How can anyone say with a straight face that Fox News isn't one big 24/7 ad for the republican party?

How does one, indeed, is something I’ve often wondered myself. To me it always seemed like entertainment, rather than any kind of news broadcasting.

Can anyone say with a straight face that MSNBC isn’t a 24/7 ad for the Democratic party?

they are both the same

I don’t get that channel.

edit: I also don’t get Animal Planet, Discovery…my cable is so screwed up.

They like it and believe it, that’s how.

A stroke?

It’s all bullshit. I don’t watch any of them. I come to the internet to find the actual truth regarding things.

@FutureMemory No Discovery!?! How sad. :(

Yeah. It’s the only place you can get Machines of Malice on. XD

@jonsblond MSNBC is certainly on the left, but they aren’t shameless about it. They admit it. And occasionally take Obama to task for not moving fast enough.
Fox, on the other hand, declare themselves fair and balanced, while they are neither.

They can do that the same way they can say they are going to cut taxes for the rich and it won’t add to the National Debt, or that they had nothing to do with running the national debt to where it is today—they lie.

All you have to do is switch between Fox News and C-SPAN. When a Republican is speaking on C-SPAN, you are going to hear exactly the same talking points word for word that are being broadcast as “Fair and Balanced” news on Faux News.

@filmfann I watched them religiously during the past Democratic nomination process. That’s when they completely lost my viewer ship. They were cheer leading Obama and tearing Hillary apart. Specifically Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow. The only person fair and balanced on that station was Joe Scarborough. Keith Olberman is the equivalent of Bill O’Reilly imo. Not shameless? I disagree. But, I know I won’t change any opinions here. I quit watching news altogether. I read the paper instead.

What happened to the days when news was news and unbiased? I have stopped watching Fox and MSNBC.

Fox News isn’t one big 24/7 ad for the republican party. I have a straight face.

News has never been unbiased, and it has always been entertainment. News people who claim to be objective are fooling themselves, but nobody else. Oh, all right. They fool a lot of other people who also believe in the myth of objectivity. What can I say? Billions of people believe in a deity, and with that belief comes a belief in objective reality.

As to entertainment… Rupert Murdoch has been a news huckster for decades. He will do anything to sell papers, as long as it’s legal. If it were legal, he’d put dancing nude women on his sets behind what’s-his-name… oh yeah, Beck… if he could. They want eyes. Eyes and more eyes so they can sell more ads and make more money.

News has little place in such organizations. It’s about brown-nosing the politicians that can help them make the most money. They don’t actually give a shit about ordinary people. Or anybody other then a small group of owners.

It’s easy for them to claim they aren’t an ad for the Republicans. They have no interest other than making money. Their faces are very straight as far as profits are concerned.

@chyna I believe it went away with the advent of Yellow Journalism.

@wundayatta Have you heard about Naked News?

@Pied_Pfeffer Is that on broadcast channels? I thought it was from Canada.

@wundayatta Ok, I’m dating myself, but I think back to Huntley/Brinkley, etc. and think those reporters were unbiased. Can’t think of any others at this moment.

I’m with @wundayatta on this one. Why would any thinking, reasonable person even think of taking a news station at face value? I always balance the various reports with each other and come to a reasoned conclusion based on what makes the most sense and contains the closest to the facts as possible.

Jeeze! The liberals have all the other stations and newspapers! Can’t the Republicans even have just ONE? : )

@CaptainHarley lol. Never thought about it that way!

@CaptainHarley The librul mainstream media is about as honest ad Fox being Fair and Balanced. News outlets today are owned by a handful of large infotainment croporations. They present the news more and more with an eye to what draws eyeballs and promotes further movement toward corporatocracy. With the exception of MSNBC and NPR and a few others, the media goves right wing ideas more than their fair hearing. AM Talk radio is now almost exclusively far right propaganda.

@CaptainHarley No, by definition.~

I personally think Fox News should be burnt to the ground. But, then I guess you might assume I’m a far left wing liberal….

@Patamomma not to mention a scofflaw arsonist

Jeeze! I was JOKING, people! : P

Statement masquerading as a question.

Pathetic.

