Wake up Frank. They’re all biased. Every last one of them. But it’s worse than that. Just ask yourself how long Cheney and his gang could have gotten away with the official story of 9/11 if another version of Woodward and Bernstein still worked at the Washington Post and had someone like Ben Bradlee to back them up? The reason they did 9/11 was because they knew that no one, NOT ONE JOURNALIST OR TALKING HEAD would question what they told them. And they never have, not to this day. And if that’s too controversial for you, consider the story of the anthrax letters. You have a situation where envelopes with anthrax in them are sent to (a) Democrat senators who had expressed doubt about voting for the Patriot Act and (b) various news outlets considered not quite fascist enough to pass muster. The media not only tells every lie they’re fed, they do no analysis whatsoever. They tell everyone the anthrax comes from Iraq. They say it has bentonite in it which proves it comes from Iraq. Did one news outlet question this? No. Turns out the anthrax didn’t (surprise, surprise) come from Iraq but came from a US military lab. Meanwhile back at the white house Cheney and other useless, treacherous clowns are munching on Cipro,the approved drug to protect yourself from anthrax. Cheney started munching on it the evening of 9/11. Does this fact get a run in the papers or on TV? Of course not.

Francis Boyle suggests in his book, Bio warfare and Terrorism, that if the FBI had pursued a proper investigation the evidence would have ‘led directly back to a secret but officially sponsored U.S. government bio warfare program that was illegal and criminal, in violation of (the) biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.’ But why would the FBI pursue a proper investigation when the media were behaving like lapdogs and spewing out propaganda at every opportunity? There was no pressure on the FBI to do a proper investigation and they didn’t. It’s not good enough to say ‘Just change the channel’. And what use is changing the channel when they’re all lying and manufacturing propaganda for the Republicans? How do you like your lies, well done or medium? The media has dug its own grave. I read an article just yesterday where a writer was complaining that the thriller he had just published was a real headache to write because every time he used the name of a newspaper in the story, he found out the next day that it had just closed. This happened six times. They’re dying like flies. Why? Because they have no credibility any more. Fox News went on saying up to 2007 that the anthrax came from the Middle East, long after everyone else had faced the fact that it came from a US military lab. The man the FBI finally pinned it on, Bruce Ivins, was the man who led the team that tested the anthrax from the envelopes and didn’t come up with the answers they wanted. He was also a registered Democrat and would never have sent anthrax to Democrat senators but what does it matter? He’s dead (died of a bad case of suicide they say) and dead men tell no tales and even if he had told his tale, which mainstream media outlet would have interviewed him and let him tell the truth? None that I know of.

you are an ignorant fool as YOUR name suggests.

Careful, HR.  That might just be his kinda thing.

I’m inclined to agree with you Patrick Henry, but not so much because it is ‘offense’ to THINKING people, but rather because of the damage done to people that don’t really think so much. (or at all).

Some will say that I’m exaggerating when I say that they are equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theater, but I don’t think so. I can’t think of a whole lot worse than a totally misinformed populace, who actually believes this stuff, and is likely to act on it, in ways that affect the rest of us.

And, for anybody who still thinks that I’m being dramatic, consider the effects (if you can) of say a person with dementia, (Alzheimer’s) who has been relatively ‘normal’ for the better part of their lives, and they start going wacky, and coming up with things that are totally wrong, false, have no reality to them, but are NOT immediately recognizeable as such, because they’ve been normal for most of their lives, and not inclined to telling falsehoods.

I’m telling ya, it can cause more problems than we might ever be able to imagine, until it happens.

So, if seemingly reasonable people actually BELIEVE this stuff, for instance…John McCain actually believes the story of the mythical NAFTA “Superhighway” and so do many others, this could be very problematic. It’s already proven to be.

So, while it’s offensive on it’s own, to people who know better. It’s even WORSE for those who don’t. (and we might be surprised at how many don’t.)

bru…

I’m not even ENTERTAINED.Not by sitcoms, reality Tv, the soundbites, the catch phrases, or the cars or the viagra.

Well, I take that back about the Viagra. I do enjoy the ‘disclaimer’ that comes with the commercial, and I giggle everytime I think of my partner’s first response to it..He said, “Shit! All of THIS stuff that ‘might’ happen? Damn, I just wanna have a little fun, I don’t wanna DIE!”

Now THAT tickled me. Otherwise…nothing else on Fox is entertaining or informative.

These days pundits do not have to be right or accurate: their views and actions just have to have punch and/or strike the right vein in the majority of viewers, whether you agree with them or not.  It’s all about the attention. In that way they should remind us of the latest rich, shrill, doped-up, underwear-forgetting blonde, whomever that may be.  And they deserve no better regard.

I agree that FOX is, at best, “Infotainment.” But let’s face it - so are all other commercial news media, though arguably to a lesser degree.

Since the 1930s when the FCC decided that television would follow in commercial radio’s path, we have what is essentially a news media whose prime concern is selling toothpaste and laxatives, not informing (much less educating) its viewers.

For broadcast journalism, just like sitcoms and reality TV shows, it’s all about market share, viewer demographics, and time slots. Advertisers don’t want viewers to sit through the give-and-take complexiities of politics, to sit through the often long and nuanced dialog between politicians. They want sound bites, catch phrases, and simplistic (if inaccurate) explanations. This approach gets our attention, plays well, works our emotions and in the end, entertains us. This is why FOX News succeeds in ratings and fails miserably as a news source.

Has not the most often repeated complaint about public television news been that it’s boring? Most news IS boring but boring doesn’t sell cars or Viagra.

Until we find a way to separate commercial broadcasting from news casting, most of us will remain uninformed, ignorant, but entertained.

re: Frank, January 11 at 3:34 pm

At some point FOX should have to register as a lobby.  They are misleading with the misnomer “fair and balanced” as they imply.

Infomercials and Infotainment.  Hardly objective reporting. 

As long as News corp broadcast over public airwaves, equal airtime for counter point should be required.

Any thing else erodes the 1st Amendment to right of corporate propaganda.

Even Conservative Media Chorus Sings Obama’s Praises

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010702939.html

Sounds like heavyrunner and Patrick Henry are not so big on freedom of the press or the First Amendment when those exercising the rights don’t agree with them politically.  Fox and O’Reilly are free to be as biased as they want, just as Truthdig is.  If you don’t like their bias, don’t watch them. Personally, I prefer CNN, and almost never watch Fox, but I don’t complain about Fox being biased, because that is their prerogative under the first Amendment.

What I have learned from non-Fox sources, and which some of you seem to be unaware of, is that O’Reilly has had mostly positive things to say about Obama, as have many other conservative pundits. Many conservatives like the fact that he is a black candidate not shamelessly playing up the race card in his campaign, as Jackson and Sharpton did, and because Obama frequently and rather eloquently expresses a seemingly sincere desire to leave partisanship aside and work with Republicans to move the nation forward on common goals.  And of course, they like him because he is not Hillary, who is one of the most hated political figures among republicans.  Many independants and even republicans who would never consider voting for Hillary under any circumstances, would consider voting for Obama over a less-favored Republican, and not because his voting record or overall politics is remarkably different from HIllary’s. It is entirely a matter of personality, charisma, optimism, and simple newness that Hillary can’t match.

The final race I would most like to see resulting from the remaining field of Candidates is Obama vs McCain, because though their politics are very different, I would find no cause for despair from the election of either man.

The Secret Service should have tasered O’Reily and taking him to jail for depersonalization treatment of the sort O’Reily constantly promotes (at least the reports I read seem to indicate that is the sort of crap you would be exposed to if you watched him on TV).

I think “We the People” should start a 50 state petition to revoke FOX’s broadcast licenses from the various markets.

The spin, misreporting and misleading propaganda put out by FOX anchors, journalists and reporters are as offensive to many thinking Americans as the offhand comments by Don Imus were to the Rutgers volleyball team.

That is all.

Sure we should care. Fax has enough followers, and enough “operatives” if you will, to make it somewhat influential.

Just the other day a caller to C-SPAN repeated the “Obama is a muslim” smear; fortunately the host corrected the caller. This is just one example of the lies that are being created and spread against Democrats from people inside the GOP.

Fox News’ GOP leanings are well documented. Fox News’ lies are well documented. O’Reilly’s lies are well documented.

Yet much of the public—enough to influence elections and, believe it or not, state and local legislation—are true-blue (or “true-red”) Fox believers.

Fox must be watched. Fox must be challenged. Fox must be boycotted by democrats.

Should we care? Fox watchers are so out of touch with reality that they would never vote for a progressive anyway. If you watch O’Reilly you are just as neocon as he is and can only see that view.

O’Reilly was just poking around trying to get some tidbit of negative spin on Obama.  When he could not get it he decided to get physical to try to crate a commotion. 

What a sad excuse for a human.  Anyone who really follows O’Rielly is as gullible as they come. He has about as much talent as a journalist as I do a professional singer (not)

But in American, land of the free, home of the brave and the world’s largest sheep population he has a huge following who really truly believe he is reporting “news”

He has more hate than the “liberal hate mongers” he chides daily. 

I sincerely hope Obama does not lend O’Reilley any legitimacy by acknowledging him.

Sincerely,

Proud to be an American, but lately embarrassed.