We Report, You Decide

[Tiger Al 0]

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.")

LINK

Excellent letter written by a former FNC employee talking about the daily 'memo' disseminated to Fox employees discussing the various spins of the day.

[Donutboy 0]

You mean Fox News, the company owned by Rupert Murdoch and ran by Roger Ailles, ISN"T fair and balanced???? Get outta here!! We all know they are because they keep telling us they are!!

[TitanTiger 20,506]

So, when Bernard Goldberg writes an entire book detailing his experience in various news organizations, especially CBS News and chronicles instances of liberal bias, he's just a "disgruntled former employee" trying to embarrass the old boss. But this guy's account is law and gospel?

[Donutboy 0]

So, when Bernard Goldberg writes an entire book detailing his experience in various news organizations, especially CBS News and chronicles instances of liberal bias, he's just a "disgruntled former employee" trying to embarrass the old boss. But this guy's account is law and gospel?

Well, the CEO of CBS was never a Democratic speech-writer. Roger Ailes, head of Fox News WAS a conservative speech writer for Reagan-Bush. Yes, there ARE such things as "disgruntled employees" and former employees willing to sell a "cock and bull" story to make a little green. Roger Ailes first act as appointed CEO of Fox was to fire all of the liberals on the staff except for a token by the name of Alan Colmes, who has neither the knowledge nor the chutzpah to balance Sean Hannity.

[TitanTiger 20,506]

So the CEO thing is the deciding factor? What a crock of bull. You can't analyze anything with a scintilla of objectivity.

Yeah, there are "disgruntled employees" who will say things to make money or get back at their former boss. My question would be:

How do you know this isn't the case with Charlie Reina? You seem eager to believe it about Mr. Goldberg. I was wondering if you have actual evidence for this beyond the "this CEO was biased and the other one isn't" nonsense you just posted or if you have a magical butt you pull this stuff out of that makes you more knowledgeable than the rest of us.

[Donutboy 0]

So the CEO thing is the deciding factor? What a crock of bull. You can't analyze anything with a scintilla of objectivity.

Yeah, there are "disgruntled employees" who will say things to make money or get back at their former boss. My question would be:

How do you know this isn't the case with Charlie Reina? You seem eager to believe it about Mr. Goldberg. I was wondering if you have actual evidence for this beyond the "this CEO was biased and the other one isn't" nonsense you just posted or if you have a magical butt you pull this stuff out of that makes you more knowledgeable than the rest of us.

Gee, have I touched a raw nerve? You and some of your other "Conservative" buddies on here sure like to turn up the wick. I wasn't even responding to the Reina statement. I was making a comment about Fox News where someone had suggested that his statement was similar to everyone thinking Fox News was biased (which they are) because someone made a statement to the sort. I was merely explaining why "I" believe Fox News to be "conservative" instead of "balanced" as they claim. From your signature, I'd assume that your a board monitor. I'm glad you're not a cop. Somebody would get shot.

[TitanTiger 20,506]

I don't even own a gun, so get your skivvies out of a bunch.

And before we go any further, could you translate this into English for me? I can't make heads or tails of this:

I was making a comment about Fox News where someone had suggested that his statement was similar to everyone thinking Fox News was biased (which they are) because someone made a statement to the sort.

Allow me to rephrase: you believe Fox is biased. You responded to TigerAl's article from a former Fox employee that backed up your view on this. You bolstered this view with the issue of Roger Ailes being a former Republican speechwriter. Is that all you've got?

Can you tell me why you believe the bias story about Fox but disbelieve it when a much more detailed account is given about CBS?

[CCTAU 3,336]

I don't even own a gun, so get your skivvies out of a bunch.

I do. And it's time to hunt........

[Tiger Al 0]

The guy, Reina, didn't sound like a disgruntled ex-employee to me. We could probably find "instances" of all kinds of bias at any news outlet, be it print, t.v., radio or internet. I just think it's kind of absurd to deny that FNC IS a conservative viewpoint. It's like ignoring the elephant in your living room. No pun intended.

As for this myth that there's a liberal bias running rampant across the airwaves and newsstands, it's just that; a myth. Case in point, the Clinton years. If the media was biased towards liberals, we wouldn't have seen and read all of the negative lies that were pumped out by them, all of them, on a daily basis. Then, after each lie was shown as just that, we wouldn't expect them to have been silent. They were. The allegations were were front page and LARGE. The results were buried on page ten

I talk to a lot of Clinton-haters and almost every one of them believes the trash that was printed and aired about him. Murders, rapes, cocaine trafficking, embezzlement via Whitewater, etc. were reported daily on the front pages and as the lead news stories. TV news magazines like 60 Minutes, 48 Hours and the like all had their "exposes", but, rarely was there a retraction or equal time given when the truth came out. It's like Michael Irvin said outside the police station when the press was all over him: "Don't lose the intensity", meaning that they should report his exhoneration as fervently as they did the charges that were made. He was and they didn't. Same with Clinton.

