Documentry targets FoxNews Bias

[Tmy]

They arent being litera when they say "Fair n Balanced". Suddenly documentries are becoming a big political tool.

Documentary Aims to Show Bias on Fox News


NEW YORK (AP) - A new documentary backed by liberal political groups aims to document that the Fox News Channel is anything but "fair and balanced," despite the cable-news network's motto.

The film, "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism," draws on clips compiled during weeks of round-the-clock taping of the network to demonstrate what the filmmakers believe is a pattern of right-wing bias and support for the Republican agenda.

"Outfoxed" was compiled during the past seven months in association with liberal political organizations Center for American Progress and MoveOn.Org, as well as the citizens' lobbying group Common Cause.

 

[zakur]

Here's a clip/commercial featuring Bill O'Reilly and his infamous "shut up" response:

http://cdn.moveon.org/data/ShutUp_Final_BbandHi.mov

 

[TragicMonkey]

I think it's charmingly naive of the public to imagine that there is such a thing as "unbiased" anything, ever. They get mad at documentaries for not presenting The Absolute Truth. They get mad at television movies for not being "fair" --remember the fuss over "The Reagans"? I think it's a shortage of critical thinking skills--people can't be bothered to filter input themselves, so they expect the media to simply unbias everything for them. Wherever there's an observation, there's bias, so good luck with that!

Reminds me of what my college history professor said--he told us to never write "In my opinion" or "I think" in any paper, because he wasn't about to mistake our undergraduate musings for ultimate all-encompassing Truth.

The scary part is how many people will believe everything they hear on TV as long as it seems "fair".

 

[seayakin]

Tragic Monky wrote:

I think it's charmingly naive of the public to imagine that there is such a thing as "unbiased" anything, ever. They get mad at documentaries for not presenting The Absolute Truth. They get mad at television movies for not being "fair" --remember the fuss over "The Reagans"? I think it's a shortage of critical thinking skills--people can't be bothered to filter input themselves, so they expect the media to simply unbias everything for them. Wherever there's an observation, there's bias, so good luck with that!

Reminds me of what my college history professor said--he told us to never write "In my opinion" or "I think" in any paper, because he wasn't about to mistake our undergraduate musings for ultimate all-encompassing Truth.

The scary part is how many people will believe everything they hear on TV as long as it seems "fair".
__________________________________________

While I agree that it is impossible to be truly unbiased. It is also not a black and white issue. There is a sliding scale of bias, let's say Jim Lehrer to Michael Moore or Rush Limbaugh.

I agree completely that peoplet too often believe anything from a major media source as unbiased. It is necessary to critically examine the source and gather alternative view points to understand events.

 

[corplinx]

The sad thing is, you could start out with the presupposition that Fox is liberal/leftist and make the same sort of video. Take for instance of footage in the movie of Hannity counting down the days until Bush is reelected. Colmes has done the same thing and you could selectively show that in the same fashion as this film.

Cherrypicker says what?

 

[Skeptic]

Damn, I missed it. I was too busy with the book "Michael Moore is a Big Far Stupid White Man", which exposed MM as a). Fat, b). with a huge ego, c). is biased towards the left.

Both this documentary and the book, I've heard, have been nominated for a special prize by the investigative journalists of America, in the "Exposing What's COMPLETELY Friggin' Obvious to Everybody" category.

 

[Kopji]

I don't think anybody could mistake 'The OReilly Doh' for a liberal program. I would call a documentary proving it was ummm, "satire".

The issue is not really that anyone thinks broadcast news should be a balanced view of anything. Issue might be that news outlets are thinly disguised political tools.

People that only watch TV news are lost to thought already.

OMG I agree with Skeptic.
Fat?

 

[evilgoldtoesock]

The sad thing is, you could start out with the presupposition that Fox is liberal/leftist and make the same sort of video. Take for instance of footage in the movie of Hannity counting down the days until Bush is reelected. Colmes has done the same thing and you could selectively show that in the same fashion as this film.

It would be much harder. O'reilly is a much bigger SOB, and an unmatchable reductionist. Conservationists and Environmentalists to O'Reilly: "Granola Munchers." People who object to Alaskan Oil Drilling: Caribou Huggers. Fox has itself set up for an easy attack by leftists.

Reality certainly never falls into a "conservative" or "liberal" set of ideas. The whole dichotomy is at its heart nonsensical. Still, Fox is a horrible source of information, like all television news networks, and I can see no reason to defend it from attack. My only complaint is that there isn't another documentary to attack CNN.

 

[dsm]

I think it's charmingly naive of the public to imagine that there is such a thing as "unbiased" anything, ever. They get mad at documentaries for not presenting The Absolute Truth. They get mad at television movies for not being "fair" --remember the fuss over "The Reagans"? I think it's a shortage of critical thinking skills--people can't be bothered to filter input themselves, so they expect the media to simply unbias everything for them. Wherever there's an observation, there's bias, so good luck with that!

I think its "charmingly naive" to believe that, with the amount of "input" that is out there, that anyone could possibly build a complete filter that would remove all bias. Advertisers (and politicians) count on this and make heavy use of the principle that "a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth".

 

[Ed]

Tragic Monky wrote:

The scary part is how many people will believe everything they hear on TV as long as it seems "fair".

