fox news: stuff is just made up.
 

FOX NEWS INSIDER: “Stuff Is Just Made Up” | Media Matters for America

this is not surprising exactly, but it's still interesting to read from fox employees.

what counts as news? owning a license? using the word?
is news like art---it's what the producer says it is?

the information about roger ailes and his obsession with presenting a unified front i found particularly interesting. it's long surprised me that ailes did not get more attention, that the egregiousness of fox news as a conservative infotainment/propaganda outlet was not made more of by other infotainment outlets....you'd think that the network would be a Problem, yes?

should anything be done about fox "news"?

Should anything be done? No. Absolutely not. There are some very basic First Amendment rights that need to be protected.

Let's pretend for a second that everything above is 100% true (it's not, just like no news story is ever 100% true). Essentially it means that Fox is less in the hard news business and more in the infotainment business. There's nothing wrong with either of those.

All that can be "done" is just to inform folks about the realities of what they're watching. Some folks are into big budget Hollywood shoot-em-ups. Others are into art-house films. All modern (*) news organizations fall in between those.

* modern - from circa 1875 to present.

As I plow my way "The Autobiography of Mark Twain" I'm continually struck by how little change there's been in the attitudes and abilities of the press (minus the obvious technological advances). There's little difference between the news stories of today and those of 100 years ago beyond the exclusion of sexual details.

Should all companies be permitted to deceive the public regarding their products and services?

Some quick observations:
- we notice "the insider" is not identified or simply "made up".
- if real is there an axe to grind?
- why would this be unique to Fox?

Yes - that's called advertising. And just like advertising, there are nuggets of truth there, just spun in a way to make them appear to mean something different than they really do.

Seriously, this is an old concept. It's called "yellow journalism". There's no contract between the press and the public, so there's nothing that can be done other than walking away. Rupert Murdoch is the modern day Hearst, only without the fantastic movie about his mistress's nether regions.

when i read the article initially, i laughed. it has some of the usual problems--anonymous sourcing, former employees---but at the same time the information provided squares with what was already quite well known about how fox operates. it's documented in the film "outfoxed" and elsewhere. if this were new information, maybe otto's objections about the source would matter. but it isn't. so they don't.

as for the absurd implication that other networks operate in the same way...not worth the bother of refuting.

when i asked about what might or should be done, i was thinking in the same direction as baraka...they misrepresent their product as news.
preventing fox from calling itself a news network would not prevent them from saying anything they like. they just couldn't pass it off as news.
you can sell soda, but you can't claim it cures illness.
like that.

no free speech violation is involved with that.

Where's the nugget of truth in "fair and balanced"?

When the public tunes in, they become consumers. The problem with "news" is that it isn't narcotics, food, health products, medical care, or insurance. It's stuff people say about stuff.

There's the First Amendment, yes. Fox News as the right to lie I guess. I just find it an odd predicament that they can lie about things but other types of companies can't.

Fox News gets okay to misinform public, court ruling | Media Reform | CeaseSPIN.org

Really? Not worth refuting? The New York Times wins Pulitizers for things that they make up. Please identify a single major news organization (either print or broadcast) that hasn't been caught manufacturing facts in the past.

There's no shame in being liars. Not only are all of them liars, but all of us are too. They simply have a larger audience for their lies.

There's a difference between lying as an aberration from institutional policy and lying as mandated by institutional policy? I've yet to see evidence that the NYT has long-running institutional-wide policies in place to make deception mandatory. Certainly, they've made mistakes, specifically, their coverage of the run up to the invasion of Iraq.


There should be shame in being liars, especially for journalists. It's silly to say that it isn't a big deal because we're all liars.

Wow. That's truly scary, BG.

Fox also set the precedent within the past year or so of networks being paid fees by cable and satellite companies for airing their broadcast stations. While these negotiations were going on, they goaded subscribers to put pressure on their providers, insinuating that their carriers were dropping Fox-owned stations. As a business, they may well have been entitled to ask for these fees in private negotiations (as had always been the case), but they sure know how to play a dirty game.

Right next to "organic" and "part of a healthy breakfast". It's a tagline.

Why is news somehow more important than food or health products or medical care? Those have a much greater impact on the population than news ever will. I think that you're digging yourself a deep hole if you're going to argue that news is more important than any of those three, let alone all of them.

