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Microsoft Spinning Against OpenDocument Via Fox News
srwalter writes "As previously reported, Fox News previously ran an article by James Prendergast criticizing Massachussetts for switching to OpenDocument format. Today, Fox News has distanced itself from that article significantly. In a new front page story they post several emails in defense of Massachussetts and OpenDocument in general, as well as apologize for not acknowledging that Prendergast's organization is funded by Microsoft."
Why is this in the politics section? Genuinely curious.
For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case. It's just become conventional wisdom for them without question.
Heck, one could make the case that Slashdot is extremely biased and inaccurate every day.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Well, they stuck the apology/disclosure way at the bottom of a long scroll. It's almost certain to not be as widely read as the original article. Subtly dishonest, IMHO.
"The impossible often has a certain integrity that the merely improbable lacks" - Dirk Gently
As far as I know, Fox News does not have a policy of being biased.
What they do have is a policy of being *extremely* inflammatory.
They will always make it a point to mention the truth as a 'viewpoint'.
They'll also announce every other viewpoint, true or untrue, and the headline will be the one to prompt the greatest amount of reaction, positive or negative.
Obivously, one can see where this develop its own sort of bias.
Fair and balanced? Technically, yes. They don't outright *lie*. They don't even particularly advertise one cause over another, except as-is necessary to generate viewer interest, positive OR negative.
Fox News understands that they can get more viewer by being extremist. Conservatives watch because they can toe the party line. Liberals watchs so they can dispute it. Fox News wins both ways.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
If someone runs an article with a title "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" (which is a rather one-sided title) then I feel the correcting article should have a title like "Everyone should drop Microsoft"
They're not customers. Most everyone the state deals with wants something for free or wants to sell them something. They can use the format the state specifies or take a hike.
When the project required changes to our customers' standards, by State Decree, the costs ballooned.
It's a one-time cost. After the conversion is complete, everyone will save money because they can buy tools to work on documents on the free market, not from a single-source vendor.
Great for FoxNews to do this. But, this is not a front page story -- this is a story that has a link from the front page, which has the equivalent of a selective Table of Contents.
:). They don't even call it a correction.
I love the editor's note down at the bottom of the column -- they bury their corrections as well as print papers do
Also, in mentioning the founders of ATL, they don't mention that Citizens Against Government Waste is not a citizens' group -- it is an industry-funded group.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
PDF is the format for communication with the public.
AFAIK, PDF is well supported, and the number ONE format for document interchange.
Oh, you mean vendors/interdeparment stuff/contractors?
Well, you're working of the state. Guess what; you play by their rules.
The state will interact with its consitutents, the public, in an extremely well supported format.
The state will handle its own affairs in an open format, so that these constituents will have access to the end of time. It's a record keep issue, and its done for their benefit.
Also, consider that you have to change formats anyways. It's either MS XML or OpenDocument XML.
OpenDocument is the better choice for a government.
dada21.... hmm... suspiscious, I suspect you of being a troll.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
The message FoxNews reprinted, from "Bob Halloran of Jacksonville, Fla", in their article, is a perfect example of how Slashdotters should reply to bad articles ourselves. It's strongly worded, but not hostile. Every sentence contains a fact or direct logical point. The counterexamples aren't sweeping worldview declarations, but clear alternatives that speak for themselves. The points are easily quotable by the editor in a followup article. It's brief.
;).
In short, Halloran's message makes it easy for the editor, and a followup reporter, to change their story. It doesn't require FoxNews to change anything else, or admit anything else (like the unprofessional journalism that saw the original astroturf article published). We rant among ourselves here on Slashdot, but when we mix it up with the normals, we must abide by their weasel ways. Because that's what works - for Halloran, for the many FoxNews consumers he's reached, and for us, who he represents (if mildly, and not all of us
--
make install -not war
That's pretty much the nature of any news organization. Why? Because hysteria sells. And it's certainly not just an American thing. Just look at how sensational the British press is. It doesn't necessarily mean they are trying to push an agenda, but they are definitely trying to compete for sales/ratings.
This was a perfect example of a correction and editing. They not only owned up to the mistake, they also included an avalanche of opposing opinion. They noted that the author's connections were not properly identified and have appended a correction to the earlier version of the story.
This is a reader-friendly, no-bones-about-it correction, and the New York Times could actually take a lesson from Fox News on this one.
Of course, the best thing would have been to get it right in the first place.
As far as I know, Fox News does not have a policy of being biased.