It's worse. They will believe it if the outlet simply says it is "fair".

 

[Skeptic]

It's worse. They will believe it if the outlet simply says it is "fair".

Heh. True. The network that wants you to watch them tells you they are so much better and fairer and nicer than all those nasty OTHER networks... and you believe them.

This is the essence of advertising: a man that wants to sell you something tells you to trust him that his product is the best. And guess what? You accept it!

G. K. Chesterton wrote somewhere that he does not understand how advertising would convince even a Neanderthal of anything:

--"Bog, did you hear? Oog says Oog make best stone axes!"
--(shrugging his shoulders) "Well, of course he does."

 

[Phrost]

80% of the media* describe themselves as Liberals. In order to bring real balance to the media, Fox anchors would have to broadcast their news reports from the back of a humvee, dressed as Jesus while clubbing baby seals and machine gunning the homeless.

 

[Phrost]

*Source is Bill O'reilly himself, so make of that what you will.

 

[RandFan]

Suddenly documentries are becoming a big political tool.

Suddenly documentaries are becoming entertainment and not documentaries. Too bad it won't target any liberal bias in the mainstream media. Ironic that the documentary itself is not fair and balanced.

 

[Silicon]

80% of the media* describe themselves as Liberals. In order to bring real balance to the media, Fox anchors would have to broadcast their news reports from the back of a humvee, dressed as Jesus while clubbing baby seals and machine gunning the homeless.

Funnily enough, that's the new reality series on FOX.

 

[Nova Land]

80% of the media* describe themselves as Liberals...

*Source is Bill O'reilly himself, so make of that what you will.

I recently saw this mentioned as an example of a Bill O'Reilly error, but can't remember where I saw it (and quck search doesn't show it.) But I was able to find the study which O'Reilly was citing (according to the site criticizing O'Reilly). Here it is:

Pew Survey (as reported in Editor & Publisher on May 23, 2004)

Pew Survey Finds Moderates, Liberals Dominate News Outlets

... While most of the journalists, like many Americans, describe themselves as "moderate," a far higher number are "liberal" than in the general population.

At national organizations (which includes print, TV and radio), the numbers break down like this: 34% liberal, 7% conservative. At local outlets: 23% liberal, 12% conservative. At Web sites: 27% call themselves liberals, 13% conservatives.

This contrasts with the self-assessment of the general public: 20% liberal, 33% conservative.

If this is indeed the source O'Reilly was basing his claim on, he was off by a considerable amount.

 

[pgwenthold]

At national organizations (which includes print, TV and radio), the numbers break down like this: 34% liberal, 7% conservative.

But 34/(34+7) is 82%. I'm guessing that is where he got his number.

Of course, it is the "No Spin Zone" and "We report, you decide."

 

[Nova Land]

But 34/(34+7) is 82%. I'm guessing that is where he got his number.

Cute! I didn't think of that.

My initial assumption was that O'Reilly likely was adding the numbers for those who called themselves liberal (34%) with those who called themselves moderate. Oddly, the figure for moderates is not given in the story I linked to, but I would guess it's probably a little over 50% (allowing for a few per cent who don't know, don't care, or consider themseves none-of-the-above).

In trying to find the actual number for moderates, I came upon this item from The Weekly Standard (posted on the CBS news site) which lends support to the notion that O'Reilly is adding the figures for liberals and moderates:

"Evidence Of A Liberal Media", by Fred Barnes

The argument over whether the national press is dominated by liberals is over. Since 1962, there have been 11 surveys of the media that sought the political views of hundreds of journalists. In 1971, they were 53 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In a 1976 survey of the Washington press corps, it was 59 percent liberal, 18 percent conservative. A 1985 poll of 3,200 reporters found them to be self-identified as 55 percent liberal, 17 percent conservative. In 1996, another survey of Washington journalists pegged the breakdown as 61 percent liberal, 9 percent conservative. Now, the new study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found the national media to be 34 percent liberal and 7 percent conservative.

Over 40-plus years, the only thing that's changed in the media's politics is that many national journalists have now cleverly decided to call themselves moderates. But their actual views haven't changed, the Pew survey showed. Their political beliefs are close to those of self-identified liberals and nowhere near those of conservatives...

So it looks as if at least some of the folks charging liberal media bias are counting everyone in the media who calls themself a moderate as a liberal.

However, the same article also provides support for the calculation you suggested! The very next line says:

... And the proportion of liberals to conservatives in the press, either 3-to-1 or 4-to-1, has stayed the same. That liberals are dominant is now beyond dispute.

And here is yet a third possibility of how O'Reilly may have come up with his 80% figure. From the Editor & Publisher which I cited previously:

The survey also revealed what some are sure to label a "values" gap. According to Pew, about 60% of the general public believes it is necessary to believe in God to be a truly moral person. The new survey finds that less than 15% of those who work at news outlets believe that. About half the general public believes homosexuality should be accepted by society -- but about 80% of journalists feel that way.

So two more possibilities for how O'Reilly came up with 80% are: (a) O'Reilly grabbed the wrong figure from the survey by mistake; or (b) O'Reilly considers acceptance of homosexuality to be a better measure for journalists' political leanings than their self-description.