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 azazel the cat wrote:
What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to pull off in order to reconcile those two sentences?

Simple. He doesn't believe news media should be held accountable to a standard of quality.

So it's gone to "Obama caused Bengazi!" to "Obama Didn't use the right words after Bengazi!" to "Obama didn't let Fox in on a conference call!".

Worst. Scandal. Ever.

 Maddermax wrote:
Worst. Scandal. Ever.

Well, there's some mystery mistress military meddling action there too! And she's got boobage!

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to pull off in order to reconcile those two sentences?

Simple. He doesn't believe news media should be held accountable to a standard of quality.

Not by the government, anyway. As consumers and critics we should of course hold them accountable for their quality. But if they are a news network, and one patronized by a substantial portion of the American people, they should probably have access to White House press events, unless they actively disrupt those events or something. There is a danger when we're talking about how the government treats one group or another. We have a high standard of protection for free speech and freedom of the press here, even when it's bad press organizations saying dumb things.

There's that general concept of "I will defend to the death your right to call me an donkey-cave to my face", which is a philosophy I would like my government to share with me.

Fox has always been like the Westboro Baptist Church.

They're all about free speech whenever they get to say whatever idiotic thing is floating about on the tip of their tongue that day, but the minute someone starts firing back out come the lawyers.

I should also add that while MSNBC is the "left's version of Fox", we cannot be absolutely certain that we actually would have seen MSNBC become what it is now if Fox had not gone in the direction they did.

And while I dislike the "Well they started it!" argument, it certainly is applicable in this situation. Fox showed that the American public does not want "news". They want the anchors/talking heads to feed them their opinions by and large.

Mannahnin wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:

 azazel the cat wrote:
What kind of mental gymnastics do you have to pull off in order to reconcile those two sentences?

Simple. He doesn't believe news media should be held accountable to a standard of quality.

Not by the government, anyway. As consumers and critics we should of course hold them accountable for their quality. But if they are a news network, and one patronized by a substantial portion of the American people, they should probably have access to White House press events, unless they actively disrupt those events or something. There is a danger when we're talking about how the government treats one group or another. We have a high standard of protection for free speech and freedom of the press here, even when it's bad press organizations saying dumb things.

There's that general concept of "I will defend to the death your right to call me an donkey-cave to my face", which is a philosophy I would like my government to share with me.

By your logic, Alex Jones and Rush Limbaugh should be invited to the press conferences, too. While I agree with the rhetoric you're espousing, it's not without qualifiers. Specifically, what constitutes a news organization. And since I believe FoxNews went to court so that they were allowed to carry on with "news" and "fact" being mutually exclusive, they should lose their title of being a news organization, and be considered just another tabloid.

 Mannahnin wrote:
There is a danger when we're talking about how the government treats one group or another. We have a high standard of protection for free speech and freedom of the press here, even when it's bad press organizations saying dumb things.

Well, they can still say whatever fantasy crosses their mind, the goverment doesn't have the duty to help them fabricate those fables.

And Voltaire is cool and all, but I doubt he had misinformation and desinformation in mind...

 Kanluwen wrote:
Fox has always been like the Westboro Baptist Church.

They're all about free speech whenever they get to say whatever idiotic thing is floating about on the tip of their tongue that day, but the minute someone starts firing back out come the lawyers.

I should also add that while MSNBC is the "left's version of Fox", we cannot be absolutely certain that we actually would have seen MSNBC become what it is now if Fox had not gone in the direction they did.

And while I dislike the "Well they started it!" argument, it certainly is applicable in this situation. Fox showed that the American public does not want "news". They want the anchors/talking heads to feed them their opinions by and large.

And with that comparison I think I can disregard anything else coming from you on this subject.

Oh?

Please. Enlighten me then.

Because I have yet to see someone make Fox News appear as though they actually are "fair and balanced".

They are no different than the Westboro Baptist Church. If you're unaware as to what the WBC does, they go out of their way to foster situations like this where they can then profit from it by claiming that they are having their rights infringed upon or that people are attacking them for expressing their beliefs.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Oh?

