91.7% of all statistics are made up

 

If media matter said it, it has to be the truth. LOL LOL LOL What a joke, how about using some of stumbleshits references, like the huffington cunt and the late night comedians.

You progressives make me laugh, lets look at the media shall we, CBS NBC ABC MSNBC CNN C-Span are all LIBERAL, and 1 station Fox News is middle of the road and that bothers you progressives real bad.

And if Fox News is so bad why are their ratings so high compared to the other news stations LOL .

LINK::: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...atings-for-thursday-september-15-2011/103909/


So yea I see your point LOL LOL Typical progressive never happy.

 

Isn't Jersey Shore also the highest rated tv show currently? That speaks volumes about tv stats.

 

You have me at a loss as I do not know or watch that show, I also have done no research on that.

But if that is the case then who do you actually believe then??

 

Comparing Foxnews to Friends

Ive tried watching both. I laugh, doing the spot the laugh/lie thing. I rarely laugh at Friends, ok some of us Brits just dont get US dry humour. Friends just leaves me feeling 5% happier. I laugh a whole lot more at the rubbish Foxnews air, but it leaves me feeling disturbed. I worry...

 

Another closed mind?

If you will notice, i did agree with 1 of the 2 examples presented to me. Did I just take that person's word? No I didn't but after I did some checking I found they had a very valid point on that 1 topic and changed my stance. That should go to show I do try to be open minded.

He is another one. Cash for Clunkers: most conservatives think it was a huge waste and I partially agree. The general idea was good but it was very poorly executed and I think it could have been done much better.

My cash for clunkers:
1. Vouchers are only good for cars made in the U.S. That would have ensured more money stayed here in the states thus helping the economy. It also would have helped the U.S. auto makers also helping the economy. I am not an economis but why didn't the chosen one or his lackeys think of that?

2. Did anyone else notice that this program only helped a few individuals but actually did nothing to help those struggling from paycheck to paycheck? It only helped those who could afford to buy a new car. WHAT ABOUT THE POOR? It did nothing for them and it could have. Instead of taking those cars in trade in and destroying them, why not take that perfectly good 1994 Ford taurus and instead of destroying it, trade it to the family who is struggling to make ends meet driving around in a POS 1974 monte carlo that barely runs and pollutes a whole lot more than that car that was destroyed.

3. Take that old POS 74 monte carlo off the road. It pollutes more and is less fuel efficient. Then take it and turn it over to the salvage yard. Help those small guys out and give them something they can try to make some money on further helping the economy. Instead, those vehicles taken in trade were destroyed, thus driving up the cost of just yard parts since those parts were destroyed. Stupid! Where do those low income people go on occassion for parts? JUNKYARDS! Excuse me, salvage yards. So yet again, obama fucked the poor!

I thought those were his main constituents. But oh wait, they only watch ABC, NBC, and CBS and believe all the bullshit they feed them because they are in the tank for obama.

So, here is just one policy that was very poorly executed that ALL the networks fucked up on and missed.

So yes, how ironic that a conservative who does watch fox can have an open mind. How many other people is obama fucking now because of the media? THAT is why fox is needed. to try to get a little balance even though there currently is none.

 

Truthout had a thorough expose of why Fox News is crap

Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans Saturday 2 July 2011
by: Dr. Cynthia Boaz, Truthout | News Analysis