That's because Fox News doesn't have a policy of having news. Seriously, almost all of their on-air staff are right-wing guys with their own talk shows and books - some with shady pasts (Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo are both from old-school sensationalistic tabloid shows that set the bar for the last 15 years). Hannity, Gretta Van Sustran (who has a nightly rundown on what cute little rich blonde girls have been kidnapped), O'Reilly - then those annoying women (I can't remember their name) have a stupid "talk show" for a couple hours during the day time in which they're INCREDIBLY biased.
I'm one of those people who saw how clear the "liberal bias" used to be in news. In the last six years, I've become one of those people who has witnessed the shift and now see the insanely biased conservative slant. And you can't tell me that Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Laura Ingram and Anne Coulter are proper, non-biased political analysts? (These are all people that are ROUTINELY on the show to provide analysis of news events).
To say fox news isn't intensely biased (and barely news-based) is just plain crazy. It goes beyond just being extreme and sensational.
It would be unfair to apply that motto to Slashdot.
They don't post retractions.
the difference is they didn't cloak the story as a news item, but rather, made it clear it was opinion. unlike, say, the ny times which mixes the op-ed and the front page at will.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Well they did put it on their front page. So anyone who regularly visits the site gets to see the retraction and apology.
On the other hand, people who read the article once after a search and didn't come back, hold biased information in their heads.
Unfortunately, this topic will probably turn into a political discussion.
Government employees will be exposed to Open Standards formats and likely Open Source software. This will have a spinoff effect in the buying decisions of some govt employees.
Likely, govt contractors, seeking uniformity with their potential employers, will adopt Open Standards in submission of their bids. Again, this will have a multiplier like effect in terms of employess and business associates.
Closed Source advocates are fighting to keep the stopper in genie's bottle.If she gets out the outcome is more likely to be a closed source nightmare.
In Canada there is, if IIRC, a principle of government that requires govt agencies to use the most widely available, least expensive format for it's citizens to interact with govt. There may even be some case law on this. Is it possible legal action could be launched in a effort to force govts to adopt the most open, least expensive venue?
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Yes, I'm sure it's just biased accidentily. Consider:
Fox Primarily an "Opinion" Network
Fox Viewers More Likely to be Misinformed
Fox Shills for the War
Fox, Neither Fair nor Balanced
There's lots more out there if you open your eyes.
The original piece was not an article, it was not written as a piece of news, but a piece of commentary by a columnist... as specified by the 'Views' header on the top of the page. If you need to understand the differences between a Columnist and a Reporter, click these links. In any case, the liberal fodder against Fox News is once again ablaze with insufficient facts and ignorant assholes. Note: Yes, this is flame, grade it as such. Thank you.
> When is the last time you saw CNN,
Yea, they fessed up instantly that Tailwind was a work of fiction and fired the commie bastard responsible for the lie. Oh wait, they didn't. But surely they fired the idiot exec who asserted as a fact that US forces target journalists. Wait, they didn't exactly do that either.
> the New York Times,
Well after four tries over a month or so they finally got a semi-complete correction into print about Paul Krugman's 'creative use of fact' regarding the Florida recounts. But seriously, considering how many times they have been caught lying, distorting, confusing the news and editorial sections and outright printing fiction as news (Jayson Blair ring a bell anymore?) the real question is why their circulation is still over a thousand copies a day.
> or CBS news
Yup, they fired Mapes and Rather the second their treason was uncloaked. Oh, wait they are STILL trying to hide behind the "factually false but we still stand behind the gist of the story' excuse.
> print this many well-articulated reader responses to an article?
Exactly. The got skunked by a Microsoft shill, got called on it by thousands and did the right thing. They put the retraction in basically the same spot on their homepage as the original, picked very good responses to print instead of the raving lunatics and denounced the original author along with stating for the record they should have at least did the background research to spot the PR flack and include that fact in the original story. In short I suspect it will be a while before they fall for this one again.
Democrat delenda est
Actually, the sad thing is, when shifts in something as large as document file formats, the Government almost has to be a role model.
For the past 3 years I have been using OpenOffice.org, and I switched to version 2.0 as soon as the beta was released. Guess how much that impacted the way society, the society I am a member of, views documents? Not at all. But, when a government body offering documents to the public shifts to a different file format, people are forced to change. While this would normally seem bad, this change is in a positive direction. This change brings equality to the table. I cannot afford, nor would I purchase if I could afford, Microsoft Office. On top of that, it does not run on my Operating System. By switching to something that makes electronic documents available to everyone with a computer, we are bringing society one step closer to the government, making the government less of a tryant capable of offering us documents we are entitled to with a large $300 string attached.
Now that they have decided on OpenDocument, any user can use any software that supports it. This is one of the few cases the government being a role model for society is going to benefit everyone (except Microsoft). It will only be a matter of time before OpenDocument format is viewable with a simple browser plugin, and I wouldn't be surprised to see an AJAX powered OpenDocument editor pop up on the web soon either.