Please. Enlighten me then.

Because I have yet to see someone make Fox News appear as though they actually are "fair and balanced".

They are no different than the Westboro Baptist Church. If you're unaware as to what the WBC does, they go out of their way to foster situations like this where they can then profit from it by claiming that they are having their rights infringed upon or that people are attacking them for expressing their beliefs.

It'd be a waste of time to try to change your opinion (which it is and that's all it is) about Fox News. Anything anyone tries to say to you about this will not get through the hatred you have for the network and wouldn't do any good for anyone here.

So you don't have an answer?

It's not like there are plenty of other people that could benefit from it.

 Zathras wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Oh?

Please. Enlighten me then.

Because I have yet to see someone make Fox News appear as though they actually are "fair and balanced".

They are no different than the Westboro Baptist Church. If you're unaware as to what the WBC does, they go out of their way to foster situations like this where they can then profit from it by claiming that they are having their rights infringed upon or that people are attacking them for expressing their beliefs.

It'd be a waste of time to try to change your opinion (which it is and that's all it is) about Fox News. Anything anyone tries to say to you about this will not get through the hatred you have for the network and wouldn't do any good for anyone here.

I don't have "hatred" for the network.

I have hatred for the way they operate.

They are yellow journalism exemplified.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Zathras wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Oh?

Please. Enlighten me then.

Because I have yet to see someone make Fox News appear as though they actually are "fair and balanced".

They are no different than the Westboro Baptist Church. If you're unaware as to what the WBC does, they go out of their way to foster situations like this where they can then profit from it by claiming that they are having their rights infringed upon or that people are attacking them for expressing their beliefs.

It'd be a waste of time to try to change your opinion (which it is and that's all it is) about Fox News. Anything anyone tries to say to you about this will not get through the hatred you have for the network and wouldn't do any good for anyone here.

I don't have "hatred" for the network.

I have hatred for the way they operate.

They are yellow journalism exemplified.

Yeah, it's no secret that Fox News isn't a reputable news source.

 Cheesecat wrote:

Yeah, it's no secret that Fox News isn't a reputable news source.

I judge them to be about as reputable as their counterparts on the left. I'd have to go back and double check, but I'm pretty sure they beat out MSNBC in terms of actual balance in coverage with regard to the 2012 Presidential election in the Pew study.

 Seaward wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

Yeah, it's no secret that Fox News isn't a reputable news source.

I judge them to be about as reputable as their counterparts on the left. I'd have to go back and double check, but I'm pretty sure they beat out MSNBC in terms of actual balance in coverage with regard to the 2012 Presidential election in the Pew study.

They're ALL just as bad.

Just pick your poison.

 whembly wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

Yeah, it's no secret that Fox News isn't a reputable news source.

I judge them to be about as reputable as their counterparts on the left. I'd have to go back and double check, but I'm pretty sure they beat out MSNBC in terms of actual balance in coverage with regard to the 2012 Presidential election in the Pew study.

They're ALL just as bad.

Just pick your poison.

CBC seems pretty good I don't really watch the news but the bits I see when my mom and dad are watching it on the TV look pretty honest.

Cheesecat wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Seaward wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:

Yeah, it's no secret that Fox News isn't a reputable news source.

I judge them to be about as reputable as their counterparts on the left. I'd have to go back and double check, but I'm pretty sure they beat out MSNBC in terms of actual balance in coverage with regard to the 2012 Presidential election in the Pew study.

They're ALL just as bad.

Just pick your poison.

CBC seems pretty good I don't really watch the news but the bits I see when my mom and dad are watching it on the TV look pretty honest.

CBC is legislated to be non-partisan in Canada. That's an entirely different animal.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Fox does report news. That they do it with a clear, consistent, and directed editorial bias, in favor of specific political views and one of two parties in the US, doesn't negate that. It makes them a BAD news channel, but doesn't stop them being a news channel at all. As other folks have noted, MSNBC* has similar issues, albeit perhaps not quite with the same level of directed editorial control.

