How the left media melds the mind of the voters

[Marokai Backbeat]

(Sorry, I ran out of room again.)

Or the approach could just be balls-out nonsense with straight-up lies and distractions intended to divert attention away from actual issues. The effect is the same. Whether or not it's the people watching that are susceptible to it, or Fox News making people believe it (it's both, and strongly the latter) news organizations still have a responsibility to tell the truth and give people real news and the actual facts about any given issue of the day, and cover it fairly. Fox News and right-wing media do not do that, and they don't do that, not because of their audience or something, though that makes it easy, they do it because it is their expressed desire to do so, these people have an agenda that's very obvious to see.

Hell, do you know why Fox Business was launched?

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Yeah... These guys totally have no agenda or desire to manipulate society through slanted news coverage...

One final point. If Democrats hold both houses of congress, and the economy starts rebounding significantly, they will be treated like heroes in the media.

Are you kidding me? You really believe the stuff you type, don't you? Wow.

Fox and right-wing media don't let Democrats get credit for anything. Hell, they barely let them get away with having a mature discussion in congress over the issues for a few days without kicking in the next bogus scandal that distracts the press for a month.

In December 2008, we lost about 650,000 jobs. In January 2009, we lost nearly 800,000 jobs. In February 2009, we lost over 700,000 jobs. In March 2009, we lost close to 750,000 jobs. We've now had 7 months of consecutive private-sector job growth and our job numbers have stabilized. Do you see Fox News giving any credit to the Democrats?

According to the Congressional Budget Office's checkup on the Recovery Act back in May, they estimated that it has increased the total number of people employed by "between 1.2 million and 2.8 million" and "Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise." Further on in the report, on the CBO's blog, they estimated that the Recovery Act increased real GDP by 1.7%-4.2% higher than it would've been without it.

The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan institution that gets alot of his information from a variety of economists and organizations that with with the CBO (in addition to the CBO itself) also released a report on their own compiling data that showed that the stimulus was keeping 6 million individuals above the poverty line across the country in a very lengthy and good read I do encourage you to take a look at.

Do you see Fox News praising the stimulus for it's observable impact? No.

Do you remember Fox News giving any credit to Democrats for passing important (while not perfect) credit card reform? Or for the passage of major financial regulation?

Any praise for passing equal pay for equal work? How about some props for passing a fully paid for expansion of S-CHIP to cover several million for children? Funny, I don't recall Democrats getting any praise.

Oh, but you know what, maybe I'm missing some other things they did get praise for! Wildly successful "Cash for Clunkers" program? Oh, damn, nope. No credit for that. How about the much needed, deficit reducing, provably-better-for-students student loan reform bill? Bah! You're right, that was all over Fox News as "a government takeover." (I'm not kidding.)

Damn, let's try again, okay. How about long awaited additional payroll tax cuts and incentives for businesses to hire that was passed by the Democrats? Oh, you're right. No credit for that from right-wing media either. Anything for long-time languishing hate crimes protections passed by the Dems? Of course not. And do we even need to mention all the credit they got for health care reform? Yeah. Was none.

Oh well, I guess I can wait for the hero treatment to come. I mean, you said it was coming, and Fox News definitely has no agenda in making sure none of it happens, so I'm sure it'll get here eventually, right?

[exopolitician]

I don't think anyone else can say anything, Marokai has covered it basically.

/Applause.

[Vepres]

Uh, I wasn't talking about Fox News or the right media, but the media at-large. Our points are flying right by each other

Quite honestly, I don't watch/rea much "right media". I mostly watch the Sunday shows, Hardball, and random websites of random ideologies. I don't deny that Fox doesn't have an agenda (though I would argue MSNBC has individual hosts with agendas (Keith Olberman, Ed Shultz). In my mind, they are about as legitimate as E! News

And yes Marokai, I agree, people are stupid, but you seem to deny that your side somehow has significantly less people like that. I see so many people who blindly follow the left. Blacks, the urban poor, upper middle-class liberals (ugh, I'm surrounded by them ).

One final point. People like listening to dissenters, it can be exciting. Until Obama was elected, Fox News was bleeding viewership to MSNBC, because Bush was President. I still think that Obama's coverage vs. McCain's coverage and the demonization of Palin (some deserved, some not) was comparable, if not as extreme.

[Vepres]

I guess, Marokai, I agree with everything you said, but frankly, while I'm aware of them, I ignore them. They are not legitimate in my mind, so they don't count.

[Eraserhead]

Because McCain voters would have obviously been more knowledgeable, right?

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

I'll respond to you, Vepres, at length later on, but out of random curiosity I decided to turn on MSNBC to see what they're covering at the moment.

MSNBC is currently Keith Olberman, dedicating news coverage to the last of the American combat troops leaving Iraq.

Fox News is currently O'Reilly, having Kasich on talking about Ted Strickland being a "down-the-line-liberal" (LOL) and how he "can't handle questions." I'm sure Kasich was struggling with all the hardball questions he was getting.

For my own amusement.

Your entire argument is based on a fallacy.

If the GOP was in control of Congress and the WH now and withdrew from Iraq, Fox News would be praising that decision, and MSNBC wouldn't be broadcasting it.

The current programming on MSNBC and Fox News is no surprise.

As far as Kieth Olberman goes, he's the MSNBC equivalent of Bill O'Reilly, but just not as successful (pretty much sums MSNBC up)

[Joe Republic]

Because McCain voters would have obviously been more knowledgeable, right?

Of course, the residents of all those >70% McCain counties in the Appalachians would have been able to answer all of the questions perfectly.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Fox News gives the combat troop withdrawal less than ten minutes of prime-time coverage.

