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Fox News Considered Suing Fox's "The Simpsons"
ZeDanimal writes "The Simpsons' pooh-bah Matt Groening said in an NPR interview this week that the Fox News Channel considered legal action against the show for its parody of the station's news ticker. Broadcast, of course, by Fox Entertainment, the episode that raised the ire of the "Fair and Balanced" Fox News crew was Krusty For Congress, which mocked the perceived rightward-leanings of the channel with pseudo-news items such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?" and "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple" scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Guess the powers-that-be learned something from the Al Franken affair... or maybe they just feared getting into a popularity contest with the likes of the inanimate carbon rod."
The news ticker belongs to one company? They all look the same to me. Anyway what is fox doing sueing one of their best shows?
-Seriv
The Simpsons, make way more money for Fox, then the news channel.
wud
are always parodying things. They often parody Fox themselves, but do they sue? No. I can understand Fox News being annoyed at this, but to take such strong action as to sue them is a bit over the top. I might recommend Fox News to tell The Simpsons to get rid of all copies of the episode and to never have it shown, at the most.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
The headline should read: "Faux News Considered Suing Fox's "The Simpsons""
It's perfectly cromulent for FOX to protect their trademarks. And oil slicks DO keep seals young and supple by preventing them from getting old.
NRA4Ever!
I heard that interview and Groening said that ultimately the parent corporation decided it did not want to sue itself. They did institute a new rule that the Simpsons, or any other non-news show on Fox, could not use an onscreen information scroll lest the audience become confused and think it was actual news.
I don't get it. Fox doesn't sue someone and its news.
How about a list of everyone they haven't sued?
Damn, must be a slow news day.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
"Now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news," he said.
I'm at a loss for words here. I really am.
When life hands you lemons, grab the salt and pass the tequilla...
This illustrates the level to which our legal system has sunk. A TV Show considers suing another TV Show.
From my knowledge of the founding fathers and our legal system as it was meant to be: private citizens are given rights. They can bring suits in court or have suits brought against them to preserve public order. Television shows, and more generally, companies are not, I repeat, NOT citizens!
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. -- Shakespeare
This is great! The Simpsons consistently slams its own network. Now the other parts of the least impressive network on earth are angy. Waaaa i'm going to sue you for your "Too close to reality" sarcasm. Waaaaa.
I do find it funny that FOX has to use lawsuits to work together as a company.
Guess the powers-that-be learned something from the Al Franken affair... or maybe they just feared getting into a popularity contest with the likes of the inanimate carbon rod.
You don't think Murdoch just told them that he didn't like sueing himself?
I really don't think Murdoch cares what Fox News thinks, or that the Simpsons parodize him..
He's making money off both of them, rememnber?
i heard about this when it appeared on fark. one of the stranger things was that they (Fox News) dont want The Simpsons to use the crawler at the bottom at all, fearing confusion. I ask you: How dense does somebody have to be to confuse a cartoon show against a live person cable television news network?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Everybody should know, as we live in a democratic society:
Doing a parody is a given right in democracy.
I do not, however, know if this Simpson episode broke copyright laws. Anyone helpful enough to explain?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
What is everything comming to the Fox company is sueing another Fox company. What is next Microsoft Office sueing Microsoft Windows for including "notepad" in the Windows software. I mean come on the Simpsons make fun of everybody, I think if Fox News starts going down the road of the RIAA, we are going to loose one of the better news channels.
I would not be surprised if The Simpsons' importance as a piece of identity and cash cow for Fox will make this lawsuit trivial. They might settle or something, but I highly doubt they would do anything to harm the show. Especially compared to if it was some no-name show that nobody watches.
:-)
And that's politics
fark linked in monday.
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
I would not accuse Matt of lying, but perhaps of saying something that is not exactly true for comedic value.
While I cannot imagine Fox filing suit against themselves (as entertaining as Fox v. Fox would be to see on the docket), it is not unimaginable that they might file against Film Roman.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Just watch any day of the week and see for yourself.
It's true!
Really...
Trademarks are not normally given for merely descriptive things.
:)
If you sell cars, you can't trademark "cars", but you could trademark "Joe Smith's Fine Cars".
You can't trademark "Blue Cars", even if your cars are blue.
"Fair and Balanced" is descriptive - Fox claims that their news coverage is fair and balanced. The only way to get a trademark on "Fair and Balanced" is if there is no descriptive relation.
I.E. Only if the news coverage is NOT fair and balanced could they trademark the phrase "Fair and Balanced"
Or maybe that's the point
that should have been alt.tv.simpsons.
This sounds a lot like Fox News doing a preemptive strike. If FN let this go, then if someone else wanted to imitate their ticker, then they'd have a much harder time gettting the other company to back down if it is shown that they allowed someone else to do it unhindered (the two Fox's are related, but I don't think they're the same corp. entity?)
Simpsons have been mocking FOX for years...
Here is "Fox Bashing List v1.7"
This is the scroll from that episode of the Simpsons, and the thing that Fox thinks will confuse their viewers. What they fail to realize is that this kind of viewer is already watching Fox.
pointless news crawls up 37 percent ... do Democrats cause cancer? find out at FoxNews.com ... Rupert Murdoch: terrific dancer ... DOW down 5000 points ... study: 92 percent of Democrats are gay ... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party ... oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple ... Dan Quayle:: Awesome ... Ashcroft declares breast of chicken sandwich "OBSCENE" ... Hillary Clinton embarrases self, Nation ... Bible says Jesus favoured Capital-Gainss Cut ... stay tuned for HANNITY AND IDIOT ... only dorks watch CNN ... Jimmy Carter: old, wrinkly, useless ... Brad Pitt + Albert Einstein = Dick Cheney ... risgt wing of chicken [cuts off here]
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
was over copyright infringement. All of those crawls were actual Fox News crawls that just hadn't been used yet. Because they are Fair and Balanced(tm), they are not bound by "journalistic" concerns about timeliness, relevancy or facts. They write their news(tm) days, weeks, months in advance, just waiting for the right moment to announce it. Obviously, someone from the The Simpsons snuck in and pilfered valuable Fox News content.
Again, shut your freaking pie-hole, moron.
Well, this should put to rest what Fox thinks of their viewership:
"Now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news," he said.
Yes because "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple..." is very believable and I can't believe all those dirty environmentalists have been lying to us! Oh, and JFK really DID join the replicans after death.
Facts are Fox Evening news is a joke, and when I had the (dis)pleasure of watching it once at a friends, I seriously thought it was a parody of news since it was so distasteful and circus-like. I honestly see these parody-tickers as an IMPROVEMENT to their otherwise shitty, imcomplete, skewed news.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
you don't bulleave it? because they .controlled you so?
Stations make fun of themselves all the time, and their affiliates. Saturday Night Live constantly makes fun of NBC (as well as other channels), and Letterman is KNOWN for his CBS cracks. Remember Fox's first hit Married With Children? Every other episode they had a Fox crack.
This is rediculous from every perspective. I am a fan of both the Simpsons and Fox News, and found that particular episode to be quiet comical and laughed by ass off the entire time. It plays to the democratic claims that Fox News is right-biased. Anyone with any brains can see it's an exaggeration, just as 99.999999% of the things on the Simpsons are. It's all over the top, that's what made the Simpsons so popular for so long.
This article doesn't mention it, but a few other sites reckon that The Simpsons is to become the longest running sit-com in the world from 2005. Sadly, that crown is held by the BBC's "Last Of The Summer Wine" (1973-2003 still being filmed, 225 episodes). Although, I doubt LOTSW would ever have much political material in it!
More free(almost) publicity for Fox news and the Simpsons show.
SCO OpenServer sues SCO UnixWare over patent infringement.
Must-not-watch TV!
People are finding "The Simpsons" to be a more reliable news source. Apparently, the only people who actually watch Fox News are convalescents who can't reach the remote control (whoever left the TV on should be punished severely).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I for one, welcome our new conservitive overlords.
Sigs are out of style, so I'm not going to use one...oh wait..
...wouldn't that make it a Shakespeare reference?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Fox:"25% of viewer thought the headlines were true"
Groening:"oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that."
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
Fox News crew was Krusty For Congress, which mocked the perceived rightward-leanings of the channel with pseudo-news items such as "Do Democrats cause cancer?" and "Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple" scrolling across the bottom of the screen.
It's not percieved, the proof is here. This is a former producer for Fox's News Watch media show giving the dirt on how the bias comes down from Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes everyday in an email nicknamed "The Memo".
Expect to see more info as "The Memo" starts getting leaked. Fox is truly biased, the proof is in information like this. For more analysis, including a rebuttal from Fox, check this out. You might also want to read this commentary over at Editor & Publisher deconstructing Fox's spin on the latest "liberal media" salvo they fired.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
* Is Fox News pushing the FCC for a broadcasting flag in this story?
* Is Fox News trying to extort money out from owners of smart card programmers?
* Is Fox News accusing The Simpsons of violating the DMCA?
Don't get me wrong, I find the story hilarious, but it's already being covered by every other news outlet. (With the exception of Fox News?)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
That maybe, just maybe the statement was made to generate press? aka increase ratings for both shows.
The only bad press is being caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy.
...if they think no-one will notice the difference between their warped take on reality and the Simpsons'.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
The only thing original on the whole network is how they claim to be "Fair and Balanced" without breaking out into giggles and shooting spitballs at the teacher.
Fox News really can be 'fair and balanced' if you run it through a properly maintained BS filter. But then y'all already have yours spit shined for anything that comes outta Washington, D.C., right?
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
Fox and Fox both stand to gain from a fake news story on Fox about Fox versus Fox. This Fox against Fox story gains Fox coverage from Fox and other non-Fox media. I'm suspicious that this Fox stunt is just a way to get Fox attention and to boost the popularity of Fox News and a slowly declining Fox show. Maybe I'm just suspicious of Fox and Fox, though.
Too bad SCO doesn't follow Fox's footsteps and start suing itself for license violations.
Legally protected and all that...
The preceding comment has been reviewed and declared to be compliant with HIPPA Phase II regulations.
It's news because one branch of Fox came very close to suing one of the most popular, profitable shows ever on the Fox Network. It's news because a supposed news(tm) organization was prepared not only to sue to stop free speech (of the well-supported parody class) but were actually considering doing this against a component of their parent corporation. It's news because the whining, bedwetting, crybabies of Fox News are so supremely "Can dish it out but can't take it" that they were actually going to go toe-to-toe with a cartoon.
