"Is 'Fair and Balanced' ridiculous?" So opened the FOX News
Watch segment examining Robert Greenwald's
film, OutFOXed. And
astonishingly, the uncontradicted view of FOX News Watch was "yes"! As
Neal Gabler put it,
"To say that this network promotes the Republican view ... is like
saying that the Pope is Catholic. It's self-evident ... pretty much
undeniable." But, he asks, as if he hadn't actually seen the film, "So
what?"
So what? Well first, start with the question that opened the segment:
Fox says it is "Fair and Balanced." If it is "self-evident" that it is
not, then I guess we agree then that it is "ridiculous" to say that it
is. And second, "obviously" media critics get this about Fox. Anyone
who critically watches Fox gets this about Fox. But as one questioner
at the San Francisco opening put it, for those who aren't media
critics, and for those who don't actually watch Fox, just how
"ridiculous" Fox's claim is is something significant. My bet is that a
cross-section of FOX viewers would be surprised just how false Fox's
claims actually are.
The discussion opened with Jim
Pinkerton of Newsday calling the film "dull and didactic." He then
asserted that the film says that media networks are "either worse than
the Mafia that ran Cuba in the 1950s or worse than the Soviet Union."
When I heard him say that, I understood why he saw the film as "dull
and didactic": if this is his view, he didn't really watch the film.
The opening allusion to the Mafia comes from Robert McChesney, where he
compares how the Mafia carved up Cuba with how the government carves
up media ownership -- nothing to do with the media being "worse than
the Mafia." The allusion to the Soviet Union, also McChesney's, again
had nothing to do with Pinkerton's claim. McChesney's claim was simply
that propaganda is most effective when the audience is unaware --
unlike in the Soviet Union.
The other simple fabrication of Pinkerton was that the film comprised
"two or three disgruntled employees." That's true if by "two or three"
you mean seven (four
listed here; three requested anonymity). But the more fundamental
fabrication is the suggestion that the film's claims are based on
nothing more than the word of "two or three disgruntled employees."
The film has five independent sources for its "self-evident," as
Grabler puts it, conclusion: (1) former Foxies, (2) Fox memos
(unmentioned by anyone on the show), (3) independent studies of Fox
viewers, (4) media commentators, and (5) clips from Fox shows.
Cal
Thomas -- who was one of the people in the film -- found the film
flawed because it "ignored the many Democrats I've had on my show."
Again, not true. The movie never asserts that there are no Democrats,
or liberals on the show. It just asserts -- not denied by Thomas --
that the "balance" is "unbalanced." Indeed, in one of the best parts
of the film, Greenwald reports a media group that studied months of
Brit Hume's "Special Report" and found over 80% of the guests on that
premier show were Republican -- and that most of the Democrats were
centrists. Not balanced, and not a fair picture of the facts reported.
Thomas goes on (with his wonderful announcer voice -- I love listening
to him) to say something extraordinary however. Here's the quote:
"I think the reason that this network looks so Republican
... is by contrast on [sic] what the others do. If you went and did --
as the Media Research Center has done -- clips of what is said on the
broadcast networks ... you would find an enormous tilt to the left. So
by contrast it looks conservative."
I think we need more
Media Research Centers on
both the Left and Right and -- imagine this -- even without a
political agenda! But I've not seen that they've put together "clips"
as Greenwald has. And again, the film is comparing what Fox News
actually is to what Fox News says it is.
Jane
Hall (Who? She's an assistant professor in the School of
Communication at American University) complained the film was flawed
because it left "out any evidence to the contrary." There were plenty
of liberals on Fox she said -- for example, she said, she was a
liberal. She also mentioned Jeff Cohen, cofounder of FAIR, was on Fox News Watch "for five
years."
Jeff Cohen? Actually, the movie not only doesn't ignore Jeff Cohen. He
is one
of the most critical interviewees. And again, the film doesn't say
there are no liberals on Fox. The show instead reports Clara
Frenk reporting that the "quality" of the liberals was far less
than the quality of the conservatives -- in the sense that the
liberals were either "unknown" or "weak."
Hall also repeated the total non-thought that has been framed around
this film -- that somehow the film is weak because it didn't get Roger
Ailes to respond. The film in fact has Roger Ailes stating Fox News
was to be a fair and balanced news program. It also has Roger Ailes
stating Fox News failed its viewers on election night by allowing
George Bush's cousin, on the basis of extremely weak data, to call the
election for Bush. But even if it didn't twice include Roger Ailes in
the film, the idea that before you release a film critical of someone
you must include their comment is inane. I've had many critical
reviews of my work published, some very intelligent, some others not.
Never has anyone asked me for my comment on their review before they
publish it. Indeed, to do so would be unethical.
But my favorite part of the whole show is the contrast between segment
one and segment two. The review of Outfoxed was in segment two.