[??????????]

Fox News gives the combat troop withdrawal less than ten minutes of prime-time coverage.

We really didn't withdrawal, we winnowed down the numbers. We still have 50k soldiers there and that's no small peanuts.

[Brittain33]

Fox News gives the combat troop withdrawal less than ten minutes of prime-time coverage.

We really didn't withdrawal, we winnowed down the numbers. We still have 50k soldiers there and that's no small peanuts.

How many minutes did Fox News give to Bush's Mission Accomplished event?

[Torie]

I will get around to reading Marokai's rants later. Sure some of the media has a left wing bias? So what? It has been that way since rocks cooled. The NY Times can be biased, even though it is by far the best paper in the US at this juncture, along with the Wall Street Journal. Keith Olbermann has a left wing bias. So what? It is not as if he hides it. He is so out of the closet that he is a little screaming ... well whatever.

But 1) it is pretty insulting to voters to suggest that they are brain washed by all of this, and 2) there is nothing on the Left (at least on television), which even remotely compares to Fox News on the right. I mean Fox News is just an arm of the RNC, and folks like Hannity just reads the RNC's talking points. As for what he selects to report, oh my God! Ouch! It is so ludicrously selective to bash Obama and the Dems, that I do sometimes literally giggle, because it is so brazenly transparent. Has Fox News ever reported the sayings of Sharron Angle by the way, I mean just repeating what she said?  Of course not!!!!!!!  

Working the Hannity theme a bit more here, he doesn't even bother to have guests on anymore that disagree with him, except for dumb punching bags like Beckel, for him to play with (and you need to be pretty dumb to make Hannity look even vaguely smart).

Surely no one here can disagree with at least that much can they?  Is there anyone out there who does?  If so, as Michael Medved says on his radio show, give me a call (well a post in this case). Just do it! Humiliate the Torie man. Do it now!  

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

This whole anti-Fox News nonsense still confuses me. What, do you want to censor them? Do you want to be like Stalin's, hell even Putin's Russia?

Ok, so a lot of you disagree with Fox News' mantra. And ok, so they are right wing. But so flipping what? They have that right. If you don't like it, don't watch it, it's that simple.

You lot really do my head in. Fox News is doing nothing wrong.

Again, let's cut the BS. You don't like them because they are successful. But as I ranted in previous thread, by complaining about them you only give the organization credence! For the left to complain about Fox News constantly only validates them. After all, if they were so wrong and so irrelevant, no one would pay any attention to them!

And as for the post above, yes the left has equivalents! MSNBC is just as bad, but it doesn't get recognition because it's an utter failure of an organization. And did you really call the NYT the best paper in the US? The editorial section is so far left!

And how about Michael Moore and his idiotic 'movies'? He intentionally edits it to misrepresent viewpoints. Wow. But is there a huge right wing movement against him? No.

Grow up. God forbid conservatives have a voice. Unbelievable.

BTW, Obama's "War on Fox News" last year was petty, embarrassing, and unamerican. Seriously, what was he thinking?

[Torie]

I don't think anyone is suggesting Fox News be shut down (probably unconstitutional anyway, and since cable bandwidth is unlimited, it is immune from a Dem fairness doctrine attack anyway). I actually think there is some value in having an assortment of hyper partisan media. So why don't we just stipulate that Fox News is an RNC partisan shill operation and move on?

[Donald Trump’s Toupée]

I don't think anyone is suggesting Fox News be shut down (probably unconstitutional anyway, and since cable bandwidth is unlimited, it is immune from a Dem fairness doctrine attack anyway). I actually think there is some value in having an assortment of hyper partisan media. So why don't we just stipulate that Fox News is an RNC partisan shill operation and move on?

Exactly.

[Vepres]

Actually, I think that there are plenty of Fox News equivalents on the left in the blogosphere. They may not be one monolithic organization, but I think, overall, they have lots of influence.

[??????????]

True, look at Media doesn't Matter.

[opebo]

I don't think anyone is suggesting Fox News be shut down (probably unconstitutional anyway, and since cable bandwidth is unlimited, it is immune from a Dem fairness doctrine attack anyway). I actually think there is some value in having an assortment of hyper partisan media. So why don't we just stipulate that Fox News is an RNC partisan shill operation and move on?

The problem is that under the current system ('private' ownership of media) only right-wing viewpoints can be heard.  If the media is entirely owned by the ruling class we will never hear any representation of the opinions or interests of the masses (except of course as those opinions benefit the rulers).

In other words the problem is the entire system, in which 'freedom of speech' is impossible, not just FOX news.

[Хahar 🤔]

Actually, I think that there are plenty of Fox News equivalents on the left in the blogosphere. They may not be one monolithic organization, but I think, overall, they have lots of influence.

Well, yes, you would think that.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I don't think anyone is suggesting Fox News be shut down (probably unconstitutional anyway, and since cable bandwidth is unlimited, it is immune from a Dem fairness doctrine attack anyway). I actually think there is some value in having an assortment of hyper partisan media. So why don't we just stipulate that Fox News is an RNC partisan shill operation and move on?

The problem is that under the current system ('private' ownership of media) only right-wing viewpoints can be heard.  If the media is entirely owned by the ruling class we will never hear any representation of the opinions or interests of the masses (except of course as those opinions benefit the rulers).

In other words the problem is the entire system, in which 'freedom of speech' is impossible, not just FOX news.

What about MSNBC, Salon, HuffPo etc.......?

[tpfkaw]

Free speech only applies to my viewpoint!  I think all media should be government-controlled, so that only my viewpoint can be expressed on television!