Al Franken sonsidered suing NickV for biting material without permission or even credit.
Headline: IN ROD WE TRUST!
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
So what I'm hearing about this lawsuit is that by watching The Simpsons on Fox Entertainment I'm really being exposed to what is essentially a news item.
I guess this is balanced, since what comes on Fox News, I'm fairly confident, is aimed at entertaining audiences.
Definitely, though, I'd pay to see a WWF-style smackdown between Krusty the Clown and Brit Hume.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Don't believe the hype. Fox "News" is not a news source. It's infotainment. O'Reilly is ultimate proof.
Un-news
It gets them a ton of publicity, and more importantly it emphasizes to the demographic they want how much loathing and contempt the class of people who run ABC, CNN and the New York Times have for their lessers.
So, the lawsuit against Al Franken was a big surprised. You'd think they'd know better than to do something so counterproductively lame. Apparently in this case they did no better.
(Incidentally, it's interesting how after all the ancient Reaganites Ali G had on his show, the only two people I know of who threatened to sue him were Ralph Nader and Naomi Wolf...)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
This illustrates the level to which our /. has sunk. A Troll trolling Slashdot!
/. has risen. Keep up the good work!
Wait, what was that?
This just in: this illustrates the level to which our
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
That episode had me in stitches. My wife and I were laughing out loud when that ticker was scrolling by.
For those who haven't had the pleasure, try out the new Xbox game "Simpsons Hit and Run". It's the bomb!
Nancy Pelosi is beside herself. Yesterday's news that the economy is growing at a 19-year record pace was very depressing news for Democrats. Pelosi knows as well as anyone else that the last sector of the economy to recover after a recession is jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs. Pelosi also knows that mindless rhetoric works on Democratic voters. Yesterday she was screeching "but where are the jobs!?
I would've thought it was because Judge Nepolitano is a spitting image of the Chief Wigam on the Simpsons.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
There obviously isn't any leftwing bias at Slashdot is there. I don't see how you fight bias with bias. You editors have sunk to a new low, but thank you for reminding me why I initially stopped coming here and setting me straight for thinking I could give you a second chance. You just lost my business.
Nerds like the Simpsons.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
Yes... now, is this because the viewers are seriously stupid, or is it because the fake news really CAN be confused with the real news?
Remember if it was any other news channel it wouldn't make slashdot, this is a lefty rant page nowadays.
WTF is wrong with people suing people in america?! This has to stop, everyone is suing everyone. FoxNews suing The Simpsons, the RIAA suing kids, SCO suing the world, when is the madness going to stop?
Instead of going to court, people suing eachother should have to fight to the death in a ring of fire or something, on public television.
Where I post game reviews, my PSP backgrounds, podca
They don't think that their viewers are in fact incredibly stupid. They know their viewers are in fact incredibly stupid. They count on the fact that their viewers are in fact incredibly stupid. They are founded upon the principle that their viewers are in fact incredibly stupid.
I hate it when people complain about CmdrTaco or the story moderators, but c'mon - this was a blatant attempt to let /. readers(overbearing liberals: the majority) bash FoxNews(conservative: the majority)
The story is also untruthful; Groenig has already stated that didn't REALLY threaten to sue, they merely questioned his motives.
Do you think Disney would allow a miniseries about Walt's closet gayness to be aired on their network?
Does anyone have vidcaps of the episode where the ticker shows? I could maybe understand if it was identical in appearance to the Fox News ticker but even then, it still seems would know that these are bogus news items.
you said nutmeat. ;)
ACtually, thats a really good point. Until someone leaks a memo which clearly shows FNC consulting their legal dept about suing the Simpsons, how do we know the Truth? Either way, its great advertising for both Groening and NPR.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
DOH
Fresh Air
Matt has a few other in the archives.
that everyone that posts here will be modded to -5 a few days from now, always seems to happen that the mods that are right wingers wait until everyone is done reading something anti-republican then mod it into nothingness to fuck up peoples karma.. typical republicans.
I figured that the reason tv shows only made fun of other shows on their own network was to avoid getting sued.
Anyway, Fox "news" can't be accused for providing balanced news. It should be clear to anyone with half a brain that it is no more than a combination of infotainment and goverment provoganda.
"They are not afraid to tell the truth, that everything is just fine", to quote Simpsons.
It became painfully clear under the war in Iraq where they often choose not to cover different events that would provide the viewer with the information they needed to be able to form their own opinion. An example could be how the little victories were told over and over again but the defeats and losses not mentioned with one word.
It seemed embarrasing and akward in these sattelite times where one just had to turn to other channels (even BBC) and the shortcomings of Fox "news" became clear.
You Americans. You're always so cute when you discuss politics. You throw around terms like "liberal", "socialist", "right-wing", "left-wing" and what have you as though you know what they mean. You talk as if the Republicans and the Democrats actually have some policies. Some of you even seem to believe they have different policies (Thats just so cute I could cry!) When you talk about the two party system I could almost burst. Awww, look at your little cheeks, all glowing red like that. It's too much!
Really, I just wish I could take more of you home. I could write for Private Eye just by transcribing the conversations and make good money. Hell we could try a live action show. It would be like a cross between Big Brother and Spitting Image! It'll be great I tell you!
OK, I hadn't heard about this before now, although I'd seen the book.
This is hilarious! Poor Fox, dumber than a sack of hammers. My favorite quote was from the Fox attorney:
"This is much too subtle to be considered a parody," she said.
Hmm. "Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them" is much too subtle to be parody, is it? I don't see how they could make it any more obvious than that.
Oh well. That's my laugh for the day.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I for one am looking forward to watching the alphabit channels and listening to NPR to hear how they explain an improving economy that took place without several massive tax increases. How could that be?
Telecommuting! What about socialization?
Let's get this straight. Bill O'Reily yelling at people to shut up as soon as they disagree with him. Constant references to "Palestinian attacks" and "Israeli retaliation." Zero references to "Israeli settlers." Zero references to the long list of UN resolutions that Israel are in breach of. Zero coverage of the theft of the 2000 election. Plenty of coverage of the crowds that oppose him but zero coverage of the much larger crowds that support hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
And right-wing bias at Fox News is just a figment of our imaginations? Give me a break!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
ROTFLMAO
..the mock version has to be significantly different enough so that an average person would know that it was a parody and not confuse it with the original.
Well, to begin with, it was animated.
I grabbed a screenshot, here.
Now, would -ANYONE- confuse this with the real Fox News?
I wonder what's the shareholder's opinion on this issue. Actions like those certainly give companies a bad image and might scare investors away, with all the repercussions on share value and the like.
If I were a FOX shareholder, I would certainly be quite pissed.
R.
Of course, there's not much of the original cast left... and I hope they're taking good care of Peter Sallis on set, he's still got the Wallace and Gromit movie to do the voice for.
I love the Simpsons, and I firmly believe that everything people take too seriously needs to be looked at from the angle of humor by SOMEONE.
But on the other hand I LOVE FOX NEWS. That's right, I'm a right wing, Bush lovin, baby seal killin, uh, jerkface, or whatever great slam the left wing commies can come up with today. Seriously, have you watched Fox News? It simply rules. CNN Headline news makes me sick, smart viewers choose Fox News.
You watch Fox News? Hahahaha.
Idiot.
"Fair and Balanced" my ass. What's FN's next tagline, "Trust Me"?
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
And the actual interview aired over a week ago on the 23rd. See here.
'Nuff said. It's a moot point anyway, all the news released for general consumption in the US, be it broadcast, print or online, is so spun in SOME direction it's useless. Fox News, the Sacramento Bee, Family.org, the NYT, AlterNet, hell even the Daily Rotten has a perceptible lean. Show me *unbiased, truthful* new reporting and I'll show you some sort of intelligence agency - of course, even those are getting tilted these days.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
She's gonna show her pussy one of these mornings....
As covered elsewhere, this stunt generates publicity. Your analysis is too simple. If the free advertising surrounding the story outpaces the legal fees, they win, potentially win big.
They ran this like 3 days ago. Maybe you should sue.
So freedom of speech doesn't apply if you make fun of Corporations? Thank God, Microsoft manages to maintain being a higher form of life than Fox News or all of us on /. would be screwed.
Still, the only place you are going to find moderate news is on NPR.
The only place for your liberal news is going to remain only on the internet at places like hate.com and buzzflash.com
Something intelligent here.
Bernie's book has been slammed for poor examples all over the place. His methodology doesn't wash. E.g.: He claims there are more references to 'conservatives' in pubs like NYT than 'liberal', as if calling them out. However, he doesn't check to see if the converse holds true in a conservative rag like the Wash. Times [one would assume so, if the bias is truly 'liberal'].
Check out the Daily Howler for details. And no, it's not a liberal website, but rather one that highlights ANYONE who is not shooting straight.
I'll be the first to agree that all news media has some bias. Some is more slanted than others. But PLEASE, don't use Bernie as a good example of this.
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
Aside from proving that slashdot is just a tool of liberal media?
Why don't they do like they did with Futurama and shut the show down. That show wasn't really easy on the Fox management after all.
Holy crap and who cares!! Is it just me or is Slashdot becoming all political? Most of the people who comment can barely stay on topic about actual "nerdy" topics, so now we are going to expand that into political issues not related to technology?
Everyone should check out "Countdown" in the news video section of www.guerrillanews.com. Its old, but it rocks, with music by AdRock. Its here:
:d own_bb.mov
http://www.guerrillanews.com/countdown/
I had no problem playing the quicktime version with mplayer, prob can even play the wmv.
Just use wget to get it from
http://http.dvlabs.com/gnn/qt/gnn/countdown/count
I especially like the commentary on "news".
In the simpsons intro when the little girl is scanned on the cash register, the total due window even says "NRA Rules". Matt is a Conservative... The fact that he pokes fun at his own party is nice to see. Too bad the Libs. can't follow the humor...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
They took 3 polls with 3334 respondents, gathering data on three misperceptions about the Iraq war
(1) Evidence found for link between Iraq and Al Queda
(2) Evidence found of WMDs in Iraq
(3) Positive world opinion about Iraq war
News_source______FOX_____CBS_____ABC_____NBC_____ CNN___Print_____NPR/
_________________________________________________ _____Sources____PBS
0_misperceptions_20%_____30%_____39%_____45%_____ 45%_____53%_____77%
1_or_more
misperceptions___80______71______61______55______ 55______47______23
Yep, you read that right; fully 80% of Faux watchers had at least 1 of the misperceptions; fully 77% of the NPR/PBS crowd had zero. Wow!
