I had thought of Stephanopolis. He and Newt are used very differently. Are you maintaining that GS has a hidden bias that is there all the time, even though in his role he supposed to be even-handed? Newt is permitted to be completely partisan...and he is. GS, like O’Reilly, but even more so, since he opines less, is supposed to be giving a balanced view and avoids CLEAR partisan statements.
My point remains that Newt is given this privileged position on Fox, somewhat like Ollie North’s, which is different than any other one I can currently think of on any other network. Are there lefty pols who are REGULARS, sought out several times a week for their unchallenged wisdom on any networks?
For Brit Hume, Jim Engel, or Chris Wallace to be as righty, as the MSM’s reporter and anchors are lefty makes for nice balance, but to put Newt up in the pantheon of the wise, ALL BY HIMSELF, is NOT very balanced, maybe even toward competingg Repubs. Obviously, if he declares a candidacy, one would think that role would greatly diminish, as should Guiliani’s, but who knows?
Clearly Fox gives air time to more GOP players, than to Dem players, I think, but am not sure, in a more imbalanced way than the MSM networks give balanced time to lefty and righty players. I’m not sure if that holds for CNN, but I think it does to CBS, NBC, abd CBS, although I will admit that FOX has a lot more airtime to fill with their news programming and they fill it disproportionately to the right, but then, I belabor the obvious. I am always interested in what Newt has to say, but am aware that there is no such balancing figure from the left. It probably would take Bill, to balance him out and we wouldn’t want Bill yelling at Hannity, now would we, because then Seano really would be in over his head, but Clinton would also be demeaned in the process.
If you see someone in the media saying something you disagree with then don’t ever watch them again. Or wait—here’s an idea: keep watching them and try to understand their point of view and see if there’s any common ground you can work with. I could hang out at DailyKos all day but it doesn’t teach me anything (other than the left fringe can be just as wacky as the right). I come here to try to find some honest debate from intelligent people who really want to save this country from the enemy. And by enemy I don’t mean the left, they are just Americans like you with a different way of achieving the same goals you have. I mean the real enemy—ignorant and rabid fundamentalists who want to destroy civilization.
Try to understand them?
Now you are sounding like a liberal.
Do me a favor, go to Afghanistan and meet up with Al-Qaeda to see if you can understand them!
If you come back in one piece, you can tell me what I already know.....LOL
“Clearly Fox gives air time to more GOP players, than to Dem players, I think, but am not sure, in a more imbalanced way than the MSM networks give balanced time to lefty and righty players. I’m not sure if that holds for CNN, but I think it does to CBS, NBC, abd CBS, although I will admit that FOX has a lot more airtime to fill with their news programming and they fill it disproportionately to the right, but then, I belabor the obvious. I am always interested in what Newt has to say, but am aware that there is no such balancing figure from the left. It probably would take Bill, to balance him out and we wouldn’t want Bill yelling at Hannity, now would we, because then Seano really would be in over his head, but Clinton would also be demeaned in the process.”
Dwight
Spoken by someone that reads about Fox News on the blogs. I watch Fox News all the time and they are far less partisen than ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN.
Take another shot of koolaide before your head clears....
And, oh yeah, the fact that “Mr Speaker Gingrich” appears on Fox several times a week as a political commentator, would be like having Bill Clinton, or actually someone considerably to the left of him appear on the MSM regularly as a “commentator.”
If Fox were truely balanced, they would have some Gingrich equivalent from the left. Newt isn’t usually on with any other balancing talking head, but just gets to throw his “wisdom” at a number of topics for 5-10 minutes, several times a week. Hey, at least Fox knows how to feed their base. :-)
Dwight
Dwight, you’ve watched O’reily slam and disrespect almost every who comes on his show. Now, have you noticed how Big Bill, shuts up while Newt is talking? Bill is not stupid like him or not and his respect for Newt is obvious and appreciated. The reason Fox doesn’t put anyone on to oppose Newt is Newt doesn’t get into shouting matches and Fox knows it. I never enjoy watching the Factor as much as when Newt is on. It is the only time Big Bill acts like a human.
