Bill O'Reilly

[Cicero]

Not at all. I'm saying you can't jump to the conclusion that their reporting is biased.


How do scientists own scientific views not color their results?

Lots of ways.



For example?

Scientific views? I didn't know that if a scientist didn't like gravity, they could skew an experiment to show gravity doesn't exist. Fascinating.

Talk about "jumping to conclusions," you have leaped all the way from the arbitrary rules of journalism to the empiricism of science.

Liberal media always manages to skew any event where a firearm was used to portray the 2nd Amendment as invalid. Of course these stories always reveal the reporter/journalist ignorance regarding all things about firearms and the laws pertaining to them, but that never seems to get in the way of their editors.

 

[Lurker]

OK, wasn't sure. People make this claim all the time and call it "Faux News", but so far it appears to just come from liberals who can't stand news without a liberal spin, and not understanding the difference between a news program and an opinionated talk show.

Fox seems to be leading the way in blurring the lines between their opinion shows and their news shows. Therein lies hte problem. O'Reilly calls himself a journalist yet he provides his spin, er, his opinion on every issue that crosses his desk (and it is almost always a conservative opinion).

 

[Cicero]

Fox seems to be leading the way in blurring the lines between their opinion shows and their news shows. Therein lies hte problem. O'Reilly calls himself a journalist yet he provides his spin, er, his opinion on every issue that crosses his desk (and it is almost always a conservative opinion).

A sample of O'Reilly's conservatism:

1) Anti Death Penalty
2) Believes in man made global warming
3) Bobby Kennedy is his idol
4) Pro gun control legislation
5) Believes the oil companies are pernicious vermin
6) Loves Al Sharpton and Barbara Walters

A few more "conservatives" like this and Dennis Kucinich will run as a GOP candidate.

 

[Lonewulf]

Wait... to be conservative, you have to deny man-made global warming?

Yet more evidence that some issues that should be scientific issues are made into feel-good "belief" issues.

 

[Lurker]

A sample of O'Reilly's conservatism:

1) Anti Death Penalty
2) Believes in man made global warming
3) Bobby Kennedy is his idol
4) Pro gun control legislation
5) Believes the oil companies are pernicious vermin
6) Loves Al Sharpton and Barbara Walters

A few more "conservatives" like this and Dennis Kucinich will run as a GOP candidate.

Cicero,

Would you be interested in performing an actual experiment to determine O'Reilly's position on the liberal/conservative scale? I have made this offer to other conservatives who claim O'Reilly is not so conservative and they never take me up on the challenge. Interested?

Lurker

 

[Upchurch]

Scientific views? I didn't know that if a scientist didn't like gravity, they could skew an experiment to show gravity doesn't exist. Fascinating.

You've never heard of experimental bias? Well, I'm glad I could introduce you to a new idea.

Talk about "jumping to conclusions," you have leaped all the way from the arbitrary rules of journalism to the empiricism of science.

No, what I'm saying is that both have a self-regulating system of methods and standards designed to minimize and catch, but not necessarily prevent, errors.

Liberal media always manages to skew any event where a firearm was used to portray the 2nd Amendment as invalid. Of course these stories always reveal the reporter/journalist ignorance regarding all things about firearms and the laws pertaining to them, but that never seems to get in the way of their editors.

It always does that, huh?

You need to be careful with these blanket statements that are so easily disprovable. Did you even bother to check whether or not it was true or did you just assume?

 

[Regnad Kcin]

This is a joke, right? You take a piece from "The Nation" that contains the most outrageously inaccurate spin imaginable and pretend that I'm forgetting something.

Two consortia of newsgathering organizations conducted independent recounts and concluded that Bush--not Gore--would have won Florida. In fact, Bush won Florida closely but decisively (by 25-30 thousand votes). The three major networks kept insisting that polls in the heavily-Republican Panhandle region had closed when they actually had another hour to go. A Republican study estimated that media's "error" cost Bush a net of 15-20 thousand votes. A Democratic study conducted by Bob Beckel estimated Bush's net loss at only 7-10 thousand. Democratic vote fraud in Palm Beach County cost Bush another 10-15 thousand votes. It's truly comical to hear brazen thieves whine that they didn't steal quite enough votes to put their man over the top.
One thing that Michael Moore and the joker writing for The Nation never get around to explaining is how declaring a winner changes any votes, all of them having been cast. What if every network declared Ralph Nader the winner of Florida. Would that have given him the state's electoral vote. Surely there must be a point to this mad allegation, but what can it be? Were the analysts at NBC (Tom Brokaw on Election Night 2000: "We have 267 electoral votes; we need four more.") influenced by John Ellis or did they independently conclude that Bush had won Florida?
What silly stuff!

I was responding to your statement that "Fox News has never attempted to swing a presidential election." The actions of John Ellis put the lie to your claim.

As for your blurring the issue with regard to the folly of analyzing votes in hindsight, cast or not, when Florida was called for Bush it was not known what was what other than the tallies indicated that recounts would no doubt follow. Making the call (with the subsequent competitive rush of the other networks) injected a psychological barrier in much of the public's thinking with regard to any opposing candidate's rightful challenge. This is old news and, as I say, not relevent to what you initially wrote.

 

[Skepticybe]

Out of curiosity, what do you consider an example of a news program with a liberal spin? Not an opinionated talk show, but a news program?

The best example that comes to mind is the whole "RatherGate" incident.

I'm not a fan of the Media Research Center, in fact I find them rather annoying, but they do a fairly good job of documenting liberal media bias. You don't have to look far on their site to find plenty of specific high-profile examples of results-oriented reporting.

 

[pomeroo]

Jump to conclusions much?

How do you conclude that because Walter Cronkite is a liberal he, or anyone else, is therefore unable to report more or less objectively?

From your own (biased) article:

Well, Maloney jumped to the same conclusion you did. However, it doesn't excuse that the conclusion is somewhat flimsily based on Cronkite's opinion alone.


Did you notice the word "perceived" in there or are you only cherry picking Cronkite's opinions that agree with your conclusion?


Did you notice that he never said he or anyone else has violated the first ideals of good journalism: that news reports must be fair, accurate, and unbiased?


Assumes facts not in evidence. Unless Maloney can read Cronkite's mind, he is assuming the there is only one facet in what is really a very complex issue. Maloney has oversimplified the situation (i.e. spun the quote) to fit his point.

Maloney is just as biased as he claims Cronkite is. The difference is that Maloney is demonstrating his bias in this piece.

You live in a world where the only reading material is vituperative rants posted on far-left blogs. There is another world that contains things called books. Several of these books have been written to show the influence certain public figures have had on world events. Walter Cronkite's influence on the Vietnam War, for example, has been written about extensively. You see, Uncle Walter decided to spin a devastating, crushing military disaster for the North Vietnamese, the Tet Offensive, into a victory for them. It wasn't a victory for them; they never dreamed of claiming a victory. The Viet Cong were smashed--they ceased to exist as an effective fighting force. But Uncle Walter pounded home the theme that North Vietnam's defeat meant--somehow--that America could never prevail. Most sane observers kind of got the idea that Uncle Walter had revealed his bias.
When he started making strident leftwing speeches and declared that he had always been a liberal, he really wasn't telling most of us anything new.

 

[JoeEllison]

The best example that comes to mind is the whole "RatherGate" incident.

I'm not a fan of the Media Research Center, in fact I find them rather annoying, but they do a fairly good job of documenting liberal media bias. You don't have to look far on their site to find plenty of specific high-profile examples of results-oriented reporting.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

 

[JoeEllison]

Okay, maybe I stuttered last time, but how do you reach the conclusion that reporters who have political beliefs are incapable of unbiased reporting?

(I also note that the article you reference has pretty small sample sizes and are mostly informal. The UC poll appears at the end to be the most formalized.)


eta: Incidentally, do you realize that by your own line of thinking the Media Research Center, a conservative organization, can not be trusted because it must have a conservative bias?

The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance is why we love them, right?

Or was it the bigotry? I lose track...

 

[pomeroo]

Because we've compared their lies to reality... it is pretty easy, because there's an average of a couple of lies an hour on Fox "News". Certainly, there's very little reporting going on.

All of us missed the "lies" promoted on Fox's newscasts. I'm sure you have many at your disposal. Perhaps we might see one.

