More on the Fair™ and Balanced™ one

[Grojlach]

While we’re on the subject of the most Fair™ and Balanced™ broadcast station in the world, I’ve just seen the single most despicable piece of TV-making in quite some time (see link below). I know it’s merely an editorial, and I can live with the fact that there are morons who spout all those idiotic view points about anything that doesn’t fit their agenda in such an unsophisticated and spindoctored manner – but the thing that really irked me is the fact that someone at FOX actually agreed to put this on air.
Apart of the fact that the closing statement breaks new grounds for “hypocritical”, I honestly thought after seeing it for the first time that this had to be part of some sort of satirical show, complete with false wigs and exaggerated characters – it’s so blatantly negative stereotypical that no person in the world (let alone an American) in his right mind would even dare to live up to it without an extensive tongue-in-cheek factor (or at least, that's what I thought from my (European) perspective). But that’s just the problem – there is no tongue-in-cheek, this guy actually seems to mean what he says, and I’m honestly shocked by the sheer stupidity of it. Not to mention the fact that his distorted and misguided message of hate probably (?) reached millions of people.

So are these kinds of editorials actually normally accepted in the US, and is it just a major culture clash that ticks me off? As a code of decency prevents many European broadcast stations from putting something similar on air, and even if they supposedly *do* break this code, there are actual investigations, apologies and possible repercussions; just have a look at what happened to the BBC.
Oh, and please don’t tell me this has anything to do with “freedom of speech” – surely freedom of speech hasn’t been extended to include blatant fact-twisting and hurling uncalled for insults and insinuations?

http://blugg.com/stuff/foxs_view_of_the_bbc_player.htm

[Dreamer128]

ROFL! I can't believe they're actually criticising the objectivity of the BBC after sending forth the most subjective and slanderous junk I've heard in months.

[ 02-07-2004, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

[InjaYew]

The Fascisti Run Amok don't they? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Here's what Reuters had to say about it. This is just one of many stories over there.

Another BBC Head Rolls as Blair Savors Victory

Thu Jan 29,10:18 AM ET

By Katherine Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - The BBC's top executive quit Thursday after a British judge sternly rebuked its Iraq (news - web sites) reporting, but cries of "whitewash" rained down on Tony Blair's victory parade.

Wednesday, Judge Lord Hutton exonerated the prime minister of wrongdoing over the suicide of Iraq weapons expert David Kelly and ruled that the venerable broadcaster's claim that Blair had "sexed up" intelligence on Iraq was unfounded.


Blair has been the staunchest international backer of President Bush (news - web sites)'s push for war on Iraq.


BBC Director General Greg Dyke resigned after talks with the public broadcaster's board of governors over what is being called the gravest crisis in its 82-year history.


"I hope that a line can now be drawn under this whole episode," Dyke told reporters outside the BBC's head office.


Gavyn Davies, BBC chairman, quit Wednesday.


Blair's foes, many commentators and large parts of the public were staggered that Blair was exonerated while the BBC was censured.


In an NOP poll for London's Evening Standard newspaper, 56 percent said it was unfair the BBC had received most of the blame and 49 percent branded Hutton's report a whitewash.


"It is just flipping unbelievable," said opposition Conservative lawmaker and writer Boris Johnson.


"(Blair) is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall."


Blair sought to draw a line under the most perilous period of his six-year premiership with a speech on public services, promising no let-up to reforms many of his supporters oppose.


Kelly killed himself in July after being named as the source behind the BBC's claim that Blair had hyped the threat from Iraq. His death sparked a war between the government and the BBC and plunged Blair into the darkest days of his tenure.


Hutton's report had the potential to sink Blair had he been directly blamed for naming Kelly as the BBC's source. Instead, Hutton slammed the BBC's management procedures as "defective."


Blair's team repeated its demand for a full BBC apology.


'SAINT TONY?'


Davies, in his resignation letter, questioned Hutton's conclusions, while the nation's press had a field day.


One newspaper splashed a picture of a grinning Blair on its front page with a halo over him and the headline "Saint Tony." Another left its front page largely blank, save for the question "Whitewash?" in red letters.




Hutton's report came a day after Blair narrowly averted parliamentary defeat on an education bill, seeing him through a two-day period that had threatened his political future.

"There are lessons to be learned, bridges to be built but no wavering in our political purpose," Blair said Thursday.

Blair is not out of the woods yet on Iraq.

Hutton said the intelligence published on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- the primary reason Blair gave for war -- had been consistent with what was known at the time.

But Blair's critics were quick to return to the question of the whereabouts of those weapons, which have yet to be found.

In the Evening Standard poll, 70 percent called for a full independent inquiry into the reason Britain went to war.

Blair's opponents have fresh ammunition after David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons hunter in Iraq who quit last week, said on Wednesday the intelligence had been "wrong."

[ 02-07-2004, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: InjaYew ]

[Davros]

I knew I would failed to be impressed if I clicked on that link, and Groj, it lived right down to my expectations. My word - the guy who wrote and presented that is a total tosser who wouldn't know a fact if it bit him on the arse. I think it is a selective filtering problem - either that, or Rupert is fed up that Tony won't let him own the Beeb .

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Davros: I knew I would failed to be impressed if I clicked on that link, and Groj, it lived right down to my expectations.

Ugh... So it's a culture shock rather than an accidental exception? Yikes. I almost feel sorry for the FOX-viewing Americans that they're exposed to all this drivel - apparently it's not their fault when they're clueless about Europe. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 02-08-2004, 05:05 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Barry the Sprout]

That disturbs me - its not a case of him being biased in that link he's just actually lying. It got to the stage where I was no longer even counting the lies he told, ironically enough in a piece about lying. I swear I will later on get round to replying to the other thread, but I just wanted to say that I'm absolutely disgusted with that link and the lies told in it.

