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Just the FOX, ma'am...Just the FOX
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Just the FOX, ma'am...Just the FOX |
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Balladeer
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Fox News Dominates 3Q 2009 Cable News Ratings Huffington Post | Danny Shea Fox News has pulled off another dominant quarter, claiming the top 10 cable news programs in 3Q 2009 and growing against 3Q 2008, while CNN and MSNBC lost substantial portions of their election-boom audience. Fox News averaged 2.25 million total viewers in prime time for the third quarter, up 2% over the previous year. That's more than CNN (946,000, down 30%) and MSNBC (788,000, down 10%) combined. "The O'Reilly Factor" led all cable news programs with an average of 3.295 million total viewers for the quarter, up 12% over the previous year. "Hannity" (2.603 million, up 9%), "Glenn Beck" (2.403 million, up 89%), "On the Record with Greta van Susteren" (2.150 million, up 16%), and "Special Report with Bret Baier" (1.997 million, up 20%) rounded out the top five. Meanwhile, flagship programs at MSNBC and CNN did not sustain their growth from 3Q 2008: At MSNBC, "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" averaged 1.087 million total viewers, down 12% from the previous year and "The Rachel Maddow Show" averaged 996,000 total viewers (Maddow began the program in September 2008, so a comparison for the quarter would be inaccurate; compared to September 2008, though, Maddow's September 2009 total viewer average is down 40%). At CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" averaged 1.005 million viewers, down 17% from the previous year and "Lou Dobbs" averaged 658,000 total viewers, down 24%. Larry King and Campbell Brown were both down just slightly in total viewers. CNN in particular had a rough quarter in the primetime Adults 25-54 demo: the network dropped 39% compared to 3Q 2008, averaging 287,000 viewers. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/30/fox-news-dominates-3q-200_n_304260.html |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Mike, When you aren't constrained by the rules of journalism, and you're allowed to say pretty much what's most likely to get people going rather than what the facts may be, these are the kind of results you get. That's why they present Professional Wrestling in big halls and Shakespeare in smaller theaters. The Shakespeare has meaning and the Professional Wrestling is entertainment. As our more thoughtful Fox fans are quick to point out, the shows that Fox uses to draw the most viewers are opinion shows and not news shows. Even though they present themselves as part of a "News" network, Yes? Fox presented, I believe a slanted news point of view in the lead up to the second gulf war. That was in the hard news department. I didn't like that, but then The New York Times did the same thing. The Times also presented that same point of view, as did most of the other networks on TV. I didn't like those either. That didn't make Fox bad. It followed along with the same disinformation that other folks were misled by, even though other information was available. Where I believe that Fox went wrong is at the point when the conflicting information became available and then became creditable, Fox did not report that. Instead, it reported only news that supported a single point of view, unlike many other media sources which printed a range of stories, reporting news that was available from different sources. Fox tends to publish from a variety of Republican sources from the right side of that party. This doesn't mean that they're actually wrong, though I tend to disagree with them a fair amount because I do have a leftward bias. It simply means that they are inflexible in their examination of reality, and that they have a tendency to be somewhat rigid in their thinking. They provide a necessary entertainment function, but many people confuse being tickled with being fully informed, or being even reasonably informed. It is sad to say that the truth is not always entertaining. Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
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When you aren't constrained by the rules of journalism, and you're allowed to say pretty much what's most likely to get people going rather than what the facts may be, these are the kind of results you get. That's your opinion, Bob. Many people, including myself, find that they follow the rules of journalism very well, especially the part about discussing ALL the news, which the network stations have proven time and time again they do not do. but many people confuse being tickled with being fully informed, or being even reasonably informed Many? How about the great majority? It's sad you have such a low opinion of such a large part of the population. Being tickled could work for a limited time but, year after year, with either Democrats or Republicans in control, FOX has continued to lead the ratings. They go where they can be the MOST informed. Olbermann went down 12%. Maddow went down 40%, Anderson 17%. That doesn't necessarily mean those viewers went to FOX. It just means people stopped watching those show...what does that say about those shows then? I can understand how it is infuriating to Democrats that a conservative station continues to lead the polls, year after year. Fortunately for FOX, the Democrats will not ask themselves why and, because of that, FOX will continue to be the most-watched station. Please continue to believe in the "tickle" theory. That will insure that FOX will continue with their success. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
I quote here one exchange between Mike and Bob, and then will comment on it: quote: Yes, Mike that is my opinion. It is good of you to recognize that. What you did not do, however, is respond to the example that I gave that bolstered that opinion, and seems reasonably straightforward. It seems difficult to refute. I offer it again here for your convenience, in case you may have found some way of explaining it now: quote: Another Mike Bob exchange, with comment: quote: Oh, okay. But I thought it was simply a larger proportion of the cable audience, not "the great majority?" I thought most Americans were tuned to other stuff entirely. All of a sudden, instead of a couple million people, we've gotten promoted to a Fox audience of "a Great Majority" of the American Public? Raging Rampant Runaway inflation of figures, Batman, what just happened? And which one of those little cups is that pea behind now? quote: Heavens to Betsy, I say that Fox isn't doing it's job being objective and now I'm being disrespectful of "a large part of the population." I have to wonder how large a part of the population this must be. I even give an example of how this is true, which goes unaddressed, and suddenly I have a low opinion of a large part of the population. I wonder how large a part of the population I am supposed to have this low opinion of. Mike has frequently expressed his low opinion of Democrats as a whole, which is what, 40% of the population? He seems fine with that proportion, so I assume that if I had a low opinion of 40% of the population, he would be fine with that as well. Where would his cut off point be for it not being okay to have a low opinion of people? And besides, I never said that I had a low opinion of people, Mike placed those words in my mouth. I