How do we make sure that commercial all-news radio stations remain objective?

[DJBigOne]

Well...as a mostly liberal person, I find Fox News pretty far to the right. But they're not monolithic - they have a few liberal commentators - Juan Williams, Geraldo Rivera, Alan Colmes, etc.

And even conservatives aren't always consistent. I stumbled into The O'Reilly Factor a couple of weeks ago - sometimes I like to watch him for laughs. Bill was doing a story about the fact that much of the oil taken out of the ground in the USA is sent overseas. His comment was that the government should step in and stop the exporting of American oil WHAT! I always thought Big Bill was against government intervention and regulations. Made me laugh.

Great points all!

It's true! We export much oil overseas, especially refined gasoline. Many countries, like Japan, do not have our refining infrastructure. Soooo I do agree. Why export what we have right here? Of course if you're a libertarian, which for many issues I am, you'd believe the government should have no control over the market. Every time the government meddles in industry, it causes many problems. A great example is price fixing during FDR's term. So if no one listens to a political pundent, and arbitron ratings tank...well...then the market just decided.

I have to laugh when I see oranges from New Zealand. As I type this, I am eating an orange from Marysville. MMMmmm! It is very good! Not barge ripened from overseas!

So what do we do about left vs. right vs. news? Remember when TV newspeople used to have a lower third with "commentary" as they gave their opinion? IMHO, in radio we should report the facts of news stories. If we want to do commentary on such we should play a liner with, "news and commentary from Steven Roy may or may not reflect the opinions of this station". Reporting news with a slant as 'just the facts' is providing poor service to our listeners. But that's just my opinion.

 

[geek-orama]

We are all entitled to our own opinion but we are not entitled to our own version of facts.

 

[davideduardo]

We are all entitled to our own opinion but we are not entitled to our own version of facts.

I learned an interesting lesson when living in Ecuador quite a few years ago.

There was a coup d'etat and I was with my staff in covering the story as it developed, so i actually saw and heard the military take over the country with tanks and planes and bombs and shooting.

A few days later, I got my copy of Time Magazine. They had a story about the revolt. But it did not read like a news story but, instead, like a sci-fi piece about a parallel reality.

Some time later, I had the opportunity to chat with the Time writer and asked about his article and what I saw. Each of us saw the event through a different lens. I was a resident, a station owner and even knew some of the people involved both on the Junta side and on the deposed President's side. The reporter was an outsider, did not know the people and did not have a street feel. Our eyes saw the same thing... but our minds processed the data differently... so differently that we seemed to have witnessed two separate events.

And the highly respected Time was called, among my circle of friends, "The Weekly Fiction Magazine."

There is a quote to the left, "History is written by the victors." It is from Sir Winston Churchill who obviously knew that facts are not the same when there are multiple vantage points.

 

[DavidKaye]

A few days later, I got my copy of Time Magazine. They had a story about the revolt. But it did not read like a news story but, instead, like a sci-fi piece about a parallel reality.

This is true, of course, in traffic accidents where there can be 5 eyewitnesses and they see 5 different versions of the same scene. I remember about 20 years ago when a bicyclist riding down a sidewalk (in the wrong direction, no less!) plowed into my car as I was waiting at a red light. He flew over the hood from right to left and landed on the ground with his bike on top of him. Two "eyewitnesses" came forward out of nowhere and both claimed that I had hit the cyclist! I told everybody that since there was an obvious discrepancy in our stories I'd gladly call the police and get them involved.

The cyclist told me that he was all right (but he limped a lot). I have a feeling he was holding marijuana or something and just didn't want the attention. So, everybody left. But before we left I asked one of the eager "witnesses" to see his notes. He'd written the wrong license number (something like GCX instead of GXZ) and wrote that my car was white. It was blue.

After this "eyewitness" encounter, I learned not to take anything like this on face value.

 

[JEREMIAH]

Yes, David but why were you driving on the sidewalk?


Jerrry Gordon

 

[DavidKaye]

Yes, David but why were you driving on the sidewalk?
Jerrry Gordon

Uh...trying to keep those pesky pedestrians away?

You know those corners where the sidewalk goes down to street level to allow for wheelchairs? We have those all over SF now, so lots of cyclists use the sidewalks instead of the street in busy areas, trusting that they can go up and down those little ramps. Except that this intersection didn't have those ramps, so I guess he jumped the curb, lost control, and plowed into my car.

Anyhow, keeping it somewhat on-topic, a Channel 7 news van happened to be nearby and they were about to pull over to have a look-see when I waved them away. I'll say one thing about KGO-TV, they seem to pop up everywhere. Saw one tonight outside the AT&T Giants ballpark. I guess the story will be something like, "This is where the Giants will be playing on Friday..."

 

[recto101]

Update ARNN does Political agenda news and CC is doing an all-news format only on the web for now.
SO far ARNN does political pushing news but are others involved?