dhett said:
Actually, I expect as much from CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and MSNBC. When CBS releases a political poll based on a 60/35/5 ratio between Democrats, Republicans and Independents, respectively and tries to pass it off as accurate, that's bias. When the news networks try to accuse a President based on a 1973 document with Microsoft fonts, that's bias. When John Murtha is as crooked as politicians come, and no network news organizations bother to report it, choosing to focus instead on his anti-war efforts, that's bias.
All polls conducted by a news organization are going to have differences in respondants, and they are weighed on different levels accordingly. The polls this election cycle turned out to be largely accurate, and one poll does not indicate a consistent bias. Even Fox News polls conducted independently have been largely above board. It's ironic that you would mention Dan Rather, because this is a classic example of what is different about Fox News and other networks.
Dan Rather got shown the door because he was a lead correspondent on a piece whose facts were actually not in much dispute among the parties involved, just the veracity of a document from one source. Rather was held accountable for presiding over a piece that would allow a questionable document to be used in a piece on 60 Minutes II, which violated CBS News standards for objectivity and honesty. He didn't decide personally to use it - his producer did (and she was fired immediately). But the guy you actually see on the air was held to account as well.
Here we have a memo from Fox management that directs correspondents on how they should report and slant their coverage of the day's events (see below for just one example of how the marching orders were put into action by on air Fox correspondents). That is FAR FAR FAR worse than anything CBS News has ever done, and CBS fired those people, from the producer all the way up to their network anchor. Just who is being held to account at Fox News for injecting slanted coverage of news and asking correspondents to fix facts around the perception that Fox News wanted viewers to have? So far, nobody, and folks like yourself who are so willing to demand better of CBS have either remained silent, or actually defended what is patently indefensible.
You may think that real journalism maintains a firewall between reporting opinion and fact, but that statement has a problem on two levels: 1) mainstream journalism ceased being real journalism a long time ago and 2) one's biases always color their reporting - the firewall doesn't exist. In the latter case, it's not just the biases of the reporters, but the biases of the news directors who decide which stories get aired, and which stories get shelved.
Most of the mainstream media displays the same bias as you do, which is why it is so poorly thought of by people not already predisposed to believing their point of view. Fox News just exposes the biases of the rest of the media.
Most people who have this viewpoint have never worked in a newsroom where reporters are required to be objective, and their pieces are reviewed by editors, and questions are often asked and language is often changed. There has been a talking point for decades about a perceived liberal media bias, which has been a position advocated by conservatives who evidently feel the best way to fight it is to present slanted opinion talk radio and now Fox News, both of which have lost any pretense of being objective, fair or balanced.
I am not sure how Fox's completely over-the-top bias, as exposed in memos like these, is somehow corrective of media bias. Your logic doesn't follow. No other news channel sends memos like these down to correspondents. All this illustrates is that Fox News is little better than conservative talk radio. As Rush Limbaugh himself admitted the day after the election, he was carrying the Republican's water for the past six years, and now he claims to feel "liberated" by not having to do that any longer now that they lost. When might we expect Fox News to claim the same?
And more importantly, why does replacing one perceived biased news channel with another one that issues marching orders to slant coverage somehow make the news media better? If Fox News wanted to truly represent fair, balanced, and unbiased reporting and set some sort of example for other networks to follow, why the need for partisan positioning memos in the first place?
Let's face facts here - Fox News is not trying to be fair or balanced. It's a conservative biased news channel that is attempting to appeal to the same audiences that enjoy conservative talk radio. Actual facts in reporting are less important than delivering the kinds of stories that confirm the world view of their conservative audience.
Enjoy some additional coverage on this:
http://www.phillipdampier.net/downloads/Fox-Memo-11-15-06.wmv