I'm not saying that they're right or wrong. I'm simply holding them to the same standard that I have for the rest of the media. And I'm holding the media to as close a standard as I can of any other company producing a consumable good. They want you to consume the good and they're making it as attractive as possible. There is absolutely no media outlet that does not do the same for their target audience.

I prefer to think that news organizations should be held to higher standards of honesty and transparency than the makers of soda pop and action figures and aftershave. In fact, I think Fox could fairly be called the news equivalent of an Axe aftershave commercial - titillating and eye-catching but factually fantastic. Perhaps this is an inevitable consequence of making our news organizations into commercial products.

If they want to do what they do and call themselves an 'opinion organization' instead of a 'news organization' that is fine, but they are not sharing the news anymore than Rush Limbaugh is.

it is not a matter of manufacturing factoids that's at issue here. it's a matter of systematically blurring the line between political propaganda and information. it is a matter of a news outlet systematically erasing the notion of news and substituting for it unreliable infotainment that's massaged to benefit the political right.

to try to divert the problem to the level of factoid-production is to divert the discussion away from what's important.

that's why it's not worth refuting.

Every single news outlet lies either outright or by omission. They do that to sell their product to their target audience. They're all institutional liars and the only difference is degrees. Not one single media outlet publishes the absolute truth.

But, like you said, there is a nugget of truth in most advertising: "organic" (and this often has certification at least) and "part of a healthy breakfast" (this at least is up for debate). Where is this nugget in "fair and balanced"? Is it there? Can we call it fair and balanced by any stretch?

I'm not saying that. I'm pointing out the very problem with news. It's not any of those things. But does that make it okay for "news" organizations to deceive the public? Is it always safe for them to do so? Is there no harm in it?

There's a difference between making something as attractive as possible and outright deceiving the public. Is Fox News at all "fair and balanced"?

Sadly, Jazz is right, according to Media Awareness.

The news was the trusted source and journalists were praised for bringing real information and truth to the people. Maybe the question should be this: How has the availability of information from multiple sources changed the face of the media?

I think this is my biggest issue, and I'm not sure what we as a society should or shouldn't do about it.

Are we okay with widespread propaganda delivered under the guise of journalism?

This is an issue now in Canada, as our communications regulator has approved Sun News, which has been dubbed "Fox News North." It's also known as "Tory TV." They were also trying to piggyback on cable subscribers, but it was denied. Regardless, Canada is about to get "American-style" faux news.

Defenders were using the argument that it's an editorial position that widens the perspectives in Canadian media. I get that, and I don't oppose it in principle. Just don't sell it as fair and balanced journalism if it's going to be a Tory cheerleading squad.

Unless your target audience is one that expects honesty. Which is apparently too quaint a notion, these days.


What you tell your kids when they lie? "It's cool, everyone does it. I should have known better than to have believed you. Truth is a convenient fiction that can never be achieved in reality because no one is an objective observer of reality and everyone is working an angle."

Assuming an 'anonymous source' talking to a liberal group about the goings on at Fox News is really a former Fox News employee that really had a clue what was going on has any credibility, then what you do if you don't like it you change the channel. I for one never listened to Air America nor do I pay much attention to NPR.

I don't watch Fox News either. All I know about it is what I read from liberal organizations complaining about Fox News and giving Fox News more exposure.

We don't need more nanny sate regulations protecting us from bogeymen.

I'm kinda flabbergasted at some of the replies here. This isn't a new thing. Fox didn't invent it. It's been successfully used by both sides of the aisle for at least a century. The Chicago Tribune has been a predominantly Republican paper ever since there was a Republican party. Hearst papers created the Spanish American War and got us to take over the Philippeans. The New York Times killed countless stories leading up to WWII that kept the active war in the Atlantic a secret in 1940-41.

I think this issue is why it's important to have media education in schools. That and financial education.

I'm not a big consumer of news. The news is a good source of information though. However, if I want facts or truth, I turn elsewhere. I wonder how many others do the same.

---------- Post added at 11:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:20 AM ----------

There is a difference between bias and deceiving the public. The Toronto Star is a liberal-leaning paper; the National Post is a conservative-leaning paper. They don't exactly hide the fact. They often endorse specific political parties during elections, but that doesn't stop them from maintaining at least some semblance of journalistic integrity elsewhere in their publication.