talked about people who settled for being tickled for being reliably informed. Apparently Mike feels very touchy about defending those who appreciate the bear baiters of this world. Those are the people that Shakespeare did have to compete with, down on the south bank of the Thames. I'm fonder of the clowns, acrobats and comedians, myself; there's not so much blood involved in the entertainment. quote: The last sentence doesn't follow from the prior sentences, which I haven't verified, but which sound like they may well be true. But no, people don't go where they can be most informed. Otherwise the sale of newspapers would be up, wouldn't it, and there would be more details and references in them to send readers to other sources so they could do extra reading on their own. It's a great hope, but it doesn't work out. Not even in the Murdoch holdings do newspaper revenues exceed broadcast and cable media sales. The most detailed and informative and accurate papers and magazines have some content reflected in the broadcast and cable media. As I indicated in my comments in my posting above, sometimes Fox news and other media reflect the same sorts of information as these detailed and informative and accurate papers and magazines, as in the lead up to the second gulf war. Some of these media, such as The Christian Science Monitor, and The Times of London, the BBC and a few other sources were printing or reporting additional news that didn't get picked up at that time, however. Fox news was not unusual in excluding these stories, however, at the time. When more and more of these stories became available, however, Fox did not let its readers know, and went so far as to deny them, and to print false and fabricated stories about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the threat of Iraqi drone planes, the threat of Iraqi Al Qaeda forces and so on. Viewers and readers of Newscorp related publications and cable and broadcast outlets in large numbers actually believe that these fabrications were true until late in the last administration, and some of them may still believe these things, despite the more accurate reporting that has come out since, including retractions from former administration officials. This does not qualify as "The most informed" by any stretch of the imagination. It does qualify the views as the most disrespected by any single news organization. As Mike might well point out — in your opinion. And yes, I would have to agree, in my opinion. Even in the heyday of the great newspapers, they were often outsold by the yellow journalism press. Often enormously outsold. Some have said the the Spanish-American War was a Hearst invention. I really wouldn't know, but I do know that it seems to have sold a lot of papers. Fox does have great ratings. quote: I really don't know. If I did, I'd try to repair them and make some money doing that. I have, however, a theory. My theory is that news is not entertainment. It is public service. Presenting it on TV is a service to the public and to the Democratic principles, so that we can have a literate and informed electorate. This is what we used to have, or a least a more informed and literate electorate. With the change in status of news from public service to entertainment, news has become competitive in several different ways. It now is important for the news to be cheap, so it doesn't cost much to produce. Opinion, then, is cheaper than reportage. Flashy opinion draws more than considered opinion. And information needs to be competitive as well, so that there is a market for news that people want to hear, not so much for what is true or real, which people may not want to hear but which may be more important. Profit trumps truth. Hence, Fox News, "the news that people really want to hear." That's the slogan that they should adapt; not "fair and balanced." So if you want an explanation, there you have it. Fox wins because it's just plain better — but the sticking point comes with exactly how it's better. It's better because it's "the news that people really want to hear!" It's "News without Pain!" With that in mind, I feel I should leave you with the last word here, I think it's a set of thought that we may, sadly, agree upon, with the exception I would make in the jump between the next to last and the last sentences. I believe that folks have a right to make their news entertaining, but that hard news deserves to be subsidized in the interest of our democracy. quote: |
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Balladeer
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Well, Bob, I'm not sure who you wrote this reply to...certainly not me, since I am referred to in the third person. I will let whoever it is answer you, trade sarcasms or whatever. It's time to watch FOX  |
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Sunshine
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Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Oops....I fall under the newsworthy Fox mainstream. And every time I find a noteworthy moment in history, lately, Fox is mainstream. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Think of the third person as a balance for your comments which put words into the mouth of a stuffed puppet you've created with my name on it, Mike, as in: quote: It also serves as a corrective to comments such as this, quote:, especially in the context of a Democrat not only asking himself "why" but actually offering a theory to which you have twice avoided responding to. And may well try to avoid responding to in any straightforward fashion a third time as well. You find yourself unable to answer, you become huffy and blame your inability to come up with a reasonable response on me. Is this the first time this has happened, or is it a pattern? Nevertheless, it is a worthwhile question, Mike — if FOX is such a magnificent news source, why have so many of its viewers been misinformed about some of the basic truths to emerge from the experience of Iraq? There were no weapons of mass destruction. A lot of FOX viewers don't have any idea about that, and in fact will even argue the point, despite the fact that the Republican administration acknowledged it. There was no al Qaeda involvement in Iraq until we had been there for at least a few years, and even then it was a response to stuff we had done. Al Qaeda is Wahabi, and the Iraqis are mostly Shi'ia; the two sects are not happy with each other in the least. There were no mobile labs, despite the flurry of excitement about them just before we went in. Many FOX viewers don't know that, either. There are lots of things that the Republican administration was forced to acknowledge in the end that Fox viewers seem not to know about, though it was carried in the main stream American press and in even the international conservative media. Now there are some things about Fox I like very much. I think they are innovative in their series and cable material. I think programs like House and Bones are first rate, they they leave me happily glued to the TV for hours every week. It takes a lot of talent and creativity at the highest levels to come up with stuff like that. I don't want my news to be dealt with with quite that sort of creativity. I don't want my news sources to be sponsoring the news events that they are covering, and which they claim to have historical and political importance. Such as the Tea Parties. I don't want my news organizations to have their personalities appearing as speakers in the events they're covering; that's a conflict of interest. It's also very entertaining and makes for great TV and fabulous radio and get great ratings. It's understandable why FOX permits or even encourages this sort of stuff. It gives it's viewers "Exactly the News You Want To Hear!" Another new slogan I've made up for FOX news on the spot. It's not very surprising why you, Mike, would want to walk away from a reasonable discussion of some of these FOXY behaviors, and get yourself a nice big helping of hot, sweet, filling Confirmation of everything you always thought was true. It's The News You Always Wanted To Hear, Told Just The Way You Wanted To Hear It! after all. isn't it? Why bother with anything that would make you wonder? Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
