Fox News Bias

[Temerit]

From what I've read (from various more and less credible sources, so some probably don't quite hold up to standard, but do your own Googling, I'm not your waiter); the psychological problem with bias, is basically that if you view something as biased, it is because you are biased against it. Summed up, all this means is you more or less don't agree with the context in which whatever is being delivered to you is being delivered. Thus, even if it was factual, and there was all the solid evidence in the world to prove it - the receiver that is biased against the source would disregard the fact as untrue, until they heard it from a source in which they were unbiased to.



So, someone who is a fan of FOX News, could be mistaken about the first president of the United States; as far as he is concerned, it was Oliver Cromwell. MSNBC could do an entire special on George Washington, mentioning how him being the first president, etc., and the person would not accept that, and still believe that Oliver Cromwell was the first president of the United States, but upon viewing a similar special on FOX News, the person because of bias would accept the message, and accept George Washington as the first president of the United States (...sadly, in a few years with the education system going the way it is, kids could actually be confused about the hypothetical example here...).



...it all has to do more or less with basic instincts retained from earlier social tendencies when it came to tribal organisation. There was a choice of two chieftans, perhaps, and survival was literally on the line, so you had to choose the better chieftan, whichever one sounded better to you, and if you managed to survive and pass along your genes, your children were coded (either through genes, or by social mores passed along the lineage) to know to be biased in the same regard in order for survival.





Strangely, from what I've been told, in molecular physics (some far out stuff, not the basic stuff we learn in school), there are some [atomic, etc.] bonds that aren't initially possible because of bias, but given a different environment, the same chemical bond previously not possible, become possible. So perhaps our bias issues as humans are even more hard-coded than DNA, etc...weird...

I have to wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that bias is entirely subjective. It is possible to practice journalism and inform the public simply by offering facts with no analysis, leaving that part of it up to the viewer.

Discussion over.



Lock the thread.

CNN and MSNBC are still owned by the corporate elite and thus fail to work for the American people, so they like the Republican party do not care about the American populous.

 

[DrLeftover]

For an example as to how they are ALL biased, you need look no further than the coverage of the current tax bill debate in the Congress.



They are touting it as about how the president now wants to reduce taxes for the Middle Class.



No, there is no scenario currently in play where anybody's taxes Will Go Down.



The only two possibilities are that you will pay more, or continue to pay the same under the current tax rate (until the health bill kicks in and they go up anyway).



There is no Tax Cut on the table from either side for anybody no matter how much, or little, you make.

 

[Durandal]

I have to wholeheartedly disagree with your assertion that bias is entirely subjective. It is possible to practice journalism and inform the public simply by offering facts with no analysis, leaving that part of it up to the viewer.

I didn't dispute that journalism can be conducted in a way where facts are delivered to the person, without any analysis (opinion, etc.). That's certainly possible, and I agree.



It wasn't the delivery I was talking about. It was the reception.



While the news agency might deliver straight news, the consumer can twist and spin it in the way that they want, thus creating a bias (which I've stated that some have theorised (and I think holds some merit) comes from within a person, and so there is a natural bias that is at least partially 'hard-coded'). I didn't really assert anything, if you read my post.



What FOX News (or any of the major 24-hour block cable news networks) can do, is openly appeal to that bias, because in the end, their purpose isn't really to report the news, their purpose is to make money. It's really marketing plain and simple. Ethical? No, definitely not.



Ironically, I think your reply sort of is a proof (not a complete proof, but a leaning) the theory, you more or less disregarded the fact that I didn't assert the point, but delivered the point asserted by someone else, but a bias of yours (which admittedly, I believe I share), put you into a defense-counterattack mode in which it was natural for you to deflect and then make a counter-point. Ultimately, such can be cited as standard accepted debating tools. Ultimately such may be natural human bias that we are unaware of.

 

[Temerit]

For an example as to how they are ALL biased, you need look no further than the coverage of the current tax bill debate in the Congress.



They are touting it as about how the president now wants to reduce taxes for the Middle Class.



