Fox News is proud to be biased. Now celebrating 10 years of one-sided reporting, Rupert Murdoch's popular cable news channel continues unabated. The anniversary is reported in this week's Media Guardian which set out to investigate the polarised opinions in the US on Fox's treatment of political and international news stories. The attempt was apparently thwarted by the channel's own media relations executive who refused to play ball when she discovered that the article might contain views of Fox's critics.
I watched Fox News a few times during my last visit to the States, a nation that was reflecting on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. At one level I found Fox's items entertaining and engaging, giving you a real sense of a dedicated news team moving heaven and earth to get the story on the screen. But one couldn't help thinking 'Why this story? why this treatment? why this angle?' Even if the story didn't have an obvious pro-Republican bias, I found myself looking for it. It was quite refreshing to switch over to watch CNN's anchorman Wolf Blitzer tear into Condoleezza Rice's claims that the invasion of Iraq was justified despite faulty intelligence on weapons of mass distruction.
Filed under:
Fox News Rupert Murdoch Guardian CNN Wolf Blitzer Condoleezza Rice
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
My, my...and to think I was called a lefty BEFORE I had uttered a word in a first year lecture this year! LOL
Really....with reference to this, I often watch FOX news from the UK - online or late night. I'm not always sure why. I certainly find it entertaining and rather obvious in its politics - it worries me to consider whether that is more honest than 'traditional UK' news. It's a contentious topic.
Overall, on a really simplistic level - it scares me. Culturally I imagine (hope) news 'watching' may be different in the States (having never been there), as cultural readings are different. In terms of this I hope the pluralists were right about market forces and varied viewpoints.....although I have my strong doubts.
At FOX the politics seem so obvious to me. The politics of not only the news, but the reflection of societal context concerns me - especially if this is accepted as a version of 'truth' by some Stateside.
Faye
Post a Comment