I am currently working to change my university to OpenDocument, so we can become a role model to our community. Imagine trying to fill out a form for Financial Aid, or to apply for a job, but having that form require a piece of software that you can't afford. I understand OOo can read .doc files, as can other office suites, but what happens when Microsoft finally gets their patent on their file formats and does not allow 3rd party companies to reverse engineer their filetype? I for one would rather tie myself to a standard offered and accepted to the global community that is freely available to anyone than to tie myself to a format that is offered by a single company that is notorious for suing its customers and requiring new software to view new versions of its documents.
If governmental role models are required to shift us from .doc to .odt, then I welcome it with open arms. But I think we miss the point to say the government is trying to be a role model here, I think they are doing the exact opposite. They have realized they were being a role model, and imposing restrictions on the use of documents that are public domain, and they are now cutting those strings, meaning it is up to us, the end user, to choose what software to use.
If your software doesn't support the new format, then that isn't the government's fault, that is the software manufacturer's fault. Every developer is free to use the OpenDocument standard, including Microsoft. So why don't we yell at Microsoft for trying to be a role model instead?
"Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed." -C.S. Lewis
And you can't tell me that Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Laura Ingram and Anne Coulter are proper, non-biased political analysts?
They aren't, but neither are Susan Estrich, Ellis Hennican or Juan Williams. They are, however, openly left-wing. People rattle off the list of analysts that FNC has on that are conservative/right-wingers and then conveniently forget that they also have representatives from the opposite end of the political spectrum.
I'll give you this; FNC has more well known right-wingers than left-wingers. While not a great explanation, I offer up that FNC is the most conservative/traditional network out there, so they would be likely to attract the bigger right-wing names just like an MSNBC or CNN would be more likely to attract the bigger left-wing names.
--trb
When Tom DeLay was indicted most big news sites ran a headling saying something to the effect of "DeLay Indicted." FoxNews' website had the slightly different headline that was something like "DeLay says 'Im innocent'". Now both headlines are true, he was indicted and he did claim innocence. The actual event that happened that day, the NEWS, if you will, was that he was indicted. DeLay's claim of innocence is his side of the story. It may seem minor but if you took a few thousand people (who knew nothing about Delay and didn't claim to be liberal or conservative) and showed half of them one headline and half the other and asked them if they thought he was guilty or innocent I'll bet that the people who saw the "I'm innocent" headline would respond more favorably to him than the "Delay Indicted" folks. Words matter.
Foxnews is as right-wing as NPR is left-wing. The only difference is that Foxnews claims to be balanced, which is total bullshit. At least NPR doesn't lie to their listeners about their "fairness".
Sure FOX has liberals on. But debate between right wing nuts and left wing nuts is not news. It's like calling pitbull or cock fights "recreational sports". And you notice the only "liberal" types they have on FOX are the ones that are on the extreme? And then they try to make them look bad in comparison and it makes the crazy slanted right-wingers on the station who are put up against them look legitimate and sensible.
Anyway, I can't give any weight to a network that had their "news anchor" interviewing the guy who wanted to take the pledge of allegience out of schools (since it was only dumped into schools to indoctrinate kids and scare the godless communists a few decades ago) - and the woman (I think it was "linda vester") asked the guy "what the hell is your problem?!". Yes. That's very professional investigation, interviewing and news reporting. If he had been a conservative complaining about videogames or half-assed attempting to justify killing abortion doctors, do you think she would have said "what the hell is your problem"? Nope. That extremely biased and unprofessional comment would never have been heard.
I suspect that your complaint with the Times is that they sometimes publish facts that reasonably lead to conclusions contrary to your own. And while it's true that they do select which stories to publish, and that those selections betray editorial bias, that is true of every news outlet (especially FOX). I realize this sort of comment is considered insightful among Dittoheads, but it's just utter nonsense.
there are entire web sites dedicated to uncovering the lies and distortions of the ny times. I don't watch fox news, or much tv news for that matter. In fact, what fox has done has turned "news" into two people yelling at each other. Every story has someone who shills for and someone who rails against. that's not news, it's entertainment. however, that being said, the ny times front page only highlights what it wants. for example, it ran abu ghraib stories for two months strait, when there was nothing more new to report.
here's an example from the LA Times. the ombudsman was critical of they way they portrayed the abortion debate. anyone in favor was "pro-choice", opposed "anti-choice". the editor wen public chastising the paper to be more fair and evenhanded. that's bias as news. now, let's examine the war. does the ny times ever report a single positive development? never. not one school being built, nothing. afghanistan has vanished as it is so successful despite their faulty reporting. remember the winter, when we were "bogged down"? well, that sure turned out wrong, eh? the ny times is egregious. their circulation is down, they are turning to subscriptions. okrent ripped krugman for basicalyl lying.