There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.
It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?
My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.
The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.
1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.
2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.
3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.
4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.
5. Scapegoating/Othering. This works best when people feel insecure or scared. It's technically a form of both fear mongering and diversion, but it is so pervasive that it deserves its own category. The simple idea is that if you can find a group to blame for social or economic problems, you can then go on to a) justify violence/dehumanization of them, and b) subvert responsibility for any harm that may befall them as a result.
6. Conflating Violence With Power and Opposition to Violence With Weakness. This is more of what I'd call a "meta-frame" (a deeply held belief) than a media technique, but it is manifested in the ways news is reported constantly. For example, terms like "show of strength" are often used to describe acts of repression, such as those by the Iranian regime against the protesters in the summer of 2009. There are several concerning consequences of this form of conflation. First, it has the potential to make people feel falsely emboldened by shows of force - it can turn wars into sporting events. Secondly, especially in the context of American politics, displays of violence - whether manifested in war or debates about the Second Amendment - are seen as noble and (in an especially surreal irony) moral. Violence become synonymous with power, patriotism and piety.
7. Bullying. This is a favorite technique of several Fox commentators. That it continues to be employed demonstrates that it seems to have some efficacy. Bullying and yelling works best on people who come to the conversation with a lack of confidence, either in themselves or their grasp of the subject being discussed. The bully exploits this lack of confidence by berating the guest into submission or compliance. Often, less self-possessed people will feel shame and anxiety when being berated and the quickest way to end the immediate discomfort is to cede authority to the bully. The bully is then able to interpret that as a "win."
8. Confusion. As with the preceding technique, this one works best on an audience that is less confident and self-possessed. The idea is to deliberately confuse the argument, but insist that the logic is airtight and imply that anyone who disagrees is either too dumb or too fanatical to follow along. Less independent minds will interpret the confusion technique as a form of sophisticated thinking, thereby giving the user's claims veracity in the viewer's mind.
9. Populism. This is especially popular in election years. The speakers identifies themselves as one of "the people" and the target of their ire as an enemy of the people. The opponent is always "elitist" or a "bureaucrat" or a "government insider" or some other category that is not the people. The idea is to make the opponent harder to relate to and harder to empathize with. It often goes hand in hand with scapegoating. A common logical fallacy with populism bias when used by the right is that accused "elitists" are almost always liberals - a category of political actors who, by definition, advocate for non-elite groups.
10. Invoking the Christian God. This is similar to othering and populism. With morality politics, the idea is to declare yourself and your allies as patriots, Christians and "real Americans" (those are inseparable categories in this line of thinking) and anyone who challenges them as not. Basically, God loves Fox and Republicans and America. And hates taxes and anyone who doesn't love those other three things. Because the speaker has been benedicted by God to speak on behalf of all Americans, any challenge is perceived as immoral. It's a cheap and easy technique used by all totalitarian entities from states to cults.
11. Saturation. There are three components to effective saturation: being repetitive, being ubiquitous and being consistent. The message must be repeated cover and over, it must be everywhere and it must be shared across commentators: e.g. "Saddam has WMD." Veracity and hard data have no relationship to the efficacy of saturation. There is a psychological effect of being exposed to the same message over and over, regardless of whether it's true or if it even makes sense, e.g., "Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States." If something is said enough times, by enough people, many will come to accept it as truth. Another example is Fox's own slogan of "Fair and Balanced."
12. Disparaging Education. There is an emerging and disturbing lack of reverence for education and intellectualism in many mainstream media discourses. In fact, in some circles (e.g. Fox), higher education is often disparaged as elitist. Having a university credential is perceived by these folks as not a sign of credibility, but of a lack of it. In fact, among some commentators, evidence of intellectual prowess is treated snidely and as anti-American. Education and other evidence of being trained in critical thinking are direct threats to a hive-mind mentality, which is why they are so viscerally demeaned.
13. Guilt by Association. This is a favorite of Glenn Beck and Andrew Breitbart, both of whom have used it to decimate the careers and lives of many good people. Here's how it works: if your cousin's college roommate's uncle's ex-wife attended a dinner party back in 1984 with Gorbachev's niece's ex-boyfriend's sister, then you, by extension are a communist set on destroying America. Period.
14. Diversion. This is where, when on the ropes, the media commentator suddenly takes the debate in a weird but predictable direction to avoid accountability. This is the point in the discussion where most Fox anchors start comparing the opponent to Saul Alinsky or invoking ACORN or Media Matters, in a desperate attempt to win through guilt by association. Or they'll talk about wanting to focus on "moving forward," as though by analyzing the current state of things or God forbid, how we got to this state of things, you have no regard for the future. Any attempt to bring the discussion back to the issue at hand will likely be called deflection, an ironic use of the technique of projection/flipping.
In debating some of these tactics with colleagues and friends, I have also noticed that the Fox viewership seems to be marked by a sort of collective personality disorder whereby the viewer feels almost as though they've been let into a secret society. Something about their affiliation with the network makes them feel privileged and this affinity is likely what drives the viewers to defend the network so vehemently. They seem to identify with it at a core level, because it tells them they are special and privy to something the rest of us don't have. It's akin to the loyalty one feels by being let into a private club or a gang. That effect is also likely to make the propaganda more powerful, because it goes mostly unquestioned.
In considering these tactics and their possible effects on American public discourse, it is important to note that historically, those who've genuinely accessed truth have never berated those who did not. You don't get honored by history when you beat up your opponent: look at Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln. These men did not find the need to engage in othering, ad homeinum attacks, guilt by association or bullying. This is because when a person has accessed a truth, they are not threatened by the opposing views of others. This reality reveals the righteous indignation of people like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity as a symptom of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they don't feel confident in their own veracity. And in general, the more someone is losing their temper in a debate and the more intolerant they are of listening to others, the more you can be certain they do not know what they're talking about.
One final observation. Fox audiences, birthers and Tea Partiers often defend their arguments by pointing to the fact that a lot of people share the same perceptions. This is a reasonable point to the extent that Murdoch's News Corporation reaches a far larger audience than any other single media outlet. But, the fact that a lot of people believe something is not necessarily a sign that it's true; it's just a sign that it's been effectively marketed.
As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before the eyes of the global media audience, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.





