Has Sanity Returned?

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

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looks like even the national media is starting to see the farce. I don't expect it last for long.

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Not yet; Obama is still President,and the DemocRATS are still in control of Congress.(to the detriment of the nation.)

I'm surprised this happened so quickly... I figured it might not let up until the next Congressional election, where the Democrats are likely to lose their asses, due to their obstinacy over heath care. ...Jim Thompson

Optimist. Fox "News" has been around for years. I can't really see why an entertainment channel can claim to be protected by the freedom of the press, when they are so selective in what they report that the "news" content of their reports is merely a peg on which to hang their political message, but the US Congress is notoriously susceptible to right-wing lobbyists with deep pockets.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

s: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

Jim Yanik's idea of sanity is everybody else's idea of rabid right- wing lunacy.

He probably still believes that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

..

You are missing the point. You are defending the white house. That is your perogative.

The point is that the other news organizations are getting embarrassed by this. Perhaps they are starting to realize that if it is 25 to one on every issue that is reported, and fox news is ALWAYS the odd man out, well after a while the other 25 are the ones who start losing their credibility.

It's not getting better. It's getting worse. I don't watch Fox, but it's quite astonishing to see the President of the United States going after a news outfit. The guy who ran on embracing diverse opinions and bringing people together proves to be vicious, petty, and nasty. He's more vindictive than Nixon.

Kudos to the networks though--glad to see them support a colleague being assaulted by the President.

This is getting ugly.

-- James Arthur

Slowman, aka ignoramus extraordinaire, like most leftists, confuses the fact that there are two Fox Networks, one entertainment, one news.

How stupid can you get? Slowman stupid ;-) I'm always pleased to note that I'm the highest standard for Slowman's disdain, but please don't feed the jerk. Let him die that most unpleasant of deaths... alone ;-)

-- ...Jim Thompson

| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at

A good point, but too late.

The 25 have lost ratings to the point where they are ALREADY of little consequence.

I saw some stuff about how CNN and some other left wing media have tried to say that the thinking coming out of Fox news is like a mental disorder.

But the ratings make that a particularly stupid comment.

A huge number of mainstream Democrats and independents watch Fox News regularly.

The ratings are reaching a point where Fox News cannot be denied.

When I read the story Jim posted a link to I was half hoping that the press corps actually took a stand in favor of Fox. To be more accurate though, they had an old written policy agreement they just could NOT throw out or re-write.

I strongly suspect that if they had not had such an agreement beforehand that they would never have taken this stand.

The rivalry among them is too bitter.

Administration Loses Bid to Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interview The Obama administration on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the White House pool except Fox News. But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included.

FOXNews.com

Friday, October 23, 2009

The Obama administration on Thursday failed in its attempt to exclude Fox News from participating in an interview of an administration official, as Republicans on Capitol Hill stepped up their criticism of the hardball tactics employed by the White House.

The Treasury Department on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the network pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the presidency and other Washington institutions.

But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included. The pool informed Treasury that Fox News, as a member of the network pool, could not be excluded from such interviews under the rules of the pool.

The administration relented, making Feinberg available for all five pool members and Bloomberg TV.

The pushback came after White House senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday that Fox News is not a real news organization and other news networks "ought not to treat them that way."

Media analysts cheered the decision to boycott the Feinberg interview unless Fox News was included, saying the administration's gambit was taking its feud with Fox News too far. President Obama has already declined to go on "Fox News Sunday," even while appearing on the other Sunday shows.

"I'm really cheered by the other members saying "No, if Fox can't be part of it, we won't be part of it,'" said Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, calling the move to limit Feinberg's availability "outrageous."

"What it's really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this democracy -- we know this -- only works with a free and unfettered press to provide information," he said.

Several top White House advisers have appeared on other news channels to criticize Fox News' coverage of the administration, dismiss the network as the mouthpiece of the Republican Party and urge other news organizations not to treat Fox News as a legitimate news network.

On Wednesday, Obama, speaking publicly for the first time about his administration's portrayal of Fox News as illegitimate, said he's not "losing sleep" over the controversy.

"I think that what our advisers simply said is, is that we are going to take media as it comes," Obama said when asked about his advisers targeting the network openly. "And if media is operating, basically, as a talk radio format, then that's one thing. And if it's operating as a news outlet, then that's another. But it's not something I'm losing a lot of sleep over."

Obama's comments also came after he met Monday with political commentators Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC; Eugene Robinson and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post; Ron Brownstein of the National Journal; John Dickerson of Slate; Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and Bob Herbert of the New York Times; Jerry Seib of the Wall Street Journal, Gloria Borger of CNN and U.S. News and World Report, and Gwen Ifill of PBS.