A fellow I know on another forum who decided to watch a full day of FOX news and post his thoughts through the day on his blog. It just happens that the day he picked turned out to be the day that nutter shot up Fort Hood. The surprising result was that when there was real news to report, FOX news reported real news and did a very good job of it.

And if you just watch the actual nightly news coverage FOX is okay, or at least about as okay as any of the cable news channels (they all struggle from basically the same problems). It's outside of the actual reporting of news, when you get into the opinion pieces that things get pretty crazy on FOX.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
What happened isn't censorship. It's denial of access.

They're not the same thing.

But they both produce the same end result. Right now one of the biggest things hurting decent media coverage is the fear that if you challenge a politician's talking points he'll simply stop talking to your media outlet. Fearing a loss of access, media companies toe the line and the result is lots of softball interviews and very few substantive, even handed reviews of proposed policy.

It's bad situation that doesn't need to be made even worse by having an actual presidential administration denying access.



Not that FOX being excluded from a couple of conferences is the same thing as blanket denial, and not that even an actual blanket denial would mean anything substantive when it came to Benghazi.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
I should also add that while MSNBC is the "left's version of Fox", we cannot be absolutely certain that we actually would have seen MSNBC become what it is now if Fox had not gone in the direction they did.

Sure, but the issue there isn't about MSNBC tacking left to counter FOX's right wing position, but about FOX news showing the best way to make money in cable news. MSNBC, now NBCNEWS, having spent their short life in cable news showing everyone how to not make money, decided to change tack, and move to copy the highly profitable FOX model of high profile political hacks giving their opinion.

Of course, being MSNBC, they still screwed it up. There is no market for left wing political hacks to give the daily outrage... the left wing just doesn't work like that. It's why there's never been angry leftwing talkback radio hosts.

 sebster wrote:

But they both produce the same end result. Right now one of the biggest things hurting decent media coverage is the fear that if you challenge a politician's talking points he'll simply stop talking to your media outlet. Fearing a loss of access, media companies toe the line and the result is lots of softball interviews and very few substantive, even handed reviews of proposed policy.

Which is why you should keep your editorialists and your news reporters separated from each other. Or even better, like RDI does, when you want an opinion piece, leave that to a panel of outside experts, and have them represent different opinions.

 sebster wrote:
MSNBC, now NBCNEWS, having spent their short life in cable news showing everyone how to not make money, decided to change tack, and move to copy the highly profitable FOX model of high profile political hacks giving their opinion.

Of course, being MSNBC, they still screwed it up. There is no market for left wing political hacks to give the daily outrage... the left wing just doesn't work like that. It's why there's never been angry leftwing talkback radio hosts.

Couple of quick nitpicks/corrections: Only the website changed name, not the cable news channel. And there have been angry leftwing talkback(?) radio hosts- Air America was a thing for a few years. But as you say, it wasn't commercially successful, as the market isn't there.

 Mannahnin wrote:

 sebster wrote:
MSNBC, now NBCNEWS, having spent their short life in cable news showing everyone how to not make money, decided to change tack, and move to copy the highly profitable FOX model of high profile political hacks giving their opinion.

Of course, being MSNBC, they still screwed it up. There is no market for left wing political hacks to give the daily outrage... the left wing just doesn't work like that. It's why there's never been angry leftwing talkback radio hosts.

Couple of quick nitpicks/corrections: Only the website changed name, not the cable news channel. And there have been angry leftwing talkback(?) radio hosts- Air America was a thing for a few years. But as you say, it wasn't commercially successful, as the market isn't there.

NPR still exists...

Did anyone else hear something? Almost like the ghost of a Hannity joke?

 Mannahnin wrote:
Did anyone else hear something? Almost like the ghost of a Hannity joke?

BOO!

Mannahnin wrote:Did anyone else hear something? Almost like the ghost of a Hannity joke?

Funniest thing I've read all weekend. Take an exalt.