Dr. Cynthia Boaz

Dr. Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University, where her areas of expertise include quality of democracy, nonviolent struggle, civil resistance and political communication and media. She is also an affiliated scholar at the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace International Master in Peace, Conflict, and Development Studies at Universitat Jaume I in Castellon, Spain. Additionally, she is an analyst and consultant on nonviolent action, with special emphasis on the Iran and Burma cases. She is vice president of the Metta Center for Nonviolence and on the board of Project Censored and the Media Freedom Foundation. Dr. Boaz is also a contributing writer and adviser to Truthout.org and associate editor of Peace and Change Journal.

 

Interesting piece. Thanks for posting it.

 

Because of fools like you, obviously.

 

Ok

Valid point about the car scrapping.
What about Obamas health plan to help the poor too? Thats been shot down heavily. The UK have the NHS. The rich and poor all use it. We all value it hugely except the Tories who try to privatise it by stealth. When Obama tries to bring in something partly like it, many Yanks went nuts! We cant understand why you dont want to help those who dont have the dollars for private health insurance. Privatisation is a dirty word here. Sure, many smaller companies are private, as someone had to start them. But anything they sell always extra expense. There are shareholders who demand a profit for starters. When a government takes public owned utility companies, sells them dirt cheap to the rich few, then throws millions of tax payers money to that new company to ensure smooth running, which inturn provides the public with a worse service and now huge bills, thats outrageous! Thats the rightwing for you. Keep the poor poor and make my mega rich friends even more richer.

 

Point 11

I dont defend many Foxnews items, but as the BBC also found, Sadam DID have WMD.Very small amounts left when the war started. Enough to load into Scuds. Did you not see the abandoned trucks, 6 i saw, dotted around south Iraq. They were mobile chemical weapon labs. Sadam had only just destroyed the bulk of his WMD under the eyes and pressure of UN inspectors. But we werent to know that until we invaded. The few UN inspectors were being denied access to many places and had to play cat and mouse with Sadams ppl. While the inspectors were trying to get through front gates to instalations, a number of Sadams vehicles would leave from a back gate at speed and not be seen again. Remember? So it made the West think he had a lot more to hide. A big reason why we went to war.

 

The poor do have healthcare and itis paid for by Medicare. I see it used every day.

My problem with obamacare is this: where is the transparency he promised during the drafting process? Where were the republicans included in that drafting process? Many closed meetings with just the dumbocrats came up with it and then it got rammed down our throats. What about all the special companies that are able to opt out of it? Back on topic though, Fox is about the only network that reported it. The other media outlets hardly gave it any coverage, if any at all. All they want to say is how the right are obstructionists.

 

Stop drinking the hateraide Kimi!

:rose:

 

I felt he was entitled to an honest answer to his question.

 

Here's Fox News for you.

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011...mys-after-fox-censors-his-phone-hacking-joke/

 

I'm sorry, but this is simply hogwash. Hans Blix and his inspection team were forced out of Iraq by the U.S. government because they were determined to go to war, and go to war NOW. Blix had conduced hundreds of inspections and had found zilch. There was nothing in his report that suggested that he had been denied access. In fact, he had been directed specifically to sites the U.S. claimed were the locations of WMDs.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10770239

Oh, and the "mobile weapons labs" cited by Colin Powell when he went before the U.N. were NOT mobile weapons labs, as later became clear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888.html

 

Thank you sweetie because its important not to let the false propaganda get out were someone might be dumb enough to believe it.

And bless President Obama and his spin team. I swear maybe they read Mike Lofgren's advice to learn to use language.

All we're talking about here is a simple little" Buffet Rule." Which is people as rich as him should at least being paying as much taxes as his secretary does.

So its not class warfare to want millionaires to pay at least equal rates.

PS I bet Fox News is the only network not reporting what I just said this morning.

 

I meant to ask earlier but simply ran out of time.

So do those on here that hate Fox actually believe that fox is the only network that acts this way?

Try watching crhis mathews, katie couric, christian amanpour, keith olberman, rachel madcow... the list is quite long when you add in other networks and they all do the same thing.

Just trying for some equity.

 

Those are commentators, not reporters. What Fox does is intentionally blur the distinction between the two.

Secondly, I've never heard any of those people make a factual error, or if they did, and it was shown to be incorrect, they issued a correction. When have you ever heard Fox News issue a correction?

But what really interests me about what you post is that you evidently think, as many Fox viewers do, that the entire mainstream news media has a liberal bias. But think about that. If ALL the news media seem liberal to you, maybe you're the one who's an outlier. And so is Fox.

 

I thought that I should share this with the class.