BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable

Subject: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,stigWeard at work
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 08:33 AM

This is so alarming it's not true.

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


Can our American friends reassure us no one believes this sort of propgandist crap?

stigWeard

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 08:50 AM

Blimey. If that really is the kind of "news" broadcasts you get on TV in America, God help us all. It seems calculated to cause brain damage, as well as hurting the eardrums.

I wish I could believe this was just some kind of vicious parody put together by people who hate the USA.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:11 AM

Sorry, but my PC would only play the first 10 seconds or so.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:16 AM

Why are we surprised...America is never wrong, how dare the BBc suggest otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:16 AM

Mine didn't even do that much. And I suspect I missed something because I don't have the speakers hooked up yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Mark Clark
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:11 AM

That is exactly the sort of broadcasts Americans hear constantly if they tune in to Fox News. It doesn't just come from one talking head, it's the whole network all the time.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:14 AM

Can someone give us a quick précis for those who can't listen either for technical reasons or because the boss would object?

Anyway, wghy would the BBC spread lies? That's why we have politicians!

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: mooman
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:21 AM

This says a great deal more about Fox than it does about the BBC.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Nerd
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:26 AM

Just to calm our English friends down a bit, though: Fox News is a separate channel available on cable TV. It's not the same channel as the Fox network, which is available on the airwaves and thus in every home in America. Fox News is well known among most Americans to have a right-wing bias, so people who watch it are already inclined to agree with it.

However, there are some Americans, particularly in the financial world, who do not know or care that it has a right-wing bias (they watch it for its sunny view of the economy and its reassurance that it's all right for big business to screw the little guy) and therefore might take it seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:28 AM

This type of thing makes me feel very sorry for intelligent, thinking Americans -- they must be so embarrassed.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Folkiedave
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:29 AM

That's not he same Fox news whose stablemate the Sun makes up interviews is it?

Try typing Fox News+bias in Google. It throws up 80,700 sites.

Here is one of them:

http://www.oreilly-sucks.com/foxbias.htm

Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Nerd
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:40 AM

That's the one, Dave. They are also the ones who sued Al Franken over the title of his hilarious book:

Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them: a Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

Fox News claimed that "Fair and Balanced" was their proprietary slogan, and that people might mistake the book for one of their productions. They were (almost) literally laughed out of the court, when the judge found their suit to be "completely without merit." They did achieve one thing, though: the publicity catapulted Franken's scorching indictment of their lies to the top of the best-seller lists.

Even in America, we liberals sometimes get the last laugh!

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: John Routledge
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:42 AM

Thanks Dave.

Your site puts "Fox News" into perspective

I used to wonder why some cultures have problems with "America"

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 11:58 AM

Yup. That was the real thing. Welkome to Amerika.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:19 PM

This kind of thing must be pretty embarrassing to decent people who think on the right.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:22 PM

This is Rupert Murdoch in the States. Are we to understand that Rupert Murdoch in Britain is a superior product?

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:22 PM

By being patient I was able to get about half of it. But the first few seconds was enough to tell me that this was Fox News, even if I didn't already know. It's the same blowhard, "in-your-face" style that characterizes many right-wing commentators who, on Fox News especially, try to masquerade as news reporters.

The delivery style has been around for a long time and was pretty much pioneered in the political commentary realm by Rush Limbaugh and his disciples. Prior to that, it was generally associated with radio and television preachers of the "Hell-fire and Damnation" persuasion (invariable accompanied by "keep sending in those contributions, folks!" implying that lavish contributions to their program would assure your salvation). The Reverend Herbert W. Armstrong and Brother Ralph J. Sander (whose program always ended with "Keep those contributions coming in, folks! Send them to post office box 888—that's 888, the same backwards, forwards and upside down—") were early exemplars of this style of delivery. Like the Hell-roaring electronic preachers that preceded them, the Fox News commentators invariably distort whatever facts they might be basing their so-called "reports" on and ask you to take most of what they say on blind faith.

