I thought FOX *was* satire...Follow

What definition of "biased" are you using though? "Includes a conservative viewpoint"? I'm just curious here. I've also rarely seen fingerpointing or name calling on FOX News. Have you *actually* ever watched the channel? Or are you just repeating stuff you heard?

Up until about 6-8 months ago, I had never watched Fox New (I know some of you wont believe that, but it's absolutely true). After having been called a "Fox News parrot" over and over, I figured I'd actually check it out and see what all the hubbub was about. For completeness' sake, I'll also mention that I started listening to Air America broadcasts a couple months *prior* to watching Fox News.

What I've come to realize about Fox News is that it's not that it's biased, but that to many people used to the "normal" format of most news shows, it will apear so. Fox News does one thing consistently different the other channels. It does not present a single view and hide the perspective (bias if you will) of the person or people giving the view/story/whatever. Fox instead uses a process of active adversarial debate to present multiple "sides" to any given issue.

By some definition, you could say it's more "biased", but that's because it deliberately puts people with different (and opposing) biases on the same show and allows them all to chime in on a subject. Thus, the viewer is being presented with bias, but he's being given multiple different biased views. The difference is that Fox News actually gives you the different viewpoints and lets the viewer decide between them. Even if you don't agree with the other guy/side, at least you've heard their argument.

What most news shows do is attempt to be "unbiased". However, they do this by presenting a commentator or expert who is presumed to be unbiased. This person will then present whatever story or information is being talked about. The problem with that of course is that people aren't actually ever unbiased. Every individual will always have his own viewpoint. And what's happened over the last several decades is that the viewpoint that is shown on the "unbiased" news shows on most major networks has become decidedly biased towards a liberal viewpoint. But since those people are presented as "unbiased", everyone just kinda pretends that they actually are, no matter how slanted their coverage becomes.

So yeah. If you've allowed that to define what you think of as unbiased reporting, then you'll see Fox News as biased. But IMO what Fox News is doing is a better way of presenting political news. Because they start with the assumption that no one can ever be truely unbiased, so instead of pretending that they are, they gather biased people with different opinions and allow them all to present their points. Obviously, some of the shows are better at this then others, and some of the commentators are more biased themselves then others. However, the format actually does work. Even if you think O'Reilley is a hard core Righty and is unfair to his liberal guests, you're at least getting to hear their viewpoints. The equivalent presentation of viewpoints simply does not exist on most other news channels. While some make a half-hearted attempt to have "debates", they're rare and usually so obviously stacked with liberal "experts" as to be laughable.

Have you seen what passes for "debate" on CNN? You can certainly say that Fox presents biased information, but they don't pretend not to. It's "fair and balanced". That doesn't mean that every statement is unbiased, but that they present both (all) sides. The only real difference is that on Fox you *know* that personA is a liberal and personB is a conservative. On CNN, they hide the political positions from you and pretend that all their folks are middle of the road or something...



And I would agree with you. If it wasn't for the ridiculous number of times on this very forum that TDS has been referenced as a site or source for someone's position on a particular political matter, I'd be saying the same thing. But the problem is that so many people *do* draw their political positions from this comedy show that it's somewhat silly to ignore it.



They don't have to. They see a skit on the show and then proceed to repeat what they learned as though it was fact for several months. Sometimes years...

I'll also point out that TDS can (and typically does) run many more skits during the show then Fox News covers issues each week. There's typically only a handful of "juicy political stories" going on at any given time. TDS has plenty of air time to adequately convinve people of whatever it wants with regards to those things.



I'll ask again. Have you actually watched Fox News? They do nothing but in-depth coverage. They over cover things IMO. What often happens is that 5 different shows on Fox will cover the same 3-4 stories. Each from their own perspective and with different guests invited to present their opinions. So you'll see the same story discussed by several panels made up of completely different people over and over. For stories that go on for a full week, it's a *huge* amount of coverage and a massive number of opinions and observations.

It's the exact opposite of the "short attention span" process most news companies use.

Oh sure, I go to take a look and see who would dare bump threads in here, and i find out its teh Earwig himself eh?


Who votes I camp him back to sage for that?

Oh yeah? Well we're still knocking 12 posts of your post count! hmmpf!

Of all the dumbass things that Ive heard you say Gbaji!

Attempting to portray Fox news as anything other than fifth rate televised pap, appealing to the lowest common-denominator, knee-jerk non-thinker. Designed for the consumption of dimwits who are unable to form their own opinions. Broken into 10 second soundbytes for the hard of thinking and short on attention span......


Tho I disagree with so much of what you say, sometimes you do say some stuff that makes sense, even if I dont like your conclusions.


But this!! Really. You can't be serious. You honestly believe that there is anything of merit on Fox?

C'mon...Its Bollox. Tell me you're havin us on....Tell me you're havin a 'girraffe'.../nods at Nobby

Edited, Feb 21st 2007 2:09am by paulsol

First let me make it clear, I am not OPPOSED to Faux News Channel creating this show. My guess is that it will be stupid, unfunny, but probably about as popular as The O'Reilly Factor (with the same redeeming qualities).

As far as TDC having a liberal lean, guess what... George Bush is in the White House! The comedic crosshairs are on him because he's there. He is providing the basis of the material. He and other powerful conservatives are being made fun of more because they are given more opportunity to provide material. You want TDC to make fun of more liberals? Put a liberal in the White House, it'll happen. Or have we forgotten jokes about the Oral Office and Zebras changing their spots?

