Quote:
Originally Posted by
Apple ][ 
Fox News is no more biased than any other major news source...
Fox News is a welcome breath of fresh air in a media landscape dominated by leftwing partisan hacks. Some mainstream media channels... facilitate the dissemination of leftist propaganda.
I have to call you out on that. I would have to assume you've not spent much time abroad. America doesn't have mandatory voting the only people who vote are those who feel most strongly about political issues. Since moderates tend not to vote they also tend not to actively pursue information about political issues which means that there is no market for news sources which do not assume their audience has a particular political affiliation.
Although it's presented in a news style format, FOX is definitely not "journalism in action". It is quite well known that Rupert Murdoch stipulates that "person x" is a threat to his assets so the command is issued that "person x" is to go down and the facts are engineered to sway popular opinion against that person. Not lies, just convenient half-truths or engineered phrases that paint a picture over time. There is certainly room for different interpretations of many events, but just because an opinion theoretically (or actually) exists doesn't mean it is equally valid, "balanced" or even worthy or airtime.
I think that conservatives have difficulty identifying the difference between genuinely biased media and media which is not biased but is not affiliated with their own bias. I suppose they look at the people around them and everyone they know seems to think the same way they do so they put themselves in the middle, when in reality they are often on the very fringe of the spectrum
A good indication about the quality of the news source is what ratio of the talking is done by the interviewer compared to the person they are interviewing. A good interviewer will simply ask probing questions and prompt for further information if they know that the interviewer is lying.
A recent analysis of a series of interviews on climate change conducted by a notorious talk back radio host in Australia found that, on the subject of climate change, when interviewing guests who offered an opinion that the host agreed with in principle the guest spoke for 70% of the conversation and the host for 30%. When interviewing guests who gave explanations that the host disagreed with in principle the guest was only allowed to speak for 40% of the time and the host spoke for 60% of the time.
This technique is also used by Rush Limbaugh.
The fact that the interviewer said more that the person they were interviewing says a lot but the matter went further than that. During the discussion the host threw out a barrage of numbers and percentages and figures to supposedly underpin his claims. After the figures quoted were later falsified (wrong by a factor of 100,000x mind you) it was claimed that they were simply a hyperboleto make a point (which begs the question if the figures are not factual do you actually have a point worth making in the first place?).
That is bias.