Unfortunately, there is a fair number of Americans who buy this crap. They like the "rah rah" Ameicanism and the simplistic approach to often complex problems. Generally they are not on an intellectual level capable of comprehending a conservative commentator such as William F. Buckley Jr., who tries to persuade rather than browbeat, and frequently uses words of more than one syllable. But fortunately, there is also a fair number of Americans, including some conservatives, who consider Fox News to be laughable, if not downright disgusting.

In the realm of news broadcasting, Fox News Channel can be considered the scrapings from the bottom of the Dumpster—or to our British confreres, the dustbin.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:36 PM

Are we to understand that Rupert Murdoch in Britain is a superior product?

So far, yes. It makes the British equivalent look like healthy, moderate and balanced journalism. Which is quite remarkable, considering how bad it is in real terms.

If this is what this stuff is really like, I think that, if I was trying to fire up people to despise and hate America, I'd get hold of videos of the channel's output, and play it to them. That's some potentially very powerful Black Propaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:42 PM

A recent study by the Pugh Charitable Trust revealed that among the 71 percent of Americans who believe that Sadaam Hussein was involved in the events of 9/11, Fox news was the most common response when they were asked what the main source of their news was.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:46 PM

it's funny line we walk, feeling that the "right of free speech" is important, and tolerating distortion for the sake of $$$$. I sometimes watch a bit of Fox news, just to remind me why I don't usually watch it.

(The guy you see/hear giving that diatribe was originally the main 'talking head' when MSNBC was new, but soon proved too far right for THEM and was hired by Fox...and MSNBC has a pronounced right-leaning bias of it's own!)

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:50 PM

I've always wondered where the 71 % of Americans who beileve Saddam was involved in 9/11 are? I can't think of anyone I know that believes that.

No one has pointed out yet either that the "my word" segment is an OPINION piece.

that said - MOST news shows these days are pretty much trash - bias is applied in so many ways that it is next to impossible to believe anything without multiple corraborations.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 01:59 PM

>>No one has pointed out yet either that the "my word" segment is an OPINION piece.<<

Very good point. It's like a Rupert Murdoch rep in England spouting off about how zee French are feelthy and use less soap per capita. Don't send the armies into America to destroy us over this, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 02:09 PM

I understand the surprise at seeing this. But that's exactly what it is for. To generate outrage and controversy and attention. It's trash television, to be sure. Rupee may have asked for it for personal reasons to tweak the BBC.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Rapparee
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 02:21 PM

Can't stand Fox News, don't watch it, and don't want to deal with it here any more than I have to.

Such an unthinking spouting of trash opinion!

Fortunately, only a minority believe such crap. Please don't think that that is the opinion of everyone in the US, 'cause it ain't.

(I finally did get to see and hear it. It takes real work to do so.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 02:56 PM

Maybe the real worry is the point I touched on above. This kind of thing makes slightly less extreme extremism look like moderation. Nutters like that are extremely useful that way, when extremist want to con people into thinking are mainstream.

Mind it can sometimes all go badly wrong, with the nutters actually taking over, as happened in Germany in the early thirties.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 03:04 PM

Can't shut'em up, though. They may be right and we may be wrong. The only thing to do is talk back. See Folkiedave's comment above and the links referenced.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 03:04 PM

be glad they didn't show a 'piece' by Joe Scarbourough of MSNBC....who sometimes make Rush Limbaugh look sane..

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Hollowfox
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 06:58 PM

(just don't go blaming us foxes...)

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 07:23 PM

Talk back? Talk past them might be better.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 07:50 PM

Fox News in the USA has a crucial role to play in war "coverage" and fullfilling the prophesy that every other media outlet is full of liberal bias. It is of course not true but by a process of relativity it becomes true to the true belivers.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 07:55 PM

Here's a description of that video, including a complete transcription, as well as some editorial interpretation, from The Independent.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:20 PM

I listen to the BBC every night. I'm a former journalist and I listen with a different ear, so to speak. I did not detect any anti-American bias in the BBC news reports regarding the war. If anything, I was hoping that the BBC would have been a bit more critical. This has nothing to do with war reporting, but the BBC did a stellar job of covering stories during world wide AIDS week.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:29 PM

This crap is scandalous -- a dramatization of bestial ignorance on the march. Archie Bunker goes bouffant. I spit. It is not even good enough to embarass me -- it is a slapstick farce imitation of a thinking human.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bobert
Date: 04 Feb 04 - 09:55 PM

Welcome to George Bush/Michael Powell's America. Screw FCC regs that date back to 1932. If Rupert Murdock and Mickey Mouse want control of the media then what's the harm?