[Pikachu_PM]

For those who remember one of my first post here at ironworks...the one in whiche I drilled FOX for biasness, and then was challanged by certain ironworks members about my opinion....I cite this as little gem as my case in point.

[Chewbacca]

Ugh. If you find that distastful(<---too light a word) never watch their morning show. Imagine that guy multiplied by 3, with all 3 agreeing with each others smug, colored, subjectivly Bush-republican assessments.

A few months back it was disclosed by a former employee that faux executives send out a daily memo with mandatory 'daily issue talking points' for their news people to focus on. I will see if I can find a link, because it make evident that faux does what no other network does in order to slant the news.

[Chewbacca]

Found it-


This is written by a former Fox Producer:

http://www.poynter.org/forum/default.asp?id=32331
*******************

From CHARLIE REINA: So Chris Wallace says Fox News Channel really is fair and balanced. Well, I guess that settles it. We can all go home now. I mean, so what if Wallace's salary as Fox's newest big-name anchor ends with a whole lot of zeroes? So what if he hasn't spent a day in the FNC newsroom yet?

My advice to the pundits: If you really want to know about bias at Fox, talk to the grunts who work there - the desk assistants, tape editors, writers, researchers and assorted producers who have to deal with it every day. Ask enough of them what goes on, promise them anonymity, and you'll get the real story.

The fact is, daily life at FNC is all about management politics. I say this having served six years there - as producer of the media criticism show, News Watch, as a writer/producer of specials and (for the last year of my stay) as a newsroom copy editor. Not once in the 20+ years I had worked in broadcast journalism prior to Fox - including lengthy stays at The Associated Press, CBS Radio and ABC/Good Morning America - did I feel any pressure to toe a management line. But at Fox, if my boss wasn't warning me to "be careful" how I handled the writing of a special about Ronald Reagan ("You know how Roger [Fox News Chairman Ailes] feels about him."), he was telling me how the environmental special I was to produce should lean ("You can give both sides, but make sure the pro-environmentalists don't get the last word.")

Editorially, the FNC newsroom is under the constant control and vigilance of management. The pressure ranges from subtle to direct. First of all, it's a news network run by one of the most high-profile political operatives of recent times. Everyone there understands that FNC is, to a large extent, "Roger's Revenge" - against what he considers a liberal, pro-Democrat media establishment that has shunned him for decades. For the staffers, many of whom are too young to have come up through the ranks of objective journalism, and all of whom are non-union, with no protections regarding what they can be made to do, there is undue motivation to please the big boss.

Sometimes, this eagerness to serve Fox's ideological interests goes even beyond what management expects. For example, in June of last year, when a California judge ruled the Pledge of Allegiance's "Under God" wording unconstitutional, FNC's newsroom chief ordered the judge's mailing address and phone number put on the screen. The anchor, reading from the Teleprompter, found himself explaining that Fox was taking this unusual step so viewers could go directly to the judge and get "as much information as possible" about his decision. To their credit, the big bosses recognized that their underling's transparent attempt to serve their political interests might well threaten the judge's physical safety and ordered the offending information removed from the screen as soon as they saw it. A few months later, this same eager-to-please newsroom chief ordered the removal of a graphic quoting UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as saying his team had not yet found WMDs in Iraq. Fortunately, the electronic equipment was quicker on the uptake (and less susceptible to office politics) than the toady and displayed the graphic before his order could be obeyed.

But the roots of FNC's day-to-day on-air bias are actual and direct. They come in the form of an executive memo distributed electronically each morning, addressing what stories will be covered and, often, suggesting how they should be covered. To the newsroom personnel responsible for the channel's daytime programming, The Memo is the bible. If, on any given day, you notice that the Fox anchors seem to be trying to drive a particular point home, you can bet The Memo is behind it.

The Memo was born with the Bush administration, early in 2001, and, intentionally or not, has ensured that the administration's point of view consistently comes across on FNC. This year, of course, the war in Iraq became a constant subject of The Memo. But along with the obvious - information on who is where and what they'll be covering - there have been subtle hints as to the tone of the anchors' copy. For instance, from the March 20th memo: "There is something utterly incomprehensible about Kofi Annan's remarks in which he allows that his thoughts are 'with the Iraqi people.' One could ask where those thoughts were during the 23 years Saddam Hussein was brutalizing those same Iraqis. Food for thought." Can there be any doubt that the memo was offering not only "food for thought," but a direction for the FNC writers and anchors to go? Especially after describing the U.N. Secretary General's remarks as "utterly incomprehensible"?

The sad truth is, such subtlety is often all it takes to send Fox's newsroom personnel into action - or inaction, as the case may be. One day this past spring, just after the U.S. invaded Iraq, The Memo warned us that anti-war protesters would be "whining" about U.S. bombs killing Iraqi civilians, and suggested they could tell that to the families of American soldiers dying there. Editing copy that morning, I was not surprised when an eager young producer killed a correspondent's report on the day's fighting - simply because it included a brief shot of children in an Iraqi hospital.

These are not isolated incidents at Fox News Channel, where virtually no one of authority in the newsroom makes a move unmeasured against management's politics, actual or perceived. At the Fair and Balanced network, everyone knows management's point of view, and, in case they're not sure how to get it on air, The Memo is there to remind them.

[Faceman]

That was actually ON THE AIR???
On a NEWS channel???
The tone is even more hostile and biased than some of the most agressive stuff Michael Moore e.g. has done (and lacking any satire). This is NO way to talk on a news channel if you want to be respected as a serious journalist - at least over here it isn't.
I have seen news-anchors and reporters (mostly lefties) fired for much less on Austrian and German TV.
If this is actually airing then US journalism got a serious problem as I see it.