NationStates Jolt Archive

Dan Rather did that quite nicely with those false memos.
the memos themselves may have been false but their message was real. Dan Rather was heroic to try to give the media some balance--he paid for this act of courage with his job

You guys (liberals) got used to having every TV news network on your side... ya just can't handle it that conservatives finally have a voice on TV. lol

Maybe Fox IS balanced... coming from the standpoint that every other station is friendly to the left.
no matter how many times you repeat the myth of the "liberal media" it still doesnt make it true

Untrue. You've seen what happens when news outlets make up news (ie. Dan Rather). When it happens, everyone jumps on it and its huge. Show me something they made up.

No....no. They are either equally as partisan or moreso, because while pushing ordinary national agendas, they also most often peddle international anti-Americanism, even where none is due.

Why is everyone here competing about who's news media is better. "My news media is better than your news media!" Sad.

For anyone interested: A Measure of Media Bias (http://mason.gmu.edu/~atabarro/MediaBias.doc).
for instance--Foxnews reporters are told by Murdoch who to attack that day and what the talking points of the day are-they also create false hype new stories such as how theres supposedly some kind of conspiracy against Christmas by secularists (citing some rare case that isnt the norm) just in order to push their worldview that we should be living in a theocracy

Okay, I was watching FOX news today (yes, I know, bad liberal!) anyway they were reporting (still) on the now famous question posed to Donald Rumsfeld. What FOX reported was the question, the answer and a little side fact. The unit of the specialist that asked the question had 280 armored Humvees in their unit. 200 were armored, 20 were being refitted. Now, that was the specialist's unit, in Kuwait. What about every other Unit thats actually in Iraq? What is the state of their Humvees? Do they all have that much armor? Well, apparently not but the fact that some units do is apparently good enough.

After that, FOX went on to the report about Donald Rumsfeld using the stamping machine to sign the condolence letters. FOX decided to report that the families that complained were anti-Bush from the beginning. Like that makes a difference! Instead of trying to remedy the situation, FOX just decides to try and demonize the people that complain about Bush. Why should it matter if the people that criticised Rumsfeld supported Bush or not - thats not the issue.

Way to go FOX. Propoganda and distortion of the truth at its finest.

Okay, like other news media isn't guilty of this in one way or another. Talk about a bias slant to your thinking...and of course this would be bad if it were a right bias but it's a-okay if its a left bias.

Because the Hollywood left has bashed most of those on the Hollywood right. Of course they'll say that because that is actually true.
now your just exposing your own bias

I guess then that you feel that CBS was unbiased when it went with, and stuck to, their faked story on Bush with its fake memo that no experts would back up. And not until it looked really, really bad did Dan Rather finally sort of back off the story.

If that isn't lying (which is far more than truth-wrestling), then I don't know what is.
CBS is more honest then FOx cause they eventually came clean--Fox would never admit to any of their numerous lies--theyre strategy when they get caught is to muddy the waters

Okay, like other news media isn't guilty of this in one way or another. Talk about a bias slant to your thinking...and of course this would be bad if it were a right bias but it's a-okay if its a left bias.
no other media in existence does it to the extreme extent that Foxnews does--FOxnews creates news it doesnt just report it. Foxnews is beyond bias its blatant propaganda

Erm, what? You posted one, unsubstantiated argument and when I ask you to support it you're suddenly extremely tired of having to explain it? Man, you must have the lowest patience threshold of anyone alive.



So, I ask for support. What I get is exactly the same argument restated, (though spread across 4 paragraphs instead of just one this time) supported by, erm, the fact that I'm a biased liberal. Well bravo, sir, you have truly convinced me.

A few points:

1) You don't actually have a clue what my political viewpoint is, so please, don't assume. If you "assume" you make an "ass" out of "u" and... well, it's just you, actually.

2) I would happily admit that CNN, CBS and ABC are biased (I'm not familiar with the rest) to virtually the same degree as FOX. So even though I am an evil, blikered liberal I can still evidently just about perceive bias.

