Glenn X Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Originally posted by The Codeman My ONLY point about O'Reilly is that he lies about his Independance... How can his show be the "No Spin Zone" when he himself is not what he claims to be. That's all... You are correct about the others, but the basis of their show is not that they are independant. WHAT?!Seriously, Code, you can't be serious. You're way too smart for something like this. They don't claim to be independent?! With the exception of Matthews (and O'Reilly for that matter, as both Matthews and O'Reilly run op-ed/analysis type programs, where the expressing of their opinions and the opinions of their guests form the very basis of their programs), the rest of the people mentioned run ostensibly (emphasis on that previous word) objective, just-the-facts-ma'am type news programs. They're not paid to be the equivalent of "on-air columnists," as O'Reilly and Matthews are. The rest are paid to deliver the straight sh*t straight down the middle of the road. Unfortunately, however, they do not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Originally posted by Glenn X WHAT?! Seriously, Code, you can't be serious. You're way too smart for something like this. They don't claim to be independent?! With the exception of Matthews (and O'Reilly for that matter, as both Matthews and O'Reilly run op-ed/analysis type programs, where the expressing of their opinions and the opinions of their guests form the very basis of their programs), the rest of the people mentioned run ostensibly (emphasis on that previous word) objective, just-the-facts-ma'am type news programs. They're not paid to be the equivalent of "on-air columnists," as O'Reilly and Matthews are. The rest are paid to deliver the straight sh*t straight down the middle of the road. Unfortunately, however, they do not. That came out different than I meant... I did not mean they they don't have to be straight down the middle... O'Reilly is claiming that he is an Independant... that is the basis of his show.. that's false advertising. My relatives watch him and think he is a moderate voice when he is obviously a conservative.. Those others don't have a show claiming that there is no spin... they are reporters and should report straight down the middle, facts only.. I agree with you there.. I didn't mean for it to come out otherwise.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 He's got you there Code. Matthews and O'Reilly run opinion programs. I actually like Matthews a lot. But the people you're talking about not only claim to be independent, but they claim to be completely unbiased in every way. Here's an example of Dan Rather's recent unbiased reporting. In a cut away from the games on Sunday, he concluded his speech with, paraphrasing, "Now, a humanatarian gesture. Iraqi civilians leaving a secured village gave what little food they had, goats, lambs, chickens, to starving Marines." I'm not sh!tting you. As it happens, the Marines aren't starving. They aren't even hungry. And, as it happens, most every village we've secured, people offer to make our troops dinner. Kind of as an expression of kindness and acceptance. But, here, Rather unbiasedly portrays these villagers leaving their village to feed our starving troops. Don't ever say Rather, and Jennings, and Woodruff, and the rest don't pretend and openly suggest they are unbiased and independent. They do, and they aren't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Originally posted by Art He's got you there Code. Matthews and O'Reilly run opinion programs. I actually like Matthews a lot. But the people you're talking about not only claim to be independent, but they claim to be completely unbiased in every way. Here's an example of Dan Rather's recent unbiased reporting. In a cut away from the games on Sunday, he concluded his speech with, paraphrasing, "Now, a humanatarian gesture. Iraqi civilians leaving a secured village gave what little food they had, goats, lambs, chickens, to starving Marines." I'm not sh!tting you. As it happens, the Marines aren't starving. They aren't even hungry. And, as it happens, most every village we've secured, people offer to make our troops dinner. Kind of as an expression of kindness and acceptance. But, here, Rather unbiasedly portrays these villagers leaving their village to feed our starving troops. Don't ever say Rather, and Jennings, and Woodruff, and the rest don't pretend and openly suggest they are unbiased and independent. They do, and they aren't. Art... Read my above post.. that wasn't what I meant.. I totally understand the difference between reporters and columnists.. I was only commenting that they are not columnists claiming to be in "the no spin zone".... I tried to rephrase what I intended to say.