So, if the media is SO liberally biased, why would they not go the extra mile to ensure that Clinton's findings weren't broadcast with the largest print and on every news update for weeks? Because there is no liberal bias. They go where they think the stories are.

[TitanTiger 20,506]

The guy, Reina, didn't sound like a disgruntled ex-employee to me. We could probably find "instances" of all kinds of bias at any news outlet, be it print, t.v., radio or internet. I just think it's kind of absurd to deny that FNC IS a conservative viewpoint. It's like ignoring the elephant in your living room. No pun intended.

Somehow I think your view of whether he's disgruntled or not depends upon what he's saying. He claims something that lines up with what you already believe, so therefore he's probably more reasonable. All this from one short article. Mr. Goldberg, who has spent many more years in network journalism and seen it from many more angles, writes an entire book giving instance after instance of liberal bias at CBS, and he's dismissed out of hand.

And for the record, Goldberg doesn't claim there's an organized liberal "conspiracy" out there to control the news. His view on liberal bias in the media is more in line with my own...the media is so overrun with those of a more leftist political persuasion, they view everything through that paradigm. They don't even see it themselves. They just think they are reporting things as they really are. They see the liberal worldview as "default" and all other views deviate from that point of origin. And they shade the news that way, from the stories they choose to run, to the terms they use to describe the opposing view, to the "experts" they consult to support each view, and so on.

As for this myth that there's a liberal bias running rampant across the airwaves and newsstands, it's just that; a myth. Case in point, the Clinton years. If the media was biased towards liberals, we wouldn't have seen and read all of the negative lies that were pumped out by them, all of them, on a daily basis. Then, after each lie was shown as just that, we wouldn't expect them to have been silent. They were. The allegations were were front page and LARGE. The results were buried on page ten.

Says you. If Goldberg's premise is true, it's not that there is some wild-eyed liberal cabal systematically controlling the news. There are good honest people who are liberals. But they are still biased. They aren't going to ignore news...otherwise they'd lose all credibility. But it comes out in different ways. Like buying into terminology that shades people's perceptions. It might be in describing a liberal judge as "progressive" or giving no modifier at all, while always being sure to put "conservative", "staunch conservative" or "right-wing" in when describing judges from the other side of the aisle.

I talk to a lot of Clinton-haters and almost every one of them believes the trash that was printed and aired about him. Murders, rapes, cocaine trafficking, embezzlement via Whitewater, etc. were reported daily on the front pages and as the lead news stories. TV news magazines like 60 Minutes, 48 Hours and the like all had their "exposes", but, rarely was there a retraction or equal time given when the truth came out. It's like Michael Irvin said outside the police station when the press was all over him: "Don't lose the intensity", meaning that they should report his exhoneration as fervently as they did the charges that were made. He was and they didn't. Same with Clinton.

That's the nature of news period. They do that to everyone. Again, I'm not saying there's an organized liberal conspiracy going on. I'm just saying (and recent surveys back me up on this) that when you have double the number of network and print journalists describing themselves in an anonymous survey as "Democrat" vs "Republican" (and that's actually down the last ten years from almost triple the number) , there begins to be something of a "group think" mentality.

And you need to get out more. I'm a Clinton hater myself. I detest the mockery he made of what should be an noble office. But I don't buy all the wild-eyed theories about murders, cocaine, etc. Most of the conservatives I know don't either. They just see him as a man with little to no integrity who would be nothing but a blip on the radar if a fortuitous chain of events hadn't occured that made the economy do so well while he was in. He wasn't responsible for the recovery being underway before he came in office. He wasn't responsible for the dot-com boom that fueled the stock market surge and gave companies inordinate amounts of money to invest and hire new people. The only sad thing in one small ,particular way was that he wasn't around to accept the deserved blame for the economic slowdown and subsequent recession.

So, if the media is SO liberally biased, why would they not go the extra mile to ensure that Clinton's findings weren't broadcast with the largest print and on every news update for weeks? Because there is no liberal bias. They go where they think the stories are.

Answered above.

[Donutboy 0]

The facts are that Bush was given a free ride by most media sources in the last election, while Gore was given mostly negative. Why. The media didn't like his smugness and considered Bush's moronic statements cute. Here's one link to the coverage of the elction. There are tons of them out there and they all reach the same conclusion; Reporting on Gore was twice as negative as it was on Bush, and yet Gore still won the elction!!

