Fox's "Fair and Balanced" slogan is much more than just a lie

[jmondine]

To all the media reps out there rushing to the Fox Network's defense against White House criticism, consider who it is you are defending.

Everyone except the blissfully ignorant and the rabid right understands that the "Fair and Balanced" slogan is a blatant lie. But understand that it is more. It is an insult, and a veiled threat, to every legitimate news service in this country.

By defining their slanted, biased coverage as "Fair and Balanced", they infer that anyone with a more objective stance is unfair and unbalanced. As Stephen Colbert put it, "Reality has a liberal bias". It feeds into the myth of the liberal media, which intimidates journalists from covering not only progressive opinions, but raw, undisputed facts which happen to be unflattering to right wing leaders and politicians.

The combination of this slogan with Fox's shameless pandering and promotion of far right causes is the perfect thumbnail of neo-conservative hubris and bullying. And it targets every legitimate journalist with a commitment to integrity.

Fox claims that the White House is waging war on them, when Fox is, in fact, waging a non-stop war on you.

[Angry Dragon]

1. That is a very different way of looking at it

Kind of like a double negative.

[Toots]

11. I am the fair person on these boards...

What does that infer? Another double negative I suppose...

[Angry Dragon]

12. I meant nothing negative towards your post........

I had never heard anyone state that opinion before and found it worth pondering.

I am sorry if you thought my comment was negative.

[Johonny]

2. they openly bash other media organization

I mean they call them the "liberal" media. They boast about their rating. Why would any news organization come to their defense is beyond me. I just shows how ill informed the "news" media is these days.

[Chipper Chat]

3. Fox News

"Scare and Maliced"

[Golden Raisin]

4. Neocon, rightwing and Republican

operatives, movers and shakers (like Ailes, Murdoch's capo) are very big on psychological projection, outright lies (will swear to your face that up is down) and the big lie (Goebbels would be proud.) Fox is propaganda, pure and not so simple. Bill Moyers and a tiny handful of younger others on televised news are all that is keeping me from complete despair. Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite are turning in their graves.

[rucky]

5. It's like advertising low-fat bacon grease.

[annabanana]

6. Their "Balance" is the balance of the False Equivalency. .

"Some say the Earth is Flat. . So we must give equal weight to that argument"

[mariawr]

7. Exactly. Psych war IS being waged. Stay away from Faux Noise... nt

[Enthusiast]

8. Fixed Noise wouldn't even

have the "Fair and Balanced" slogan if they didn't need cover for the fact that they are a RW propaganda mechanism. This should be obvious to all.

[KharmaTrain]

9. The Detached Corporate Media In Denial

I think there's something deeper at play here. The beltway chattering drinkie-drinkie class is an insular and insecure world. It's getting bylines and access...ultimately being as much a part of the news as the story they're reporting. We're over-run these days with "pundits" and "experts" who fill up hours of airtime and tons of ink more on their opinions than on reporting the "5 Ws" and doing a little digging into both the validity of their stories and the real backstory. They'll gladly speculate, yet when pushed, most "reporters" will go with the easy "undisclosed source" or "some people say" as a way to cover their tracks.

When the White House pointed out how faux is a propaganda tool, that hit at many of this chattering class and forced them to look in the mirror. By doing this, it calls upon how easily most of the chattering class are victims to "Conventional Wisdom"...and that many work in the same manner as faux does..."report first" and fact check (if at all) later.

Faux's poutrage is more publicity than it is anything else. They aren't addressing the claims and overwhelming proof of their bias, instead they're playing victim and the chattering class, who feel they are beyond reproach are taking offense to it. The curtain is being pulled away from a corrupt corporate media and by calling out faux, it sent a shiver up many at the drinkie-drinkie parties that they, too, will be held accountable for their lies and distortions...or for playing conduit with faux's talking points as a crutch for poor reporting and journalistic skills.

AFAIC, the point has been made...faux doesn't report it dictates...it tries to manipulate and manage "news"...and sadly, they're no different than many other news "organizations".

[MajorChode]

10. Here's the problem with "fair and balanced"

Although anyone with more than 2 synapses actively firing knows Fox News is not fair and balanced, let's pretend for a moment it could be. It still would be a nutty and dangerous concept. Consider the run up to the Iraq war. Why do both sides of the debate have to be presented equally when one side is clearly wrong? So are we to simply assume networks no longer have editorial discretion and they MUST give both sides equal airtime when clearly one is batshit crazy? That simply leads to legitimizing crazy and/or stupid ideas. So the networks are being bullied by the GOPhers into presenting their ideas, even if their ideas are moronic out of fear of being called "biased" and the saddest part is Fox News gets a pass on accusations of being biased the other way because they have perpetuated the myth of liberal MSM bias.

[jmondine]

13. I agree

One of my earliest mentors defined a controversial issue as one in which reasonable, well-informed people disagree. In other words, not every hair-brained thought is a controversy, with two equally valid sides.
I would take it one step further. In recent years, the operating definition of "balance" in the news media has become giving equal time to facts and lies.