Understanding The History and Purpose of FOX News

Understanding The History And Purpose Of FOX News

You’d think a thing like FOX couldn’t happen in the United States. Although they’re free to be crazy and free to support the Republican Party, you’d think Americans would be too smart to fall for the made-up outrages, dishonest reporting and relentless appeal to our meaner nature. Unfortunately, many Americans are not as smart as we used to assume: a huge swath of Americans (especially elderly white Southerners) believe FOX is just another news media outlet. They aren’t.

What is FOX? Pensitore Review (8-18-09) pulled no punches in answering that question: “ FOX News is indisputably the most popular cable news channel. And yet in 13 years, Fox has never broken a story. That’s okay, because it is not in the news business. It is in the news-shaping business. Its programming is an admixture of right-wing propaganda and fear-porn for feeble-minded paranoiacs, served up by spokesmodels who have no clue what they are reading.”

Nixon White House aide Roger Ailes in the 1970′s created fake news stories that favored President Nixon. He shipped these pre-mixed video packages to TV stations around the country at the expense of rightwing extremist Joseph Coors. It was all b.s. all the time, but the TV stations, pretending they had a correspondent in Washington, ran this propaganda as straight news. Now that Ailes runs FOX News, his goals are the same: to spread republicanism by altering the news.

I had to laugh when looking over the authors list of FOX News faux pas, some of these are good for a chuckle... among the many tidbits of Faux News questionable 'reporting' was this:"It’s against the law to lie on television in Canada. Canadian conservatives tried to change that law so FOX could broadcast in Canada. They were unable to get the law changed, so FOX does not operate in Canada!"









(images courtesy of upcheer.com)

Quite insane that people can get swept up by Fox and many other media outlets. Almost cliché and pointless for me to add this comment ( just trying to slowly build up my 20 posts on topics i'd like to subcribe to).... it's cliché for a reason. a scary world we live in.

Luckily I grew up with parents that were smart enough to warn me about Fox. I suppose the media gets you while you are young and pliable and keeps you molded from there on in....

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

I had to laugh when looking over the authors list of FOX News faux pas, some of these are good for a chuckle... among the many tidbits of Faux News questionable 'reporting' was this:"It’s against the law to lie on television in Canada. Canadian conservatives tried to change that law so FOX could broadcast in Canada. They were unable to get the law changed, so FOX does not operate in Canada!"

I watch them quite often. Satellite service. Thankfully we get CNN and MSNBC to have something to compare them too. It's good knowing what our neighbours to the south are thinking, and how the country is being shaped to think in certain ways. Maybe that's why I go further north every time I move?

Fox is so obvious I'm surprised more people don't recognize how much they throw opinion into things, and pass it off as fact.

There are times they're very entertaining, and other times I have to turn them off, they're also infuriating at times.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


You just made my friends' list. S&F.

Yes, I know FOX "News" LIES.

No. I'm not surprised FOX "News" has the highest ratings of any "News" agency or organization (higher ratings than even their two closest competitors combined), considering who they pander their bombastic hokum to. Their target audience is Americans. America's national average IQ is 98. Legally impaired (aka legally retarded) is 70 and below. The genius range IQ is 140 and above. 70 or 140 .... Which one is 98 a lot closer to? This is why FOX "News" usually delivers their message at a fifth to eighth grade level.

FOX "News" is bombastic hokum.

Thank you Blackmarketeer for authoring this thread,
ILikeStars

I guess I'm in a minority at some sites by saying this, but I don't understand the hate toward Fox News? Is it that major media had a 100% lock on liberal minded monopoly for the better part of the last several decades and Fox came along to play the same role for the right side of politics?? Could it just be that Fox didn't kiss the right rings and shmooze the right people on the Cocktail party circuit?

Now don't get me wrong by my confusion. I don't take Fox News as a solid news source any more than I do CNN, NBC or ABC news. They are all Newstainment these days with occasional moments of live coverage that has clarity and ..Oh, I suppose each channel does have a couple anchors or shows that handle straight headline news reporting. It lets them keep News in their descriptions.

Where I am just lost is why FOX is the red-headed step child of the bunch? They are doing NOTHING worse than anyone else...they just do it from the other end of the political spectrum. I know it's one heck of a shock for some left minded folk to see the shoe on the other foot...and (gasp) a major cable network that doesn't genuflect to the liberal shrine of political correctness and hero worship of people like Kennedy, Franks and Pelosi..but c'mon. Condemn Fox News Channel as one condemns ALL MSM, as they DO deserve.....or don't complain when people refer to it as hypocrisy. That's my take.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Rupert Marduk prints both the Satanic Bible and the NIV. Imagine that. Almost looks like a conspiracy to control both sides of an issue. Doesn't he also attend certain well known elite meetings with other media moguls? But alas, it just looks like a conspiracy and cannot be one because there are no real conspiracies.

While I am not going to argue with any of the points you've made about Fox News, I think it might be good of you to point out that the images in your OP have been photoshopped to be even more brazen than a normal Fox headline.

Edit to add: I would normally say it's obvious, but we all know better for some...

reply to post by freakjive


You're right, I should have pointed out those are satire images, not actual Fox newscaps - they come from this page: What if Fox News had been there for other key moments in World History?

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
reply to post by freakjive

 

You're right, I should have pointed out those are satire images, not actual Fox newscaps - they come from this page: What if Fox News had been there for other key moments in World History?

Cheers! I do understand the point being made.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Yes, FOX "News" lies....



Yes, FOX "News" lies....



Yes, FOX "News" lies....



Yes, FOX "News" lies....



Yes, FOX "News" lies....



Yes, FOX "News" lies....

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

It seems your source lies too:

It stems from the planned April launch of Sun TV, a Canadian analog to FOX News—i.e., a broadcast news outlet with a decidedly conservative perspective. Among its top executives is a former communications director to conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, evoking former Reagan/Bush adviser Roger Ailes’ role at the helm of FOX. That executive, Kory Teneycke, told the Toronto Star that Sun TV is “taking on the mainstream media [...] smug, condescending, often irrelevant journalism, we’re taking on political correctness [...] by bureaucrats for elites and paid for by taxpayers.”

Source
This is just another case of "the pot calling the kettle black".

See ya,
Milt

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
They are doing NOTHING worse than anyone else...they just do it from the other end of the political spectrum.

All the cool kids hate Fox.

Seriously though, I don't get it either. People generally point to news commentators as proof that Fox is evil incarnate while ignoring that O'Reilly and the like have their own shows in order to comment on the news and aren't part of an actual news broadcast. The distinction between the two is often ignored and when you show that the other side of the coin is just as bad it turns into name-calling hour on the playground because obviously you're an idiot if you don't buy everything MSNBC and CNN say while hating on Fox at every turn. It's ridiculous really.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


From my point of view, FOX News got started because of the perceived slant to the left of the American Media. Bright people like Rupert Murdoch saw Americans would eat up anything perceived as "less left wing". First of all anyone "doing the news" is going to have an opinion and point of view, if they're actually breathing that is. It's very difficult to just present "the news" without any associated personal baggage. For FOX to claim their "fair and balanced," well they believe their fair by presenting a very conservative slant to what they consider unfair, and largely left-leaning MSM. I find myself less and less able to stomach the overt agenda of the right wing on Fox, though I do like Jude Napolitono's program even if he is a bit to much of a libertarian purist. (translation, we have to live in the real world, not an abstraction of utopia) IMHO.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
I guess I'm in a minority at some sites by saying this, but I don't understand the hate toward Fox News?

FOX "News" has integrity issues.

I'd prefer to live in an America where people are free to make informed decisions.

Hard to make an informed decision when you are not informed, isn't it?
Hard to make an informed decision when one is lied to about the details, specifics, facts, truisms, etc..., isn't it?


What do you have against people wanting to be able to make informed decisions, Wrabbit2000?

FOX "News" has integrity issues.

Feel free to post as many videos as you can of CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, BBC, Al-Jazeera Engilsh getting caught lying as much as FOX "News". Please feel free to prove me wrong.

FOX "News" does more than lie....

Good input, ILikeStars, It would be interesting to compare actual bogus FOX 'News' headlines with these parodies - the real ones probably are more outrageous than these. There are just a few minor ones I can recollect, I'll have to dig up a more comprehensive list.

For instance there was the 'harmless' tweet from Fox News that Obama had been assassinated;



The 'Holocaust winner'



Back when the Iraq war was going badly, Fox News and it's retired military advisers cooked up a scheme with the Pentagon to plant 'feel-good' stories in the media (well, Fox News at least) about how well the war was going. After being exposed the Pentagon shut down this program.

In most cases, the retired officer-analysts were more than eager to hear good news on the war. In one April 2006 conference call, as sectarian violence was on an uptick, an unidentified military analyst asked then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace what the officers could say on television that would convince Americans that the war wasn’t going that badly.

“What can we say to the American public to say … there are some things you can see that will make you feel better about what our military is doing and any progress we have made?” the analyst asked.

The Defense Department has shut down the program pending an internal review. Both the Defense Department inspector general’s office and the Government Accountability Office are investigating whether the effort violated any rules, including if it gave some contractors a competitive advantage by employing the retired officers as lobbyists.

From The Law and Situation of Military Propaganda

And any time a Republican gets into trouble, the R next to their name mysteriously morphs into a D for the headlines. (see Fox 'News,' For Its Continued R for D Switches in Mislabeling Republicans, Wins BuzzFlash's Media Putz Award)

When Republican Gov. Sanford (and head of the Republican Governor's Assoc.) vanished and turned up in Argentina in the arms of a mistress, Fox ran headlines for days with the (D) beside his name - it took a complaint from a media association to get them to finally place the correct party identification beside his name!



It happened again when Republican Foley was embroiled in a homosexual-tryst scandal - that pesky (D) showed up next to his name during the duration of the scandal.



Then it's the constant little things Fox 'News' does - constantly parading around misleading headlines about Democrats, everything from baseless claims how they're coming for your guns to promoting over-the-top government intrusions, like the bogus Pelosi headline below;



Or the fictitious (yes, fictitious) 'light-bulb ban' (from Right-Wing Media Continue To Mislead On Nonexistent Light Bulb "Ban")



How about when they cook the numbers on their polls - and unwittingly exceed 100% (a mathematical impossibility). This happens a lot, on Fax 'News' at least.

(what happens when you delete an entire candidate's score from your poll - in this case Ron Paul - something doesn't add up!)



(the last one was from Fox News fiddles with climate change polling)

The bogus journalism isn't contained to just the political or world news either, even Fox Sports manages to fabricate stuff;
Chicago newspaper criticizes Fox Sports for using phony headlines

Video: Fox Sports Airs Fake Headlines About QB Jay Cutler

I won't even get into the text of Fox 'News' crawl, which is constantly stating bogus headlines.

reply to post by ILikeStars

Agitprop is supposed to be one of the most effective forms of propaganda. Just one of the many Russian things brought to you by the Republicans.

www.merriam-webster.com...

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


I like this picture.



Do you see anything wrong with it? Hint 120%

Unless there version of multiple choice means you can give multiple answers like Romney!

reply to post by JBA2848

Just one of the many Russian things brought to you by the Republicans.

Do you have a source for that comment, or is it an example of agitprop brought to us by you?

See ya,
Milt