Gore's real problem

The Associated Press

[Tiger Al 0]

Titan, I've never read, or even heard of, the book you're talking about so none of my comments are in reply to it or its' author. My comments are aimed at the pundits (Limbaugh, Boortz, Hannity, Coulter, etc.) and their followers who make the claim that the media is liberally biased.

What seems to me to refute that assumption is that, with Clinton, there was a lot of piling on when it was in the allegation phase, but when the FACTS were presented there was little to no correction presented. A true media with a liberal bias, I would think, would be very scrupulous when dealing with sources and very boisterous when exhonerating a fellow liberal. That didn't happen.

Look at Rush Limbaugh. The conservatives in the media quickly circled the wagons to protect his reputation and attack those who commented on his hypocrisy about drug use. You would expect a "liberal" media to do the same, and SOME did, with one of their own. Again, that didn't happen, leading me to believe that the liberal media tag is just a ruse to discredit legitimate journalism.

[Donutboy 0]

Titan, I've never read, or even heard of, the book you're talking about so none of my comments are in reply to it or its' author. My comments are aimed at the pundits (Limbaugh, Boortz, Hannity, Coulter, etc.) and their followers who make the claim that the media is liberally biased.

What seems to me to refute that assumption is that, with Clinton, there was a lot of piling on when it was in the allegation phase, but when the FACTS were presented there was little to no correction presented. A true media with a liberal bias, I would think, would be very scrupulous when dealing with sources and very boisterous when exhonerating a fellow liberal. That didn't happen.

Look at Rush Limbaugh. The conservatives in the media quickly circled the wagons to protect his reputation and attack those who commented on his hypocrisy about drug use. You would expect a "liberal" media to do the same, and SOME did, with one of their own. Again, that didn't happen, leading me to believe that the liberal media tag is just a ruse to discredit legitimate journalism.

What's really funny here is for the past decade, the Conservatives have made fun of Clinton and his "did not inhale" statement. I guess that prevented Limbaugh from claiming he never swallowed, even though I think he does on a regular basis.

[TitanTiger 20,506]

Titan, I've never read, or even heard of, the book you're talking about so none of my comments are in reply to it or its' author. My comments are aimed at the pundits (Limbaugh, Boortz, Hannity, Coulter, etc.) and their followers who make the claim that the media is liberally biased.

That's fine. The book is called Bias and it's by Bernard Goldberg. You should pick up a copy.

What seems to me to refute that assumption is that, with Clinton, there was a lot of piling on when it was in the allegation phase, but when the FACTS were presented there was little to no correction presented. A true media with a liberal bias, I would think, would be very scrupulous when dealing with sources and very boisterous when exhonerating a fellow liberal. That didn't happen.

The media can have a bias without it being some kind of networked, purposeful, agreed upon thing. I think they are biased in the way liberal and conservative ideas are presented, they way liberals and conservatives are portrayed in general. But it's not foolproof. And they don't just drop their tendency to move on to the next story when corrections come.

Look at Rush Limbaugh. The conservatives in the media quickly circled the wagons to protect his reputation and attack those who commented on his hypocrisy about drug use. You would expect a "liberal" media to do the same, and SOME did, with one of their own. Again, that didn't happen, leading me to believe that the liberal media tag is just a ruse to discredit legitimate journalism.

I don't know what channels you were watching, but I saw a good bit of pontificating about Limbaugh's situation and what seemed to be a delicious irony to them.

[Tiger Al 0]

Who found it to be a delicious irony?

[Tigermike 3,044]

, and yet Gore still won the elction!!

If you will continue to lie about this, why should anyone think anything you say is anything but?

[Tiger Al 0]

, and yet Gore still won the elction!!

If you will continue to lie about this, why should anyone think anything you say is anything but?

It's a fact that more people voted for Gore than for anyone else in the 2000 presidential election.

[TitanTiger 20,506]

That doesn't mean he "won" the election. You know how the system works, as did Gore and Bush. Move on.

[Tiger Al 0]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But...it's STILL a prickly little fact that drives all of you neo-cons crazy!!!

[Tigermike 3,044]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But...it's STILL a prickly little fact that drives all of you neo-cons crazy!!!

It doesn't bother me in the least bit, but it obviously bothers you guys, since you all tried in vain to steal the election and continue to bring it up as if it were fact. Then after the courts tell you that you are full of _ _ _ _ you then start saying George Bush was stealing the election.

It would have been nice if the judges had looked out and said, By the way Algore, you didn't invent the internet either! HAHA

[MDM4AU 336]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But...it's STILL a prickly little fact that drives all of you neo-cons crazy!!!

Yeah, I've lost sleep over it! :roll: