[Hazaanko]

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/10/media_dishonesty_matters.html

Opening statement:
"We are being fed false and misleading information, in matters big and small.  It has come from trusted sources such as established newspapers, experienced journalists, Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel Peace Prize winners.  It has been going on for a long time, sometimes by carelessness and sometimes by deliberate lying.  I have compiled a list of 101 such incidents."

P.S.  Yes yes yes while we all know that not everything on the news is true... the real point of the post is about the content of what was misleading/incorrect/untrue.  Example:

"9. Associated Press (AP) (2005). Fell for hoax and phony photo. The AP ran a story, with a photo, about a soldier held hostage in Iraq. The photo turned out to be that of an action figure doll; there was no such soldier."

[TrashMan]

Just goes to show you just how much lies are spread around even by those you percive as neutral or thrustworthy.

[Dark Hunter]

I guess that depends on how much you trust the truthfulness of that article. 

[redsniper]

*bah-dum* *tish*

[Mika]

For one reason or the other I'm not really surprised. Maybe it has something to do with the old Soviet Union pieces of news that I heard time by time when I was younger. Maybe we have been saturated by the objective press and the stuff coming from other places of the world seem a little of all the time.

Besides, I can hardly believe that the guy who wrote that page is really objective. It is sometimes hard to believe some comments on his page also. I suppose the Western media makes a lot less mistakes/deliberate errors than Russian/Chinese media.

But really, are any of us surprised?

Mika

[Asuko]

Nay, I am not surprised. I find that the media could be used as the most efficient propaganda machine in existence.

[Hazaanko]

I guess that depends on how much you trust the truthfulness of that article. 

I'm assuming you didn't read it.  Go ahead and check out the truthfulness of it yourself.

[Dark Hunter]

Actually I hadn't read it when I wrote that. I was making a joke.

[Kosh]

Besides, I can hardly believe that the guy who wrote that page is really objective. It is sometimes hard to believe some comments on his page also. I suppose the Western media makes a lot less mistakes/deliberate errors than Russian/Chinese media.

Except for Fox that's true.

[DiabloRojo]

Except for Fox that's true.

Cite examples, please?

Else, do yourself a favor and get off the "OMGWTFLOL3RSK8S F0X N3WZ WATCH3R!!!!1!!!one!!" cliché bandwagon.  Going under the assumption that Fox is the only news organization with dramatized, slanted and biased news is wrong and quite frankly, ignorant.  They all suck, which is quite evident by the article Hazaanko posted.

[Kosh]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/14/fox-news-internal-memo-_n_34128.html


Plus its a well established fact by now (or least it should be for those of us who were paying attention) that fox is politically connected to the republican party.

EDIT: for some other stuff http://www.cablenewslies.com/fox.htm


The other cable stations are not great, and they are in decline as they attempt to be more and more like fox, the sole exception to this is PBS, which gets much of its international news from the BBC

[Mefustae]

Plus its a well established fact by now (or least it should be for those of us who were paying attention) that fox is politically connected to the republican party.

Yep, a connection definitely exists between FOX News and the Republican party. Namely, a connection between the former's mouth, and the latter's cock.

[karajorma]

To this day, they criticize his administration's handling of the Katrina crisis, which was actually one of the most successful rescue and recovery efforts in history

This was the point at which I double checked if the name of the website was American Drinker.


Now while the other frauds on that website may be valid the correct response is not to perpetrate a fraud of ones own.

[Kosh]

[DiabloRojo]

I don't care if Fox has 24/7 Bush's Dirty Socks & Boxers Worship (no, ok, that would make me bomb something), all I'm trying to point out is that singling out Fox in a blanket statement about publishing faulty stories and misinformation because it's the one that (most likely) consistently grates against your particular socio-political views is still wrong.

The other cable stations are not great, and they are in decline...

And thank you for agreeing that they all suck, even if to a degree.  I take it as an 'all singing, all dancing, kegs of Guinness for everyone' agreement.

As far as the BBC and subsequently PBS is concerned, you probably know as well as I that they're all about questioning authority regardless of the circumstances, like the stereotypical angry 15-year-old kid against his father.  Therefore, Repubs are wrong because they're conservative, and Dems are wrong because they're not liberal enough.  Moderates are wrong because they don't know how to take sides.  Activists are wrong because they disturb the peace and use brainless slogans.  The quiet majority is wrong because because they're too gutless and quiet.  At present, the BBC leans about as far left as Fox does to the right.  Once the Jimmy Carter clones take over, they'll be on the verge of fascism.  They get off on playing devil's advocate.

Am I the only one that usually laughs his ass off at the reporting when watching any channel regardless of the story?  I don't even need sitcoms anymore!  The mindless faces trying so hard at pouring emotion into teleprompter-fed drivel is the best comedy since Abbott and Costello.

