But according to the article I linked in the OP, it's not just the president's ear, but also Congress', since it's suggested that Fox News would have made a difference with Nixon and could have possibly thwarted his impeachment back in 1974.
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How influential is Fox News anyway?
- Thread starter Stevicus
- Start date
But according to the article I linked in the OP, it's not just the president's ear, but also Congress', since it's suggested that Fox News would have made a difference with Nixon and could have possibly thwarted his impeachment back in 1974.
I think success is amoral. However success is some indication of competence if nothing else. I have no knowledge that Fox News has been intentional disinforming the public. I do think that the body politic is the best judge of whether they were, not you nor I. I also think that if Fox News were truly the evil boogie man that some think it is it would be found out, sooner or later. Since that hasn’t happened to date, I think we should take Fox News at face value and, as with any news source, confirm their information from alternative sources.
Fox News isn’t evil incarnate. It is simply another fallible enterprise, no better nor worse than most others. I could make similar comments about MSNBC, CNN, the Washington Post, or the New York Times. All of them have their biases.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I liked FOX News when it first appeared. The media had a rather strong left wing bias at the time. Bush Sr. was partially a victim of it since the economy was well into recovery the summer before the election he lost to Clinton, but all news stories on the economy at the time were negative. They were clearly slightly right of center at the beginning. The only problem is that they did not maintain that position. They grew ever more right wing. Now they are as far right wing as MSNBC is left wing and the opinions of both networks are largely suspect as a result. Though the other news sources are a bit to the left too it is preferable to the right wing debacle that FOX has become.
You think a media blitz can save him, I doubt it. Especially now that Hannity has been discredited and people are well aware of fox and friends being a sympatheitic ear to Trump. It may take a couple years but the truth is more powerful than myth because myths contradict and are inconsistent eventually shooting themselves in the foot.
It's not that uncommon for media people to get government jobs. (George Stephanopoulos comes immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are many others.)
But that wasn't what I was asking. The assertion made in the article linked in the OP suggested that Fox News would have made a difference if they were around during the Watergate scandal, implying that Nixon would not have been impeached. Can a single news network be truly that powerful? That was my question.
To me, most of the mainstream media is right-wing. They all get corporate sponsorship, so they all support corporate policies (and slant their coverage so that the people will support those corporate policies as well). The mainstream media have been in the business of frightening Americans since WW2 and all during the Cold War, not to mention the War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, and many other issues they've been foisting on the people.
But that's the whole point, isn't it? Since they've been around a lot longer than Fox, they should have a much more established and loyal customer base. That so many of them bailed on them as soon as Fox News came on the scene is very telling. Why do you think that occurred?
That's beside the point. By putting up a paywall, they're as much as saying that their product is so high quality that people should want to pay for it. This, while there are so many other independent bloggers and smaller news sites that are just dying to give away the news and have their voice heard.
And it's not really the "news" that we're paying for anyway. Face it, whenever there's some major event, like the US bombing Syria or some mass shooting somewhere, we're going to hear about it one way or another. Whichever media outlet breaks the story first is really no longer much of an issue, since they'll all have it in quite a hurry, depending on what it is. I can get the weather report and sports scores from any number of internet sites for free, so there's no longer a need to pay for a newspaper to get that information.
I stopped subscribing to the local paper decades ago. They kept raising the price, while the quality diminished.
Well, I figured that, before Fox News came into existence, its viewers must have been watching something - or getting their news from the same mainstream sources.
I haven't had cable TV in a while, so I haven't been able to sit and compare all the news outlets. I do read some stories on the Fox website, although I check out a variety of news sites.
As for playing with people's emotions, that seems to come with the territory with journalism in general. Personally, I would prefer a dry recitation of the facts - what happened, when, where, why, and who - without opinion or emotion. Just the facts. But I guess that would be too boring for most people.
I can certainly get angry at a lot of things - at politics, the economic system, the direction the country is headed - in addition to being angry at Fox or any other media outlet. In the final analysis, it's still an open competition and there still is freedom of the press. The major networks are all huge corporate conglomerates.
I guess I'm just trying to get an idea of what's being suggested regarding how much Fox has influence over the electorate and could thwart any possible impeachment of Trump.