Segment one was about -- I swear -- "Media bias." For a full segment,
Fox News Watch focused on a single statement by Newsweek's Evan
Thomas. As Media
Research Center quotes him,
The media want Kerry to
win. They’re going to portray Kerry and Edwards as being young and
dynamic and optimistic, and this glow is going to be worth maybe 15
points."
This single quote by a single editor at a single
magazine apparently proves, according to the show, that liberal "media
bias" exists. Yet a film gathering (1) former Foxies, (2) Fox memos,
(3) independent studies of Fox viewers, (4) media commentators, and
(5) clips from Fox shows is, by contrast, "not that fairly put
together," said Eric
Burns, the show's host.
I guess they would know. They're the trademark holder for the words
"Fair and Balanced" (at least until the challenge to that
trademark gets resolved).
Grok Headline matches for Fox New: Is "Fair and Balanced" "ridiculous"?
Fair and Balanced
Fair and Balanced05/04/2004 09:16 PM Read this Editorial titled Leader: iTunes ain't what it used to be
from Silicon.com. If you're like me you'll see many glaring errors.
Let's start...
Bill Gates recently got together with Steve Mills from IBM and
demonstrated some web services interoperability between our two
companies' products. It has taken awhile to get to this point,
from the initial hype to the point where some of these key scenarios
work without smoke and mirrors; so it is nice to see a "status report"
like this.
The first response I saw came in the form of this shrill attack
piece run on CNET. The author seems stuck in the last
century, when people still bought the big lie about "write once run
anywhere". He fails to explain how "runs only on Java" is
significantly different from "runs only on Windows", and completely
misses the point that most enterprises have to support both
types of systems (and many more) and therefore place a high priority
on interop.
The attack piece brought back fond memories of the days when Bob
Metcalfe and Jai Singh (now managing editor at CNET) were together at
the helm of Infoworld. Then I saw another analysis in
CNET, covering the same interop event, but surprisingly balanced,
at least in comparison to the first piece. Finally, I found yet another
analysis on CNET, again covering the same event; and this one is
positively glowingly accurate!
What to make of it? A single presentation by Bill Gates
inspires three different pieces in CNET which cover the whole spectrum
of opinion. Can't complain about that.
Mac Mini: The
Emperor's New Computer: Attention: Before you rip the living hell
out of this guy, please remember that he went to DeVry. And
he has an MCSE.
The Mini boots up into a stripped-down operating system which Apple
calls OS X, similar to the stripped-down WindowsCE OS found on many
handhelds. The mini OS is going to be a significant hurdle for many
buyers who are used to Windows or have favorite Windows software
packages they need to use. Think of it more as a first computer for
your daughter or niece than as a machine to get any serious work done
and you’ll get the point of the Mini and its target market. It
might also be the perfect computer for grandmothers or autistic
children, for example.
Fair and balanced, at least 27 percent of the time!
Making American Forces Radio fair and balanced06/24/2004 08:07 AM As Rush Limbaugh cries foul, the Senate moves toward loosening the
right-wing propagandist's stranglehold on the military's airwaves.
Dingell Joins Republicans to Protest CBS's Mini-Series "The Reagans": Demands "Fair and Balanced" Portrayal of 40th President
Is your 2.5 pound Ultralight
laptop really dragging you down when you tote it through the airport?
Sony has you covered:
The X505 is Sony's smallest notebook, weighing less than
two pounds and under an inch thin. While small in size, the X505
delivers big performance through the power of the Intel Pentium M
Processor and a host of other top features. The fusion of style and
technology gives it all the functionality of notebooks twice its size.
With its sleek lines and sophisticated design, you wont mind bringing
your office with you where ever you go.
You really have to go look at the pictures to get an idea of how
insanely thin this thing is. And the best part? No fan. So now we have
notebook computers that are smaller than actual
notebooks.
Domain Names Selling For Ridiculous Prices Again12/26/2003 02:55 PM More evidence that we're approaching a rehash of 1999. We've seen dot
com stock prices going up, IPOs from tech companies that actually do
well, traffic increase in Silicon Valley and VC money that is being
invested in dot coms with no revenue and no business model. Now, the
latest sign of a returning dot com era is that domain names are beginning to fetch high prices
again. Someone just sold men.com for $1.3 million, and others
believe that the latest land rush for domain names is about to start
again. While many of the original domain name speculators went out of
business over the past few years, now they're coming back, and buying
up as many domain names as possible.
Why the Sun-buying-Novell rumor is ridiculous, Part 1
Why the Sun-buying-Novell rumor is ridiculous, Part 108/12/2004 03:54 AM There was a huge amount of ink (both virtual and physical) spent on
the non-story of the year circulating last week about the possibility
of Sun buying Novell.