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And may well try to avoid responding to in any straightforward fashion a third time as well. You find yourself unable to answer, you become huffy and blame your inability to come up with a reasonable response on me. Is this the first time this has happened, or is it a pattern? It's not very surprising why you, Mike, would want to walk away from a reasonable discussion of some of these FOXY behaviors Bob, there seems to be something you don't understand here. I am not obligated to respond to you. For that matter, you are not obligated to respond to me. No one is under that obligation here and, if you feel that name-calling is appropriate when you are not responded to, you are out of bounds. We express our opinions here...period. When I listed all of the lies Gore has been caught in, while making your "not much of a liar" list, you made no response to them. That's fine. You don't have to. I can bring up many other instances where you did not respond, either, but, once again, you are not required to. There can be a number of reasons for not responding. I may, for example, realize the futility of trying to keep beating the same dead horse, knowing it will not make any difference. At other times I may just not consider your comments worthy of a response. I have that right - as do you. You can call me a huffy, responsibility-avoiding miscreant if it makes you feel better but the fact is there are times I see no sense in the wasted effort. If you don't like it, tough tacos. I repeat what I said. I'm glad the Democrats are not smart enough to know why FOX continues as the leader in television news. I'm glad that they keep coming up with some sort of fractured reasoning to justify their low ratings. As long as they do that, FOX will continue to lead the way. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Mike, Were I to begin to respond to your Vice President Gore venom, I would be obligated to ask for sources. That would mean actual sources, not FOX sources or unconfirmed sources. That would mean chasing down this stuff piece by piece. Even if we were to do that and what I found was that Gore made a fool out of himself a couple of times, what would that prove? If you really think it would prove something, say what it is, and if I think it's a decent end result, I go for it with you, especially if you believe that it's something that that's helpful for the future of the country, and isn't pure political hogwash. If it turns into Republican versus Democrat garbage, I'm not sure of its usefulness. I'll tell you what, even if it is Republican versus Democrat stuff and you can say how it serves the country, I go with you. I don't want to block off avenues for you. I simply felt that a discussion on Gore might get a bit heated and acrimonious, and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible in the interest of being respectful as possible. As for my prior comments about Fox, I believe they are accurate, and I believe that you will need to address them at some point should you wish to bring up the topic again. It is simply a piece of reality that needs to be addressed. If a News Network claims to be a good news network, then its viewers should not prove to be grossly misinformed about information that this network has poured extensive time and money into reporting unless the network is actively misleading its news consumers. That's a point that needs to be addressed and coped with by people who call that network a reliable source of information. Whichever part of that network is responsible for spreading the misinformation really doesn't matter, does it? The network may make these distinctions to save face, as might its apologists, but its views do not. They identify themselves as FOX viewers in this case, and no matter how deftly the legal disclaimers go up about the Network not being responsible for the views being expressed on the show being broadcast, it remains unlikely that the show would remain on the network if it didn't serve as an extension of Network policy and, more importantly, didn't bring in enough bucks to make it worthwhile. In this era, news has to pull its own weight. If you want to bring up Gore, how about one at a time? Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
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If it turns into Republican versus Democrat garbage, I'm not sure of its usefulness. Thak you, Bob, for explaining one of the reasons I do not respond at times. No, I don't care to get into a point by point dissection of Gore. It's not. Most of the examples I have had the newspaper where they were printed attached to them. Gore is a liar, a charleton, a con man, and a poor excuse for a human being who uses his global warming crusade as a means of getting rich...period. He does not lead by example -actually just the opposite. He uses more electricity in his house than small towns use and then justifies it by claiming he buys carbon credits, not mentioning that he buys them from his own company....and still Democrats applaud him. None of these people lead by example. Obama and is wife went to the Olymic committee meetings, her going one day and him the next....two flights, instead of one. They couldn't arrange it where they could go one the same day? Now Obama has changed his appearance at the climate meeting to near the end of it, which means he will fly to Oslo to get his Nobel Prize, come home and then fly back oveseas to attend the summit. Two trips instead of one....but then it's only a few thousand dollars per flight and he's not paying for it...we are...and his carbon footprint really doesn't matter since he's president, I suppose. As far as FOX is concerned, they don't need for me to validate their existence or their importance....millions of viewers do that for me. I wanted to avoid that as much as possible in the interest of being respectful as possible. That is one of the more incredible statements I've seen from you, Bob. Multiple incidents of personal sarcasm and respect do not fit well together. There's little reason to continue. You take the left road and I'll take the right road and so we shall go. What I discuss in the Alley will be my opinions. You, or anyone, can agree or disagree. It really doesn't matter... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Okay, Mike, quote: I may be able to find them, I may not. And you leave to me the selection this way, when you say that they have citations attached. It appears you don't want to discuss these things on a point by point basis, anyway, at this point. quote: And yet, after saying you don't want to discuss these things on a point by point basis, here you are, repeating them again, asserting, it appears to me, the right to say anything without being held accountable for backing it up. I asked you to specify a lie that Vice President Gore has told in the other "Gorey" thread you've got going at this point. If you ask me to specify a lie told by our former President Bush, I could tell you that he said that, when asked, the United States did not engage in illegal wire taps because wire taps required warrants and we obtained them. It took him several years to say that we did not follow that policy, and that we did secure wire taps without warrants, even at the time he had made that statement. It took him a fair amount of time to acknowledge that Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with Iraq, but eventually he did that as well, despite his earlier assertions to the contrary. Those, it would seem to me are fairly direct examples of lies. Which examples do you have of lies from Vice President Gore? As for being a Charlatan, he may well be, but not knowing which charade you accuse him of playing in, I can't comment about whether I agree to the instance or the severity of it. As a confidence man, I'd need to know which confidence trick he's played on which people to tell you whether I agree with you or not. You, for example, appear to feel that Climate Change is a confidence trick in itself, which would qualify the former Vice President as a con man simply for asserting his agreement with the proposal, let alone throwing considerable support behind it. I would disagree on the basic premise. Most of the world's climate scientists would probably take my side on the issue. Most of the scientists in the employ of the oil industry and the coal and gas industries would probably take yours. During this administration, I hear folks say that the research money is on the side of the independent climate researchers because that's where the government academic research money goes. The situation was still the same during the last administration, oddly enough, when there was no financial advantage attached, however. Overall, I see little evidence that this is a con job on the basis of the scientists, though I hear and see a lot of shucking and jiving on the part of the Becks and O'Reillys and Limbaughs of this world. Their paychecks are far higher than what the scientists get. "Poor excuse for a human being" is sort of a utility insult. It really says nothing and might be applied to anybody by anybody with an animus, since it doesn't have any criteria from admission. Howdy Doody might apply it to Buffalo Bob, though — now that I think about it — Buffalo Bob would have a tough time applying it to Howdy Doody. I guess protoplasm and human genetics would probably be qualifying factors. I don't know that he uses his global warming crusade as a means of getting rich. Perhaps you've seen his books; I haven't. I'd appreciate a reference there that was to a reputable news source, so I could check that out. I'll say this much. If I felt that I had a good product, I'd try to invest in it myself. I don't know if you would. I understand that at least one of the models they teach in B-school is Use-Other-People's-Money, but I've been fond of Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, at least when it didn't come to poker or horses. I don't know what the man's carbon footprint may be. Basically, I find it hard to believe that it's all that important. Perhaps that's a throwback to my old-fashioned way of thinking, and I'm completely wrong about that. That could be. Do you have good references that give details? Beyond that, since you don't think it's an issue and could care less yourself, why does it matter to you? You don't even believe a carbon footprint's a bad idea. Near as I can tell, much of the right wing is shocked to hear the EPA thinks carbon dioxide is harmful and wants to regulate it. The notion that "Carbon Footprint" and Carbon Dioxide" might have some mysterious link has not yet come together. This is also a new piece of information, apparently, to Glenn Beck, who charmingly illustrated what carbon dioxide was by exhaling into the face of some poor studio microphone someplace. quote: I don't know about President Obama. I think he has flaws. We would not have been able to afford to follow President Bush's example. Most of us have to work. He had to work but took an incredible amount of vacations, to start off with. He took the army he was given, which he claimed was in bad shape — I didn't agree with him at the time, by the way, but that was his contention — and he refused to supply it, appropriate enough money to bring new weapons systems on line, or continue promising old weapons systems. With his new Secretary of Defense, he waged war on the armed forces and the upper command structure. His Secretary of Defense tried to Micromanage the war in Iraq, sometimes in conflict with the Joint Chiefs of staff, causing a split where there should have been only a unified command structure. By the time he left office, he left damage as far as the eye could see where he should have left new and renewed sense of mission, patriotism and hope. He took the all volunteer army and, by putting it through the same buzz-saw over and over and over and over and over and over again, did his level best to destroy it without thought that the army was an important asset filled with living breathing people. We have yet to address the damage done to that proud institution. You want to to talk about leadership by example, criticize Obama for what he does or doesn't do there. That's still a vital and open question. There's an opportunity for leadership that the man can work on, and where he can be and should be pushed, and an issue that's worth your energy. I'd be with you on that one. Travel expenses, Mike, I think your on your own. Building a more secure, more solid set of armed forces, and — for me at least — a solid safety net for people who need it, those are leadership issues. If we can't talk about FOX, how about some of those? Yours, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
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If I felt that I had a good product, I'd try to invest in it myself. So ypu confirm that Gore's global warming campaign is a product of his....I agree. That's exactly what it is. Bob, you ask the impossible. You want references from sources only you will trust, sources that are not conservative which, to you, means not trustworthy. Unfortunately, in this brave new world we live in, network and liberal news media sources do not mention things wich would be contrary to someone like a Democratic VP, and yet those are the sources you demand. I have no doubt that any sources I cite will be unacceptable to you for one reason or another. There are plenty of sources which point out Gore's lies, misconceptions, and lack of character. If you don't care to take the time to google them and demand instead that they be presented to you on a silver platter, that's up to you. If it turns into Republican versus Democrat garbage, I'm not sure of its usefulness. That's exactly what you are asking for and, no, it wouldn't be useful. It would be a waste of time, since you are not going to accept anything contrary to your way of thinking and will instead turn it into something relating to Bush, which you have done once again. Too many of these threads have turned into personal bickering between you and I and this would be no different. I'm as tired of doing it as I'm sure others are tired of reading it. Continue to insult or taunt me if you like, ot doesn't matter. I'll call Gore anything I like. That's my opinion and that's my right. I don't have to prove anything to you. There is one question that I wonder about, though. Why would Gore cancel his appearance in Copenhagen? Think about it. Not only would it be financially profitable for him, based on the dinner prices, but - think about it. What a world stage! World-wide exposure! A global warming summit! Dozens of countries getting together to push the same global warming agenda Gore pushes...and here we have the poster boy for global warming, the Nobel prize winner, the Oscar winner, canceling out. That would be like WImpy passing on free hamburgers at McDonald's. What would cause him to opt out of such an imporant event with such public exposure? Just curious..... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Dear Mike, This is not true. The Economist is a conservative magazine, and widely acknowledged as such. The Washington Post is a source which you have quoted on several occasions to good effect. It has conservatives on staff, and its bias is centrist. My impression is that it will publish whatever it considers news as long as it considers it newsworthy and it has clear information to back it up. The Christian Science Monitor has a religious bias toward telling the truth as accurately as it can. While I dislike many of the things they have to say about the arab-Israeli conflict, I still have to acknowledge that they want to tell the whole story of what's going on over there in a way that none of the other U.S. papers will. I don't like that, but it's true. What they have to say about other things is always timely and accurate. I don't have to agree with people to know they have their facts straight. The Economist is a real English magazine, which will on occasion, make it a bit chewy to read. I suspect that regular Economist readers find most U.S. magazines a bit on the bland side in turn. It's worth the effort for the solid information; for information that solid and well researched, I don't mind the conservative slant. I have suggested in the past that you add to that list, but it's an invitation that you've declined to take me up on, though you've complimented the CSM on its coverage one one occasion and use The Washington Post in your references frequently. These are not sources only I trust. Some of them, at least, you admire and on occasion use. The most conservative one is the one you don't use, though I don't know why. I've welcomed the addition of sources who are scrupulous in their fact checking and reporting from you of from anybody. I still do. On one or two occasions you've used other English papers that have seemed upsetting to me politically but who have gotten their facts straight. I can deal with having my political beliefs challenged or shown to be mistaken. The level of distortion in some of the other publications, however, isn't a matter of being something that doesn't pass my impossibly high standards. Many of your quotations and assertions pass my incredibly high standards regularly and easily. A quick check will frequently confirm the source, and the quality of the information it provides. I don't throw out a source because it's conservative. I want to know about the facts that it's presenting and where it's acquired them and what other points of view there may be if the assertion is controversial. I'll look at the sources of the sources, sometimes, and stuff like that. I want my information to be truthful and accurate, not conservative or liberal. The test is, at the end, when it's all settled and a little history has passed, which source has told me the truth and which source has given me bogus information. Or more — if a source starts out giving me bogus information perhaps because they've been burned by a bad source or two, do they correct themselves over time or do they keep giving me more false information? Acknowledging error and correcting oneself and getting back to work is a good way of doing business, I think. It's not an impossibly high standard, it's a human standard, and all that anyone can deliver, no matter what they promise. Conservative doesn't mean untrustworthy, though there are a lot of neo-cons around who have been trying to change people's minds about that. Conservatives are about trying to nurture and conserve the best of the past and to shepherd it into the future. What's to dislike about that? What's to dislike about people who hold those values? I admire values like that. I don't always agree with what Neoconservatives believe those values to be, and that's proven to be meat for a lot of interesting conversations. And I believe that those who distort the facts about what's going on haven't done their research well enough or have been misled. If you're skeptical about me, I think you're exercising due diligence. There's no way that you should take me at my word. What you should do is check it out so you can come back and tell me where I'm wrong. If you feel that my suggested list of sources has too many things on it, tell me why you want to take something off. I haven't objected to your addition of some of the English papers. If you find other Conservative sources that are as solid as The Economist, I'd love to have a look. I haven't nominated any liberal sources because, as I've said, I don't think you feel good about any of them. I will quote one of them from time to time if it seems useful, but you should feel free to questions the facts the come from it, as I feel free to question facts that come from Conservative sources the leave me feeling uneasy. By all means, add as many conservative sources as you feel have great fact checking requirements. Not just you, Mike, anybody. A common list of trusted resources is a useful thing. If there are English editions of foreign publications, it strikes me, these may provide an interesting point of view. I believe John has quoted a couple of Arabic sources from time to time, though I may be mistaken. Yours, Bob Kaven [This message has been edited by Bob K (12-09-2009 02:13 AM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The above speaks to some of my issues with FOX, by the way. Viewers of a reputable news organization would have their facts straight about facts acknowledged even by the Bush administration itself about Iraq, for example. FOX viewers in fairly large numbers do not have their facts straight on these matters in comparison to the less entertaining but more factually accurate NPR, for example. FOX viewers at this late date are apt to believe that Iraq had something to do with the 9/11/ bombings, when the Bush administration has acknowledged that Iraq did not. Fox viewers are apt to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that justified the invasion, when the Bush administration has acknowledged there were no weapons of mass destruction at that time. FOX viewer tend to believe that Al Qaeda was active in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion, when the Bush administration was forced to admit that this was not the case. Readers and viewers of other news sources were aware of these facts, and were aware of the Bush administration's acknowledgement of these facts, as was much of the rest of the world. Many Fox Viewers were not aware of these facts because Fox tended not to report them. On such things, FOX news and the rest of reality tend to part ways. It is not that I have