They also attempted to control for demographic variations in the audience. Here's what they say (end of P.15)
I also really like this paragraph (page 16): Isn't that amazing? The more you read the paper, or watch CNN, the better informed you are. But the more you watch Faux News, the more likely you are to be misled!! Now of course these are correlations; they don't prove causation, but they are pretty darned persuasive.This study was commented on in the wash post seattle times twin cities and other places
The one place you I can guarentee you won't find it is fox news!
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
nice political armchair hobbyist spinning... if you don't work in politics, you should
you probably even vomit sparkling water
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
If Fox is suing itself over spoofing itself, it really won't like the FQX spotlight logo at the beginning of each episode of Excel Saga...
What passes as a liberal slant in America is really only a liberal slant if you compare it to right-wingery that borders on fascism.
If you want to see how all major American media fails the readership, check out Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Fox is only the most flagrant violator. When push comes to shove, all corporate media is subject to your standard corporate editorial mandate, with few exceptions.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Fox can only be perceived as having rightward-leanings by those who are immersedin all the left-submerged media that the world treads water in daily. Fox is pretty central, it just appears to the right because of how far to the left everyone has been relentlessly brain-blasted as being "normal" (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, West Wing, etc. ad-nauseum).
If you want real rightward-leaning, try Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, or Michael Savage (disclaimer: I actually like all 3) amoung others.
How the fuck is this "news for nerds?"
Why is Slashdot now a leftist political sounding board ?
I definately think this one falls under the category of internal company business that should not have been made known to the public. Leave it to FOX to fuel the fire and prove themselves the dumbest broadcaster out there
What a bottomless pit of stupidity yes-men media is.
Thanks for that study... most interesting.
I can't remember, but did they only make a single declaration a week later? If not, then they prematurely declared George W. Bush president since it wasn't officially decided until later.
To the credit of most networks, the "winner" was announced multiple times over the evening, until everyone gave up during the wee hours of the morning.
I don't have time to find the links right now, but this poll does not prove what it claims to. The most glaring problem with it was that they asked about certain "misperceptions" that a right-winger would tend to have, but not about "misperceptions" that a left-winger would tend to have.
For example, if I polled whether George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war, I bet a very high perception of NPR listeners would answer yes, while a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer yes. Does that mean that Fox watchers are better informed across the board than NPR listeners? No. It just means that each has its blind spots.
This is "Insightful?" I'd say it's "Common Sense."
Very interesting study. Their methodology is clever. It's a much better way of measuring news sources' accuracy than trying to list each time a given source published a wrong info.
Now, this study was bound to show that Fox is the least reliable news source. Their editorial line was pro-war and it's not surprising that their audience would have misperceptions on those questions (Saddam-Al Qaeda links, WMD and international support).
What would be REALLY interesting would be a study on common liberal misperceptions (like Arafat is NOT corrupt, US killed more Iraqis than Saddam did etc...) It would be interesting to see if liberal news sources' audiences have such a high rate of misperception.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
The cartoon would still win.
I stopped watching all news networks after the sniper fiasco.
Anyone could see that fox would never win a suit against Franken for trademark infringement, because it was a paradoy. Why did fox sue? It wasn't for publicity. it made them look stupid. It wasn't to hurt franken...his numbers shot up. Is Murdoch et al really that stupid? No. they had to so to establish a precedent of protecting their trademark. If you don't proactively protect a trademark, then you can loose it.
he's an old fart, and that building is full of talentless hacks. just thought i'd get that off my chest. :)
Just raise the taxes on crack.
Think about how stupid it is, anyway, and you'll realize that it's far more likely that Michael Moore and Al Franken woke up one morning (probably together), and concocted this over their Cheerios.
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
I think you made a little error in your post, so I politely corrected it for you.
I challenge you to go there and read about the left-wing bias. Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free!
I'm very far to the left of the American political mainstream...you appear to be from Britain due to the shows you mention and the publication you mention. I'd be more at home in your political world, or probably continental Europe's.
But your condescending tone does absolutely nothing.
HI, MY NAME IS ISAAC.
Slashdot's motto (emphasis mine):
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters.
This matters because:
It's rather insulting how stupid the media and other similar parties think we the general public are. We live in a time where there are several cartoons that spoof reality, but 30 years ago they spoofed reality with real people.
Many of us remember the 3 Stooges, The Little Rascals, Laurel and Hardy, and Abbot and Costello. These all parodied real life with real live actors/people not sketches in bright colors. No one then took them to be reality? We all understood they were comedies and poked fun at life as it was when they aired.
So I am now on my soapbox screaming. We are not idiots. We do know that a cartoon is not real life and the words spoken or written on the screen in the episodes of hilaritity are NOT REAL. We enjoy moronic humor because our world has become so moronic; we are only laughing at the world we created.
I have nearly choked on my own laughter while reading how this article points out the stupid legal arguement and the statement that a cartoon may no longer imitate reality because we the viewers may be confused, or mislead.
We are talking about the Simpsons here. It's not like it's Beavis and Butthead, where little kids believe "Fire" is cool. Did not Fox broadcast a Simpons episode where Homer Simpson caught the wall on fire because he no longer needed his diploma he just put a match too?
I argued then as I do now, we are not stupid people, we get humor and if you think we may take the news ticker on the Simpson's to heart then maybe you shouldn't air such well placed adult humor during an hour where the only audience who could possibly mistake the news ticker for reality is the 5 year old children who enjoy the show too.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
For example, if I polled whether George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war, I bet a very high perception of NPR listeners would answer yes, while a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer yes. Does that mean that Fox watchers are better informed across the board than NPR listeners?
No, it means that Fox watchers are better at revisionist history.
With a name like that, you really have to be an early adopter of Slashdot. All the good names get taken early.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What? Bush did claim that WMDs were an imminent threat. That was the whole justification for the war. Try again, please.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
for an Al Franken guest spot on The Simpsons.
I wasn't thinking of this earlier, but your comment reminded me of when Dan Quayle went head-to-head with Murphy Brown.
It resulted in some of the funniest television I'd seen. One of the best was Frank's line: "C'mon Murph. It's DAN QUAYLE! Next week, he'll get his head stuck in a golf bag..."
Murphy Brown's writers seemed to win the battle pretty overwhelmingly.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Fox news. They are a right leaning news organization. So what? If you want the liberal take on things you can listen to NPR, read the New York or LA Times, or tune into ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN and/or MSNBC. Do these networks present some of the right's arguments? Yes they do, but for the most part you get a liberal slant. Does Fox present some of the left's arguments? Yes they do, but for the most part you get a conservative slant.
The great thing about America is that you can get your news almost anyway you want it. I just wish more media outlets would fess up and quite presenting themselves as unbiased when they cleary are. That's one reason why I respect the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, James Carville (sp?), Al Franken, etc. At least when you listen to them, you know what position they are coming from. I'm so sick and tired of people pretending to be unbiased when they so clearly lean one way that it makes you sick.
The most glaring problem with it was that they asked about certain "misperceptions" that a right-winger would tend to have, but not about "misperceptions" that a left-winger would tend to have.
Are you saying that the facts are, in fact, left-wing propaganda?
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I think the Carbon Rod would have won that competition. Fox news is nothing more than a video version of the New York Post: It's only news if someone is being explotied. Of course CNN, MSNBC, and almost every single local channel is guilty of the same problem. Leading up to the attacks on 9/11, we in central Florida experienced dozens of news crews from around the world to cover, what was perceived to be, a rash of shark attacks in the dangerous waters in the Daytona Beach area. The reality was, there were actually fewer shark attacks that year than in most years. News corporations on par with Fox News had nothing else to report on, so down they came. I then realized that the reported news wasn't interesting enough to bother watching. Since parody is perfectly legal under the freedom of speech amendment in the constitution, The Simpson's writers (as did Al Franken) had every right to point out the absurdity of the way news corporations grandstand small stories report on ridiculously boring crap. All hail the inanimate carbon rod!!!
------
There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can't get away.
wtf is a pooh-bah?
One thing that this study may highlight is that once journalists form a hypothesis, they will tend to seek out the stories that support it.
Journalism isn't science. It isn't out to prove or disprove anything. Unfortunately, most journalists today seem to have forgotten this subtle issue.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I first started reading The Daily Howler on a regular basis back in 1999, when I saw Bob Somerby (the editor) several times on The O'Reilly Factor. Back then, the site seemed to be a whine-fest about how Al Gore was being unfairly treated by the press.
A year later, I found out that Somerby was Al Gore's roomate at Harvard, a fact he does not disclose in the "About the Editor" section. I even complained to him about it, and he replied to me that it was not important.
However, it does mention that he is also a stand-up comedian. After seeing him do a comedy routine on C-SPAN back in Janaury 2001, I'd have to disagree.
Maybe the Daily Howler has gotten better since then, but life is too short. I don't mind partisans, but I'm not going to waste my time on somebody who won't admit that he is one.
Wednesday night on The Daily Show, Norm Macdonald and John Stewart were talking about how the scrolling tickers were originally used to convey important information about "the war on terror", but now that there wasn't so much news, they were being filled with fluff. John Stewart came up with the zaniest example: during a newscast about how Saddam's sons had just been killed, a ticker scrolling across the bottom stated that Bianca had declared that she didn't like the word "bootylicious".
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
So, 30% of all CBS viewers had 0 misperceptions, and 71% had 1 or more, huh?
A mostly conservative population groups towards a mostly conservative entertainment show. Wow, colour me surprised. Of course they are going to feel like it is fair and balanced, it agrees with them. Hah.
That's really interesting, because there has been evidence found that Al Qeada was training in Iraq and getting WMDs from Saddam. There also have been plenty of evidence found that Iraq still had active WMD programs.
Does that mean Fox viewers are actually the best informed?
I periodically watch Foxnews, and I get a hearty chuckle everytime I hear them refer to another "homicide" bombing. It's obviously a response to the BLM (Biased Liberal Media) labeling such acts as "suicide" bombings, which apparently glorifies the act in some indeterminate way. I would like to read the Memo that explains the switch, cause it seems a bit redundant to me.
