The Ferocity of Media Creates Social Agitation

[Esanta]

I was watching fox news today, probably for the first time ever, since I live in Britain, and what struck me were several very amateurish journalists and anchors. Here are some things I noticed:

1. The ferocity of claims. The news anchors took no shame in openly using ridicule to give credence to their arguments, made gross generalizations and generally used fierceness in what I can only imagine is an attempt to proliferate hysteria.

2. The incredulity of claims. There was very little in the newspeoples' claims, that I as a skeptical person, could substantiate. What I found was that the vast majority of the things said were slanderous without merit.

3. The manipulative aura. Quips and jibes at loosely related but contextually irrelevant materials were used to parenthesize otherwise empty assertions.

4. The newsreaders were openly racist, reductive and summarily, extremely unprofessional.

Is this the norm for American media?

 

[A_Friend_In_Christ]

Try MSNBC news it is 1000 times worse... They don't allow racism on Fox. People would get fired.

 

[gb9]

yes. this is why I hardly ever watch the 24 news networks. I think they have done so much harm it would take too long to list.

 

[crossnote]

Fox may be a little more openly biased whereas others cloak their's with a dangerous coat of 'pseudo objectivity'.

 

[SonInMe]

All news agencies have agendas. Its not a bad thing they expose it, as long as it is not taken as news.

 

[biscuit]

I was watching fox news today, probably for the first time ever, since I live in Britain, and what struck me were several very amateurish journalists and anchors. Here are some things I noticed:

1. The ferocity of claims. The news anchors took no shame in openly using ridicule to give credence to their arguments, made gross generalizations and generally used fierceness in what I can only imagine is an attempt to proliferate hysteria.

2. The incredulity of claims. There was very little in the newspeoples' claims, that I as a skeptical person, could substantiate. What I found was that the vast majority of the things said were slanderous without merit.

3. The manipulative aura. Quips and jibes at loosely related but contextually irrelevant materials were used to parenthesize otherwise empty assertions.

4. The newsreaders were openly racist, reductive and summarily, extremely unprofessional.

Is this the norm for American media?

Yes!! they are all "politically" slanted to serve their viewers & sponsors. It is all about ratings and number of viewers, which equal money & power.

 

[skipp]

I can't stand modern American TV news. MSNBC is just as bad as Fox. It's all so unprofessional and it's such an echo chamber. I hate whenever they interview someone with a viewpoint they don't agree with, and that person starts to make a pretty good argument, and then the newscaster starts talking over them loudly to make sure they drown out their argument (I've actually seen this happen numerous times!). I feel like I'm watching a bunch of children.

I also hate the overly sensationalistic aspect of modern American news. It's terrible.

 

[skipp]

Fox may be a little more openly biased whereas others cloak their's with a dangerous coat of 'pseudo objectivity'.

Fox gets bashed more because it's conservative. Really though MSNBC can be even worse, if a bit more disingenuous about it. Look at how they edited that Zimmerman tape.

 

[A_Friend_In_Christ]

Al Sharpton - MSNBC - The Ultimate Amateur Journalist/Stirrer

 

[A_Friend_In_Christ]

I guess if Fox New reports that 2 men got left behind to face extremists it's amateurish? The other stations won't focus on it.

 

[SonInMe]

Fox news tells the truth to support the conservative agenda.

The rest lie to support their ideology.

Both are slanted but one is genuine.

Yep, Fox news makes mistakes.....but if you look at the blatant lies CNN, MSNBC and the rest tell......

no contest.

 

[ThomistColin]

I like the BBC News. Its a little slanted, but journalists always are a bit slanted in one direction or another. However, with FOXNews and MSNBC, you'll turn it on and hear things like, "President Obama missed an opportunity today in..." or "ISIS claims they will attack America, what is the President doing about it..." and then spend the next 3 hours going over and over about the same thing. BBC has more concrete news without comment, "ISIS kills an American journalist...here's why...here's what people are saying. Now onto the Chinese market where..."

 

[Esanta]

Fox news tells the truth to support the conservative agenda.

The rest lie to support their ideology.

Both are slanted but one is genuine.

Yep, Fox news makes mistakes.....but if you look at the blatant lies CNN, MSNBC and the rest tell......

no contest.

Really? So that guy Bill O'Reilly, who unprofessionally shouts blatant idiocy at the TV screen is unbiased because he's a neo-con? Let me give you a direct quote when San Francisco voted to ban military recruiting in schools:

"If I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, 'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead. And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.'

An absolute idiot of a man.

Contrast that with a real reporter like Robert Fisk, a man who's reported the middle East for the best part of 30 years, gained international acclaim, written several scathing books on the topic and lived among both sides of the divide:

“Terrorism” is a word that has become a plague on our vocabulary, the excuse and reason and moral permit for state-sponsored violence— our violence—which is now used on the innocent of the Middle East ever more outrageously and promiscuously. Terrorism, terrorism, terrorism. It has become a full stop, a punctuation mark, a phrase, a speech, a sermon, the be-all and end-all of everything that we must hate in order to ignore injustice and occupation and murder on a mass scale. Terror, terror, terror, terror. It is a sonata, a symphony, an orchestra tuned to every television and radio station and news agency report, the soap-opera of the Devil, served up on prime-time or distilled in wearyingly dull and mendacious form by the right-wing “commentators” of the American east coast or the Jerusalem Post or the intellectuals of Europe. Strike against Terror. Victory over Terror. War on Terror. Everlasting War on Terror. Rarely in history have soldiers and journalists and presidents and kings aligned themselves in such thoughtless, unquestioning ranks.”