However, what we're talking about with regard to Fox News is beyond bias. Does Fox News even adequately acknowledge their bias?

i don't recall writing anything about some halcyon days of american journalism that fox news destroyed.

Who is being deceived? Not you, not me, who? It is obvious that Fox News is different than CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC and CBS. Fox News does not trick people into watching. People watch and they come back because they find the way Fox News presents the news is new and refreshing. From the article in the OP:

The above is subtle, but I like it. My sympathy is aligned with the victims of crime not criminals.

On a broader view have you folks noticed a pattern, success is often equated to deceit in the minds of some. The thinking seems to be - the only way X can be as successful as they are is because they deceive people. Deception and long-term success are not correlated.

So, ace, are you saying that Fox News viewers are tuning in because they love the appeals to emotions and pity? That they aren't as moving on the other networks?

I guess people have different wants when it comes to the news. When I look for news, I look for reporting. Others might prefer to primarily engage their sympathies.

In the example given above Fox puts emphasis on the facts that are most important.

An emotional response occurs regardless of how information is presented - I doubt I understand your point.

Before I address the question, can I ask one? Do you understand why you choose certain news sources over others, even in the universe of those sources you think are objective?

You use faulty logic to come to the conclusion above.

I watch Fox News for many reasons and they change based on the issue. I also watch MSNBC for many reasons. If you really want to know what motivates me, ask, engaging sympathies is rarely one. If you got lost in the example forget about it and we can get back to broad generalities with no specifics.

Ug, Fox Good.
Ug, Ug, Fox bad.

Better?

No, you stated that what Fox does is somehow different from what other news organizations do. I don't buy that arguement and have evidence that this situation has existed for a long time with other organizations. You don't like Fox, so this is an opportunity to grind your axe. That's fine and dandy, but don't pretend that every other single news organization that exists doesn't do exactly the same thing. It's simply a question of degree.

except that they don't do the same thing. that's what makes the article interesting.


-------

as an aside----and because this will pass time-wise----and because it's beautiful-----the link below takes you to a live feed from tahrir square in cairo

check it out:

-guardianinternalstream- on USTREAM: .

it's what people realizing they've freed themselves (or taken a giant step toward it) sounds like.

-----

back to regularly scheduled programming...

I think that there is a pretty clear difference between the unavoidable biases associated with the fact that journalists are humans operating in a marketplace and purposeful, systematic, organization-wide bias associated with news organizations with political axes to grind.

Maybe that means I'm not cynical enough. Either way, Jazz, the thrust of your argument seems to be that the situation at Fox is not novel, which, aside from the fact of not being true, doesn't really seem all that relevant to anything anyone else is talking about here.

Also, why is it somehow impossible to talk about singular instances of imperfection without too cool for school folks chiming in about how nothing is perfect and that therefore, focusing on any particular imperfect thing is dumb. For instance: We apparently shouldn't talk about specific ways in which Fox News is biased because all news organizations are biased to some intangible degree.

Was Fox reporting a story about an execution? The crime and the trial had already taken place. It was no longer news. The news was (ostensibly) the execution. What part of that doesn't Fox understand? Oh wait, if it bleeds, it leads, right? Let's make that little girl bleed a little more because viewers will respond emotionally to it. They like to get angry at pedophile rapist-murderers. What better way? That's not the kind of news I admire.

When it comes to news, I want people to tell me shit as it happens. I don't want to hear why it's good or bad. I don't want them to play some aspects of it up if it's not as relevant as other aspects. Fox News seems to fail in that. I don't know of other news organizations that fail at that as much as Fox, though I will admit they aren't the only ones doing it. It's a matter of degree.



Let me get this straight. You accuse me of using faulty logic and then neglect to point it out...and next you're blatantly fallacious in an attempt to strengthen your position? How do you expect me to respond to that? Should I take you seriously?

Like filtherton, I believe the idea that all news outlets are doing the same thing as Fox therefore Fox is no more biased than any other news outlet is a convenient fallacy.

much like Fox News itself, wow.