I for one welcome our new Fox News overlords.
I for one also cannot wait to see what Matt does about it, I remember when he made a Butterfinger crack on one Simpsons episode and Butterfinger didn't like it too much. Within a few weeks during the beginning of one episode Bart was writing (IIRC) "I will not bite the finger that feeds me" on the chalkboard. Hilarity indeed!
For example, if I polled whether George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war, I bet a very high percentage of NPR listeners would answer yes, while a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer yes. Does that mean that Fox watchers are better informed across the board than NPR listeners? No. It just means that each has its blind spots.
The entire reason for going to war with Iraq were the (supposed) WMDs and the threat to the US from Saddam because of the (supposed) link to Al Quaeda. At least, that's what the White House said. I hope you still remember that?
If a very low percentage of Fox watchers would answer "yes, Bush claimed Iraqi WMDs were a huge threat before the war," it would prove two things:
1) Fox watchers have a very bad memory.
2) Fox knows this and they don't do enough to refresh it's viewers memory. Therefor, Fox News gives incomplete (=misleading) information.
Please give an example of a certain misperception that a left-wing viewer may have.
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
Downright spooky to hear Republican spin points show up in discussions like this. This has been a recent spin attempt by the White House.
No, Bush never used the word "imminent". He did, however, very clearly lead the nation to belive that Iraq posed a threat to the US in the short term. Hell Cheney told "Meet the press" that he believed Iraq had "reconstituted" nuclear weapons. What threat could be more imminent than that?
The point is that it's a trick: "Did Bush tell America that Iraq was an 'imminent' threat"... "Yeah, I think so"... "Ha! Gotcha! He never actually used the work imminent!"
Look, a majority of Americans believed Iraq had WMD's, including nuclear weapons. A majority also believed that he was working with (or actually WAS) Osama bin Laden. BUSH deliberately perpetuated this point of view. This is a silly right-wing word game.
Bush did claim that WMDs were an imminent threat.
Any source? Something not written by Jayson Blair preferably.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
LMAO.
:)
Too bad I ran out of moderation points yesterday.
This post can't really be insightful, because this fact should be obvious to anyone, unless you watch too much Fox News
It is very funny though, as it points out the hillarity of the parent post.
Homer: You just lost yourself a customer!
Moe: I forced myself to what?
Homer: You just lost yourself a customer!
Moe: Yeah, you can use it!
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
There's no such thing as a "liberal media" in America today, aside from a few weekly alternative newspapers in the major cities. All of the mainstream media outlets are owned by rich conservatives and large corporations, whose primary rule of reporting is "get it out there fast, regardless of the facts."
Anyone remember the "Al Gore claims he invented the internet" bit? Gore never said that, but the Republicans said he did, and the media ran with it. How about Clinton's staff thrashing the White House when they left in 2001? Never happened, according to a 14-month Congressional investigation, but all the media outlets reported it as true. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney lie daily about Iraq, and their tax cuts, and their corporate croneyism, and none of the networks call them up to it (they don't dare, because pissing off Bush et al means no more access to the White House in the future).
It's to the Republicans' advantage to repeat the lie that the media has a liberal bias, because that gives them free rein to throw out all sorts of bullshit, and dismiss their critics as part of the Liberal Media Conspiracy. Folks who follow the news from a wide variety of sources (not just American) realize how bogus this claim is, while clueless folks just repeat the mantra before going back to watching Bill O'Reilly.
If you think there's a liberal media bias, just say "baaa!"
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
If you ever doubt that many conservatives do drugs, the above post is poingnant evidence.
Your first link is mostly quoting claims by the White House, and doesn't even seem to be endorsing them as facts.
The second is an opinion piece and somehow manages to cite entirely irrelevant facts (what does firing missiles into Israel during the first Gulf war, which I remember pretty clearly, have to do with WMDs?) to support its conclusions.
> if I polled whether George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war,
Based on the way things actually played out, the only important group to have asked this would be congress.
Well, Colin Powell sure as heck didn't get in front of the United Nations and talked for an hour about the poor repressed Iraqi people. He was talking about mobile chemical trailers (false), 500,000 tons of anthrax (false), Iraqi-made remote-controlled bioweapon-spraying drones (false), and a secretly-renewed WMD program (false false false).
The ability of Bush apologists to forget something that happened just six months ago amazes me.
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
One thing that this study may highlight is that once journalists form a hypothesis, they will tend to seek out the stories that support it.
Or that news media organizations tends to hire journalists that lean their direction. Or journalists tend to work for a company that has their general outlook on stuff. What, there shouldn't be leaning in journalism? True dat. But there will probably always be at least a little bit (dang liberals talking about weird shit like anthropic bias and self-selection).
'Course, it could also be that people like to be happy, so they stay away from information that might make them unhappy, after learning where unhappy information comes from. Self-esteem self-selection from a media perspective.
If it leans too far though, it ain't journalism, and calling it 'news' is a stretch. Which is why using Faux is still funny as all hell.
Objectively, it should be the Fox Editorials Shouted At You From On High Channel, but that's tough to fit on a logo.
+&x
What makes you think that Fox News doesn't already know their viewers are morons? That's their key demographic group!
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
Well if you were to take into account the claim by a certain number of conservatives that all the media is liberal. And another claim by a certain amount of conservatives that FOX is either "fair and balanced" or conservative, then it would only make sense that they have the highest ratings. You see, assuming this is all true, then all of the liberals would be split between 5-6 other networks. So if there are 1,000 people, and 500 of them are liberal, and 500 of them are conservative, those 500 liberals are going to be split between the 5 "liberal" news networks. Leaving about 100 viewers per network. While the conservative viewers are going to choose the "fair and balanced" news network, which, according to some conservatives, is only FOX News. Which means 500 viewers for FOX news. :)
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
Stop being such a tool.
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
That controls for the effect that the audience of Faux News is more right-wing.
By the way, you're wrong about the factuality of the "Bush never said imminent threat" meme (though of course that doesn't negate your point).
In fact, the National Security Council strategy document released 9/17/02 term "rogue states" (such as Iraq) an "imminent threat." Furthermore Scott McClellan called Iraq an "imminent threat" twice in Feb 2003, though by July he was backtracking. Ari Fleischer labeled Iraq an immediate threat on Jan 21 2003. In some Rose Garden remarks , Bush called Iraq "threat of unique urgency."
I wonder if anyone will venture an opinion as to which is worse, an imminent threat or an immediate threat? And does a "threat of unique urgency" trump them all? Who knows. But I think it's rather silly to try to deny that the Bushies took the threat of Iraq very seriously last fall and worked hard to communicate their concerns to the world.
Here are the excerpts:
Laying the groundwork for intervention in Iraq, the National Security Council released this strategy document: http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html (also found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss5.html) The National Security Strategy of the United States of America dated September 17, 2002
As far as I can tell, this document is in the official voice of Bush's Security Council. Thus it speaks officially for the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and numerous others. And it's applying the phrase "imminent threat" to an unnamed adversary that can't be anyone else but Iraq. I think that gives the lie to the meme that Bush never said Iraq was an imminent threat. I think it's pretty clear that they all seek to "adapt the concept of imminent threat" to Iraq.
McClellan's use of imminent threat: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20 030210-8.html Excerpts from the Press Gaggle by Scott McClellan, February 10, 2003
--- Often in error; never in doubt!
The statement was made several levels up that "George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war" was actually a misperception.
The response to this post was: "...Bush did claim that WMDs were an imminent threat..."
I asked for a source on this and you respond with intelligence that Colin Powell presented to the UN. How does this in any way prove that "George W. Bush claimed that Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war"?
These erroneous leaps of logic are exactly what lead to misperceptions. Blame it on apologists all you want, but in this case it's you that's wrong, not Bush.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
I'd prefer that they asked two questions (assuming people could answer):
1. What is you IQ?
2. What is your primary source for news?
The study that the parent cites may simply show that Fox News viewers are fairly dumb. (Watching Fox News for entertainment does not count)
If you want to be pedantic about IQ tests being culturally biased... well, come up with your own gauge for intelligence.
You could make all sorts of "funny" associations with Fox News.. maybe 90% of rapists get their news from Fox. Maybe babies prefer Fox News.
p
I will interrupt this semantically corrupt thread for a moment:
What the hell does "left-wing" mean, a term used by the majority of the Slashdot posters?
Firstly, an erroneous equation of "liberal" and "left-wing" seems to be universal here.
"Liberal" does not mean "leftist".
Listen: left-wing means many things, all the way from communism on the very farthest fringe all the way to socialism on its farthest right. It generally means an abrogation of private ownership of industry in favor of government ownership in communism, to a mixture of private ownership and public ownership in socialism. Communism means total government planning for industry, socialism a mixed batch of the private and government control.
The idea that government should have a hand in regulating industry is NOT, NOT left-wing! Regulation is not ownership. It's what people do to control their own world. There isn't a damned congresscritter or mainstream media channel that is "left-wing". I don't hear any advocation of confiscation of the overlords' property for proper distribution to the proletariat.
The confusion between the two terms is intentional semantic warfare by the far-right wing. The attack is a classic Orwellian one, and one so obvious that I stand amazed that no one comments on it. The far-rightists are simply confusing and defusing the actual meaning of the terms used in the debate so that meaningful debate is impossible. Even Slashdotters, who have a great mechanism in place to call people on errors, cannot actually debate the Fox News vs Everyone Else argument because the terms "liberal", "left-wing", "conservative", and "right-wing" are so debased that no one will admit to being "liberal", a term equated with commies and loser hippies. The confusion is so great that the New York Times, one of the most objective and classic news outlets of the last century, is now "liberal" and suspect, while the FoxNews Channel and the Moonie Times is "balanced". Horsepoo.
Liberal has come to mean simply this:
Liberal = not agreeing with the neo-con far-right wing.
This is an amazing victory for the far-right. EVERONE is a liberal. Disagree with them and you are a liberal. Mention any other point of view than theirs, or simply come to a rational conclusion that the far-right is wrong in the facts, and you are left-wing.
