He also produced the Rush Limbaugh television show.

Some criticize FOX News for calling Palestinian and other Arab militants "terrorists," while many other channels tend to use the generic word "militant," or descriptive words such as "gunman" and "suicide bomber." It is argued that, although "terrorist" may be accurate, the word carries a negative connontation and does not give enough detail. FOX has also drawn criticism for its use of the term "homicide bomber" after White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer requested that the term replace the standard "suicide bomber." Critics maintain that this substitution is an instance of letting the White House dictate news content and is detrimental to the accuracy of the articles.

Further accusations followed a 1997 case in which FOX News fired two reporters, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who had refused instructions from superiors to revise a story on bovine growth hormone in ways that the reporters saw as being in conflict with the facts, and had threatened to report FOX to the FCC. The reporters sued under a Florida whistleblower law. A jury ruled that FOX had indeed ordered the reporters to distort the facts. FOX successfully appealed against judgement on the grounds that their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and press protected them from such litigation, and that the FCC's policy against distortion of news was not a sufficiently significant rule for its breach to invoke the whistleblower law ([2] (http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/11.html), [3] (http://www.foxbghsuit.com)).

During the 2000 Presidential Election John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Bush, was a consultant who analysed data from the Voter News Service. During the night Ellis had contact with both Jeb and George Bush several times by telephone. FOX had initially called the state of Florida for Al Gore, and when it retracted its call around 10:00 P.M., it was the last major network to do so. At 2:16 A.M. on Wednesday morning, FOX became the first major network to declare Bush the winner of Florida and thus the election ([4] (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/14/politics/main249357.shtml)).

In 2001, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media "watchdog" group, released a report titled "Fox: The Most Biased Name in News" ([5] (http://www.fair.org/reports/fox.html)). The report claims that of the guests on the network's signature political show, Special Report with Brit Hume, 89 percent were Republicans, 65 percent were conservatives, 91 percent were male, and 93 percent were white, while, by comparison, on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports 57% of the guests were Republican and 32 percent were conservatives. FAIR also claimed that since 1998, one out of every 12 episodes of The O'Reilly Factor has featured a segment on Jesse Jackson, with themes such as "How personal are African-Americans taking the moral failures of Reverend Jesse Jackson?"

A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, sponsored by the Ford, Carnegie, and Tides foundations, reports that viewers of FOX News were more likely to hold misconceptions than viewers of any other network ([6] (http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Iraq/Media_10_02_03_Report.pdf), link in PDF). The study lists three beliefs, which it labels "misperceptions," that are more common among FOX News viewers:

        * That evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been found;
        * That weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq; and
        * That the U.S. had received wide international support in its decision to go to war.

Eighty percent of FOX News viewers polled held at least one of these three beliefs, more than any other radio or television news source. PIPA claims that this trend persists even after adjusting for viewership and political preference. The report also claims that the viewers who watched FOX News more often tended to have more of these beliefs. However, many conservative critics, such as opinion columnist Ann Coulter ([7] (http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13373)), argue that these are not misperceptions but are based on evidence that other news organizations have tended to downplay. For example, they claim that there has been some contact between some in the Iraqi government and operatives in al-Qaeda, that Iraq had the capability to build WMD's, or that the "Coalition of the Willing" is proof of at least some international support for the actions of the US government.

A report in the Los Angeles Times on November 1, 2003 quoted Charlie Reina, a former FOX News producer, saying FOX News executives require the network's on-air anchors and reporters to cover news stories from a right-wing viewpoint and distributed a daily memo explaining what stories to highlight and how to report them. Media Matters subsequently compiled the photocopied memos online ([8] (http://mediamatters.org/items/200407140002)). Sharri Berg, vice president of News Operations at Fox News Channel said in response, "Like any former, disgruntled employee, Charlie Reina has an ax to grind."

In early 2004, when the Hutton Inquiry had just closed, FOX News broadcast an opinion piece by presenter John Gibson which claimed that the BBC had "a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest" and that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, had "insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military" [9] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109821,00.html). Viewers filed twenty-four complaints with Ofcom, the United Kingdom broadcasting regulator, regarding the incident. In its case, FOX News claimed that the "heroic repulsion" quote was mere paraphrasing and pointed to a Google search for "BBC anti-american" as proof of bias. Ofcom subsequently released a report censuring FOX News for not giving the BBC a chance to respond, failing to back up Gibson's claims with reliable evidence after complaints were made, and not making it clear that Gibson was paraphrasing Gilligan's words ([10] (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 specific allegations of bias in FOX News.

In October 2004, Carl Cameron, chief political correspondent of FOX News, wrote a news article containing three purported quotes from Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry; for example, "It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures." The quotes, which appeared to make Kerry look foolish, turned out to be fabricated ([11] (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_26.php#003556)). FOX News later retracted the story and apologized ([12] (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134166,00.html)), citing a "jest" that became published through "fatigue and bad judgement, not malice." -- New York Times, October 3, 2004 p.A28.

[Fineus]

Dear god...

Can you guys not go one fricken day without having a go at eachother or starting off another political debate?

I swear, you're lucky it's not just down to me. I'd sooner ban you than see this every time I log onto the forums.

Thread locked.