No, I don't think a media blitz can save him. It's the writer of the article I linked in the OP that thinks that. My own opinion is that I don't really think Fox News is all that influential. I think some people might use them as a scapegoat or a whipping boy of sorts, but I just don't see them as the devil with horns that others might see them as.
I don't even think Trump is all that influential, to be honest. He's a symptom, not a cause. Same for Fox News. These aren't demons which just sprouted up in our midst. If we're talking truth vs. myth, the only real truth that I've seen during my life is that we have a bunch of liberals and a bunch of conservatives each convinced that their own version of the "truth" is the correct one. While I mostly lean left in my politics, I'm not entirely convinced that either side has much of a handle on the truth. It's not so much a matter of what they say, but it's what they don't say that stands out.
That's all wonderful. Ive voted republican democrat and independent. I would have voted independent again for president if the candidate wasnt ridiculous. There was nothing wrong with the Democrat candidate except the barrage of fake news hacking and investigations that showed nothing unlike the real things found with most everyone in Trumps vicinity.
The Democratic candidate also had a lot of political baggage which couldn't easily be washed away.
Some Democrats (not all) somehow deluded themselves into believing that Hillary was the "perfect candidate," when nothing could be further from the truth. They gushed over her and praised her like she was the Second Coming, overconfidently assuming that they already had a lock on victory. Many refused to see that she was a highly flawed candidate. She inherited all of Bill Clinton's baggage, and I always thought they were both a couple of phonies. But par for the course in politics. Still, just because she was Bill Clinton's wife and rode in on his coattails doesn't mean that she's any great shakes.
Granted, there may be those who see Trump in a similar light. But I also remember how things were before Trump, and there was a great deal of dissatisfaction, distrust, and disillusionment with the political establishment. This, along with general feelings of cynicism about the direction the country is going, which had been lingering and smoldering for decades, albeit rarely addressed in depth by the mainstream corporate media.
What I've noted through all this is that a great many people must not have been paying much attention to what's been going on in this country these past few decades. The problem isn't due to "fake news," although that may also be a symptom of a deeper problem.
You don't give people very much credit, people all see the issues with government. Nobody thinks politicians tell the truth, at least thats usually something all parties can agree on. That doesn't help us repeating the same mistakes by flip flopping every four years. There are more independents than there are Dems and Repubs put together, if there were a decent independent candidate this last run they could have easily won.
Ok I exagerate a little on the numbers.
Underhill
Well-Known Member
They were the first main stream outlet. But yes, there have always been examples out there.
They do actual news. But that is part of the problem. They don't always differentiate the two. They treat actual news the same way they treat commentary. Actually it's worse than that as commentary gets much more air time than the news.
Well, when some 40% of the country watch Fox News (or it's derivatives) almost exclusively and treat it as gospel, it's not all that far fetched. The network has a huge chunk of the Republican base as devoted followers. Probably 70-80% get their opinions handed to them by Fox. I could understand many republican congressmen viewing going against the network as political suicide.
It is nonsense. If Trump fires Rosenstein and doesn't get impeached that is because the constituents of enough congressmen see a significant difference in the circumstances, and Fox might be able to push someone a little, but they can't create such a vast difference ex nihilo.
It means that other news agencies are upset, because Fox reaches a wide audience and their punditry can shade opinions for about 35-40% of the population.
That would mean first trying to understand them, and we can't have that. Much easier to just say they are [insert bigotry]ist conservative sheep under the influence of immoral RIGHT WING MEDIA.
Those making the claim won't stop to think that Fox's popularity is more likely a result of having pundits that mostly echo back the ideas that are already forming in the viewers mind. Fox does have some influence to shade conservative political discourse, but it can't redirect the Nile.
I'm giving them far more credit than those who claim they're victims of "fake news" and Fox News manipulations.
Oh, it would be nice if an independent even carried a single state, but that doesn't typically happen in presidential elections.
As far as the mistakes made by the electorate, the most significant mistakes were made in the primaries. The general election is almost anticlimactic.
I've noticed this on other news sites as well. I also notice a lot of fluff, celebrity gossip, etc. on all the channels, as opposed to hard news. Another thing I've noticed on a more local level is that true investigative reporting (of the kind made famous by Woodward and Bernstein) seems to be a lost art. That may explain why more people seem to gravitate towards Wikileaks or other supposedly "anti-government" sources.