(Ahhhh, Bobert. These folks wanta have one source of information so that you won't be confused with conflicting information... Chill, everything is just fine... Why don't you go down and put a down payment on a new SUV... THat'll maike you fell all better...)

I'm feeling better now. What? No thinking required? Where do I sign up?

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 01:18 AM

Verbal vomit . Was this cretin TOLD what to say, or is he merely typical [as is probable] of the Murdoch-ruled media the world over?
Maybe he's just one more far-right nutter with a secret drug problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 04:28 AM

I had never imagined that an American network could put that sort of crap out as news. Surely this must have come from the old Soviet Union, or perhaps a product of old Nazi Germany or other places we believe such blatant distortion could occur.

While I am happy in the knowledge that there are plenty of inteligent free thinking Americans who see this broadcast as a load of tripe, it does worry me to some degree that there must be sufficient people believing it for the network to exist - and I wouldn't mind betting Fox make more than just a few dollars out of it.

To balance things up a little, although to a lesser degree, I have similar concerns about our UK readership of the Sun. I do find it amazing that so many people appear to enjoy that sort of (lack of) quality of journalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bobert
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 09:12 AM

Well danged, Jon, we Yanks have been dependent on you Brits fir our information? Now yer telling us that it's faulty as well? Hmmmmm? Iz sniffin' a larger conspiracy here than I thought existed.....

Oh well?!?!?.... Do you like my new SUV? Yep, only 96 more payments and I'll have it paid off....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: HuwG
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 10:02 AM

The Fox News article does sound lie a rant, and appears to commit the very sins which it complains about, practically frothing at the mouth itself.

The reasoned legal opinion in the UK was that, had there been any mechanism by which an appeal could have been launched against the Hutton Report, and had the BBC appealed, they stood a 50/50 chance of having Hutton's verdicts overturned or set aside. Unfortunately, there is no such mechanism.

Two British sources on the fight against Saddam which might be worth reading / viewing are:

The book, "The Wars against Saddam", by BBC reporter John Simpson. (pub Macmillan, prince £20.00). Simpson reported from Kurdistan and northern Iraq during the war, and might be assumed to be violently anti-american, given that US aircraft dropped a bomb on him (and Kurdish troops with US Special Forces). However, he exasperatingly fails to come down on one side or the other of the debate, "was it right to remove Saddam ?". He does not take any swipes at Fox News, merely mentioning in passing that their "upbeat" reporting style was popular with US forces.

The broadcasting company, Channel 4 (Nothing to do with the BBC) recently screened a two-and-a-half hour documentary entitled, "Invading Iraq". The subtitle was, "How Britain and America got it wrong". They pointed out the great difference in style between the British and American tactics. The British refrained from storming Basra, since this would lead to unnecessary British and civilian casualties. They waited for a fortnight until the defenders gave up and drifted away, and then occupied Basra, with only three British deaths. (Several dozen die-hard defenders were killed, but there were very few, if any, civilian deaths).

On the other hand, the US forces relied on solely on blitzkrieg speed to stun and confuse the defenders. This got them deep into Iraq without too much trouble, and allowed them to rout the Republican Guard defending Baghdad. However, they followed the same principles when attempting to storm Baghdad and other built-up areas such as Nasiriya, and this led to, at minimum, several hundred civilian deaths, and much damage. (The US Army in Baghdad seems to have tried its best to discriminate between civilians and irregular fighters, but automatic fire and cannon shells in a built-up area will cause death and damage, no matter how carefully pointed. The US Marines appear to have been more aggressive, cared little about collateral damage, and indeed seem to have shot at all civilian vehicles in some positions, to prevent any possibility of suicide bombers getting close).