lies? how about jayson blair? I could go on. but the ny times is not being novel. no, cronkite proved the rpess could get away with lying. the blogs have now caught them.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Consider this: Fox news airs an obviously biased article by an openly microsoft founded advocacy group. So to be "balanced" they run an equal time piece by the oposing side. They invite the EFF, or someone from the the govt of Mas. to make the opposing viewpoint, right? No, they run a column of emails from readers with a note at the very bottom, where noone would read it unless they waded through the whole article, not appologizing, or retracting, just stating they should have acknowleged the original piece was an article from a microsoft founded organization.
Balanced? Nope. They could have been. I'm sure EFF would have been happy to write an opposing piece. Did they bother? No. That's why Fox News has a bad rep.
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
And when they do, it tends to go something like this:
Liberal commentator: "Well you know, Bill, the IAEA found that..."
Bill O'Reilly: "What! So now you're saying that some commie-loving commission, a commission run by an Arab for Christ's sake, is telling the truth to the American people - people still suffering from the shock of seeing newborn babies falling from the windows of the Twin Towers. I know for a fact that the IAEA is receiving funds directly from Osama Bin Laden himself!"
Liberal commentator: "Now, that's just not true..."
Bill O'Reilly: "I've seen the checks!!! When are you lefties going to start loving your country? Or are you only gonna be happy when all of us are dead or worshipping Allah?"
Liberal commentator: "Now, Bill, don't you think..."
Bill O'Reilly: "Shut UP!!! I'm not finished talking here! You open your lying liberal mouth one more time spouting your hatred of America and I'm gonna cut of your mike!!!"
Liberal commentator: "But I . . ."
Bill O'Reilly: "I'm not gonna tell you again, you pinko bastard..."
Liberal commentator: "...but..."
Bill O'Reilly: "That's IT!!! You and me! Outside!"
Liberal commentator: "...what the..."
Bill O'Reilly: "Shut him off, Ox. And take his sorry ass outside!"
Liberal commentator: "...put me down....you can't do this!..."
Bill O'Reilly: "Well folks, looks like we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this issue. We'll be back after this commercial break, brought to you by the fine folks at 'People for the American Way'."
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
I work for a national news service that "competes" with Fox. There is an understanding that if you work for Murdoch, you have sold out any attempt at integrity for cash. Fox does not deliver news, they deliver opinion (and I'm risking flames here). Their standards are set so low and their "spinners" are part of the report that one cannot truly expect that their material is free enough of bias to allow the viewer or reader to come to any meaningful conclusion.
Fox reports on the national events just like everyone and that is why they are insidious. You'll see coverage of Katrina, of the horrible earthquake in Pakistan and India. You'll see sports scores and weather on the local Fox channels. But the spin cycle is fully on for political coverage and for coverage of big business. At Fox, big corporations can do no wrong and if they make a claim to a Fox reporter, those claims (and all the spin inherent in those claims) are never fact-checked. They're reported as if they were truth. Up until the very end, Fox did no reporting that questioned the accountability of the Enron chiefs, while ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS (yeah, those Commies) reported questionable bookkeeping and deals that were pretty nigh illegal on the surface on their books. Enron was sued by the State of California for artificially raising energy prices to "create a crisis." Fox did not report on those suits. Everyone else did.
Instead, Fox began an attack on then-Governor Gray Davis and how he was incorrectly handling an energy crisis that was probably not of his own making. I believe the Fox television network (at least) was partially responsible for the recall election and the subsequent replacement of Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger. If the court cases finally decide that this was all Enron's making, I'd have to say that this kind of manipulation is pretty insidious.
Of course, when Enron declared bankruptcy and was called to question, Fox joined the bandwagon and launched "investigative reports." But even now, they hold Kenneth Lay blameless. Why? Because Fox is the "pro-Bush network" and any friend of the Bush family is a friend of Murdoch and his network.
I have read extensively the history of our country, which started off on the premise that the Press should be free. I have read diatribes against our founding fathers, aspersions to the characters of George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, Mrs. Adams and her "pet President John," and so on. I defend Murdoch's right to broadcast and print opinion. He has a right to do so and he has created a media empire for that purpose.
But understand that what he does with his empire is not necessarily tell you the truth. Almost everything of consequence is spun. And what I find unfortunate is that the other networks and news outlets think that they have to "chase Fox" and be more like them. Which means, increasingly, almost all of the news you receive has bias and spin. Don't believe everything you read in the papers and don't believe most of what you see on television.
This is a report from inside a media giant.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.