Why the Sun-buying-Novell rumor is ridiculous, Part 2
Why the Sun-buying-Novell rumor is ridiculous, Part 208/14/2004 04:41 AM Last issue, I took apart the rumor that Sun might be about to acquire
Novell by looking at what Sun would have to pay compared to the value
of the products that it might get - and be able to use. Today, we'll
look at some of the intangibles that might also be part of the deal.
Bush gets checked and balanced06/29/2004 08:43 AM The Supreme Court rules against indefinitely locking up detainees --
and deals a mortal blow to the president's vision of his own limitless
power.
Phone DRM cartel lowers fees from outrageous to merely ridiculous
Phone DRM cartel lowers fees from outrageous to merely ridiculous04/13/2005 05:46 PM Cory Doctorow:
Last month, I
blogged about the deceptively named Open Mobile Alliance that
provides DRM for music/movies on
cellphones. The OMA licensing cost was $1 per handset, which means
that buying OMA for all of last year's phones would have cost $684
million -- more than the total market for digital music.
The OMA has responded by generously cutting that licensing fee to
$0.65/handset, which brings the cost of outfitting all the phones sold
this year in line with the approximate market for digital music. Yeah,
that'll work.
Link
(Thanks, Joe!)
Australian doping scandal udderly ridiculous (Reuters)
Today your teacher announced
that your school is going to have a science fair and students are
responsible for exhibiting their projects. What do you feel?
Enthusiastic? Despondent? Dreadful? Fearful? Excited?" This statement
opens the Super Science Fair Projects site. Actually, whether student
or parent, science fair projects, while great ways to get students
actively involved in learning the scientific method and problem
solving, can be tough assignments. This site may help you with one of
the hardest parts: coming up with an idea. The site does a great job
of walking the visitor through the steps needed to plan and implement
a project, from Choosing a Topic, the Scientific Method, and writing
the Project Report. There are even tips on displaying your project,
rehearsing, winning over judges, and what to expect the day of the
fair. This is definitely a great tool to tap into when planning a
science fair project.[From The NSDL Scout Report for Math,
Engineering, and Technology, Copyright Internet Scout Project
1994-2003. http://scout.wisc.edu/]
this site full of ridiculous and hysterical (and real) senior portraits
ruthlessreviews.com/top10/10blackmetal.html track this
site | 3 links
Orrin Hatch's Other Ridiculous Copyright Bill Passes The Senate
Orrin Hatch's Other Ridiculous Copyright Bill Passes The Senate06/26/2004 01:19 AM It seems that Orrin Hatch is involved in just about every bizarre
anti-consumer, pro-Hollywood piece of legislation these days. Just
days after introducing his absolute
ly ridiculous and dangerous INDUCE act, Hatch's PIRATE Act has
passed the Senatewithout debate and via a voice vote, so
there's no record of which of your Senators just agreed to take your
tax money to fight Hollywood's battles. If you don't remember, the
PIRATE Act would let the
FBI work on civil cases against copyright infringers. In
other words, cases that should be between two private parties, will
now be handled by the federal government, using your tax money.
There's simply no justification for this, other than some Senators
wanting to pay back their entertainment industry backers by doing
their legal work for them -- using your money.
Precariously balanced atop Öolong
Precariously balanced atop Öolong03/14/2005 06:29 PM Peop
le of the pancake:"I see within us all (myself included)
the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the
pressure of information overload and the technology of the
'instantly available'. A new self that needs to contain less and less
of an inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance—as we all become
'pancake people'—spread wide and
thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed
by the mere touch of a button." Writing on the Edge,
Richard Foreman and George Dyson speculate on a 'thin-client' view of
the self where most cultural processing occurs not only somewhere
else, but by something else! [reality checks provided by Kevin
Kelly, Jaron Lanier, Steven Johnson, Marvin Minsky and Douglas
Rushkoff, among others :]
Poll: Most People Prefer Balanced Budget (AP)
Poll: Most People Prefer Balanced Budget (AP)04/13/2004 02:27 PM AP - About six in ten, 61 percent, chose balancing the budget while 36
percent chose tax cuts when they were asked which was more important,
according to a poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos Public Affairs.
Poll: Balanced Budget Beats Tax Cuts (AP)
Poll: Balanced Budget Beats Tax Cuts (AP)04/13/2004 07:36 PM AP - About six in 10, 61 percent, chose balancing the budget while 36
percent chose tax cuts when they were asked which was more important,
according to a poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos Public Affairs.
Apple: fair play or failure to play fair?08/07/2004 01:18 AM Is Apple playing fair or not? On the one hand, it's their device,
their music store, and their software. Grok Description matches for Fox New: Is "Fair and Balanced" "ridiculous"? GrokA matches for Fox New: Is "Fair and Balanced" "ridiculous"?
Fox New: Is "Fair and Balanced" "ridiculous"?
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