It has nothing to do with news. This is misleading. It is about money and how to get it from the suckers. The way to combat it? There is no inherent goodness in it. If left alone it does just what it is doing- allows criminal mentality to blossom and spread and overwhelm the the people. It is evil. Get it defined as what it is before it destroys our country. The Republican Party is all about getting the money from the suckers too. Evil likes evil. It thrives on being left free to thrive. I am one of those whining liberals that thinks a Rupert Murdoch should have his bought and paid for citizenship removed and he should be exiled and all of his criminal efforts should be public reviewed and pilloried at the same time. Who would do this? An honest Federal Government that stands to keep America free from evil scum of the Murdoch ilk that have been thriving by linking criminal financial gain with politics and getting away with it.

You folks aren't getting what I'm saying. My point isn't that it isn't worth talking about. My point is that Fox is in no way unique currently or historically. News organizations tell lies when it's convenient for them. They always have and always will. Sure there's bias, but that's completely besides the point.

To wit: all human interest stories are lies. They are only newsworthy because that news organization deems them so. They are simply there to provide a counterpoint to the actual events of the day. The "world's ugliest dog" and "the cat who can drive a boat" are newsworthy not because they're informative about world, national or local events; they're newsworthy because they fill space and make the audience feel good about themselves. And they're lies in that there's no counterpoint, no opinion and no point other than to rape your tearducts or funny bone. They're pointless filler designed to keep you tuned in for that last bit of advertising revenue.

there are instance of error aplenty in the press.
there are instances where the systemic ideological bias in favor of the dominant order has resulted in the suppression of information. similarly with distortion. tendentious interpretations. all that.

the difference between almost all these and fox news is that these characteristics are knit into a political aspect of the organization's mission for fox. they aren't aberrations--they're fox business as usual.

it's like building omissions into the mission of a newspaper. every morning there's a meeting to determine how best to meet the firms objective of leaving stuff out. our motto: all the news that's fit to print. or something.

i don't have a problem with this sort of information about fox's modus operadus getting around.
in an ideal world, fox would be pressured into changing its name to something like....o i dunno....fox infotainment stream. or something.

and no, i don't like fox news. that changes little about the policies outlined in that article. the only thing that my distaste for faux news explains is why, sitting around in my pyjamas this morning trying to avoid the overbearing attentions of a hangover and keep my siberian from eating nutella that he has somehow managed not only to get but to open, i decided maybe it'd be interesting to start a thread about the article.

This sounded like the beginning of a Mel Gibson or Bruce Willis shoot-em-up....until you finished the sentence. Then, it got really nerdy.

So I'm going to just shrug again and make referrence to Randy Hearst. Same as it ever was, just with a cooler accent.

I disagree. Even when I get the closing price on a stock, I appreciate information that may be available to explain how it got there.

Or, how about your news sources blaming McDonald's for obesity so that you garner an emotional response to big deceitful corporations.

You have the option of not getting your news from Fox. Currently, Fox is my first choice for TV news. I know what it is and what they do. I think their broader audience understands also.



My method is to ask questions before drawing conclusions to try to make sure I understand what is being communicated. It is your choice as to what you take seriously.

jazz--i get the heart thing. i know about yellow journalism. i saw citizen kane too. i understand the point you're making.

i don't find it persuasive, that's all.

it is in fact possible for someone to entirely understand an argument---that is to know the reference points and see that the logic is internally consistent---and still find that it doesn't persuade. because formal correctness isn't determinate.

another way: not buying a line doesn't imply incomprehension. just saying.

We aren't talking about stock prices. We aren't even talking about business news.

Yes, same idea. I think you understand what I'm trying to say. Here anyway.

If their viewers knew exactly what they do, they'd also look to other sources for news to balance things out. You say Fox is your first choice. While I must say I think that's unfortunate, I at least take solace in knowing that also get your news from other sources.

So why didn't you ask questions just then? Why did you simply draw a conclusion? ace, you're contradicting yourself.

2 things:

1 - I don't think FOX's approach to the murder story was to appeal to emotion, but rather to champion the death penalty.

2 - There are plenty of programs/websites/publications that call out Fox News' bias on a daily basis, but it doesn't matter. Murdoch and co. have already invented and propagated the lie that is the "Mainstream Liberal Media" so they could play the victim card every time they are questioned about their own bias.

It's called playing to the base.

Then I guess we're at an impass since I feel pretty much the same way about your argument. I understand your point, but I no more swayed by it than you are mine.

[shrug]