3) I do not deny that the BBC, like all news groups, has a certain bias. It would probably be considered "liberal" by American standards (along with the rest of the developed word), that is true. I deny, however, that it is biased towards one particular political viewpoint to the same degree as FOX, or any other American broadcaster, which is what you were alleging.

4) If you post tangible evidence I will listen to it and appraise it on its own merits. As you've seen I'm not blind to liberal bias. I await with baited breath your response.

Oh, and one question: how often do you watch the BBC news?



Okay, you want proof? Take a look at the following web address, which is from a recurring show...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/tv/factsheets/bush.shtml

Here are my issues:

1. The link to the website http://www.democrats.com/. Contained on the front page of said website is a graphic saying that Bush cheated in the 2004 election, which is an unfounded claim. Moreover, they list the website before they list the RNC website. Not exactly fair, huh?

2. The link to the website http://www.thesmokinggun.com/. Their reason for including the site? "Find out about the Bush kids' misdemeanours." Yeah, like it's any of our business what their daughters have done. They used them simply to defame the president.

3. The link to the website http://www.tpj.org/index.html. Contained on the website is, and I quote:

"Bush Campaign Adds New Elite Fundraisers
Sep 22, 2004 - As of September 21, 2004, the Bush Campaign has released the names of 548 elite contributors who have delivered a minimum of $100,000 to the President's 2004 re-election effort. Texans for Public Justice has identified and profiled many of these Rangers and Pioneers. Explore the identities and interests behind the new Bush Rangers and Pioneers."

So much for TPJ being a non-partisan organization, huh?

4. "The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites."

Yeah, right. If the information is contained in this "fact sheet", then by every right they should be held accountable for what is said.

5. On the same website, I searched for Clinton. On the main page of one of the hits there was nothing negative about him, despite his numerous scandals and perjury problems. Instead, they said,

"BBC News Online looks back at the milestones of Bill Clinton's extraordinary eight-year presidency."

Also, they tout him as the "president with the personal touch".

Yeah, okay. Why not anything bad about him? Why is Bush attacked while Clinton is the poster child for good behavior?

In defense of the BBC, around half of those links are neutral; they don't blatantly say anything bad about him. However, why was it necessary to include the link to his brother Jeb's Florida website? The world may never know.

What is known is that there are thousands of other pages put out by BBC. Yes, some will back Bush, and some will attack him. However, it is the manner of which the information is presented that I, along with my fellow conservatives, have issue with.

Whether it is to the degree that Fox News does it is up to interpretation. The degree of bias is not directly dependent on hard truths, but rather it is relative. So to you Fox is more biased. And to me ABC, CBS, and BBC (along with the rest of them) are more biased.

That being said, I must apologize for not giving you the necessary proof in my previous post. I've been arguing this point for quite some time, and it seems like I've gave instances thousands of times. I'm sorry that I automatically assumed that I had gave you what I consider proof to back up my assertation; it was my biggest fault with the post.

As far as making an "ass" out of "u" by assumption, wake up and smell the roses. Every person you meet you automatically make assumptions about. It's human nature. No matter how hard we try, we always end up assuming something about somebody else.

For example, imagine yourself walking up to a smelly homeless person. Are you gonna go and shake his hand? No. Why not? Well, chances are you think he's dirty or diseased. That, my friend, is an unfounded claim, also known as an assumption. Probably a correct one, but nonetheless an assumption.

The whole "ass" and "u" phrase is complete hogwash created by some guy that has no real understanding of human nature.

And by the way, I've tried watching the BBC on several occasions. All I found on it was liberal rhetoric and "British comedy"; both of which don't impress me much.

Here are my issues:


While I must admit I dispair over your response, I think that much of its content is because of a few small oversights. Thus I feel the need to point out a few minor details concerning your post. Since you were kind enough to number your points for us, lets simply do the numbers first shall we?

"1. The link to the website http://www.democrats.com/. Contained on the front page of said website is a graphic saying that Bush cheated in the 2004 election, which is an unfounded claim. Moreover, they list the website before they list the RNC website. Not exactly fair, huh?"