On the other hand, if you present all the ideas of the far-right as proven facts, for example: supply-side economics, preemptive war, WMDs in Iraq, welfare as a black epidemic, an out-of-control crime epidemic, the need for homeland defense, the idea that science is wrong and that other "viewpoints" of non-scientists are equally valid... then you are "centrist" or "balanced". Also helps if you slander Clinton on a regular basis.
Also, another point. I have been, all my life, a rational libertarian in the Heinleinian model. In a sense, I am a conservative.
The people on FoxNews, the Times, and all the corporate critters running the government currently are not conservatives. They are radicals, determined to use enormous marketing acumen to convert a liberal country, by any measure, to a new world in which the people no longer choose their representatives. In which a large number of corporate and government interests directly control the levers of power, and most definitely control the debate by direct and draconian control of the news services themselves.
I think ./ is a little late to the party on this one. This story has been around at least since the begining of the week.
On related news, congress passed the DMCA.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
This is Fox News trying to boost their sister network's ratings. I mean, look what trying to sue Franken did for his book.
I won't claim to agree with the parent's example, but surely other examples could be found.
Let me make a few suggestions:
1. Lots of people are misinformed, prejudiced, ignorant, harbor stereotypes, etc.
2. Lots of people have left leanings. Lots of people have right leanings.
3. People who have left leanings are more likely to exclusively watch CNN than exclusively wath FOX. People who have right leanings are more likely to exclusively watch FOX than CNN.
4. Lots of people are a little more intelligent and don't get all their news from a single source - but those people aren't the focus of this study so I'll ignore them as well.
What might we expect to find as a result.
1. People who watch FOX news exclusively probably are right-wing. If they harbor misconceptions they are probably right-wing misconceptions. (The Iraqis blew of the World Trade Center.)
2. People who watch CNN news exclusively probably are left-wing. If they harbor misconceptions they are probably left-wing misconceptions. (Anti-choice protesters blew up the World Trade Center.)
3. If you ask a random sample of people if the Iraqis blew up the WTC you'll find that most who say yes watch FOX news exclusively instead of CNN.
4. If yo uask a random sample of people if Anti-choice protesters blew up the WTC you'll find that most who say yes watch CNN exlusively instad of FOX.
The study in question only tested conclusion #3. This demonstrates that right-wing idiots are more likely to watch FOX. It does not demonstrate that watching FOX makes you a right-wing idiot. In the same way, testing #4 and getting my predicted response doesn't mean that watching CNN turns you into a left-wing idiot.
It isn't the responsiblity of any news channel to make me a well-informed person. They all tend to help me be well-informed, but if I believed everything I saw on TV I'd be the biggest fool to walk the earth...
You said:
Wrong! Just on the Iraq war. I would like to see this study expanded to other controversial and/or polarizing issues, and see how everyone fairs. They could examine Iraqi public opinion (are people aware of this Gallup poll?), gun control (people still think AK-47s have something to do with assault weapons bans), the 2000 presidential election (we might have trouble agreeing on what constitutes a misperception), any of Bush's economic packages, the Patriot Act, the treatment of captured Afghanis and suspected terrorists, you name it. That would go a lot farther to telling us whether Fox is more biased, or just differently biased.
WTF??? Colin Powell works for the President. Powell went to the UN and attempted to justify attacking Iraq based on the threat posed by Iraq's "possession" of WMD. Thus, the President, obviously, believed this too (otherwise, Powell wouldn't have said it!). How the hell can you not understand this?
(ok, so you saw that one coming)
http://www.fauxnewschannel.com/
Goatsex warning: Watch out the picture of naked Rush. You've been warned.
Remember if it was any other news channel it wouldn't make slashdot, this is a lefty rant page nowadays.
Yes it would, for the simple reason that it's about the Simpsons, which is very loved and respected on Slashdot.
But if you want me to remember that, sure. What are you, a commercial?
BS bullshit
Either you say BS or bullshit. Another option would be BS (bullshit), with the text between the parentheses as an explanation of the abbreviation "BS".
"Hell hath no fury like a hippo with a machine gun."
Thus we behold the latest right-wing meme. This attempted rebuttal of this poll has shown up throughout the media, including a letter to the editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and posited by Tony Blankeley of The Washington Times this morning on NPR's The Diane Rehm show. Using the same example of (paraphrased) "Bush didn't personally claim an imminent threat from WMDs, though most liberals think he did."
There's apparently no evidence that GWB made that exact claim, so believing that he did gives you a "misperception." But there was plenty of (mis)information circling around, including the famous British memo about Iraq being able to deploy WMD's 45 minutes after Saddam might order it. It's certainly possible that people might believe those words came from Bush himself, rather than advisors or pundits, which is technically mistaken. But the essential perception remains accurate: The US and UK administrations, led by Bush and Blair, used the idea of WMD's being used sometime in the near fute as a justification for the war.
Compare that to the misperceptions that were polled.
(1) Evidence found for link between Iraq and Al Qaeda
(2) Evidence found of WMDs in Iraq
(3) Positive world opinion about Iraq war
Either there was a link betwen Al Qaeda and Iraq, or not. WMD's were found, or not. The world has a positive opinion of the Iraq war, or not. No selective parsing of who said what when.
To use a favorite right-wing term, this type of painful parsing (like the meaning of "slog") to make words mean what you want them to mean, seems positively "Clintonian."
Hopelessly pedantic since 1963.
I have always thought that The Simpsons really poke fun at the wackiness of rightist behaviour and attitudes. But I have met many conservatives that think Simpsons is all about making fun of the leftists! Huh? Are these people just nuts or am I missing something?
Meh.
But Fox News is obviously so touchy that if it weren't The Simpsons it'd be someone else. What a bunch of non-joke-taking whiners. Didn't it used to be the liberals who were humorless?
No, it was never "the liberals" any more than it was "those conservatives" (and possibly less so). What we have been witnessing is classic transference: the extreme right (not to be confused with run of the mill, mostly-harmless conservatives) accusing "those dirty liberals" of everything they, themselves, are doing. When John Hannerty or Rush Limbaugh is telling their audience "liberals are trying to silence freedom of speech!", what you are witnessing is akin to a rapist telling the court "she really wanted it bad" (she didn't, he did). Whether it is FOX News (or Revend Fallwell) issuing a lawsuit, Baby Bush intimidating the media in its reporting of the conflict in Iraq, or Mr. O'Reilly shouting down anyone with an opposing point of view on his show, what we are seeing are these people describing themselves, and trying to pin that description on their political or rhetorical opponents.
Witness just about any marital argument and listen to what each side is shouting. You will generally be hearing people describing themselves very accurately, and mischaracterizing the other accordingly as they seek to pin the accusation on the other.
This isn't to say that criticism (of both the left and the right) isn't often warrented, but to point out how often its accuracy is abysmal, particularly among the more shrill pundits of both sides. Indeed, the more shrill they become, the more likely one is to be witnessing transference in action.
Which puts the FOX News v. Simpsons debacle in a very interesting light, wouldn't you agree?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
All of these damn lawsuits are really getting old. Seems to me that pretty soon you won't even be able to talk badly about anything. "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all" will be enforced in the courts. What a joke. Nevermind the fact these morons are considering suing themselves more or less.
2. Let's just hope that they have good closure on their final episode, or aliens from Omicron-Persei will blow up the earth.
What?
Simpsons comes off as nothing but making laughs at the expense of stupid rightism.
Meh.
http://poynter.org/forum/?id=letters#foxnews
This post cites specific sources.
Are you saying that watching TV news of any sort will give you "facts". There is no such thing as truly objective journalism. I have more respect for people who don't try to pretend there is than I do for people who pretent there is. The whole premis of this report is that someone actually has the correct perception of all of these stories. That idea in itself strikes me as funny.
The left were generally unhappy with GW2. This isn't because we thought Saddam was a jolly nice man who was just a little misunderstood, it was because we thought that the eventual result would be a disaster, because we're an anti-war lot in general unless we really, truly, cannot see any other way, and because we were suspicious of the motives of those pushing for war at a time when the reasons given for war were clearly suspect.
I have left-wing friends who hoped, desperately hoped, once war was declared, that Saddam had had some role in the WTC attack, so they could justify the country they loved going to war against them, and the associated deaths amongst US troops and Iraqi civilians this would cause.
Incidentally, as someone points out later in this thread, there were control groups put in the study, in particular the surveyors checked the misconceptions amongst democrats and amongst republicans. In all cases, the NPR listeners came out better than the Fox viewers.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This is a most interesting thought. Such surveys can provide a quite objective definition of "accurate and balanced".
Suppose someone takes three clear cases of liberal misperceptions of comparable scale and conduct a similar survey, it is likely that NPR audience get a 30/70 split, instead of the 23/77 split for conservative misperceptions. That would show NPR to be slightly left-leaning.
On the other hand, the fox audicence might get a 1/99 split on liberal misperceptions, compared with a 80/20 split on conservative misperceptions. That would show Fox News to be extremely right wing.
I would bet that the print media would have less than the 47/53 split on liberal misperceptions, but would be somewhat close. That would show the print media to be slightly right-leaning.
If two media sources are both balanced, the one with smaller rates of misperception is more accurate.
Of course the numbers can only come from real surveys. Such numbers would be extremely revealing.
"4. If yo uask a random sample of people if Anti-choice protesters blew up the WTC you'll find that most who say yes watch CNN exlusively instad of FOX."
Is that really your proposed opposite liberal misconception to the "conservative" misconception of Iraq being behind the attack?
Really, I'd like to see a list of the analogous liberal misconceptions on the other side.
I'll throw out the only one I know of:
"Bush was somehow behind the attack."
But that is only held by such a fringe set that I don't think it would show up on a survey of anybody who uses mainstream media as their main information source (and that is what we are testing). It would not be surprising to find that there are people who subscribe to Joe Bob's Conspiracy Newsletter that have off the wall misconceptions, on either side - what I want to know is what are the analogous liberal misconceptions you claim, which are derived (well, ok, correlated) from watching one or the other mainstream news channel.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I feel more at ease believing that Carbonite is trolling rather than being a tool.
It's easy to understand the concept of representation and beurocratic heirarchies. However, it's also easy to just accept everything you hear.
1. That George W Bush cannot be held responsible for anything that the White House has said on his behalf, ie that GWB != White House. This strikes me as shirking responsibility, and if he hadn't agreed with what the White House was putting out, he had plenty of opportunities to correct the mistake. For details on what the White House said, take a gander here.