It would be different if Fox was the only channel and there were no other choices for news. We have freedom of the press, free elections. It's all an open marketplace of ideas, and every individual can choose to watch Fox or not watch Fox. Over the past year or more, we've been hearing about dangerous threats to our democracy, but if these threats are taking advantage of freedom of the press and abusing that right, that may be a larger problem.
The question is, is there a solution or something that can be implemented to remedy the problem at hand? We have some rules which have been imposed on media in regards to elections, such as the equal time rule.
Does the right of a free press and free speech override and supersede an individual's right to make free choices unhindered and unfettered by undue influences? We've already set the precedent of banning the advertisements of harmful products, such as cigarettes, so can that precedent be used to ban the propagation of harmful ideas?
Yes, this makes sense. It's kind of a chicken-egg question, since a lot of people blame Fox. But are people conservative because they watch Fox, or do they watch Fox because they are conservative?
The implication here is that large segments of the voting public are apparently so weak-minded as to be easily influenced by pundits in the media. If that's truly the case, then we have far bigger problems facing our democracy than the mere existence of Fox News.
A lot of it does seem like sour grapes over losing customers to the competition.
It was observed at the last election that the Democratic leadership (along with the media) were somewhat out of touch with a lot of voters, particularly blue-collar voters in key Rust Belt states. When listening to the usual rhetoric about "Red States" and "Blue States," it seems that the elite from the coastal Blue States consider those in the "flyover country" of Red States to be a lost cause (and vice versa). They both seem unwilling to reach out to each other or honestly discuss their differences in an amicable manner.
While I don't really watch Fox that much, I've seen examples of actual propaganda, both right-wing and left-wing. Historical examples from Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. I know what true propaganda looks like, but Fox News seems pretty "tame" by comparison.
In terms of Democrats and Republicans, American liberals and American conservatives - they're really a lot more alike than they are different. A lot of people don't notice this because they're too busy obsessing over the points where they are different, as if that's all that matters.
Underhill
Well-Known Member
Saying they have a choice is fine, but whether they choose to use those other options is the issue at hand. The discussion is about Fox's influence which is really just a matter of how many republicans choose to watch them and are influenced by them.
The equal time rule never applied to cable networks (and I am fairly sure it went away for the broadcast networks as well now). But I think it should be brought back for all outlets. Enforcement would be a challenge, but it's something we need.
I'm not for banning ideas. But I think this extremely biased media is harmful. By saying that they have to at least have some semblance of balanced reporting, the people can still hear the opinions they want, they just might get a dose of the other sides views as well. Never a bad thing.
Thermos aquaticus
Well-Known Member
It has nothing to do with their success. It has to do with their lack of journalistic integrity. Just look how long they pushed the Uranium One lies. Look at how they are endlessly attacking Mueller, the FBI, and anyone else who is simply doing their job in law enforcement. A healthy and profitable press is exactly what we want. What we don't want is propaganda masquerading as journalism.
Thermos aquaticus
Well-Known Member
The problem is that some people think "equal time" means balancing facts with lies.
Republicans rarely go on non-Fox media outlets because they know they will face tough questions that they lack answers for.
tytlyf
Not Religious
I'd suggest learning what propaganda is, how it's implemented and recognizing propaganda when it's in front of you. The reason you have no knowledge of Fox disinforming the public is because you haven't learned what propaganda is yet or how to spot it.
Fox is the republican establishment media arm. CNN, ABC, CBS, etc are not media arms of the democratic party. Fox is categorized on the edge of propaganda and "dangerous to public."
One way to understand the difference with media outlets is to watch everything. I doubt you watch anything on TV besides Fox when it comes to news.
Remember, if propaganda was obvious it wouldn't be so effective. It's important for you to learn how to recognize propaganda. Then you'll see the difference with Fox. (HINT: it's just underneath the surface as to not be obvious)
Underhill
Well-Known Member
Sure, but at least if both sides are represented, there is someone there to point out the lies.
Perhaps, but I doubt it. I think it is more the pack mentality. People tend to congregate among those of like mind...
Thermos aquaticus
Well-Known Member
They won't consider it "equal time" if the lies aren't presented as truth.
Republicans are actively turning down offers to be on these media outlets. They prefer venues where they can just repeat the same talking points without them being challenged, which is why they go on Fox.