Hey Jaybo, Sad as it may be to admit, I watch Fox almost all the time, a lot more than I watch any other network, except for sports. It’s probably easier for you to talk about Kool-aid and swagger, but how about some kind of substantive response? I am talking specifics; you are not.
Hey Jaybo, Sad as it may be to admit, I watch Fox almost all the time, a lot more than I watch any other network, except for sports. It’s probably easier for you to talk about Kool-aid and swagger, but how about some kind of substantive response? I am talking specifics; you are not.
Dwight
Dwight, if you REALLY did watch Fox News and The Factor you would know that Bill is criticized daily when he reads e-mails by the right and the left. Both sides tell him he is a shill for the other side. I have seen this hundreds of times.
I don’t think you can be more balanced than that.
Unfortunately for you, the “Hate Fox” websites that you get your info from conveniently leave that out.
Jaybo, Better stick to your facts, tiring as that is, rather than throw the bs around about what I do and don’t watch or read. I have no idea what you watch or read, but you seem to know that I don’t watch Fox and get my info from Liberal websites. Well, you’re 0-2 because I watch Fox a lot and only see liberal websites if Instapundit happens to link to one which catches my attention. So if you are as wrong about your political views as you are about what you believe that I watch, you don’t know anything there, either. Oh, I DO read the NYT online every day, if you’re taking a survey.
Yeah, so O’Reilly gets letters from both sides; so what? If you’d read my posts, you would have seen that I wrote that Bill is one of the guys who is supposed to be balanced, so it’s no surprise that he gets some of the far right attacking him because he says that Iraq is a mess or that there IS such a thing as a far right. It sounds to me, though, that his book on the culture wars is basically a distressed goose gaggle honk about the tyranny of the SP’s. Watch out! The sky is falling!
All my other comments about the Fox line-up, Gingrich, the choice of guests, etc still stand because I watch them almost every night (until the OJ stuff or the latest murder gets to be more than I can bear). Of course it’s hard for anyone to speak with real authority on the “balance” topic, unless they tape a lot of shows; the evening news would be the best one to do. If I were a media teacher, I would just tape the four newscasts, oK maybe CNN too, if they have a nightly news and then just watch them side by side and talk about how the world is going, according to CNN, CBS, NBC, CBS, and Fox. Then...you or I would have some credible specifics.
“All my other comments about the Fox line-up, Gingrich, the choice of guests, etc still stand because I watch them almost every night (until the OJ stuff or the latest murder gets to be more than I can bear).”
Anyone else wonder why Gingrich is a problem?
“Of course it’s hard for anyone to speak with real authority on the “balance” topic, unless they tape a lot of shows”
Now that’s funny!
“the evening news would be the best one to do. If I were a media teacher, I would just tape the four newscasts, oK maybe CNN too, if they have a nightly news and then just watch them side by side and talk about how the world is going, according to CNN, CBS, NBC, CBS, and Fox. Then...you or I would have some credible specifics.”
And then there is the drive-by-media (CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN). You really only need to see one of them cause they all say the same thing! Why waste your time?
Dwight
Dwight, All you have given us so far is an “opinion” (everyone has them by the way) soley based on one guest. It is clear by the way you show your distain for him (Gingrich) that your ojectivity can be called into question concerning him.
Your clever attempts to pretend to be conservative are not quite good enough to keep me from seeing through however.
One thing I will never understand is liberal trolls that come on these sites to play mind games. Conservatives are, on average, more intelligent than liberals and can see through the deception.
Good luck with your psychological warfare though..........
Everybody sees distain on Newt and wants to wash it off, right? :-)
I never said that I was a conservative. I’ll settle for centrist, something I told my liberal friends that GWB was going to be and then he had a road to Damascus experience in response to 9/11 AND Rove told him that the formulaa for winning elections was not in the center.
He was somewhat of a centrist as a Governor in Texas, or so I’m told, but he may have gotten out of the habit for too long.
