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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."
So governments in red states should fire all gay people? All liberals? etc.?
This isn't something to be proud of. I mean, this is what any decent news organization should be doing constantly. They haven't done anything particularly outstanding in this case. This is what they should've been doing all along!
I don't think we should commend FOX News for the lone time they aren't negligent. I think we should rather focus on all of the times that the quality of their reporting has been suspect.
Just because the standards for corporate news agencies have dropped significantly doesn't mean that we should commend them when they don't obviously fuck up.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
CNN's head guy Eason Jordan claimed US troops were targeting journalists in Iraq. He resigned shortly afterward.
I'm not surprised you didn't know about it, because nobody reported it. But they report every little thing about Murdoch. Why? Because they have an axe to grind...they're behind Fox News' ratings!
Let me put it this way, if Fox News is the #1 cable news channel in ratings (it is), yet it is so biased, then that means either of two things:
1.) The vast majority of viewers disagree with you that it's biased, since they're watching it
2.) It is biased, and the vast majority of viewers share its viewpoint...making your viewpoint a small minority in this country
This keeps up for much longer, and "liberal" will soon be a synonym for "tries to get the facts straight."
Sure, like CBS News? "Fake but accurate?"
I love how absolutely no liberals mention CBS News, which aired a phony memo. God, if Fox News did that against Kerry, there would have been blood on the streets. Dan Rather does it? Oh, ho-hum. Let's talk about Fox News some more!
Last year's election revealed the complete bias of the mainstream media. Bash Bush for not releasing all his military documents, when meanwhile Bush was the only candidate to sign the release form to make his docs public! Guess who didn't? Kerry! Not a peep from the media. They were so busy investigating "fake but accurate" memos that nobody invested nearly as much energy into investigating Kerry's military past. If they had, they would have known about his visit with terrorists in Paris as chronicled in his journal, which was mentioned in Newsweek after the election. He was also dishonorably discharged from the military but pardoned later by Jimmy Carter.
If you're a Democrat, you don't get investigated as much by the media. Anything goes.
The most important thing that seems to be ignored. Various cities around the country provide "Starter Kits" for their citizens that include such software as Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, etc.
What would stop Massachusets from providing a CD of OpenOffice.org for a minimal fee ($1.75 or something) for all citizens. You want to do business with MA and complain about not having the software to view their documents? Fine, just follow the download link on their website, or simply ask for the CD. This doesn't have to stop to office documents. Their map viewer (which is rather excellent) can also be bundled on the CD (along with data).
Imagine this. Want to open up a new store in MA? Here, grab this CD with maps of our demographics, major roads, excisting facilities. Many cities in Washington state have done something similar, on the web only currently. Then, the required forms are also included in the CD, as well as software to view and edit them. Just print them and bring them over to the closest state office.
Why should the state of Massachusets not do such a thing? Promote business, empower your citizens. Is that so wrong?
Check out this interview that occured on CBC's The Fifth Estate. In an example of how Ann Coulter plays fast and loose with 'facts' she knows nothing about, in order to make her point, we see how she behaves when caught in her mistake:
...second World War of course. Korea. Yes. Vietnam No."
Coulter: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"
McKeown interrupts: "Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam."
Coulter: "I don't think that's right."
McKeown: "Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."
Coulter (looking desperate): "Indochina?"
McKeown: "Uh no. Canada
Coulter: "I think you're wrong."
McKeown: "No, took a pass on Vietnam."
Coulter: "I think you're wrong."
McKeown: "No, Australia was there, not Canada."
Coulter: "I think Canada sent troops."
McKeown: "No."
Coulter: "Well. I'll get back to you on that."
McKeown tags out in script:
"Coulter never got back to us -- but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam."
Yep, Coulter's a reporter with integrity, yessir...
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
There seems to be this assumption that if you're a conservative, than you're in bed with MS and hostile to Linux, Open Source, yada yada.
It's probably part of the misconception that there is only one kind of Conservative. The news story in question will cause rankles between at least two sub-species of Conservatives: Idealogues and Corporate Whores.
Idealogues favor a free-market capitalistic approach in which a minimal government acquires its services from the free market at minimal cost. Being locked into an expensive monopoly like Microsoft is very unappealing.
OTOH, Corporate Whores take the attitude that since Microsoft won in the domination of its industry, it deserves whatever it can take. Survival of the fittest, baby! They have a dim view of those hippy, commie OSS advocates, though they don't seem to realize that effectively they favor a centrally-planned economy by unelected officials.
from the article
Comments made by the IT chief for the state said there would be costs to convert from the current office suite regardless of what was replacing it. The costs to convert to OpenDocument were estimated at $5 million; upgrading the current vendor's product would cost $50 million, both in license fees and upgraded PCs to support the newer product.
I could see a little ballooning in the price being possible, but I don't see it topping the cost for upgrading to the next version of MS Office.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Yes they have a policy of being biased. Myrdoch himself used to send down directives on exactly which way he wanted the story slanted. There were focus reports do make people believe a certain way, and "phrases" that were approved to sway public opinion. Fox is VERY biased.
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so I'll do it. There is an excellent documentary on the right-wing bias present in Fox News, called Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. You can find out more about it here.
I recommend buying the DVD to support the work of director Robert Greenwald. And FWIW, the DVD is not region-coded -- I was able to play it without libdecss. Also of interest: all of the interviews in the film are licensed under the Creative Commons license.
It's called Hostile Media Effect.
Julius Caesar - Act I, Scene i: "What mean'st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow!"
Bzzt. Thanks for playing. First off, to say that someone is just a liberal commentator doesn't make them so. I'll take the two you mentioned, even though neither has a regular show on Fox but what about Juan Williams? If you listen to his reporting on NPR, he's anything but a liberal. How about liberal think tanks he's associated with? Maybe a list of liberal books he's written? On the opposite side of these three you mention on Fox, there's:
Sean Hannity
Brit Hume
Neal Cavuto
Bill O'Reilly
Oliver North
Dick Morris
So just off the top of my head, I've names twice as many conservatives that appear regularly on Fox than the three 'liberals' you mentioned.
Saying there are no conservatives on the broadcast TV and the major cable news stations is just a fallacy, especially when they're run by conservatives. Maybe they're not as conservative as you wish them to be, but they're still right-of-center. It's really fun to see Ann Coulter go on CBS, NBC, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, FOX, get her books reviewed in just about every major newspaper in the country, and watch her bemoan (whine?) the fact that conservatives never get their voices heard.
Isn't 'People for the American Way' a left-leaning organization?
I have become convinced over time that Bill O'Reilly is not actually a conservative. He is a mock conservative with the intention of discrediting conservative ideas by becoming a reprehensible representative of some of those ideals. He's a self-important blowhard first and a conservative a distant third. if at all.
Bill O'Reilly is as good an example of conservatives as Dan Rather.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!