[karajorma]

At present, the BBC leans about as far left as Fox does to the right.

Actually I disagree with that. The BBC can and do cock it up from time to time but you only need watch their coverage of the Hutton Report to see that they're as close to unbiased as exists.

How many news companies do you know who would report on a government report criticizing said news channel over a made up news story as if it were just another story without editorialising so as to make it seem like they were right.

Especially when everyone in the country considered that report to be a government sanctioned whitewash and would have been right on the BBC's side if they had said so.

[Mika]

What does "left leaning" mean here?

The news pieces coming from the left leaning country sounded more like Fox on steroids  than BBC. While I find the BBC somewhat neutral, I find it has a slight conservative tint in it. But I would risk and say that the Americans have not even heard the left wing propaganda (i.e. the good stuff). What I find strange also is the amount of totally fabricated stories in US media.

Mika

[Hazaanko]

What does "left leaning" mean here?

The news pieces coming from the left leaning country sounded more like Fox on steroids  than BBC. While I find the BBC somewhat neutral, I find it has a slight conservative tint in it. But I would risk and say that the Americans have not even heard the left wing propaganda (i.e. the good stuff). What I find strange also is the amount of totally fabricated stories in US media.

Mika

Thats kind-of funny... cuz when I was living in the Netherlands/Belgium... ALL the news from the TV (CNN), and -especially- the newspapers were spun so incredibly anti-US... it was just plain misinformation.  Things like people getting arrested because they were just talking bad about Bush etc.  In fact, there's probably people on this forum who actually believe that stuff that gets written up.  I'm sorry, but if you believe such things.... there is absolutely no hope for you whatsoever.

Here's the deal with Fox.  They TELL you that they're conservative on each individual talkshow.  Are there more conservative talkshows than liberal ones?  Absolutely!  Because more conservatives watch their network.  But they don't try to hide their bias and say that they're totally neutral like the other media.  If any of you moonbats would actually watch their shows you would see that.  Here's a shocker for those of you who have never seen it:  THEY HAVE LIBERAL TALK SHOW HOSTS AND GUESTS ON THERE TOO.  The MSM has their nightly news which we are supposed to take in as a completely unbiased source when the stuff they spew out is nothing but the Liberal / Socialist agenda.

The only reason Fox is a target is because they were the first ones to have a truly conservative TV talkshow, and the Libs just can't stand it when conservatives actually get their real viewpoints out.

So some of them have -ties- to Republicans?  Who the hell cares?  At least half their staff aren't previous aides/employees of Democrat administrations like every other TV news organization out there.

If you want to form an opinion about it, go to the source, not some lambasting self-acclaimed "neutral" writeup that excludes all context.

[Mika]

Why so defensive about Fox? Referring to some choices of wording you put there, I don't know if I should respond in the US way or in the way of my homeland, so I choose the latter.

Maybe I should have worded it a little better, but what I meant was that Soviet Union's media was like listening Fox on steroids, in the respect that while Fox admits it is biased, Soviet Union's media claimed to be unbiased, but most of the people here considered it double-plus-biased. But, I would still maintain that Americans are not familiar with the left wing stuff, or even how the left wing bias sounds like. Or it depends on what is meant by "left wing". I'm referring to the old school communists myself.

Regarding Belgium or Holland, I cannot really comment since I have only briefly visited Holland and did not read the Dutch newspapers. Could you give a time frame for the visit so I can place it in the timeline? Also, if those incidents are recent, Wikipedia seems to claim in this link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone) that there are several law suits resulting from some of the actions in those protests. So for me it seems that either the US court is flawed since they have allowed an ungrounded lawsuit or those things did happen, not necessarily exactly the way the paper wrote it.

And back to Fox, there are two things that bother me in the way you described the channel: first, while it claims that it has a bias, do people remember it when using the information represented in the channel? Second, they told me in school that by definition news is objective, or it is not news. Articles, panel discussions, talkshows and opinions etc. are free to have a bias, news cannot have it. But I don't know if this is universal.

Regarding the separated from context argument, it is a failure of the news agency if they print news so that critical context is missing and causes misunderstandings. I'm not sure if understood the end of your message correctly, the Fox news presents experts that represent their opinion of what happened and this is the final conservative truth of the issue? One additional question, when watching the Fox sit-coms, how do you know that the cited experts have gone or been at the source? If they did, with whom did they do it?

Mika

[Mefustae]

To this day, they criticize his administration's handling of the Katrina crisis, which was actually one of the most successful rescue and recovery efforts in history

This was the point at which I double checked if the name of the website was American Drinker.


Now while the other frauds on that website may be valid the correct response is not to perpetrate a fraud of ones own.

Check out some the author's other writeups. That man has a serious woody for the US.