Your argument here leads to the conclusion that the BBC would be irresponsible for placing the ideas and opinion of the Bush's family's opposition within the US in a show covering the Bush family. Leaving out the opinions of a major US political party because they disagree or dislike someone is a little silly.

You yourself say this when commenting on a different show's handling of Bill Clinton (I'm hoping you understand that the site you are looking at is called "the third degree" and represents investigative journalism in the BBC, and the site you saw for Clinton was not)

Example; the BBC covers the life Saddam Hussain, they then do not display any information about what an ass the man is nor do they show any opinion of him that could be viewed as negative. Do you really want this style of reporting in a show called the Third degree?

Moreover, listing the RNC over the DNC would also seem odd, since its out of alphebetical order. This is not to say that the site itself is listing those Urls in alphabetical order, but are you so dismayed about the placement of one website over another that you claim its BBC bias? I think you give them too much credit for subtlety; this smacks of paranoia.

"2. The link to the website http://www.thesmokinggun.com/. Their reason for including the site? "Find out about the Bush kids' misdemeanours." Yeah, like it's any of our business what their daughters have done. They used them simply to defame the president."

This relates strongly to my first post; the TV show and the website are covering the Bush FAMILY; note the picture of George Bush Sr holding his Son George W Bush at the top. Also note the sentance: "Want to know more about the Bush Family and US politics?"

The Bush FAMILY has not always been free of legal trouble. Please do not assume that the ONLY member of the Bush family is George W Bush.

"3. The link to the website http://www.tpj.org/index.html. Contained on the website is, and I quote:

"Bush Campaign Adds New Elite Fundraisers
Sep 22, 2004 - As of September 21, 2004, the Bush Campaign has released the names of 548 elite contributors who have delivered a minimum of $100,000 to the President's 2004 re-election effort. Texans for Public Justice has identified and profiled many of these Rangers and Pioneers. Explore the identities and interests behind the new Bush Rangers and Pioneers."
So much for TPJ being a non-partisan organization, huh?"

Texans for Public Justice did the following:
1) Identified the names of the 548 contributors to the Bush 2004 election campagin.
2) Profiled the interests of these people.

Your argument thus follows that discovering the motives of those who vote is partisan. Information itself is partisan. Knowing why someone gave money to you is partisan. I'm not sure I follow your arugment; why is knowing information partisan? Why is tracking what interest groups back which canidate partisan? Would you not like to know who favors who in office?

Hypothetically; if I told you that the NRA gave 200 million dollars to the Democratic canidate, would you not be interested in that information? Would you consider it partisan of me to tell you that someone didn't furnish money to a campaign in 2004?

"4. "The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites."

Yeah, right. If the information is contained in this "fact sheet", then by every right they should be held accountable for what is said."

Actually that's not true. Strange as it may seem, if I link to your website saying "See what this person has to say" I am not responsible for you or your actions on that website. You might find that hard to believe, but the owner of the website is responsible to the content on their site, not those who link to it.

Example; if Nation States had a Neo-Nazi member post a link to a Neo-Nazi site, would Nationstates be held accountable for what is said on that website? Try a more direct comparison: If the BBC was doing a story on Neo-Nazi's; would they be accountable in your eyes for what the Neo-Nazi's said on their website?

I must admit I expect you to say "no"

Anyway, moving on to less numarical postings;

"In defense of the BBC, around half of those links are neutral; they don't blatantly say anything bad about him. However, why was it necessary to include the link to his brother Jeb's Florida website? The world may never know."

Actually, as stated before, much of the world does know. The Bush FAMILY's page on the BBC would naturally include information on Jeb Bush's current office. He is a Bush family member, last I checked, and he has managed to be in the news more than a few times in his life. If they didn't mention him I would be shocked.

I hope that clears up any misunderstandings.

Way to go FOX. Propoganda and distortion of the truth at its finest.

Free country. Don't watch it if you don't like it. Or would you prefer to have government "truth squads" edit all news? What completely unbiased news sources do you rely on?