Beyond that, let's be honest about the VAST amount of material that this administration has been providing to the writers of TDC. Anything from Bush's constant struggle to express himself in that form of verbal communication known as English, to Cheney SHOOTING HIS FRIEND IN THE FACE WITH A SHOTGUN (and then, no less, his friend apologizes to Cheney and his family on national news), to Rumsfeld's unprecedented number of press briefings on the war in Iraq (more press breifings = more chances to provide funny material).

But of course, it isn't just the quantity of material, it's the quality. Clinton gave us many many laughs about things that generally had to be joked about carefully on television, lest people run afoul of FCC guidelines and upset parents whose children begin asking uncomfortable questions. But WOW, spending $1 billion a week on a war spread across two terms when we were assured by our leader that we would be "welcomed as liberators", when we were assured that we knew that they had WMDs and where they were (somewhere North, South, and West, and East of Baghdad according to Rumsfeld)... well how easily and cleanly can that be construed into comedy? So easily it will Shock and Awe you.

But who cares what I say, right? I'm sure there are plenty of faschist ditto-heads with no minds of there own, only able to religiously regurgitate the soundbites of their heirarchs, that will argue that their side is above question and above reproach, who think it's unfair, biased, or slanted that a comedic fake news show focuses on the people who are in charge of this country. They think that a comedic fake news show belongs on Faux News, fine, but I don't see the problem with the half-dozen other fake news shows they already have, other than they aren't very funny.

Let us not forget that the Daily Show is just another corporate owned comedy news show that still has a choke chain around its neck from the big bosses at Viacom. The show almost never comments on any of the stations that are owned by the Viacom giant. Viacom actually has used the Daily show in the past to make fun of its own CBS news station to liten the blow of mistakes and news mishaps rather than wait for attacks from the Fox network.

(Possibly) One show does not a network save gbaji, it only emphasises it's lack.

It's not just one show. I'm mentioning that one because it's the most obvious. There are a half dozen shows with similar formats and styles. My point is that most of those saying "Fox news sucks!" are doing so purely because they heard this. Maybe they watched a snippet on youtube showing one conservative host on one show doing or saying something outrageous, but they've never actually watched the channel for any reasonable amount of time to form their own opinion.


I'd argue the opposite. One "bad" bit on one show does not condemn a network. Look. When I wanted to see what was being said on other "liberal" new/commentary stations, I tuned in and watched/listened. Not one day. Not for an hour or so. For months. I did the same thing for Fox. I found that Fox is actually far more "fair and balanced" then pretty much any other outlet. I'm reasonably certain that if you actually bothered to watch the channel rather then just repeat what you've heard, you might just come to the same conclusion.

At the very least it might expose you to what Conservatives actually think on issues, rather then just what Liberals tell you conservative think. Believe it or not, those are vastly different things...

Ah. So no one should seek out different sources of information because they might result in those people believing something different then what they do now.

Is that what you're saying? Sounds remarkably un-"Liberal" to me. I thought liberals were about alternative ideas. I thought they were about exploring and expanding their understanding of things. I thought they were about *not* being afraid of speech. You sould remarkably like the kind of person who would ban books he didn't like because they might put ideas in people's heads or something. What exactly are you afraid of?


It's funny because you ascribe some sort of brainwashing process to Fox news, yet you're displaying all the symptoms yourself. Blindly assuming things about a network you've never watched. When challenged, you refuse to believe anything different then what you've heard. And when asked to watch it yourself, you cringe in fear and insist that if you were to do so, bad things would happen to you...

Pavlov would be proud of you. How about you take a bit of a risk and actually spend a few days checking out the network. If it's really so bad, you'll confirm what you already believe. The only reason I can think of why you'd be so resistant is that you're afraid that if you watch it you might just discover that all the horror stories you've heard aren't true. I know that the desire to remain ignorant is usually strong, but this is a bit ridiculous. If your beliefs are so "right" in your mind, surely you're not afraid that simply being exposed to different ideas would change them. And if they do change, maybe it's because your beliefs weren't nearly as "right" as you thought they were.


Again. What are you so afraid of? The truth? A different point of view? Are you so willing to wallow in your own little corner of the world where everone believes the same things and says the same things and no one ever questions what everyone believes? How can you know what is "true" if you've never even heard the other side?

Which is why I said that bit about Biased opinions. Thats exactly right. If someone watches one source of news then they are going to have a narrow perspective based solely on what was fed to them.

This is why some people still believe the Holocaust was a hoax.

Gbaji you took what he said the wrong way.

Uh huh. And what if I told you that the channels you choose to get your news from are all presenting one biased point of view? Wouldn't it behoove you to seek out other viewpoints, if for no other reason then to see if the news your getting is one-sided?

You can't possibly be getting your news from "one news source" if you deliberately seek out sources with different opinions and views. If you insist on avoiding one because it is "biased", then you might be. Just think about it.

I do find it amusing the lengths people seem willing to go to avoid even exposing themselves to alternative ideas and viewpoints. Very global of you all...



Godwins for the win! Nice of you to compare simply watching Fox news to believing something like this.

How can watching a different news source in addition to what you currently watch possibly hurt you?



No. I didn't. And your response simply supports that I didn't.

I'd tell you are an *** for ***uming to know where and in what form of media I get my news from.

x9 I was gonna say that too