No, there is no scenario currently in play where anybody's taxes Will Go Down.

Obama has already passed a huge round of Tax Cuts for the middle class before now.

While the news agency might deliver straight news, the consumer can twist and spin it in the way that they want, thus creating a bias (which I've stated that some have theorised (and I think holds some merit) comes from within a person, and so there is a natural bias that is at least partially 'hard-coded'). I didn't really assert anything, if you read my post.

But that is how it should be, the new network shouldn't be actively creating that bias for the viewer, that just makes the viewers own bias that much worse and often founded on false or at least shaky ground.



I understand what you're saying and I agree with you.

 

[DrLeftover]

I thought I said the Current tax bill debate.



Didn't I say the Current tax bill debate?



I'm sure I said the Current tax bill debate.



Did you see the Current tax bill debate?

 

[root]

I remember when Fox news reported that weed made the trees change colors and move...

 

[Temerit]

I thought I said the Current tax bill debate.



Didn't I say the Current tax bill debate?



I'm sure I said the Current tax bill debate.



Did you see the Current tax bill debate?

Extending the Bush Tax cuts is cutting taxes. Obama is cutting taxes by extending these tax cuts.

 

[DrLeftover]

No.



You're wrong.



Maintaining an existing rate is not a cut.



A cut is a reduction in the current amount paid.



If you are getting 100 dollars a month for something, and keep getting 100 dollars a month, that is neither an increase or a decrease.



If you are getting one hundred dollars, and it is reduced to eighty. That is a cut.



If you are getting a hundred, and then you get one twenty, that is a raise.



Getting one hundred, then being told you are going to get 120, and then the raise doesn't come through and you are still getting 100 is NOT a cut.



Getting 100, being told it will be reduced to 80, and then that not happening is NOT a raise.

 

[Temerit]

Ok, lets just call it adding to the deficit.



By the way, I haven't heard any news outlet call it Obama cutting taxes for the middle class, certainly not Obama himself, but I don't watch cable news that often so I could be wrong on this.

 

[Durandal]

By the way, I haven't heard any news outlet call it Obama cutting taxes for the middle class, certainly not Obama himself, but I don't watch cable news that often so I could be wrong on this.

One thing I'm finding unsatisfactory, is that the tax cuts are still called the Bush Tax Cuts; sure, he established them, but like Afghanistan and Iraq have been dubbed Obama's Wars by propagandists, I believe it's time the tax cuts get a new name when they get the new signature.

 

[Temerit]

True, but the circumstances under which Bush signed them are VERY different. At the moment Republicans are willing to let the entire country go to hell and not vote for anything until the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires (who are making more money that they ever have) get their tax cuts.

 

[Durandal]

True, but the circumstances under which Bush signed them are VERY different. At the moment Republicans are willing to let the entire country go to hell and not vote for anything until the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires (who are making more money that they ever have) get their tax cuts.

Well yeah, exactly; they're badmouthing Obama and Team Democracy for not liking that arrangement - but when he decides to pass the olive branch, he isn't getting his name on the plaque, so to speak. So, it still makes it look like Bush is the hero, when this is now Obama's pen on the tax cuts (even if it is an extension he's now taking ownership of them with this deal...).



Personally, if the House and Senate were just going to cave anyway after making a lot of useless noise, it would've almost been better PR for him to have waited until after January, and gotten his name slapped on a tax deal...but either way the Republicans are going to take/steal all of the credit for it...

 

[Temerit]

Credit for the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? Is that something Obama wants credit for?

 

[Durandal]

Credit for the tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires? Is that something Obama wants credit for?

Well, that might be the reality of it, but I'm talking about the superficial PR of the situation. Media outlets that have touted the above as a necessity for our nation, and giving him and his party a bad name for speaking against such a cause aren't now lauding him for working to get the cause passed, nor putting his name on it. The keywords the media keep throwing around are caving and weak...not statesman and diplomat (there are some, but not many, regarding him as such for the superficial appearance that he brought each side together for compromise (in reality one side more or less got bent over, not brought over...)...