posted
I think if you actually filter out Fox News' news from its commentary section, he's a lot closer to having a good point, and he says that specifically.
But I think that's true of most of the networks. If you filter out the MSNBC commentary from just the regular news hours, you get fairly similar content to Fox News.
The problem is, neither of them, or CNN, really does the news any more. It's mostly commentary, and what isn't commentary is barely a step up from tabloid gossip and sensationalism. That he thinks Fox News has risen above the rest to provide hardhitting journalism is bizarre to me.
The only television news outlet I really see doing the actual news, with the least bit of partisan commentary or slant, is Al-Jazeera.
When I want the tabloidy gossip, I grab CNN. When I want to actually know what's happening, I go to AJA.
So yes, I think he might actually have something of a point, that Fox News, on some level, isn't as relatively ridiculous as it is sometimes painted if we are limiting it to news coverage. But that just means they are only as ridiculous as everyone else...which is still pretty ridiculous.
Most news coverage in America is a bread and circuses wasteland.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I alluded to it in the other post, but only Samp bit. In 2011 Fox News execs approached General Petraeus with an offer for Murdoch to bankroll his presidential campaign. Now, I don't know anything about what journalism ethics look like, but people who report the news aren't supposed to buy politicians before they start, right?
To be fair, I will admit I have no idea who owns MSNBC, so who know whether they go out and do that, but it crosses the line, just a little. Back in grad school (in Massachusetts), where the dorms had cable, we didn't even get MSNBC.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote:Most news coverage in America is a bread and circuses wasteland.
Word. I don't understand why Mr. Card thinks there is anything of value in Fox News. It's clear they report news their viewers wish to hear. That that news includes critical commentary of Obama (and other news networks are terrible at actually criticizing his policies) doesn't mean they are worth watching.
It's like having four people who are all liars with an agenda, but one of them along with all the lies will say the truth.
You can find those truths uttered elsewhere, you don't have to stick around and listen to the liar named Fox while ignoring CNBC or ABC or CBS.
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When I want the tabloidy gossip, I grab CNN. When I want to actually know what's happening, I go to AJA.
This frustrates me to no end. CNN has another channel for Tabloidly Gossip. It's called HLN, and yet somehow, I still roll my eyes at half of CNN's headlines for being non-news items.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
CNN is the hapless crap-pile left behind in the implosion of network news.
Fox went for the baldly ideological route of feeding conservatives propaganda that they want to hear. MSNBC eventually went the same ideological route for liberals. CNN flopped around somewhere in a descent to vapidity and an attempt to ingratiate themselves to the hip #hashtag using crowd or something.
Fox's strategy won for ratings because the country's full of old conservative coots who watch network news. MSNBC's strategy flailed and sucked for a long time because progressives aren't really a network news watching set and are really fickle customers as far as things like cable are concerned, because they moved to getting all their news and commentary from the internet. It's the same reason liberal talk radio would never work, it's a media set for old people.
CNN's strategy was herpa whood fleeb plunka doop wee doodly doo murfa durf durf hurf, which eventually catalyzed a gleeble frorp slood brak boobly dooby doo in demographic smooop freed florka dood a whood blreerg.
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posted
Liberal talk radio would never work? I thought the Fox News crowd says that NPR is liberal talk radio?
Posts: 1204 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Liberal talk radio would never work? I thought the Fox News crowd says that NPR is liberal talk radio?
By Fox standards it is.
By my standards it maybe leans slightly liberal but not in MSNBC territory.
As for it working, what are the ratings? I doubt it comes anywhere near even the low level conservative talk shows. I'm the only person I know that ever listens to NPR anymore.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Liberal talk radio would never work? I thought the Fox News crowd says that NPR is liberal talk radio?
the 'fox news crowd' — as it were — has to sell or encourage the idea that it is not politically informed and motivated, and that NPR is, or that it is at least only as partisan as NPR is, because rabble rabble liberal media. see: the article this thread is about.
meanwhile, said fox news crowd has been found (in about several independent methodological polls by now) to be the worst informed. NPR listeners, objectively the best informed. I say objectively because it is determined in part by polling their understanding of nonambiguous, non-opinion-based conditions and events in national and international news, to which fox news viewers are always the most consistently and largely unambiguously uninformed and incorrect.
or in short yeah of course they would believe that because they're fed stupid, eat stupid, and are stupid
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Liberal talk radio would never work? I thought the Fox News crowd says that NPR is liberal talk radio?
By Fox standards it is.
By my standards it maybe leans slightly liberal but not in MSNBC territory.
As for it working, what are the ratings? I doubt it comes anywhere near even the low level conservative talk shows. I'm the only person I know that ever listens to NPR anymore.
I knew a handful of young people in grad school that do-- I never really got into it, my dad and uncle have a show on commercial radio, ironically, my uncle worked at the local PBS station for many years.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
NPR is third behind rush limbaugh and sean hannity and if you take NPR viewership as a sum it's got the largest population of radio listening, but no individual program gets higher volume than those two conservative hosts.
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posted
They retired, but it was within the last few years after a very long run. My understanding is that there is enough material to re-run episodes. It's not like Car Talk was live anyway-- the callers were recorded earlier in the week.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
OK, I don't mean this in any sort of sarcastic way, I genuinely want to understand how this concept works.
How is Pres. Obama a weak president while simultaneously being the worst dictator to ever serve in the office?
I mean when I thought about Rumsfeld's "Unknown unknowns" it made sense, it was a cogent idea. I can't find any way to make this weak dictator concept make sense. Has anybody been able to?
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: Aren't most of the NPR people listening for CarTalk though?
the most listened to programs on npr are things like Morning Edition and All Things Considered
Though my personal favorites are This American Life, Fresh Air, and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
I don't listen to NPR as much as I once did, but I catch a fair bit of it. If I have a radio on it's generally tuned to my local public radio station.
Posts: 1087 | Registered: Jul 1999
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I mean when I thought about Rumsfeld's "Unknown unknowns" it made sense, it was a cogent idea.
Yeah. It always surprised me when people tried to make a big deal out of that statement, or call it stupid/a gaffe/etc.
Along with "what you know," and "what you know you don't know," "What you don't know you don't know" is a legitimate risk factor. It makes perfect sense.
(Though we also shouldn't neglect "what you know that isn't so.")
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I mean when I thought about Rumsfeld's "Unknown unknowns" it made sense, it was a cogent idea.
Yeah. It always surprised me when people tried to make a big deal out of that statement, or call it stupid/a gaffe.
This has also always baffled me. Anyone with a background in military intelligence (or with a basic understanding of Epistemology for that matter) knows this is the foundation upon which any sort of analysis is built: what you know you know, what you know you don't know, what you don't don't know you know, and what you don't know you don't know.
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posted
Oh, yeah, Radiolab is great. I don't know why I forgot to mention it. I've actually donated directly to WNYC because of my appreciation for that show.
Posts: 1087 | Registered: Jul 1999
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posted
When CNN was first on the air it actually reported the news. Sure, it would air the same two hours of news over and over again throughout the day, but at least it was actual news.
Then Fox News appeared and went with a model that focused more on commentary, and it started winning ratings. Take the news, mix in a little Oprah style talk show, and you have ratings. CNN and MSNBC started doing the same, and now here we are.
Granted, the internet had something to do with it as well.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
i'm just mystified that the archaic radio format managed to persevere in an odd way that made it the home for what is actually some of the best journalistic or exploratory programming in the world. the radio gets radiolab and TAL, while educational, science, and news channels on television grind down into junk that's going to forwardly advance the collapse of cable
what's the difference? is there an issue with overhead? do we just need to go the full BBC route if we want that sort of quality programming?
of course at the same time, npr is kind of an anomaly, and most of the rest of radio is just psychotic garbage, paranormal conspiracy, right wing gutterage, endless preaching.
well, actually, regional informative stuff like county-to-county agricultural radio is a good thing
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I mean when I thought about Rumsfeld's "Unknown unknowns" it made sense, it was a cogent idea.
Yeah. It always surprised me when people tried to make a big deal out of that statement, or call it stupid/a gaffe.
This has also always baffled me. Anyone with a background in military intelligence (or with a basic understanding of Epistemology for that matter) knows this is the foundation upon which any sort of analysis is built: what you know you know, what you know you don't know, what you don't don't know you know, and what you don't know you don't know.
What' bugs me about the hate for this statement is how stupid and smug it is.
It seems to boil down to "if you don't think about what he's actually saying, it sounds so silly!"
But if you think about it even a little bit it not only makes sense, it's both fundamental and essential.
Rumsfeld say so much stuff that actually is wrong and dumb, let's focus on those things.
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posted
I don't think that it was the statement by itself that merited derision. It was the statement made in the context of an argument for invading Iraq.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I remember seeing that article in my news feed a couple of days ago. Didn't click or comment, probably because I was too despondent about HIMYM. Wish I clicked, it would have been a fun prank to pull.
So I dug through my facebook feed to find the original post. Three likes. No comments.
I'm friends with *actual* smart people apparently. Or rather, my Harvard astrophysicist friend who posted it does not friend the peanut gallery.
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