Channel 4 ignored the queation of whether it was right or wrong to have deposed Saddam, though it did point out that other than the self-serving and members of Saddam's tribal group, nobody in Iraq regretted his passing from power. It did however draw the conclusion that the speed and violence of the Allied (particularly American) tactics was counterproductive. It caused needless suffering, transformed them from "liberators" to "conquerors" in Iraqi eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bob Hitchcock
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 10:03 AM

To put Fox News in it's proper place, let me relate a little joke I heard the other day.

General Patton and Napolean were up in Heaven watching events in Iraq, when Patton says, "If I only had those Humvees in Africa I could have defeated Rommel in three days".

Then Napolean says, "If I only had Fox News, no one would know I had lost at Waterloo"

As an ex-pat Brit here in the USA I look at BBC World News for information and Fox News for Comedy.

Bob.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 11:51 AM

While I am happy in the knowledge that there are plenty of inteligent free thinking Americans who see this broadcast as a load of tripe, it does worry me to some degree that there must be sufficient people believing it for the network to exist

You should be worried, Jon. Very, very worried.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 12:04 PM

"Those whom the Gods would destroy they first drive mad."

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Walking Eagle
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 01:25 PM

.....or into dull witted boredom.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 04:31 PM

Like it or not { and I don't } this is what free speech is all about. I'm not embarrassed as an American by this guy. As far as I'm concerned he's speaking for himself - not for me. Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 05:13 PM

I think it was an American, H L Mencken, who pointed out that the freedom of the press is the freedom of a few people with too much money to print whatever the hell they like about anyone or anything. (Or words to that effect.) I'd rather have the press owned by the government of the day. Even Blair's government, or Bush's - though there are many more moderate options for regulation without going to that extreme.

If McGrath is right that Murdoch in the UK is better than Murdoch in the US, it's a fine line. It was Murdoch's Sun that screamed GOTCHA! across its front page when the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano was sunk with the loss of nearly 300 lives. And it was the Sun that tried to run a picture of mineworkers' president Arthur Scargill, captured in a posture inadvertantly akin to a Nazi salute, under the headline "Mine Fuehrer". (The item was pulled because the print unions wouldn't touch it.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 05:36 PM

As I said, the Sun is a vile paper. If it doesn't quite sink to the level of this broadcast, it's not because there aren't people who'd be quite willing. It'd be because, on balance, they think that it would cost them readers, and make it harder for their friends in Government to cozy up to Rupert. (For example, concessions on multi-media ownership, and things like the leak to the Sun of the Hutton report.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 05:46 PM

He's proud of his flag lapel pin. Well, so were Goering and Himmler, I'm sure.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 05:54 PM

Yes. The bit about the lapel pin really got to me. It manages to be
laughable and enraging at the same time. An odd feeling.

Don't the Jesuits use the phrase "invincible ignorance?"

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 05:55 PM

" I'd rather have the press owned by the government of the day"

naahhh...I like having the many choices we have. We have 3 national networks that are 'reasonably' balanced, plus Public TV, which is better yet and in depth..(probably best comparison to BBC) and then Fox and MSNBC...and it is nice to be ABLE to tune in to the enemy and see just what he IS saying...sort of "Know thine enemy". Add to that the ability to find better sources such as BBC online, and one soon learns to find the viewpoints they most trust & respect.....and although the blithering idiots DO have their following and influence, I'd rather see them out in the open where I can keep track of them!

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 06:57 PM

I'd sooner have them in their natural habitat, the saloon bar. (Unfortunately. in these days of open plan pubs. it's harder to get away from them in most pubs, when there isn't a saloon bar.)

Subject: RE: BS: Fox broadcast - unbelievable
From: Leadfingers
Date: 05 Feb 04 - 08:54 PM

The sad thing from where I am sat is the LOVELY statistical info that
at one point there was a survey which showed that SIXTY SIX percent of Murdoch owned SUN Newspapers readersin UK thought it was a Left Wing Paper. What hope have we in Universal Suffrage ????