[lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 13:34:18 -0800

Simon:

 

Just to correct something you said awhile back, I don't watch Fox News.  In
fact I don't watch any of the news programs.  I watch C-Span interviews on a
regular basis, but that's it.  If there is some sort of breaking news I am
interested in, I will look up news reports with Google.  But my wife, Susan,
watches Fox News.  She and I have gotten into several arguments about things
she has heard on Fox News that I disagree with.  She is quite sure that some
expert she has heard knows much more about the subject matter than I do.
See, I don't need to go onto Lit-Ideas to hear that sort of thing.  I can
hear it at home.  But way back at 9/11 I came to the conclusion that
virtually no one reporting the news knew any more about it than I did; so I
launched off on a program of self-education.  Now after several years I
suspect none of the newscasters have spent as much time studying these
matters as I have.  I don't know this for a fact, but if any of them do have
that level of knowledge, I have seen no evidence of it.  Susan claims that
some of the experts that appear as guests on Fox News programs know more
than I do about some of these things.  Maybe so, I concede, but they only
get to talk for a few seconds; so listening to these interviews is a waste
of time - at least for me.  

 

But if some of these same experts appear on CSpan I will listen to them
there, because they get to speak for 45 minutes or so on anything they like.
Then they are questioned by people in the audience.  As to what I receive
daily, there is only our local Paper and a few posts that I signed up for in
the past, but I read none of these things - some of them are hard to
unsubscribe from.  Once in awhile a headline will jump out at me and I'll
read something, especially if it happens to be on a subject I am interested
in.  

 

I know it is a favorite theory of my detractors (except for my wife who
probably thinks I'm a closet Liberal) that I hunker down to a narrow
right-wing agenda provided me by some news agency like Fox News and perhaps
some talk show host, but I continue to strive to read the best experts on
the subjects I'm interested in.   When I've challenged those who have
denigrated my narrow uninformed reading program, I've typically challenged
them to produce some alternatives.  Here is whom I've read on Iraq or Iran.
Tell me whom I have missed and whom I ought to read.  I rarely get
responses.  A couple of times though I have and received some suggestions.
The suggestions didn't include scholars but instead Left-Wing propagandists.
Well I admit that I won't read those but I don't think my neglect of such
writers is indicative of a narrow reading regime.  I like to read the most
expert in any field and I don't check their political background before
doing so.  I often learn about them from book reviews from a publication
like Foreign Affairs or watching them on CSpan.  

 

After one such accusation of reading only Right Wing propagandists, I listed
all the books I had read in the preceding year and did my best find out the
political persuasion each writer.  It turned out that two out of about 20
were Right Wing.  Most were Democrats; some were outside that arena because
they came from the some country in the Middle East and didn't embrace one of
our political positions.  Despite that, some people will still occasionally
express conviction that I only read authors who are politically on the Right
Wing.  If I was only interested in learning the Right Wing political
position, then back after 9/11 I could have joined my wife on the couch and
watched whatever she did and kept her from getting on my case for reading so
many Leftist and pro-Islamist writers.  

 

Lawrence

 

  _____  

From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Simon Ward
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 11:37 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure

 

As it happens, I make a point of watching Fox News, so I'm not talking
blindly (is that a bad phrase?). However much I get annoyed by the channel,
I think it's important to understand the agenda - though it's noticeable
that the agenda as expoused by Fox is increasingly being set by the left.

 

What annoys me about Fox is not so much the bias but the deliberate dumbing
down of issues to a level that the channel feels will appeal to the majority
of its viewers. 

 

A few years ago in the UK, following a high profile paedofile murder, a
daily tabloid stirred up its readers by publishing the names and adresses of
known child molesters in a name and shame campaign. Working class people
took to the streets to protest and one such protest ended with insulting
remarks daubed on the door of a local doctor. On the door was a sign that
described the doctors speciality, he was a Paediatrician. 

 

This is the kind of thing that happens when the media follow an agenda using
the kind of dumbing down methodology employed by Fox News; those on the left
who are critical of those on the right find themselves suddenly treasonous,
a country becomes overcome by a fear of attack (today's gas smell in New
York was a perfect example of Fox News tactics), and, to feed into another
thread, a huge market is developed for right wing psuedo-intellectual
analysis.

 

Simon

 

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Brian <mailto:cabrian@xxxxxxxxx>  

To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 7:00 PM

Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure

 

This backhand at Fox News reminds me to bring up something that I think
further distinguishes Left and Right: Leftists don't listen to or read as
much opposing opinion as their counterparts do.  For the most part the
newspapers and news magazines are liberally biased and the Leftist has to go
out of their way to read conservative views.  While the conservative often
reads those same liberal outlets as well as points of view that they agree
with.

 

For instance, I have The Nation, Mother Jones, CounterPunch, and DailyKos on
my blog list that I read regularly.  Does anyone here watch Fox News?  Read
conservative or libertarian pundits and authors?  Listen to any talk radio?
How fair and balanced are you?

 

Brian

 

On Jan 7, 2007, at 4:01 AM, Simon Ward wrote:





we have all become 'the enemy' through a literary manouvre that is no doubt
taught in the 'Schools of the Right' (disguised as regular viewing on FOX
News)

 

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