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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."
Well lets think about this quote for a second. If we assume that Fox news is actually concerned that its viewers will confused a cartoon like the simpsons for a real news broadcast , it really says hat FNC thinks their viewers are in fact incredibly stupid. Particularly if you look at what went by on the news ticker .Who other than a fox news viewer would think those headlines were real?
PS - i wore my asbestos underwear today.
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.
If your viewers are so dim as to think that the cartoon animation on the screen is the real news.. I think you have more problems that you realize...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
Why is this moderated as funny? It seems far more insightful to me.
Nerds like the Simpsons.
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
I'll agree on the majors having slight liberal slant, but Fox News is more than 'slightly' right-leaning. You're talking about a network that goes out of its way to find the dumbest, most extreme left wingers to bring on the air so their hosts can ridicule them. Bill O'Reilly's shouting matches and mic cutting are pretty much SOP over Fox - they try to give the appearance of letting both sides tell their story, but in reality, are only interested in their side of the story. The other networks generally at least give conservatives a chance to speak without treating them like bafoons. That alone makes them far more centerist than Fox will ever be in my mind.
Yup...I see CBS, NBC, ABC...the major network news, and CNN on cable as all having from a slight to major liberal slant.
Maybe it's because I'm Canadian, but I find this belief in liberal slant in mainstream U.S. media as incomprehensible to me as the arguments of the gun lobby. (I'm not equating the two, by the way.)
I read or watch CNN fairly often, and there seems to be an undertone to all the coverage that I would hardly call liberal. For instance, while Fox News might directly attack a Democrat for suggesting tax cuts are a bad idea, CNN will simply quote him, while still subtly suggesting that most Americans would want the tax cut.
The most telling evidence, though, is the fearful lack of coverage of foreign events by the mainstream American networks, excepting of course the Middle East. I was astounded to see the difference between regular cable CNN, and CNN International, which has reasonably decent coverage of stuff in Africa, Asia, etc. And I don't accept the argument that CNN is simply showing what its domestic audience wants to see, and has no free will in the matter.
I suppose karma should be used for something....
Most residents of the United States have fallen into the falacy of the much touted Liberal Bias In The Media (caps intentional).
We've had it cramed down our throats by every radio talk show zelot, republican candidate, and conservitive figure we're willing to listen to.
It's simply not the case. Are most journalists liberal? Unquestionably. Education is one of the strongest factors in determining political viewpoints (next to family and wealth) and most journalists hold at least a BA/BS.
Nonetheless, this does not mean that the media as a whole is liberal. General Motors employs thousands of union workers who, for the most part, have liberal leanings and vote democrat. Would you therefore assume that the automotive interests of General Motors are represented by the Democratic Party? [Fact, GM consistanly supports conservitive candidates above liberal ones, all other factors being equal].
The companies we're talking about aren't interested in the Liberal Agenda. Do you think AOL Time Warner wants to see more regulation of the media? Do you think MSNBC (note the MS there) wants to see anti-monopolistic measures taken in the software industry?
When the BBC ran the story on how the Jessica Lynch rescue wasn't all it was cracked up to be did you see it in the US media? Of course not... That isn't to say it didn't run, you'll find several versions of it with a quick google search... but it wasn't exactly above the fold.
MSNBC is even debuting a made for TV version of the "rescue." Executives have repeatedly declined comment as to which version of events they'll be displaying.
So here's my question. If Bill Clinton had presented blatently false information in the State of the Union Address, acted on that information and gone to war on the basis of it, lied about what happened IN the war all the while systematicly dismanteling the individual rights of the US Population... if all that had happened, don't you think the media would have had a bit more to shout about than a stain on a blue dress?
Clinton was impeached for lieing before Congress. The Bush Administration also lied before Congress. Then it went on to commit the country to a war on the same lies. Where is the special investigative council? Where are the media watch dogs?
Liberal Media indeed.... in an election between a stiff and a coke head who did the media favor? The coke head. Go figgure....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
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!