Okay, I was watching FOX news today (yes, I know, bad liberal!) anyway they were reporting (still) on the now famous question posed to Donald Rumsfeld. What FOX reported was the question, the answer and a little side fact. The unit of the specialist that asked the question had 280 armored Humvees in their unit. 200 were armored, 20 were being refitted. Now, that was the specialist's unit, in Kuwait. What about every other Unit thats actually in Iraq? What is the state of their Humvees? Do they all have that much armor? Well, apparently not but the fact that some units do is apparently good enough.

After that, FOX went on to the report about Donald Rumsfeld using the stamping machine to sign the condolence letters. FOX decided to report that the families that complained were anti-Bush from the beginning. Like that makes a difference! Instead of trying to remedy the situation, FOX just decides to try and demonize the people that complain about Bush. Why should it matter if the people that criticised Rumsfeld supported Bush or not - thats not the issue.

Way to go FOX. Propoganda and distortion of the truth at its finest.


Every news station is going to have a slant to its reporting. Sucks, I know, but we have to deal with it if we're going to watch the news.

No offense, but thank you captain obvious for saving the day.

Go read "Lies and the lying liars who tell them" by Al Franken. That's enough liberal propoganda for you. Pretty entertaining stuff.

Specially about Ann Coulter. They need to fix her.

Franken's brilliant. So is Larry Flynt. His latest book pretty much cobbles together every good argument made about American politics in the last couple decades and puts it into words even the thickest skull can't block out.

And, yeah, what's with that Coulter bitch anyway?

Free country. Don't watch it if you don't like it. Or would you prefer to have government "truth squads" edit all news? What completely unbiased news sources do you rely on?

No, because then ALL TV stations would be like FOX. Do you really think that the Republican party would change the distortions in it? The Democrats, of course, would change FOX.

What the problem really is is that FOX is abusing the idea of a free press. It's not telling news properly, it's telling lies. They tried to sue Franklin for calling them liars and they LOST. That means that there is a court ruling that FOX are liars. FOX are, by law, lying to you.

Does that not bother you at all?

Okay, I was watching FOX news today (yes, I know, bad liberal!) anyway they were reporting (still) on the now famous question posed to Donald Rumsfeld. What FOX reported was the question, the answer and a little side fact. The unit of the specialist that asked the question had 280 armored Humvees in their unit. 200 were armored, 20 were being refitted. Now, that was the specialist's unit, in Kuwait. What about every other Unit thats actually in Iraq? What is the state of their Humvees? Do they all have that much armor? Well, apparently not but the fact that some units do is apparently good enough.

After that, FOX went on to the report about Donald Rumsfeld using the stamping machine to sign the condolence letters. FOX decided to report that the families that complained were anti-Bush from the beginning. Like that makes a difference! Instead of trying to remedy the situation, FOX just decides to try and demonize the people that complain about Bush. Why should it matter if the people that criticised Rumsfeld supported Bush or not - thats not the issue.

Way to go FOX. Propoganda and distortion of the truth at its finest.
Jesus, you're an idiot! Have you even the faintest clue what propaganda is? because it doesn't show in your post.

Different networks have different target groups. It's basic marketing. If you try to please everybody, you're bound to fail, miserably. The FOX network tries to get on the good side of the right. Other networks try to please the left. This is the way the world works, face it and learn to live with it.

Jesus, you're an idiot! Have you even the faintest clue what propaganda is? because it doesn't show in your post.

Different networks have different target groups. It's basic marketing. If you try to please everybody, you're bound to fail, miserably. The FOX network tries to get on the good side of the right. Other networks try to please the left. This is the way the world works, face it and learn to live with it.


There is a difference between marketing and outright lying. It's a thin line, but it is there. FOX doesn't just set out to target an audience, it seeks to misguide them. That's not acceptable.

There is a difference between marketing and outright lying. It's a thin line, but it is there. FOX doesn't just set out to target an audience, it seeks to misguide them. That's not acceptable.

and CNN doesn't misguide people when it reports unconfirmed things...such as election results?

No news source is going to be good. Everything is "infotainment"; whatever gets better ratings gets put on air.

and CNN doesn't misguide people when it reports unconfirmed things...such as election results?

That's not entirely fair. Election results are caled long before anyone's sure of the outcome. In a particularly close state, the call can change sides two or three times. If you want to wait three weeks for confirmation, fair enough. Election results are widely known to be unconfirmed, as confirmation takes about ten days in even small states. It took nearly a month to get confirmation that Bush had definately won in Ohio, it's just it was so unlikely that Kerry had got it that the result could be extrapolated from exit polls and the votes already checked. Also, sometimes the result has unexpected twists, like in some states owned by family members of candidates the ballot boxes go missing for a couple of days, and some ballots are discounted unfairly.

No news source is going to be good. Everything is "infotainment"; whatever gets better ratings gets put on air.

And that makes it OK how? Anyway, FOX is certainly the most common offender, and also never admits to it. CNN came out and said 'yeah, we got it wrong'. FOX just tries to avoid mentioning it in the hope no-one notices anything.

not by the people who matter

Then who does matter? Oh that's right, you don't Care whatsoever!

Here's something that I bet you wasn't reported on any other network!

On one of the cable shows on Fox News, the host dared the other networks to release their memos to the public and Fox News will do the same and let the people decide.

To bad there weren't any takers and that makes me wonder why!

I must admit that I'm confused Corneliu; your only argument against Skapedroe is "Other people were doing it too" You've repeatedly made refrence to CNN and CBS's failures to correct their mistakes or prevent them in the first place. You assert because they have screwed up, its perfectly okay for Fox to then set out with distortions and misleading phrasology in their programming.

...I fail to see how one person's failure to be a decent news outlet makes it okay for another to simply drop everything and compete on how disingenuous they can be.

That's like pointing to other druggies and saying that's why they started shooting up. It makes no sense; That's just blaming other people for their own problem. If someone supports Fox as a NEWS corp. they should take them to task for such failures more than anyone else right? A loving parent also scolds their children when they are bad, no?

The other option is to break down and admit that certain people LIKE the idea of being mislead and fed false information simply because it supports their own views on the world. People who would rather violently deny the truth than endure the resposibility of making good their mistakes.

no other media in existence does it to the extreme extent that Foxnews does--FOxnews creates news it doesnt just report it. Foxnews is beyond bias its blatant propaganda

Yes but my point is, other medias *DO* do it. I'm not saying its right I'm just saying to bitch and moan about Fox News and then to wave a flag for other media sources when they are as ridiculously biased as Fox is sometimes is well...ridiculous.

Okay, you want proof? Take a look at the following web address, which is from a recurring show...

Niccolo did a pretty good job of arguing against this. What I want to add is one thing: don't judge the BBC by American standards. You may deem the BBC "liberal" because it's more left-wing than the US mainstream but this neglects the fact that the UK, like the rest of the developed world, is to the left of the US mainstream. What I want people to show is that UK broadcasters have a political bias, and attempt to influence UK elections, in the same way US broadcasters or UK newspapers do. Bush is irrelevant in that equation.

As far as making an "ass" out of "u" by assumption, wake up and smell the roses. Every person you meet you automatically make assumptions about. It's human nature. No matter how hard we try, we always end up assuming something about somebody else.

For example, imagine yourself walking up to a smelly homeless person. Are you gonna go and shake his hand? No. Why not? Well, chances are you think he's dirty or diseased. That, my friend, is an unfounded claim, also known as an assumption. Probably a correct one, but nonetheless an assumption.

Yes, but in your case the assumption was more along the lines of someone walking up to you and saying hello to which your response is: "BEGONE FOUL LIBERAL!!! GET THEE FROM MY SIGHT." Fact is, you had absolutely nothing to base your assumption on. You then attempted to base your argument on a baseless assumption. That's why I'm entitled to call you out on it.

And by the way, I've tried watching the BBC on several occasions. All I found on it was liberal rhetoric and "British comedy"; both of which don't impress me much.

Again, don't judge us by your standards. I'm not about to argue that all US broadcasters have a right-wing bias so don't apply US political standards to overseas broadcasters, apply their own country's standards.

The thread died? Interesting.