Let’s see. other guests that tend to show the Fox tilt. How about 4-5 hours, over and over of the O’Reilly and then Hannity chats with GWB. Rudy Guiliani on there a lot lately. Quite a few of the Repubs during their House and Senate race, definitely disproportionately more elephants than donkeys. And then there’s Ollie North with his own show. Now is that a political statement or what? And the general drift of their daily talking points that are picked up in one way or another by most of their shows, definitely have a pro-conservative bias.
But they do bring in old Charlie Rangel, who doesn’t put up with any of Hannity’s posturing. One of the classic moments came back in the last Presidential campaign when Hannity asked something about Kerry being a war criminal( that was Hannity’s main talking point for a few days)...and Rangel went off on such a rant about the pressure on our soldiers when they are in battle that Hannity didn’t know what hit him...and Rangel had stopped making any sense either, but Seano was so non-plussed, that for once, he was speechless. That was a moment of true bi-partisan merriment ...and wierdness. Of course, later when Murtha had made a statement about some of the marines committing war crimes, which I believe HAS turned out to be the case, Hannity was just beside himself that someone could so besmirch our military. Of course he had had no problemn trying to besmirch the bemedaled Lt Kerry, but the wind was blowing from a different direction in Iraq.
Does the NYT have a leftward slant? Yes. Does Fox have at least as much of a rightward stance? Definitely. Of course, maybe you would have to be here in the center with me to see that.
MSM may be an anachronism, but we all know that this term means broadcast TV and print journalism. You may as well get used to it.
It’s hardly an anachronism; it was coined by conservatives to describe the left-leaning press and media like NBC and the NYT. Those organizations are just as left-leaning as ever; it’s just that now they have competition that can sometimes get the other side of the story out: Talk radio, blogs, Fox News, Drudge, etc.
Ultimately, words shape our debates. During the Russian Revolution, Lenin cleverly named his smaller faction the Bolsheviks ("Majority" in Russian). His larger opponents were stupid enough to accept the label “Mensheviks” ("Minority" in Russian). People like to be on the winning side. Given that in armed conflicts the larger party tends to win, guess which party undecided Russians tended to gravitate to?
I’d support dumping the term “Mainstream Media” because it gives them the same benefit as calling them the “Majority.” IMO “Dinosaur Media” would be a better term because it suggests they are plodding, stupid, and ultimately destined for extinction.
I love my news biased. Openly, brazenly. Left or Right, I don’t care. I love to see the spin and then take it apart logically.
Anyone who gets their news from one source or one point of view is a moron. Read The Free Republic and read The Democratic Underground. Read Daily Kos and read Powerline. Two sides of the same coin. Say what you want about the NYTimes, but it still has the best writing around and while its editorial board is unabashedly liberal, except for a couple people, it still delivers alot of very good information and has a lot of very good reporting. But balance it out of course.
You can only be helped by examining as many legitimate and articulate points of view as possible.
Say what you want about the NYTimes, but it still has the best writing around…
There you go again, Mamma. Says who that NYT has the best writing around? You? Oh I know there are others, but stating the perception does not make it fact, and there are plenty of contenders for at least equal quality if not better quality writing. And, discounting in advance the opinion of anyone who would counter you does not make your claim more established in fact (i.e. “Say what you want..."). Ultimately, quality of writing comes down to individual perception. Obviously, there are awards for writing, and NYT gets a share, but as we know, those who award are themselves subject to letting their own biases interfere with objective judgement. That is logic applied.
...Say what you want about the NYTimes, but it still has the best writing around and while its editorial board is unabashedly liberal, except for a couple people, it still delivers alot of very good information and has a lot of very good reporting…
The Times is the DNC’s Pravda. It routinely censors news stories unfavorable to it. Remember the 500 WMDs found in Iraq since 2003 - primarily chemical warheads? How about the Air America/Gloria Wise scandal? Or John Kerry’s Christmas in Cambodia fabrications?