 

[pomeroo]

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Yes, we get the idea that you have absolutely no coherent response.

 

[pomeroo]

I was responding to your statement that "Fox News has never attempted to swing a presidential election." The actions of John Ellis put the lie to your claim.

As for your blurring the issue with regard to the folly of analyzing votes in hindsight, cast or not, when Florida was called for Bush it was not known what was what other than the tallies indicated that recounts would no doubt follow. Making the call (with the subsequent competitive rush of the other networks) injected a psychological barrier in much of the public's thinking with regard to any opposing candidate's rightful challenge. This is old news and, as I say, not relevent to what you initially wrote.

You can't possibly be serious. You shovel the most threadbare Democrat propaganda and talk about putting the lie to my claim. You can read a fairly objective account (one that still leaves certain important questions unanswered) of the VNS fiasco in Oh Waiter! One Order of Crow!, by Jeff Greenfield, a well-known Democratic consultant. Greenfield tap dances around the potentially scandalous issue of why the major networks were instantly calling states for Gore that he eventually won by close margins, but leaving uncalled for inexplicably long periods states Bush won by landslides. The networks, incidentally, have refused to account for their behavior. Greenfiled suggests that "corrupt" VNS data caused the problem. In the meantime, of course, the networks created the false impression that a Gore tide was sweeping the nation, affecting states where polls remained open. The biggest story of Election 2000, you'll note, is one that very few people know about.

The hopelessly lame spin of the Democrat attack dogs about "public perceptions" papers over the fact that Gore lost every recount and never led in Florida. Oddly enough, if Gore had ever taken the lead, for reasons absolutely no one can explain, the counting would have stopped instantly.
Hmmm. Those alleged public perceptions did not inhibit the Gore camp from pulling every trick in the book. John Ellis advised Fox to call the state for Bush because that is what his projections showed. The other networks did not rely on Ellis; they used their own judgment.

 

[Upchurch]

The best example that comes to mind is the whole "RatherGate" incident.

Yes, you'll note Rather no longer worked at CBS after that incident.

I'm not a fan of the Media Research Center, in fact I find them rather annoying, but they do a fairly good job of documenting liberal media bias. You don't have to look far on their site to find plenty of specific high-profile examples of results-oriented reporting.

I'll check it out in more depth later, but from what I saw it didn't seem very well sourced.

 

[pomeroo]

A sample of O'Reilly's conservatism:

1) Anti Death Penalty
2) Believes in man made global warming
3) Bobby Kennedy is his idol
4) Pro gun control legislation
5) Believes the oil companies are pernicious vermin
6) Loves Al Sharpton and Barbara Walters

A few more "conservatives" like this and Dennis Kucinich will run as a GOP candidate.

Of course. Bill O'Reilly is not taken seriously by mainstream conservatives. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic blowhard by the National Review crowd, but, to be fair, he does lean right overall. He is more accurately described as anti-left than conservative.

 

[pomeroo]

Yes, you'll note Rather no longer worked at CBS after that incident.


I'll check it out in more depth later, but from what I saw it didn't seem very well sourced.

You are becoming a self-parody: Lefties who read nothing prattling about "sources," as if you care. Notable Quotables gives the quotes demonstrating liberal/left bias and provides the venues and dates.

 

[pomeroo]

There's no news with a "liberal spin" on television. I can guess where you got that completely BS idea from...

Yeah, you'd do real well in a debate with Bernie Goldberg on that insane topic. I wonder why Evan Thomas disagrees so completely with your nonsensical opinion.

 

[pomeroo]

My sincere apologies to pomy. It was RandFan doing the post stalking. It would seem I have a few of the political attack dogs mixed up.

Fair enough. I'm proud of you, skeptigirl.

 

[pomeroo]

Yeah, that's crazy....
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/490477ceb3d56664.jpg


eta: but wait! There's more!

Give it up. Just--give it up. Fox made no attempt to persuade viewers that Mark Foley was a Democrat and it is stupid to pretend otherwise. Hannity & Colmes and O'Reilly covered the scandal extensively and the theme was invariably, "How much does this hurt the Republicans?" This sort of silly dishonesty is exactly what so many people find so distasteful about the left in general.