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."

Comments

Well gee

[geek]

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.

Fox - They distort, we deride

[fiannaFailMan]

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!

Re:It's not the ticker

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't funny or insightful. It was really a troll.

Re:It gets better

[Brahmastra]

The rule actually makes perfect sense because we are talking about fox news viewers here. They mistake fake news for real news all the time.

Re:Spelling Error...

[samwhite_y]

Sigh. I have a Ph.d. in mathematics and I consider myself a liberal (I really do not like the fact that Bush is our president). But much of the "activist" left wing are so clueless when it comes to seeing reality. I read the New York times daily. It so clearly has a liberal bias. Every news story about Iraq tends to show the negative (the few positive ones seem to be forced and played down). Every news story about Democrats who attack Bush has a positive spin. Only very grudingly to they admit that the last quarter's growth has some positive aspects to it. They ran a story about Bush trying to take credit for the recent economic growth and the story pretty much said that Bush was seriously overstating the case.

I find the "New York Times" to be sufficiently biased in its reporting to be annoying, especially when I feel the irrational spin on an event is actually damaging and not helping a cause I favor. For example, the "New York Times" would never point out that more die in Iraq from standard causes like crimes, sickness, accidents by an order of magnitude than die from terrorists acts. And a couple 100 American dead is really small fry casualties for a war zone type situation. By exagerating issues like small fry terrorists acts, they make it sound like the issue at stake is not whether we really have any business in Iraq (I personally think we should have never gone in), but that a few hundred dead American soldiers would never be justified for a good cause.

Try reading an "Economist" and "New York Times" article about the same thing (such as globalization or the war on Iraq). There are startling differences. If the Conservatives in our country actually hold the correct opinions (note the big "if") about how to direct the future of our country, then they have a right to be outraged by the left wing media. Since I mostly agree with the positions of the left wing media, I am only annoyed.