There are very very few news broadcasts around the world that are unbiased enough for me to give any form of serious attention to and Fox is certainly not one of them. The BBC and CBC are really the only ones that report equally on all sides of matters of real significance. Besides those I tend to try and read 3 - 4 online newsprint sources; one with a very left wing slant, one with a very right wing and 1 - 2 that are moderate. While I personally am centre-left by Canadian standards (which would probably be very left wing by American standard), I feel that if I don't see the news from both the far-left and far-right view points I can't possible make an informed decision on the reality of the situation. That kind of balance is what's completely missing in almost all media news whether the outlets are American, Canadian, etc.

Don't equate entertainment value with actual news reporting. News is meant to be informative, well balanced, unbiased and factual yet all those hallmarks come a distant second to shock/entertainment value on all the US cable news channels (Fox, CNN, etc.) as well has many of the major network programs. That's also certainly not a purely American phenomenon as the same unfortunate trend applies to many of the equivalent news programs running on Canadian networks.

While the entertainment-news programs do give you some idea of current events, they also ALL contain underlying motivations that skew the reporting and as a result the truth they portray. Always there is an underlying financial motivation as ramping up the entertainment value of the news cast provides more revenue in the form of advertising.

While the financial motivation is unfortunate, what's scary is the underlying political motivations. The constant blind and unquestioning (aka biased?) support given to the Bush administration by both Fox and CNN are a prime example of that. Regardless of a journalist's personal political views or leanings their job is to critically report on and question the actions of political leadership. The media play a very important role in keeping politician's honest and on course by holding their decisions and actions up to public scrutiny, and since the general public's perceptions are formed almost entirely on what the media tells them, the dangers of the media giving any administration carte blanche are very high.
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+1

+2
The rare TV shows I'm interested in watching, I stream.


Terribly stated the first time around, you make your point well this time.
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:-) However I don't think its "they dont have to be because they are as powerful as they are". I think its because on a whole, the majority of our citizens are rarely required to interact with other countries. We have 1/3 of the freakin continent, citizens that do venture into Canada find that is not very different from us, so they have little opportunity to "grow" their "world view" because it basically looks to them like anywhere else stateside they've been. Got to any place in Europe, everyone speaks 2+ languages and has traveled around the place BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO (to clarify, that's a good thing). They are surrounded on all sides by many other equally small countries and thus interact with them. We are just too big with no one to play with!
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I used to work in the media. I was a photographer (still am) and held down the position of Photo Editor for a few years. Which meant I had the misfortune to listen to the back and forth "discussion" in the newsroom with all the other journalists (I was the black sheep of the bunch, the only non-writer... I just took pretty pictures :-)).

Let me tell you, it was APPALLING. Journalistic ethics and integrity? UNbiased oppion? :-), MY DOG is capable of more unbiased thought than any journalist. It just doesn't fuking exist anymore. believe me, spend a little time in there, and you wouldnt even trust the news if you were pulling it from 6 different sources.
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Dogs set the standard for integrity. We should all hope to be so true.
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+1
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Image
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FOX News is a news channel. They give news. Some of there shows more than others. But the main point is they give news. News that is by far more balanced than any other national news channel. If I am equating FOX news as entertainment, then where do people get their national news? FOX news leads all national news. But if you believe that the majority are watching FOX news for entertainment, then i ask again, where do they get there news from on TV?


With regards to the second bold highlight, again, some news channels skew more than others. I believe that FOX news is the most balanced of them all:-) That is why the majority of Americans wanting news turns to FOX news. If they didnt like FOX news, they wouldnt watch it. If they wanted entertainment, they would watch Jon Stewart. If they wanted far skewed news, they would watch msnbc. But the numbers dont lie. People are watching FOX news for balanced news.:-)
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:-) touche +1
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I would like to see those 4 clowns out on a mission over there so they could experience what every soldier goes through every time they go out on missions no matter what country they are from.
They have no class and even though they tried to apologize, I choose not to accpet their apologies...:-)
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Fox fair and balanced? Yeah, OK. :-)

About as balanced as MSNBC.

I am a little more unbalanced than my therapist thinks, I guess. :-)
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Or just download them...... there's no commercials at all then :-)

None of that really discounts my point though. Every American newscast I've ever seen, and most Canadian ones as well, are more entertainment and less news. When I say "entertainment" I'm not talking about the satirical comedy produced in a quasi-newscast format that people like Jon Stewart or Rick Mercer produce. I'm talking about the fact that there's more emphasis on the presentation value of what they're saying than the actual substance of the content or veracity of their reporting. Compared to the reporting that comes out of BBC WorldNews or CBC's The National, FoxNews is primarily an entertainment channel and unfortunately one that's regarded as not much more than a bad joke by much of the world (I'll take your word for it that it is taken seriously within the US).

I find it honestly very scary how many people form their world opinions based on the reporting of syndicated network news programs. The fact that most people have forgotten how to think for themselves if it's not presented to them in a flashy yet concise 30 second soundbite puts a HUGE amount of power in the hands of a small few that are motivated only by ratings and are therefore easily corrupted to the agenda of a small minority.
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B B C = Boring!

There is nothing wrong with adding a little spice to the presentation of the news as long as the product being delivered is NEWS!

:-)
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I love BBC!
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The highlighted portion is the key right there. Sadly it's still not stacking up too well in Fox's favour....

It's also a pretty pathetic commentary when people first have to be entertained in order to be informed. A large part of the reason why the BBC or CBC is so much better is precisely because they assume that they're dealing with an adult audience that doesn't need to be distracted by showmanship in order to keep their attention. Instead they just concentrate on digging up and reporting the facts. I'd rather have to think for myself than be bottle fed some over-opinionated and under-educated pundit's myopic view on the world as if it were either news or fact :-)
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I had never heard of the red eye show either until I saw the clip in question. The funny part is, one of their panelist actually IS a big stoner. I remember seeing something about how he made a documentary similar to "super size me" where he got high constantly for a month straight. in fact I think it was called "super-high me"

Anyhow, I agree that FOX has stepped in sh*t a few too many times for me so I don't watch anymore but keep in mind, it's entertainment-journalism. These guys were just ignorant and didn't realize that their comments were insulting instead of funny.
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Your problem is that you feel like if it's not boring it's not real news. You are wrong. I'm sorry that you are that narrow minded.

I reiterate, it does not matter the presentation as long as you are being delivered the news. You prefer some stuff shirt with a monotone voice reading off of a sheet of paper. I prefer a more high paced presentation that doesn't cause drool to form at the corners of my mouth.

Once again, it's my opinion.
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Fox is fair and balanced. It balances the scale with MSNBC.:-)
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Nobody has clean shoes in the news "reporting" business. TV news is the worst just because of the short attention span of the audience. The internet tends to have more in depth information. Yet the TV news is a good place to hear the headlines in order to start to find out more information. If every time you hear a story with a statement made by some "expert" and you don't hear an opposing statement, even if it's from a Devil's Advocate point of view, then you are being editorialized to. Often, what is left out is more important than what is said.
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I've said it before in this thread and I'll say it again.

Debate/discuss the issues. Keep the personal insults to yourselves.
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