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glenn X Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Code, "no spin" is not simply the uttering of things that jibe completely and totally with your or O'Reilly's view of the world. It means reporting facts and figures as they actually exist, not massaging (or even inventing) them to neatly fit into one's own particular political and social worldview. For instance, here are some perfect examples of news media spin, as provided by former CBS News correspondent Bernie Goldberg in his book Bias: The problem comes in the big social and cultural issues, where we [the news media] often sound more like flacks for liberal causes than objective journalists. Why were we doing the work of the homeless lobby by exaggerating the number of homeless people on the streets of America [at one point claiming that there were three million homeless people in New York City when there weren't three million homeless people in the entire United States]? And why were we portraying them as regular folks just like you and me when we all knew they were overwhelmingly alcoholics and drug addicts and schizophrenics? Why were we doing PR for the AIDS lobby by spreading an epidemic of fear, telling our viewers about how AIDS was about to break out into mainstream heterosexual America, which simply was not [statistically] true? Why did we give so much time on the evening news to liberal feminist organizations, like NOW [the National Organization for Women], and almost no time to conservative women who oppose abortion [making it seems as if they and their views didn't exist]? I always had expressed my concerns privately, like a good, if somewhat disgruntled, soldier. All I wanted was a discussion, someone to take these concerns seriously. But no one ever did. Another example of spin was provided by O'Reilly last night on his program when he mentioned how 60 Minutes gadfly Andy Rooney essentially argued that the United States was no better than Iraq because "we have weapons of mass destruction and haven't disarmed ourselves," however, Washington continues to call for Baghdad to cough up its WMDs, damnit!O'Reilly pointed out that what Rooney said was spin because, while it contained a kernel of truth (the fact that, yes, the U.S. and Iraq do both possess certain deadly weapons arsenals), it failed to point out that Saddam Hussein, under the terms of the Gulf War I ceasefire agreement, pledged to immediately and unequivocally disarm himself of those weapons; the U.S. has made no such agreement vis-Ã -vis its WMDs with any nation or international body. In addition, as O'Reilly noted, Rooney's comments were intellectually dishonest because they relied on moral equivalency, placing the United States and Iraq on an equal moral plane relative to WMDs, failing to recognize that the U.S. has used its WMDs once in war (the atomic attack on Japan during WWII, which was an [ultimately successful] attempt to bring about an abrupt conclusion to that conflict) while Iraq has used its WMDs repeatedly in both wartime (against Iran during the 1980s, in a conflict initiated by Saddam Hussein) and peacetime (Saddam Hussein's unprovoked lethal gassing of hundreds of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Code, I didn't see your post while I was posting. So ignore my earlier reply. However, here's another example of spin. Two nights ago I think, CNN had the numbers for a new Gallup poll that showed support for the war still over 70 percent which it has been. But, they never SAID the actual number. They just said, "Support has not gone down." And then, they went into some numbers that were largely irrelevant. Like, 58 percent feel the war will be longer than they thought at first. Other inconsequential numbers were run along the scroll all night and discussed, but at NO point did they ever actually show the poll number that showed the actual support for the war. This is also a sign of the type of spin that is evident. O'Reilly actually tends to have little "spin". He tends to simply bluntly access issues. That can come off as simplistic at times and even not smart. I am not a big fan of O'Reilly in general, but, he does have a point when he discusses spin. You probably have to understand more what it is though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
codeorama Posted April 1, 2003 Share Posted April 1, 2003 Art and GlenX, First, My original post wasn't clear so that was my fault... sorry..! but I agree with both of you about the slant, I see where you are coming from and have no problem with that... I wasn't trying to argue that "O'Reilly is wrong and they are right"... not at all. I'm just pointing out that O'Reilly has misrepresented himself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 Why FoxNews shouldnt be taken seriously. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarhog Posted April 2, 2003 Share Posted April 2, 2003 Originally posted by The Evil Genius Why FoxNews shouldnt be taken seriously. Just remember, he was one of Clinton's biggest defenders 'this is a lot of nonsense about a man's personal life', etc.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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