From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Aug 09 2004 - 01:45:48 BST
MSH and all:
MSH said:
David, thanks for the reminder about the Franken book. You may know
that Fox tried to sue him for using the phrase "Fair and Balanced" in
the subtitle. They were, literally, laughed out of court.
dmb replies:
Yea. The judge said FOX's case was "wholly without merit" and Franken later
joked that this phrase should become, "FOX NEWS. Wholly without merit".
MSH said:
You guys might be interested to know that there is also a new
documentary called "OutFoxed" which shows precisely how deliberately
UNfair and UNbalanced Fox is. Just tons of examples of how their
"reporters" are ordered to say things in a certain way.
dmb replies:
Yes, I'd like to see it. Not that I need any more examples to be convinced
of their powers of distortion. In fact, its actually fun to watch FOX and I
genuinely laugh out loud at how bad they are. Its especially fun when big
news breaks and one can switch from one cable news channel to another. Not
that cnn and msnbc are golden, but FOX manages to make them look like
brilliant by comparison. And then there's fiction. If you've ever seen the
James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" you may have noticed that the main
villain is a power-mad media mogul bent on controlling the world and is
largely based on Murdoch. It was about half way through the movie when I
gasped and said out loud, "Oh, my god. This is about Murdoch." The knowing
laughter around me was confirmation that others noticed it too.
MSH:
Their right-wing political bias is so clear it's not even worth
talking about. Their jingoistic cheerleading for the "war" in Iraq
was, and continues to be, almost surreal.
dmb:
Fred Barnes does double duty for Rupert. He's the executive editor of the
WEEKLY STANDARD and a commentator on FOX. Not too long after 9/11, when
Bush's approval ratings were sky high, he observed that Bush's popularity
was due to the fact the God was on his side. This is journalism? This is
what passes for political analysis on FOX. I'd like to agree that this is
surreal, but I think you're being far too generous. I'd like to call it
bullshit, but that would be too insulting to our bovine friends.
MSH
For example, American riflemen in Baghdad, who hide and shoot
defenseless people from a great distance, must be called "marksmen"
not "snipers." Although "cowardly snipers" is fine for Iraqi
fighters who do the same thing. (In fairness to snipers on all
sides, what they do at least requires more courage than firing Cruise
missiles from battleships 50 miles at sea.) And you may have noticed
that Fox reporters never talk about suicide bombings, as they are
ordered to use the phrase "homicide bombings" instead. I guess the
word "suicide" here invokes too much of a sense of cause and
political desperation, even though "suicide bombing" is the more
informative phrase.
dmb:
Yea, and don't even get me started on what they did on the night of the
election in 2000.
MSH:
Then there's a great clip where Bill O'Reilly responds to a viewer's
complaint that he shouldn't tell his guests to "shut up" when he
disagrees with them. O'Reilly says "that's only happened ONCE."
This is followed by a long series of soundbites from his show where
we hear him telling a dozen people to shut up. It's very funny.
dmb:
He got all red in the face and screemed at Al Franken at a book fair,
telling him to SHUT UP! serveral times in a row. Have you seen the Daily
Show's parody of O'Reilly? Its a side-splitter. It comes in the form of a
mock ad for a show that doesn't really exist and always ends by asking the
viewers if they have the "balls" to watch it. "Well, do ya?", he sneers
contemptuously. Bill O'Reilly is to journalism what Big Time Wrestling is to
sport.
Ian said:
Logic itself is what is misguided, in all human scale matters,
(other than those rare cases of controlled scientific experiments).
msh says:
I have to disagree. People use logical argument all the time in
their attempts to persuade, or to justify their actions. Bush and
Major and company offered at least 4 different arguments for the
invasion of Iraq, one after the other as each preceding argument was
proved fallacious. I think, using logical and evidentiary analysis,
the persuasiveness of an argument can be reduced to near 0. Which in
some circumstance might save lives. ...Or so it seems to me.
dmb:
Exactly. There are certain area of life where logic is unnecessary and other
areas where it is not adequate, but when it comes to making decisions about
life and death, the lack of logic can be disasterous. The war in Iraq is
only the most obvious example. In fact, its hard to imagine how a policy
toward radical Islam could be more counterproductive. They invaded a nation
that had nothing to do with 9/11 or any other attack on us. There are no
WMD. There is "no collaborative relationship" between Saddam and Osama. They
didn't even have enough conventional arms to pose a threat to anyone. Its
cost nearly a thousand American lives so far, not to mention the billions of
dollars and thousands of legs, arms and eyes that it has cost. It has
undermined the UN and a host of international laws, alienated our traditonal
allies (the american revolution would have failed with help from France).
And more than all of that, the effect of this policy has been to increase
the level of hatred and the number of potential terrorists. Its exactly what
Bin Laden wanted. Not all of this is due to bad logic, ignoring of the facts
and the like, but much of it is. For a grown man, in the 21st century, to
believe that God is on his side and that he can rid the world of evil just
isn't rational. Stupidity kills.
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