2. That George W Bush never used the words "imminent threat". This is simple slight-of-hand: change a question about what George W Bush was stating, and pretend it has to do with the wording he used. I'd write a lengthy set of quotes, with links, but I don't need to: take a look at what this guy has researched on the subject.
If either of the above arguments fails, then the claim that George W Bush never claimed Iraq's WMDs were an imminent threat before the war also fails. Both of the above arguments fail. The White House used the words "Imminent Threat", and even if the White House hadn't, the precise words used do not matter: what matters is that George W Bush made those claims.
Sorry Shrub, you can't dodge this one.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
1. What is you IQ?
subnormal
2. What is your primary source for news?
slashdot
Wow, I'll have to apologize to all the right-wingers out there now. There was no "imminent threat", only a "grave threat".
I for one welcome our new Fox News overloards...
(sorry, thought it was perfect for this topic)
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Homer Simpson, Nerdbuster!
Isn't a pre-emptive attack an attack intended to stop an imminent threat? Why were we told that a pre-emptive attack against Iraq was necessary?
The republicans are every bit as heavily invested in "socialist" (though their benefits tend to go primarily to corporations and the well off) and "big government" (though instead of money going to (for instance) education it goes to police, jails and the military).
If you had neurons committed to actually finding anything out the truth, instead of shoring up those who are claiming to be your friends, you might have a chance (with a couple years of deprogramming) of actually figuring out whats going on.
Idiot.
No, I take that back - you might actually get up to "Idiot" with a dozen or so IQ points and some studying.
Today the Washington Post ran this comment from the creators of The Simpsons:
Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.
Now I'm curious: I don't watch Fox news (or any television news, for that matter) so I don't really have a dog in this hunt. But for all you who piled on Fox news and their viewers in this thread, do you now feel a little sheepish? Does it suggest maybe you are a little quick to believe things you believe *should* be true? Or do you just shrug it off?
The Link is here. Noteably it is on the show Fresh Air with Terry Gross who has recently interviewed Al Franken and a Bill O'Reilly about their Hate/Hate relationship and the lawsuit itself. As a side note O'Reilly walked out of the interview.
I guess, just like with Clinton, it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" (or in this case "imminent") is. But then, mincing words to cover up misleading the country about going to war is so much better than mincing words to cover up about having sex, isn't it? Or, at least the Republicans seem to think.
That is all.
Are you lying or stupid? Just let us know, so the non-Democratic Underground mods can score your post accordingly...
Oh, the parent isnt just funny but accurate. Check out how life at Fox News channel is really like.
Salon interview here too.
...I take it that you too read Al Franken's book.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Ya ever read "One flew over the cuckoo's"? The correlation between the Bush administrations "insinuation's" and that of Big Nurse's are mind boggling. It's the same kind of control, not coming out and just saying it, but pointing people in that direction for the pecking party. -Zong
I couldn't agree with you more.
There's nothing wrong with a spirited debate on the issues; there's nothing wrong with parody.
There does seem to be something wrong when rather than address the issues, various factions seek to pigeonhole their opposition with name-calling in order to detract from the substance of the issues.
There does seem to be something wrong when a person gets sued for expressing an opinion, in parody form or not.
In Michael Moore's new book, "Dude, Where's My Country" he goes into details of how liberal the country actually is according to established definitions. It's a very good read for anyone who wants to be enlightened on this controversial issue.
Have you ever noticed that the Fox ticker runs a little slower than the other news networks. The Fox ticker also tends to use less complicated verbage. Of course this should not be misconstrued to imply anything negative about Fox's news audience.
It would be interesting to see if the Simpsons ticker runs faster or slower than the Fox news ticker. Maybe Fox could increase the Simpsons market share by creating a remedial Simpsons to run along side the regular Simpsons. Homer would be renamed Bubba and Marge would drive a pickup.
Before anyone starts picking on me for being an elitist Yankee, just know that I'm a registered Republican, I moved to Flori-duh from small-town Georgia, and yes, I drove pickups (72 and 76 Ford F100s). Now I drive a big honkin SUV. Even I can see that Fox News is Fairly Imbalanced.
I was obviously using hyperbole.
Neither example was meant to be realistic.
Also - there is no reason to restrict a study to the war in Iraq.
Surely you don't propose that there are absolutely NO misconceptions which are more likely to be held by somebody who is left-wing than somebody who is right-wing?
How about "there is evidence that genetically modified food causes cancer". Or "Average global temperatures are 10 degrees warmer than they were before the industrial age". (I'm not saying that many liberals are walking around proclaiming either - only that if these questions were on a poll you'd find more liberals saying they were true than conservatives.)
My whole point is that correllation does not mean causation. I'm saying that by looking at FOX vs NPR you're tending to select conservatives vs liberals. The actual material broadcasted by the stations is irrellevant to the outcome of the study. (And no - I don't want FOX news and I'm not saying it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.)
All I'm trying to say is that there are several possible explanations for the poll results, and there is no scientific way to tell which one is right. I think that anyone with a reasonable grounding in the scientific method would agree with me.
The allegations against FOX news may very well be true. However, this study does not prove it. In the same way, a large number of people carrying umbrellas doesn't cause it to rain, even though in 90% of all polls more people carried their umbrellas to work on days when it rained than when it didn't.
Read the following demonstrably untrue statement to listeners of NPR and watchers of Fox:
"The latest economic slowdown began after George W. Bush took office."
Now, which group do you think will be wrong on this more?
As the aforementioned study only addresses misconceptions conservatives would tend to have, it's totally worthless. If CBS watchers were clueless and 25% of them thought Tikrit was the capital of Iraq, does that mean CBS has been telling its viewers lies about the cities of Iraq?
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Witness just about any marital argument and listen to what each side is shouting. You will generally be hearing people describing themselves very accurately, and mischaracterizing the other accordingly as they seek to pin the accusation on the other.
/.)
And to my sad dismay, Fox seeminly upped the anti by making Fox News the loudest and most "flashy" 24 hour news there is. You used the word extreme and I think it applys to all aspects of what modern media has done to many aspects of what we know of as media. Yes, there are many outlets of media that don't scream, mischaracterize, and or out and out lie often but they tend to get drounded out with this new tactic: Scream your spin the loudest and hope that you get heard above the noise, or better yet are the only noise that can be heard.
We see this in other aspects of our meida as well, big budget pictures are expected and when they don't perform well due to a bad plot, bad acting, bad casting, etc there is much finger pointing about who did what wrong rather than just accepting that maxing out on volume is not always the key to success.
Diddo the RIAA. Their buisness plan exists such that they must have control of what content is dilvered to the masses. Rather than accepting that change was on the horizen they ignored it and when things did change they now are shouting at the top of their collective lungs, you must ONLY listen to our music! (Yes, a strech but hey, it's only
I personally watch maybe 30 mins of TV news a week, and that is mostly when I'm subjected to it by others. I find that it has decended into nearly pure brainwashing tactics with the same messages repeated over and over and over in self rightious tones that almost reach out of the TV and knock me over the head. And since all that glass window does is tell me what it thinks I never can get the sadsifacation of giving it any good wacks back. Print news can be as bad in a diffrent way but it's much easier to filter out the dreck and put it down if it simply becomes too much.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A448 98-2003Oct30.html
Who would of thought, a Bush apologist using a Clintonian defense tactic... A word of advice, after you figure out what the meaning of "is" is, you should figure out what the meaning of "prevaricate" is. To deny that Bush and his posse made the argument that Saddam Hussein posed an immanent threat to the United States due to his possesion of WMD is historical revisionism of the most absurd degree. Do the words "smoking gun... mushroom cloud" ring any bells? The insane mental contortions Bush is putting the American right through would make Orwell himself pause, cognitive dissonance can only go so far, something must give!
Even better, will someone hurry up and digitize the episode and post a torrent? I forgot to set the ReplayTV...
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
The proposed US / Australian Free Trade Agreement will weaken our laws regarding media monopolies, and allow Murdoch and other right-wing penises even more control over our already pathetically one-sided news services.
Oppose the Free Trade Agreement at all costs!
Anthony Albanese will be holding a meeting to discuss the FTA on the 13th of Nov. See FEC_Forum_13-11-03_Free_Trade_Globalisation.pdf for details.
Also, get in touch with your local left-wing organisers and join in the protests. We are NOT a state of the USA!
They were considering it, but never went through with it.
Very well said.
Oh, the network slogan is true! Watch FOX and be damned for all eternity!
Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
(so, uh, can I have your account? A 4-digit user account number would be very prestigious, and your username is kinda cool, too!)
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If the rebuttal/contention is that people who watch "conservative" news channels appear to be more uninformed because the survey only tested misconceptions that conservatives would have (which would not show up on the liberal side), then I would like to see a similar survey with proposed liberal misconceptions. For conservatives (or conservative news channel watchers) to be just as informed (or uninformed) as liberals (or liberal news channel watchers), the results should be symmetric, i.e., you'd expect watchers of liberal news channels to have the same general amount and severity of liberal misconceptions. It would be very interesting to me to 1) see such a list, because I at least partially doubt the alleged political biased-ness of the questions to begin with and 2) I would be VERY interested to know that there was a mainstream channel that had such a high correlation with misconceptions in the liberal realm, because I doubt there is, at least as much as is apparent with Fox News.
If I am correct I think it would be because 1) conservatives have a simpler ideology, more conducive to television and sound-bytes (witness the conservative radio phenomenon) 2) since society in general tends towards being more "liberal" (for broad definitions of that word), it is less interesting or unique to have a liberally-slanted news channel.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Neither example was meant to be realistic.
Your right-wing example was perfectly realistic, while your left-wing example was a fairy tale. Plenty of people believe Iraq blew up the WTC; absolutely no one believes anti-choice protestors did it.
It's the same sort of straw man argument people like Bill O'reilly use when they pretend to be in the center: invent an extremist position, attribute it to your opponents, and you appear to be "Fair and Balanced."
Isn't it time to change yr sig by now, seeing as how he declared candidacy a month ago?
Look, a majority of Americans believed Iraq had WMD's, including nuclear weapons
Bill Clinton also believed the same thing. So was he misleading/lieing to America too, or were both presidents just doing the best job the could with the information they had?
I think that we need a "no shit sherlock" category here. Somebody has to say it, but isn't it bloody annoying when one nerd assumes that his/her values apply to all the rest of nerdome?