House Republican leaders rushed to the defense of conservative commentators Thursday after the president's comments.

Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said conservative commentators speak more for Americans than the national media outlets that have targeted them for criticism.

"Goaded on by a White House increasingly intolerant of criticism, lately the national media has taken aim at conservative commentators in radio and television," the Indiana Republican said on the House floor. "Suggesting that they only speak for a small group of activists and even suggesting in one report today that Republicans in Washington are 'worried about their electoral effect.' Well, that's hogwash."

I'm not sure it could be called "sanity" but I'm guessing they (the members of the press pool) realize that any of them could be next if they publish something the White House doesn't like. If I were in the pool though, I'd consider Anita Dunn's admission of manipulating the media during Obama's election campaign:

(Not that the practice is anything new, but the admission is.)

It's bad enough that the different outlets pretty much have to accuse each other of being biased in their coverage, even if only by implication ("we're balanced"), but by definition, a free press can't be called "free" unless it engages in "fact-checking". Dan Rather is living proof that it's not just a principle but a matter of professional survival.

Point being, why bother with the phony prestige of being in the pool, much less bragging that you're in the front row, if what you report is known to be controlled? Might as well go "rogue" and dig up actual facts.

Something I've been wondering; what's really behind the Liberal hatred of Fox News? It is not, despite the foam-mouthed accusations, about any fact versus opinion-based content of their reporting; if that were the case all the media would earn the same disdain. Every talking head has biases which inform their reporting; they are, after all, human. The same goes for the off-air cadres of editors and so on, hence anything that actually makes it on-air or in print is colored by the attitudes of the organization.

Is it just a case whoever actually owns all the media besides Fox News trying to bring down Rupert Murdoch once and for all?

Mark L. Fergerson

Make that a manifesto, and then you will have a Sanity Clause (early)!

A cynical person may observe that traditional network news has been steadily shrinking, with bureaus closing and staff cuts even before the current recession. A cynic might also note that Fox / News Corp / Murdoch has some pretty deep pockets.

Nobody, however, could ever be so cynical as to suggest that staff on other news organizations would hesitate to antagonize News Corp if doing so could influence their chances of getting a spot on Fox after being handed a pink slip at their current network. Far too much integrity, there, to even suggest the possibility.

l...

And pigs might fly. Fox News is the odd creature out because it isn't a news channel but rather an entertainment channel, telling right-wing nitwits the "news" that they'd like to hear. Their "news" doesn't have much to do with the real world, but that's right wing nitwits for you.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

Jim Yanik's idea of sanity is everybody else's idea of rabid right- wing lunacy.

He probably still believes that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You do understand that Saddam Hussein wanted Iran to think he had weapons of mass destruction, and in doing that, he made most government intelligence agencies believe the same. His scheme seems to have backfired. Mike

Sno-o-o-ort ;-) ...Jim Thompson

O'Reilly's discussion panel the other night said exactly that... if they'd had an independent opportunity none of them would have hesitated to stab the others in the back. ...Jim Thompson

Rupert Murdoch has wrecked several newspapers that I used to like to read. When I was a gradaute student I read, and liked Murdoch "Australian" newspaper, which Murdoch had put together to be a quality newpaper published simultaneously in several of Australia's capital cities, using high-bandwith electronic links to distribute the the images to be printed - routine now, but a real innovation at the time.

Sadly, quality didn't sell enough newspapers to keep Murdoch happy, and he dumbed the paper down, even adding a horoscope section, to the pont that it wasn't worth reading.

When I moved to England I bought the Sunday Times every Sunday for years - they had a brilliant team of investigative reporters who exposed a lot of scandals. After I'd been there for ten years, Murdoch bought The Times newspaper, and the Sunday Times and locked out the printing unions for a year, with lots of support from Mrs. Thatcher. When the Sunday Times reappeared, it was a shadow of its former self, and the investigative reporters went away; apparently Mrs. Thatcher's Conservative government were doing things that investigative journalists found fascinating, but Murdoch didn't want to see published - too much risk of damagig his political alliance with Mrs. Thatcher.

Faux News does seem to be his kind of "news" organisation, and the world would be a better place if he wasn't running it.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

You can't a fool a me, there ain't no sanity clause.

(Chico)

I don't know whether he persuaded the Iranians. I do know that he didn't persuade the US and UK governemnt intelligence agencies.

Dubbya and Blair's "evidence" for Iraki weapons aof mass destruction were out-of-date, low-level estimates of capability. The intelligence agancies were pretty much convinced that Sadam had shut down his weapons of mass destruction programs after the first Gulf War.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen