FOX News

I'll give it a go. On Fox, like all cable news stations, there are two main groups of people, reporters and commentators. Reporters say things like, "A bank failed in New York today, the Federal Reserve has announced plans to consolidate it's holdings and broker a sale to Jim's Bank." Commentators says things like, "Jim's Bank is using it's political sway to get a good deal and the Fed doesn't have the authority to do this in the first place." Bias in commentary is to be expected, it's opinions after all.

But a story on 47% of Americans not paying income tax was recently shown. Based off a report from June 2009. Blooming poor are not only benefiting from socialism (turning the best country in the world into a communism), they are not paying for it! *note heavy sarcasm*

Yet a report on EXXON earning 15 billion yet paying nothing in taxes to the US gov is severely glossed over.

Thats not commentary, thats "journalism".

I have to say, I find it hard to believe a reporter said "turning the best country in the world to communism", and the exxon story deserves to be glossed over in it's own right. It's a non-issue. Like most companies that operate internationally they shelter out of domiciled country income from double taxation. Exxon more then makes up the difference in permitting expenses and leasing. It's important to remember corporations do not pay taxes, the consumers that purchase their products do.

Have you watched MSNBC?  Sheesh.  Appretnly they think Bush is still president and always have only one party on.  The "Sneer and Jeer" network (when they aren't talking about pedophiles...oh wait...that isn't their news...is it?

CNN stays close to neutral (without quite succeeding) but regurgitates almost exactly the same coverage as every "generic" news broadcast and has less news every year.  "The exact same news every fifteen minutes."

FOX is as skewed as MSNBC but at least offers some variation. "What you see is what you get.  At least it's transparent.

Simple fact is "news" is hard to come by nowadays on television.

Alleging is one thing.  Your first story sounds like Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly - both commentators.  The last story is as the first commentator said - so what?  They earned a profit - where?  They paid taxes.  Where?  If they did not earn it in the USA why do they have to pay taxes on it when they already paid taxes on it in the originating country?

Again, your would have at least a smidgen or credibility if you provided links to your accusations.  I can tell you about the time the ABC anchor said the moon was made of green cheese!  And you call that professional reporting?  I would call that just a nutnick.

But with out a link, why would you BELIEVE me?

Instead of answering the question he asks folks would rather "disprove" the examples he uses and attack his credibility.

All the OP does is state his *opinion*, gives a couple of examples as to why he holds that opinion and then, requests that people give him rational arguments as to why his *opinion* might be wrong.

However per usual people are willing to answer everything *except* the actual question asked.

For my part I happen to agree with him and therefore don't believe that a rational argument in defense of Fox News even exists.

I can't mount a rational defense for Fox News, but neither can I for any other 24 hour news network. They all sensationalize and cater to their viewers. Fox News does the best/most notable job of it, but every other network is guilty as well.

I did respond to the original post, I thought effectively, as a matter of substance. The examples stated came as a response to my suggesting that there was confusion as to reporting and commentary, which, I also tried to respond to on it's face. The first comment strikes me as an imbecilic musing of Beck, not part of a news report, which I thought enforced my initial response,  that one must differentiate between the commentators and reporters. The defense I offered for Fox was that all cable news stations have reporters and commentators.

edit- I meant to quote Mumblefratz but it was referring to a post  unrelated. Not sure why.

that's right!  As long as you're a commentator you can openly lie about anything on national news!  Any sort of truth is for journalists, and journalists are for newspapers anyway.  One incredibly recent example (many more available, I'm just too lazy to write them all down lol):

Sean Hannity / Newt Gingrich explaining the complete opposite of what the President said, repeating "but that's what he said" to each other.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZZkZBAqHnY&feature=youtube_gdata (5:40 - 6:20)

Directly quoted from the NPR Report:

So umm.. that's NOT what he said lol.  But they sure seem confident it is.  They don't even read the full report, but make outlandish accusations about it.

In before:  "But those are just commentators and they can say whatever they want".  Ah shit someone already said that.... 

This man speaks the truth. 

Commentary news is how news networks make money now, and if you want something that resembles unbiased facts, you're going to have to use your reading skills, whether your medium of choice is is newspaper, magazine or internet form. Some of these are getting pretty bad too, and newspapers maybe going extinct, but at least you can find some truth in them.

Technically the problem here is that people love getting there own opinions and beliefs shot back at them, even if they are wrong, thus allowing such commentaries to be so profitable. And unless you can somehow correct that apparently basic human flaw, I'm afraid it will just go downhill from here.

This is the answer to his question--there is little defense for any of them.  Sorry to irk those who wanted this to be a FOX bash.  Should have posted, "Who hates FOX as much as I do?" if you wanted that.

Justify it's existence as an unbiased new orgqanization?  No.  Not any others either.  I basically read Australian news and listen to the BBC then read the 'net by the topics I prefer.

You could easily put a blank space for FOX and ask this of a couple of the major networks--there is no differnce between them except FOX does occasionally cover a story the other networks don't.  So I guess that's a justification.

He siad in the OP that you can't use that . Fox is pretty bad though. they have even used footage from different rallies to make the rally they support look bigger than it was....So much for free press eh? Best you can do in hAmerica is listen to NPR radio but that is filled with lots of garbage as well.

My favorite Jon Stewart quote about Fox news was.." We should start a 24 hour fake new network..Oh Ya! We already have Fox News!!!"

Unfortunately the other networks don't say "fair and balanced" as their title, or have spin commentary listed as "no-spin", or portray protest rally coverage against Bush as a republican rally against Obama, or have an absolutely batshit crazy man "teaching" people that the president is literally a communist and forcing other commentators to actually have to correct his words when a viewer was interviewed on their hour saying Obama was communist, etc etc etc.

Heres a link to a YouTube vid, the poster has HEAPS of FOX News bias vids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovugclIWMEk

The vid refers to the Israeli Palestine conflict, and I agree with the cometary in the vid, the reporting is so blatantly Israeli equals good, Palestinian equals bad. 

Is it fair that a country which is a democracy has this kind of entertainment peddled as real news?

It's not a democracy, it's a representative republic. We "vote" for who we want to be in charge based on their personallity, funding, advertizing, and *promises* made during their campaign. When they are elected, they can do whatever they want to that lobbyists say they can, except politicians can only have sex with their spouses or they'll get impeached.

^this is American government, and we actually take a highschool course on this.

Sure, I think Fox's only defense is its self-bashing in its commedies like The Simpsons.

Good thing you do not claim to be unbiased.  Clearly newt and Sean were quoting directly what he said, just not the part that you quoted.  I checked the links, and if they had said "he never said...." what you quoted, you would have a case about their lying.  However the part they did quote, he did say.

So they are not liars, as you are not.  You just chose to quote a different part than they did.  And as commentators, they do not have to quote the entire document, as they are not reporting news, they are editorializing.

When I initially posted, hesitantly, I was hopeful a thoughtful discussion of what is and is not bias and how there's more than enough outrageous hyperbole by both sides, and to have some international perspective added as I'm an American and OP is an Aussie. I was clearly mistaken and apologize for misconstruing the intent of the OP. The duality of the problem belies that this is some sort of malfeasance on behalf of Fox, or one ideology. I will now graciously bow out and let you fellows site the lefts version of Glenn Beck's nitwitery to assail the actual Glenn Beck's nitwitery. That said, I do believe of all the cable news networks CNN holds the distinction of having to retract the most stories under threat of lawsuit, and I'll be damned if I can find one mention of Dan Rather running with a story after having been presented with demonstrable proof it was fallacious.

so.. the whole story doesn't matter now?  I mean, you can just pick and choose which parts you want to hear and not hear and put your own story together?  Also, no, he literally never said that.  They made up a scenario that was covered in the contingency plan and then claimed that it was not.

But I mean.. if we can play around with things and not quote the entire document and editorialize, here's what I might have read from your post:

I might have slipped up a couple times and moved some key words around to make my case look better, but hey, I'm not reporting news, I'm just commentating here, I can apparently do whatever I want.  

Please re-read my response.  They are not REPORTING the news, they are EDITORIALIZING.  As such, they took part of what he said and ran with it.  The news branch is supposed to report the news.  Commentators are not. 

And if you read the entire report, you will see that indeed Obama said what they claimed.  He equivocated it later with your quote.  So the report states what you highlighted, and it states what Newt and Sean were discussing.  As they are not reporters, they were commenting on the part they did not like.  That is their job.

No, you lied with your misquote of me.  There is a difference.  I can honestly say you stated:

But it would be a lie if I said you stated

That is what you did with my quote.  Sean and newt did not do what you did.  They just did not quote the entire report as you wanted them to, but they are not obligated to.

A discussion on what does and what doesn't constitute bias is a good discussion. I wrote the OP so I'll kick it off.

The vid I posted a link to above has bias. It is not a commentary, it is a news reporter interviewing. In it he clearly words questions to a Palestinian representative to suggest to the viewer that Palestine holds all the blame, and at the end of the interview ends it by saying something like "I don't believe what you say". The interview with the Israeli representative starts by describing the "Hail of rockets" falling on Israel and only gets easier for the Israeli representative.

Would anyone disagree that the posted link clearly shows a bias in reporting?

If all agree there is bias then lets find a more subtle vid and discuss it. I show bias in that sentence by the use of the word "subtle"

The presence of insitutional bias in media is well established.  No one has every really put the lie to Herman and Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. 

I think the concern specifically with Fox News is that any actual reportage is a side-effect, a fringe benefit. 

Let's look at a parallel situation.  There is a free daily newspaper in Israel called Israel Hayom.  The paper was started by Las Vegas Sands owner Sheldon Adelson with the sole purpose of getting Netanyahu elected as PM and advancing a conservative political agenda in that country.  Adelson invested $180M in the project, and the newspaper thrived.

Does Israel Hayom report news?  Probably, but again, that's not what Adelson cared about when he started the paper, and it's not what his editors or reporters are concerned with when they produce it.  They mold the information to fit the stated agenda, and the stated agenda is overtly influencing the opinions and votes of a democratic nation.  

I think that's the central concern behind this post. 

Yes, per Chomsky, every journalist has to watch what he or she writes about institutional players because if they get mad then official sources of information dry up.  That does create an implicit bias in reporting, i.e. piss off the White House and your paper doesn't get White House press releases any more, so you don't piss off the White House if you can help it.   

However, not every journalist is writing from a predetermined set of political ideologies, not every editorial represents a party line, and not every commentator is belligerently prejudiced against any viewpoint which doesn't fit a checklist provided by his network. 

Fox News and its backers want to change the way we think about the world in a very specific way, and every aspect of programming is designed with that in mind.  That isn't news, it's manipulation.  That isn't commentary, it's propaganda.  

so half truths are great. Police killed 3 children today.  They should be given the death sentence.

Oh, what's the rest of that?  They attempted to stop 3 14 year olds with rifles from killing an old lady, and in the process of negotiation the 3 14 year olds decided to kill themselves rather than face the consequences?  Meh who needs to report the whole story, just pick and choose the parts that fit your agenda.

Thank goodness only FOX is biased...whew...we can just change the channel to the other shining paragons of pure journalism on the other TV channels to escape back to unvarnished truth and unbiased reporting! 

I think maybe FOX's existence is justified as it  provides an example that firmly shows how wonderful the other network news channels truly are.  I just can't figure out why with the great integrity and substance of the other channles why FOX has so many people still watching it.  It's a mystery. 

Personally, I think people who rightly hate and despise FOX are much more intelligent and worthy of a thread where they can assert that for one another without any dissenting meddlers butting in...perhaps that should be stated in the topic.  Oh...wait...it was.

I don't think anyone is saying the other stations are AWESOME or completely unbiased and only Fox is.  However, Fox News takes it to the very extremes and is on a realm of it's own which draws more attention to it.