Some of us like games, some like anime, some like cartoons such as the simpsons. No nerds are all alike, and the grandparent should be ashamed of assuming thus.
Maybe we should add that comment to the simpsons ticker:
Newsflash: Nerds like the simpsons... George bush really Kodos in disguise...
>Every news story about Iraq tends to show the
>negative (the few positive ones seem to be
>forced and played down).
thats because there are a lot more negative things coming out of iraq than positive.
sure, we opened some schools - that was last week. we lose over a soldier a day, everyday.
which do you report? do you say - a soldier has been killed, but look at the schools we opened?
the iraw war is going horribly badly, and the US population is not getting close to the truth.
... hi bingo
-1, Pointing out a so-called "liberal's" hypocrisy.
For the record, Time lies to people when telling them that downloading music online is stealing.
;-)
Bias is not limited to any corp., any person, or any political party. We're all full of shit
But the trivia question in The 138th Episode Spectacular said that the cash register read "NRA4EVER". What's going on here?
The trivia questions in The 138th Episode Spectacular are gags made to troll the audience, just like the images of Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon in the episode are not what those people really look like. The cash register question is a gag referring to the people who have labeled the show as "the most liberal on television" by portraying it as having an ultra-conservative slant.
Our topstories tonight: a tremendous explosion in the price of lumber, President Reagan dyes...his hair, plus Garry Trudeau and his new musical comedy revue. But first! Let's check the death count from the killer storm bearing down on us like a shotgun full of snow.
They took extremely important issues which cost a lot of lives (some 300 US soldiers, thousands of Iraqi soldiers and nearly 10,000 Iraqi civilians).
Other issues you mention are not cut-n-dry. For eg. what exactly do you want to ask about "the treatment of captured Afghanis and suspected terrorists" ?
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
The ability of Bush apologists to forget something that happened just six months ago amazes me.
Just become we havent found them doesnt mean they dont exist. To claim that they are false means that you have evidence that the do not exist. Any Sources? Did you go to Iraq and dig around? Didnt think so.
Finding Saddam is proving to be a tough enough challenge. What makes you think finding weapons that he could have hidden years ago are easier?
I do think that some of the intelligence the US acquired was poor but usually when there is smoke there is fire.
80% of Fox News viewers believe everything Fox News tells them. 80% of Americans read on a 5th grade level or lower. Coincidence? I think not. Welcome to state sponsored stupidity, folks.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
The difference is in the plausible deniability. Your sperm on a womnan's dress gives you very little. Bush's situation permits him a great deal. He can continue to argue that he wasn't lying, he was just wrong.
Men have legs. That makes it easy for them to run. WDEs that pose an imminent threat tend to be bulky and far less mobile.
The NYT and Washington Post "left-leaning"? You have to be kidding. For example look at a mainstream centre-left newspaper from the UK, The Guardian. Like I said, whilst it may be known as a left-wing rag, it is a well-respected, commercial, high-circulation broadsheet. Compare its take on world news to the NYT and then tell me the Times and Post are left wing.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Well he obviously didn't believe it enough to justify a invation of iraq.
There are very clear rules to good reporting:
1) If it is a fact i.e. can be verified independently (footage etc.) report it as fact.
2) If the journalists reflects his or her own viewpoint mark it clearly as a personal commentary, analysis or editorial.
3) Reporting that does not fall into the above is usually hearsay and should be reported as quoting a source that either can be named or is anonymous.
At one point American journalism followed these rules and was a beacon for the rest of the world.
How many US soldiers died in Clinton's wars?
Apparently the way to get modded as insightful is to reply to a post and say that it was insightful. I find that interesting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A
"Fox fought against it and said that they would sue the show," Groening told Gross. "And we called their bluff because we didn't think that Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. So we got away with it," he said, proud of the accomplishment.
Fox News, however, denies reports that they ever threatened to sue. "We were all scratching our heads and thought it was hysterical," spokesman Rob Zimmerman told us yesterday. "It's not the first time we've been spoofed, you know."
Which one of those statments are you claiming was false?
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
Even without the qualifier this statement is true. David Kay found plenty of evidence to back it up.
The regime has a history of reckless aggression in the Middle East. It has a deep hatred of America and our friends. And it has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda.
You probably don't disagree with the first sentence, but the second one is true too.
The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.
So, you don't think it would be dangerous if terrorists were to use WMDs against the US or another country?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
This is a bad thing since experience working at Fox news does not exactly enhance your resume when applying for a job with the real media
So much for this theory:
Miller hired by CNBC
[Ailes] was put in charge of the news operation for the sole purpose of slanting the news to the extreme right.
Extreme right, like Nazi Germany? Please. That's what we regularly see Susan Estrich, Davis Korn, Paul Krugman, and scores of other libs on FNC?
What notable conservatives are on CNN, except anti-war paleocon Bob Novak? How about ABC, whose only foriegn policy "experts" are from the Carter or Clinton administration, or from the leftie Brookings Institution?
Nice link to the far-left Salon.com, BTW. Nice story, which calls ABC "objective." In a recent poll, Peter Jennings was called the most anti-war reporter in all of American news.
ABC News admits to excessively negative Iraq coverage
The problem is that its core democratic of poor middle aged southern white racist men do not have much in the way of buying power. Advertisers much prefer to reach 18-35 audiences, gays, professionals, etc. in short pretty much everyone who is unlikely to watch Fox. In fact advertising on Fox News actually trades at a discount to other broadcasts reaching the same demographic because advertisers know that many of the demographics they do want are actually less likely to buy a product they see advertised on a channel they associate with biggotry.
You fail to provide a link to this claim of FNC's core demo, because it has no basis in fact. Why does FNC constantly run endless home refi adds? For all those poor southerners to refi their trailers? LOL! First time I've ever heard libs call Republicans "poor!" Hilarious. I thought we were rich guys who wanted tax cuts?
You are flat-out wrong. The FNC demo is better than CNN's; it is popular with young republican YUPPIEs. Newscorp is kicking a$$, and CNN is in the dumper financially, in case you haven't checked recently, if ever.
Although a typical liberal refrain is labeling conservatives "bigots" (although they often misspell it), it's an insulting, inaccurate troll, and your post should be rated as such.
You libs are only about 17-20% of the population, compared to about 34% conservative and the rest moderate (see Gallup - sorry, but their older polls require subscription).
Fox news will flip flop to the left.
Sorry, that (19%) demo is already filled by CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, AP, Reuters, NPR...not enough libs left to go around, LOL!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Yes, it's an opinion piece by Saxby Chambliss -- a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- about the evidence of WMDs he has been shown, and why most of the media refuses to report on it.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Yes, they took extremly important issues. I'm not faulting them on their selection. I'm just saying that elwinc was wrong in generalizing past the issues the study dealt with. We don't know (from this evidence) that Fox is more biased than other news sources, just that it has a bias that others don't share.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A448 98-2003Oct30.html
"Nonetheless "The Simpsons" (the show, not the characters) issued an apology yesterday: "Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.""
Does Slashdot really need to carry the typical Liberal Vs. Conservative bitchfests that the rest of the net features?
[pointing at Fox News] Ha-Ha!
If you heard this interview you should have heard it was a joke and entirely untrue (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44 898-2003Oct30.html)
/. in the past year.
But that is the sort of quality editing we have come to expect of
-- Alchohol is a hard drug. Cannabis is a soft drug.
That is NOT the measure by which correct action is measured. Whether one or 2 billion US soldiers die, the truth and "right thing to do" does not change.
Whenever we get the tired line from conservatives regarding the liberal slant of the media, one only has to look at the behavior of the media across the board during the Clinton impeachment era. It was all Clinton's Cock, all the time. CNN should have been called the CCNN, the Clinton's Cock News Network. MSNBC should have been the MS-NOTHING BUT COCK network. This liberal media went into a veritable feeding frenzy over the great Clinton cock hunt.
Proof that viewership of Fox is inversely correlated with education and income.
On a personal note, I have a doctorate.
You?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A448 98-2003Oct30.html
The scary thing is, it made SENSE!
Thanks for the link, it gave me a chance to mod your whining response down, too. Who the fuck says "Frick?" Are you 12?
You're a whiny little jackass, you know that?
It may look like a "liberal slant" in relationship to what the serious right wing nuts believe, but it is hardly liberal in any real sense. The NY Times and NPR seem to me to work pretty hard to remain objective and CNN, MSNBC and other are relatively conservative. I watched a very nicely slanted (pro-conservative) push poll on CNN today that was, of course, presented as a "lets find out what people are thinking" poll even when the question itself seriously biased the potential answers.
It is a sign of how conservative (and for the most part unthinkingly so) the US has become that news organizations like the NY Times and NPR that try to provide objective journalism (however hard that is in practice) are tarred as being ickily "liberal".
More disturbing though is that it is a poor indication of the state of American education that so many Americans seem incapable of distinguishing the difference.
Fox news is also the Likud propganda headquarters.. to give you an example, it's the only news channel that refers to suicide bombings as "homicide bombings".
The worse show on that network is Fox and Friends. You want to see extremist right-wing hatred against arabs and europeans? Then watch that show. They absolutely took the cake one time when they hit the french with a few monstrous low-blows. Eade I think her name is, and one of the other jerks, Steve or Bryan said that the french don't have air conditioners, don't care about their elderly and let their own grandparents die in the streets. I was gobsmacked. Then that was followed by the usual and typical "we helped the French out on WWII blah blah".
Take a look at their questions of the day - Fox and Friends Questions of the day
They really love the Saudis and the French, oh and the peace prize bit must be a sick joke -
9/11 Blame Game: FBI Fumble or Saudi Sabotage?
Saudi Speak-Out: Help, or Hindrance?
Speak Out on Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe?
Syria Situation: Time to Get Serious, or not Syria-ous Problem?
Fickle French: Help All the Way, or Stay Away?
French Whine: Sour Grapes, or Right to Gripe?
Nobel Peace Prize: Bush and Blair Best Bet?
And another thing, every time there is a "homicide bombing" in Israel, you'll see an Israeli being interviewed. They also gave that fucker William (Bill) Kristol (partly responsible for the Iraq war along with Wolfowitz, Feith among other zionists) alot of air time before the Iraqi war and Kissinger is a regular too.