extraordinarily high standards for reportage, or that I demand that my news be liberal in bias. I don't talk much about The Nation or Mother Jones or more clearly liberal journals. There really is a world of Liberal Journalism out there, and The New York Times is really a centrist publication. It's got conservative columnists and everything. It used to have William Saffire, before he died, for heaven's sake, and William Novak, also recently deceased, whose name I may have just misspelled, the so-called "Prince of Darkness." Who are the Liberals on The Washington Times or The Wall Street Journal? Hannity has even gotten rid of Coombs: No Liberal replacements there. The same large networks and papers that you'd find reason to be upset about for being too liberal, you might be surprised to know, are networks and papers that the Liberals tend to think of as too timidly conservative. Don't take my word for it; do a little looking around the Liberal press and see what they say about these large news outlets that upset you so much. They're as steamed as you are. I think you probably don't believe it because you don't read what the other folks are saying. But it's true. |
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Balladeer
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Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
Oh, yes, Bob, The Economist is really solid and impartial. Mr. Gore is the ideal candidate for the Democratic stalwarts who turn out to vote in the primaries. He came out strongly against invading Iraq. He has spent the past six years warning the world about global warming. And he was robbed of victory in 2000 by the man whom the Democrats loathe above all others. What better way of wiping out the Bush era than replacing him with the man who should have been president? http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/26/184924/315 Can't get much more impartial than that, right? Actually, there were a couple of articles from them I would have liked to have read but call it the miser in me. I'm not going to take out a subscription to do it. How about the Wall Street Journal? Al Gore's Doomsday Clock Al Gore gave a speech last week "challenging" America to run "on 100% zero-carbon electricity in 10 years" -- though that's just the first step on his road to "ending our reliance on carbon-based fuels." Serious people understand this is absurd. Maybe other people will start drawing the same conclusion about the man proposing it. The former vice president has also recently disavowed any intention of returning to politics. This is wise. As America's leading peddler of both doom and salvation, Mr. Gore has moved beyond the constraints and obligations of reality. His job is to serve as a Prophet of Truth. [Al Gore's Doomsday Clock] Ken Fallin In Mr. Gore's prophecy, a transition to carbon-free electricity generation in a decade is "achievable, affordable and transformative." He believes that the goal can be achieved almost entirely through the use of "renewables" alone, meaning solar, geothermal, wind power and biofuels. And he doesn't think we really have any other good options: "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," he says, with his usual gift for understatement. "And even more -- if more should be required -- the future of human civilization is at stake." What manner the catastrophe might take isn't yet clear, but the scenarios are grim: The climate crisis is getting worse faster than anticipated; global warming will cause refugee crises and destabilize entire nations; an "energy tsunami" is headed our way. And so on. Here, however, is an inconvenient fact. In 1995, the U.S. got about 2.2% of its net electricity generation from "renewable" sources, according to the Energy Information Administration. By 2000, the last full year of the Clinton administration, that percentage had dropped to 2.1%. By contrast, the combined share of coal, petroleum and natural gas rose to 70% from 68% during the same time frame. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121668313890771925.html?mod=todays_columnists Don't Believe the Hype Al Gore is wrong. There's no "consensus" on global warming. According to Al Gore's new film "An Inconvenient Truth," we're in for "a planetary emergency": melting ice sheets, huge increases in sea levels, more and stronger hurricanes, and invasions of tropical disease, among other cataclysms--unless we change the way we live now. Bill Clinton has become the latest evangelist for Mr. Gore's gospel, proclaiming that current weather events show that he and Mr. Gore were right about global warming, and we are all suffering the consequences of President Bush's obtuseness on the matter. And why not? Mr. Gore assures us that "the debate in the scientific community is over." That statement, which Mr. Gore made in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, ought to have been followed by an asterisk. What exactly is this debate that Mr. Gore is referring to? Is there really a scientific community that is debating all these issues and then somehow agreeing in unison? Far from such a thing being over, it has never been clear to me what this "debate" actually is in the first place. The media rarely help, of course. When Newsweek featured global warming in a 1988 issue, it was claimed that all scientists agreed. Periodically thereafter it was revealed that although there had been lingering doubts beforehand, now all scientists did indeed agree. Even Mr. Gore qualified his statement on ABC only a few minutes after he made it, clarifying things in an important way. When Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted Mr. Gore with the fact that the best estimates of rising sea levels are far less dire than he suggests in his movie, Mr. Gore defended his claims by noting that scientists "don't have any models that give them a high level of confidence" one way or the other and went on to claim--in his defense--that scientists "don't know. . . . They just don't know." The Washington Post?? Let's see... LET US BE HONEST about the intellectual culture of America in general: It has become almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion about anything. Everything is a war now. This is the age of lethal verbal combat, where even scientific issues involving measurements and molecules are somehow supernaturally polarizing. The controversy about global warming resides all too perfectly at the collision point of environmentalism and free market capitalism. It's bound to be not only politicized but twisted, mangled and beaten senseless in the process. The divisive nature of global warming isn't helped by the fact that the most powerful global-warming skeptic (at least by reputation) is President Bush, and the loudest warnings come from Al Gore. Human beings may be large of brain, but they are social animals, too, like wolves, and are prone to behave in packs. So when something like climate change comes up, the first thing people want to know is, whose side are you on? All those climatic variables and uncertainties and probabilities and "forcings" and "feedback loops," those cans of worms that Bill Gray talks about, get boiled down to their essence. Are you with us or against us? Somehow Hitler keeps popping into the discussion. Gore draws a parallel between fighting global warming and fighting the Nazis. Novelist Michael Crichton, in State of Fear , ends with an appendix comparing the theory of global warming to the theory of eugenics -- the belief, prominently promoted by Nazis, that the gene pool of the human species was degenerating due to higher reproductive rates of "inferior" people. Both, he contends, are examples of junk science, supported by intellectual elites who will later conveniently forget they signed on to such craziness. And Gray has no governor on his rhetoric. At one point during our meeting in Colorado he blurts out, "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews." When I opine that he is incendiary, he answers: "Yes, I am incendiary. But the other side is just as incendiary. The etiquette of science has long ago been thrown out the window." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html Christian Science Monitor, anyone? Al Gore's inconvenient tax What you probably won't hear at the Live Earth concert: a call for higher taxes on gasoline and fuel. The former vice president (and almost president) wants to replace the current payroll tax with a consumer tax on fossil-fuel use. This "carbon tax" would, of course, raise the price of gasoline and home heating/cooling. And it would put the burden of generating the same level of federal revenues on consumers while reducing the tax burden on labor and capital (workers and employers). Unless the poor get a break on this consumption tax, it will hit them harder than wealthier folks. No wonder then that Mr. Gore waited until March to really push this extreme makeover of the US tax system aimed at achieving a rapid reduction in oil and coal use with a fee on greenhouse-gas emissions. No wonder that no presidential candidate endorses it, especially with gas prices hovering around $3 a gallon. (Polls show that two-thirds of Americans don't want to pay more at the pump, just as they don't prefer more slowly.) And no wonder a carbon tax is not even suggested in the seven-point pledge that everyone who watches the Live Earth broadcast will be asked to sign. If Gore does run again for president, as some hope, his taxing idea will likely become the hottest topic on the stump. (Hillary Clinton says a gas tax is "hardly politically palatable at this moment.") And, by the way, with your demands that I produce references to back up my facts, I refer you to your own comment: If you're skeptical about me, I think you're exercising due diligence. There's no way that you should take me at my word. What you should do is check it out so you can come back and tell me where I'm wrong. |
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Balladeer
Administrator
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
FOX viewers in fairly large numbers do not have their facts straight ...... FOX viewers at this late date are apt to believe that Iraq had something to do with the 9/11/ bombings, FOX viewers are apt to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq Bob, I find it interesting that you know what FOX viewers think and believe. Are you omnipotent in that way, that you know the thoughts and beliefs of millions of people? That's quite a gift you have there. Perhaps that's because you state what you believe to be as facts, not opinions, like.... I think you probably don't believe it because you don't read what the other folks are saying. You have no idea what I read and have no way of knowing...yet that doesn't stop you from presenting it as fact. Believe me, you do not want to get into the WMD's in Iraq. I must suppose that since Bill, Hillary, Kennedy, Boxer, Pelosi and the rest of the democrats at the time in the senate all confirmed (yes, confirmed) that they KNEW Iraq had WMD's, and that that mantra was carried by networks news, they must have all been FOX viewers, according to you. No wonder FOX has such a large audience!! Keep making assumptions and excuses. It will keep FOX on top for a long time... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Mike, http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2008/09/does-ideology-trump-facts-studies-say-it-often-does.ars |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Mike, Here’s an excerpt from Sourcewatch. You can check their footnotes, if you have trouble believing the facts laid out. I haven’t distorted anything. The fact that The Economist said something about Gore doesn’t mean it isn’t a Conservative magazine. It means that it said something about Gore. The fact that I say something decent about the First President Bush doesn’t make me a conservative, either, in case you hadn’t thought to take your line of thinking any further. The fact that President Clinton thinks well of him doesn’t make President Bush a conservative, either, or President Bush the first a Democrat. That line of thinking doesn’t work unless you are willing to do a lot of overlooking about what you know to be true. You can get some of The Economist stuff on-line and sometimes in the library. It is expensive at the news stand. The fact that you could find stuff from the CSM and from the The Washington Post that support your point of view is exactly the idea. I’m not trying to crowd you out of being able to say anything with authority, or to set the sights too high. I like what you’ve done with bringing in some of the fairly objective English magazines, and I’d welcome more. I’m interested in a discussion built around facts and as much reality as we can muster between the two of us and whoever else is willing to join in. My problem with FOX is not that it’s right wing or that it disagrees with me; the sources that we’ve been talking about disagree with me often enough, and many others do as well. My problem with FOX is that they’re willing to lie and distort the facts, and that’s something that the other souirces don’t seem to be willing to do. To me that makes a big difference. There’s enough problem dealing with differing points of view without having to deal with news organizations that toss in lies because they fit with editorial policy. For more detail on that comment in particular, have a look at the section in the excerpt below that begins “In 1998, a Fox station in Tampa, Florida fired investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson . . . .” "A year-long study by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)[9] reported that Americans who relied on the Fox News Channel for their coverage of the Iraq war were the most likely to believe misinformation about the war, whatever their political affiliation may be. Those mistaken facts, the study found, increased viewers' support for the war. The study found that, in general, people who watched Fox News were, more than for other sources, convinced of several untrue propositions which were actively promoted by the Bush administration and the cheerleading media led by Fox, in rallying support for the invasion of Iraq: (percentages are of all poll respondents, not just Fox watchers) Fifty-seven percent believed the falsity that Iraq gave substantial support to Al-Qaida, or was directly involved in the September 11 attacks (48% after invasion). Sixty-nine percent believed the falsity that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks. Twenty-two percent believed the falsity that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. (Twenty-one percent believed that chem/bio weapons had actually been used against U.S. soldiers in Iraq during 2003) In the composite analysis of the PIPA study, 80 percent of Fox News watchers had one of more of these misperceptions, in contrast to 71 percent for CBS and 27 percent who tuned to NPR/PBS. As the Washington Post reported[10], "The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were 'the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions.' Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three." As AlterNet reported, "For each of the three misperceptions, the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far. Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least one misperception, compared to 23 percent of NPR/PBS consumers. All the other media fell in between."[11] The Project for Excellence in Journalism's "State of the News Media 2005" concluded that Fox was "the most one-sided of all major news outlets." On Iraq, 25 percent of 2,000 stories analyzed were negative and 20 percent were positive. "Fox News Channel was twice as likely to be positive than negative, while CNN and MSNBC were evenhanded." Also, "with the exception of Republicans who prefer Fox News," Americans don't seek out news sources that reinforce their beliefs.[12] In 1998, a Fox station in Tampa, Florida fired investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson over a dispute involving their reporting on the Monsanto company's marketing of genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone.[13] Fox, however, has a thin skin when it come to criticism of its conservative news content: In October 2003 the creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening, revealed that Fox News had threatened to sue Fox Entertainment - which makes the show - over the satirical use of rolling ticker lines on the screen. "Pointless news crawls up 37 per cent... Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com... Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer... Dow down 5,000 points... Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple...," read the ticker on the program that sparked the threat. "Fox said they would sue the show and we called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. We got away with it.... But now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls [tickers] on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news," Groening told National Public Radio. Fox denied that it threatened legal action. [14] Fox has threatened legal action against the Faux News Channel, which sells a parody T-shirt that carries the logo, "Faux News: We Distort, You Comply." Fox's "fair and balanced" motto is parodied in satirist Al Franken's book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Fox responded with a lawsuit that claimed that his use of the phrase "fair and balanced" infringed upon the company's trademark, and that photos of Bill O'Reilly should not be used on the cover. [15] U.S. District Judge Denny Chin dismissed the Fox claim: There are hard cases and there are easy cases. This is an easy case in my view and wholly without merit, both factually and legally.... Parody is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment and the keystone of parody is imitation.... It is ironic that a media company, which should be seeking to protect the First Amendment, is seeking to undermine it by claiming a monopoly on the phrase "Fair and Balanced." [16] Trumpeting "the capture as ex post validation of the coalition's invasion. Since Sunday December 14, 2003, FNC has been almost one continuous Saddamathon with the now-famous footage of the latex-gloved frisker searching Saddam triumphantly showing on the channel almost every hour on the hour." [17] Wikipedia edits On August 16, 2007 the blog network web site http://wired.blog.com, on a page titled Most Shameful Wikipedia Spin Jobs, carried an item titled Fox removes smoking warning. Someone monitoring Wikipedia scanner, a tool that records the IP addresses of people performing Wikipedia edits, had found that someone at the Fox Channel had removed a warning on the dangers of smoking by Keith Olbermann and altered the context of the article "to make Olbermann appear as an opportunistic and crass."[18][19] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Fox_News Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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Balladeer
Administrator
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since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA |
You may not agree with all of the criticisms, and if you think something that appears here is unfair, you can fix it! The site is a Wiki, meaning that anyone, including you, can edit any article right now by clicking on the edit this page link that appears in every article in SourceWatch. Seems to me I recall being chastized for taking Wikipedia information at face value. This site is no different. My problem with FOX is that they’re willing to lie and distort the facts, and that’s something that the other souirces don’t seem to be willing to do. No, the other sources simply don't report the news, if sheds a bad liberal light. As far as the lying, I'll check with Dan Rather and get back to you.... |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Mike, quote: You were criticized by Ron. You were not criticized by me. I said that Wikipedia was fine with me, and that these things happened. They do. The quote, as I recall, stuck out as being out of context, and so it proved to be. The point is to look at the text, then check the articles in the footnotes to see if these things are backed up. In this case they are. You apparently didn't do that, or else you'd know. If you believe any of the falsehoods that the study checked out about Gulf War Two, then it's likely you caught the misinformation from FOX. The study doesn't say you can't get misinformation other places. I repeat, the study doesn't say you can't get misinformation other places. It is simply much much easier about some important topics to pick your misinformation up from FOX. I'm sorry about that, I am. quote: "No, the other sources simply don't report the news, if it sheds a bad liberal light." Well, Mike, I already addressed that. I mentioned that many other news organizations did in fact support a rush to war during Gulf War II, hardly a great Liberal thing to do, and reported story after story of weapons of mass destruction and various other causus belli. The New York Times was certainly at the forefront of this, but other major papers and news organizations were right there as well. When the nature of the facts changed, and the reporters became aware of this, however, their reports changed to reflect the new information coming in. I discussed this a bit above, now, didn't I? Most of the other news sources were loyal to reporting what the actual facts said. "The New York Times," it must be said, continued for a while to report the conservative side of things more fully than many of the other sources, possibly because they had a commitment to being balanced, possibly because they had a high proportion of conservative staff members, and possibly because they'd been taken in by Mohammed Chalabi. This is hardly "don't report the news, if it sheds a bad liberal light." It's quite the opposite. It was a rush to conflict, for the most part. The only people who didn't report the news if it sheds a bad — in this case Conservative light — were at FOX. They in fact mislead their faithful viewers. As far as Dan Rather goes, please do check with him, especially material from some non FOX sources over the time since he was fired and do get back to me, please. I'd like to hear what you have to say. Sincerely, Bob Kaven |
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