@MeinTeil

I know it appears that way, but I truly don’t understand how anyone can be of the opinion that Fox is anything close to fair and balanced. It is a sincere question.

@Patamomma A little over the top I would say!!

I watched a few minutes of O’Reilly tonight—he’s worried some of the folks over at CNN and MSNBC might have unhealthy reactions to tomorrow’s vote. I’m laughing out loud—REALLY!!!!
Could he be right?

FOX sees itself as being the counterbalance to the rest of the mainstream media. Whether they are that ( and nothing more ) is not something I know enought about to discuss.

@CaptainHarley Fox’s parent company, News Corp gave the Republican Governors Association $1,250,000. What little the “librul” Mainstream Media gave political parties was split pretty evenly between each. Again I say the MSM fantasy is just that, another right-wing straw-man they can erect, then use as an excuse for their own media abuses. The librul [sic] MSM heads the list that also included ACORN that stole the 2008 election and the 2 guys in Black Panther uniforms that the Bush Justice Department investigated and expectorated, but that are now a right wing conspiracy theory to steal the 2010 election by paramilitary forces from the left scaring away loyal Republicans at all polling places.

It is all just manufactured controversy—red herrings to feed those anti-rationalists Americans who are given to equating all ideas on equal footing and denying objective truth exists.

Many liberals have no problem watching Fox once in a while, because they are capable of critical thinking and like to challenge their assumptions.

Ultra-conservatives have a big problem watching anything other than Fox, because deep down they are not sure of themselves and fear they might catch a communist brain virus when watching anything that might challenge their assumptions. So they stick with mindless repetitions reinforcing their beliefs.

Well, mid-term this doesn’t work because creativity, progress and innovation will happen and these self-limiting folks won’t be part of it. Tea parties can do some damage short term, but long term this is bound to fail. Especially in highly developed societies like the US.

@mattbrowne

So what are you suggesting? More of the same failed policies?

Taking an interest in conservative and American issues does not make one “one big 24/7 ad for the Republican Party”.

@CaptainHarley – Moderate conservatives also watch PBS from time to time. Unlike ultra conservatives they value the diversity of ideas. But watching FOX only, does numb people’s minds. It’s like in Iran or Saudi Arabia where people learn every day on tv that Allah is great.

@mattbrowne

The same thing could be said about NSNBC, the most liberal news network out there. The world is overflowing with data. We have to make decisions about what to lend our attention to. The wise man or woman will listen to a variety of sources and filter those through their “BS-o-meter.” : )

@CaptainHarley MSNBC certainly has a liberal bias, but they don’t completely fabricate stories and tell blatant lies. They don’t take their talking points straight from DNC headquarters. I have heard a number of their commentators take the Administration and congress to task. Conservatives claim to hate moral relativism, yet they turn to is as a defense for their excesses on such a regular basis it is mind boggling. Walking out of the office accidentally with a company pencil and looting a corporation of everything in its treasury are both thefts, but they are definitely not equivalent crimes.

Well, I certainly agree with the last sentance, anyway.

@CaptainHarley – NSNBC is not a good comparison. How about Cuban television channels instead?

I’ll stick with the comparison I made, thank you.

@mattbrowne Good point. Fox News and the Murdoch empire have much more in common with the old Pravda of USSR days and Cuban or North Korean press of today in that both deliberately and knowingly push lies and wild spin as factual material. The Communist press just spins it to the left whil News Corp outlets spin it to the right. The bottom line is both are news organizations bent on cementing authroitarian control of a populace.

Actually, it would be far more accurate to draw a comparison between the press establishments of socialist regimes like North Korea and Cuba and the liberal press in the USA, than it would be to try and draw comparisons between them and Fox News! : )

@CaptainHarley Nonsense. The US mainstream media actually tries to report facts, not inventions of some Supreme Soviet or commissar of propaganda.

Of course North Korean tv is far worse than that of Fox. But Fox is part of a mature democracy. They got the freedom to improve their program. There are too many zealots in charge at Fox. And this is a shame.

Not that hard, really. They run more than just political stuff. Ergo, they cannot be broadcasting political stuff 24/7.

They can’t. And their slogan is a huge joke to anyone who’s ever taken a journalism class.