Anyway, honestly, I do watch fox news occassionally - only to check out what the latest euro-arab hate speech is.
The major metropolitan papers (NYT, Boston Globe, etc.) usually report a LOT more detail than TV news does.
Right before and during the war to get rid of Saddam, NPR was quite obviously tilting towards the isolationist/leave-Saddam-alone side. But the NPR/BBC radio coverage was much more in depth than the TV news, both on NPR's "side", and on the other side. If you listened to enough of it, you came away with stuff that wasn't even in the relatively good newspaper accounts. That made NPR a better source of news whether or not you agreed with their "spin".
By contrast, a lot of TV channels (including the main CNN, Fox, etc. ones) like to repeat the same 30 minutes over and over and over.
How many US soldiers died in Clinton's wars?
Chechnia or Bosnia? Do we count anyone killed in asprin factories that are not Americans? What about the soldiers killed from terrorist attacks, like the Cole, etc.? Should we have acted earlier, or pulled out? If Clinton would have taken Osama when he had the chance would it have prevented 9-11?
It easy to second guess after the fact, isn't it? I don't claim Clinton is responsible for these things, but I do claim that it is pretty absurd to compare two presidents based upon the number of deaths of military soldiers, since you can't compare the threats facing each.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
biyatch
Look, a majority of Americans believed Iraq had WMD's, including nuclear weapons.
l bright.html
Perhaps that's b/c Iraq had WMD's, at least before GW1. Instead of getting your news from equally left-biased sources, try it from the horse's mouth instead: UNSCOM:
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1998/mj98/mj98a
Before the start of GW1, Iraq was only 6 months from fielding a nuclear weapon. UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors estimated that once UN inspections ceased, Iraq could rebuild their entire nuclear program within 3 - 4 years, and if they were able to obtain fissile material on the black market, they could field a nuke within 1 year.
I even heard on NPR a few months ago (at 3am in the morning, go figure) that Bill Clinton was considering invading Iraq in '99, for the same reasons Bush did - potential WMD proliferation. He sent Albright to Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to garner their support for just such a thing. Unfortunately for him, the Lewinsky scandal erupted just a few weeks later, sapping the political capital necessary for him to proceed.
The only silly word game being played here is that of the left attempting to a destroy Bush for doing what everyone in the know knew had to be done.
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
OK Dr. Science,
Please post a link to a study or poll proving your thesis that viewership of Fox is inversely correlated with education and income.
Otherwise, let's discontinue this as yet another unsubstantiated leftist slander of the right.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
That's not much use though. Either you see the US as it is in which case Moore's book doesn't change perception, or you are in line with the party and won't read the book to begin with. It does not seem to me like there is a large middle ground seeking enlightment.
Another interesting thread (but not here on Slashdot) would be comparing Neo-Conservative, Conservative and Republican ideals. It seems to me that sane people could not possibly agree with Neo-Conservative values but do so anyway by mistaking them for Republican ideals.
You posted an article a day after Fark.com, and after Fark.com already posted a retraction saying that Groening was just making a joke.
Thought you guys were more on the ball than that!
It is amazing to me that such incredible, mindless hatred of Bush causes the left to lose all credibility in debating these issues. I, for one, know that having a handful of people searching a desert the size of California for intentionally hidden WMD's is not going to make for an easy search. He had them, they're probably mostly in Syria by now, but I'm willing to bet that before too long, all of you people on the left will be eating crow...just like you did when you went on TV saying thousands of U.S. soldiers would be slain; that the Iraqi people actually like Saddam (remember the celebrations in Baghdad?); when the economy actually DID improve (damn dramatically) following the tax cut. Jesus, you guys are really incredible.
What's really funny to me is that the high-tech industry is so overwhelmingly left-leaning to begin with. Here you have a President who wants you to be able to keep more of your own money, to be able to actually invest some of your social security money yourself, and to protect the United States from the emotional and economic disaster of another terrorist strike. I don't agree with every policy decision this President makes, but I'm damn glad we have him there instead of Gore throughout all this.
And speaking of those "infamous 16 words"...the statement is 100% true...the British government did learn (via SEPARATE intelligence of their own) that Saddam tried to acquire uranium...and they STOOD BY THAT intelligence even after the "controversy" in the speech.
For the record, the words were: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
There is absolutely NOTHING in that statement either misleading or untrue. What many liberal media outlets did was remove the first 6 words.
Don't forget Somolia. Yes he inherited our troops being there from Bush Sr. (who i also detest) but their bodies weren't being dragged through the street when Bush was in charge.
and generate waves anyway they can. Lets face it, most shee^H^H^H people don't even understand half the news they see, just the names stick, it is getting to the point where there IS NO BAD PUBLICITY, a double murder, just apply the proper spin, donate to a 'news' organization, and viola its free advertisment. With an attention span slightly under 25.5 seconds ask someone what the best movie they've ever seen, and it will be from the last 6 months. Funny but a list the 100 best horror movies of all time was just published and 95 of them were from 1989 and forward ?? The US public has ADD as a whole and the everyone in charge really likes it that way....hard to hold anyone responsible for anything when most folks wake up to a new world every 4 days.... BTW LOOK OVER THERE *the quick switch* and a blank innocent look...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The comunist leftwinger are unhappy that the ecomony is doing a better job thanks to bush tax cut and the iraq was a great but not to left winger howard dean. it clinton fualt he new about binladen
thank liberal and you high taxes agenda
cnn comunist news network ny slime nbc abc cbs npr pbs boston globe la slime all liberal let not forget how the la time smeared arnold but never talked about davis assult of a older women the double standard of the left
yesterday number of the ecomony seem good.
IT WAS A JOKE.Sorry for the registration, don't shoot.
The important bit from the article..."Nonetheless "The Simpsons" (the show, not the characters) issued an apology yesterday: "Matt was being satirical and certainly there was never any issue between the show and Fox News. We regret any confusion.""
So, total people misled by NPR today who posted to slashdot >750. Total number of people who believed what they heard on NPR absolutely without further checking and posted to slashdot >750. Did someone say something about misperceptions? You should not believe any "news source" absolutely. Always get a second opinion, we don't want a whole thread full of people with egg on their face making fun of something that didn't really happen.
The fact that Clinton had to lie about his sexual practices just shows what a petty person he really is. He would have a lot more credibility with a lot of us if he'd said 'Yes! She gave me blow jobs. Hillary and I have an open marriage.'
But, spineless opportunist that he is, he couldn't do that. I am sure there are a lot of free love advocates and people who are into exploratory/alternative sexuality who wish he hadn't been such a coward. He could have blown the lid off a whole mess of sexual prudery with a few well-chosen comments.
But really, he's just a petty opportunist. The Polling Data said that people wouldn't like him getting blow jobs in the White House from a woman young enough to be his daughter, so he lied.
A Good Intro to NetBS
If you honestly think that Iraq never had WMDs, you, sir, are a genuine moron. And you claim that viewers of Fox News have been mislead? Amazing.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I helped write the original version of slashcode before Malda even registered slashdot.com
poor middle aged southern white racist men
Wait just a minute bubba. Take the southern out of that. Having lived in the South, the North and the West, I can tell you from experience that racists are everywhere, but they are LEAST present in the South. A visit to Washington State left me cringing from the racist hate that people felt I wanted to hear when they heard my southern accent. Also while working for many years in New York for two major companies (whose names you would recognize) I ate in corporate cafeterias essentially devoid of any blacks. Blacks always seemed to be located in the EEO and fairness departments though. That little self-delusion allows the executives to rationailze they do not discriminate in hiring (what a joke). The two most racist areas I have seen in this country are the Pacific Northwest (an overt, mean, hateful racisim) and New York City (corporate, slick and self-defined as non-racist because they are New Yorkers - but they still don't hire blacks).
And me? I'm just middle-aged white southern trash who, like most southerners, knows from experience that we have to be vigilant to overcome the fear of the different and the willingness to rationalize the racism that is in us all. And that goes for your denegration of your demographic of "poor middle aged southern white racist men". Look inward bubba - you ain't so lily white.
When did I say I thought any of the statements were false?
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
You said it yourself: local channels vary. Because local channels have nothing to do with Fox News- other than common corporate ownership (which grants them their name).
Your local Fox affiliate pays for its own news operations, at a pretty penny I should say. Local news is maybe the biggest part of running an affiliate, and if I were them I might be offended by the notion that I'm just amplifying some national feed (a la Clear Channel).
Rene Carlos
So you say that you can not compare the threats they faced nor the way they performed in military conflicts. Makes me kind of wonder how you think any comparison can be achieved.
I hope you will never run for president. There is such a think as to factoring in the cost in human lives into your decisions.
Given that Iraq has not been much of a threat to the US the price that America has to pay in blood seems to me to be way out of proportion. Maybe if the number gets so high that the administration reinstates a general draft you may want to reconsider your statement.
Faux News is a bad joke. I'm waiting for a camera to accidently catch an anchor wearing a KKK hood.
Abby Hoffman was right, just a few years early. Welcome to Amerika.
So you say that you can not compare the threats they faced nor the way they performed in military conflicts. Makes me kind of wonder how you think any comparison can be achieved.
As I said "since you can't compare the threats facing each"
That is the point. You can't. The threats were completely different, so you can't compare them directly. Its not all black and white, where "if they do this, you do this". You have even seen Clinton take his side on a few issues regarding the war.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
He in fact argued the opposite of that, and said we can't wait until the threat is imminent, and we need to go in now.
The thing that's quoted in the link you gave actually backs that up.
This has been proven over and over to be a liberal meme that just can't stick, because it's a lie. Instapundit even points out to a guy that got a retraction from a "journalist" that tried that.
- ac
"Fox News brings out both liberals and conservatives to state their views on a daily basis. You have to wait for the weekend to get that from the broadcast news organizations... and even then you don't always hear the conservative side of things" - Rich Powell
Amazing how you were able to make a judgement on my field of study and understanding of statistics, based on zero evidence. I was obviously defending myself from the poster - who was making a subtle ad hominem attack on me - not an inductive conclusion on Fox viewership based on my own education.
Judge [sic] by your inability to understand statistics, I'm guess [sic] it's in a field that doesn't involve any actual maths [sic] or science.
Judging by your illiteracy, I'm guessing English isn't your field of study.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
And this article shows what's really been going on with this whole "imminent threat" argument.