[lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 17:39:07 -0600
LH:
> I don't watch Fox News.
Oh, man I do. Well, only Fox News Sunday since I don't do cable TV. I can't
imagine life without Fox News Sunday. It gets my gander up like you wouldn't
believe. Every Sunday I fire off at least one, sometimes two or three virulent
emails. For example just last Sunday Fred Barnes called Cindy Sheehan a "crack
pot". Before he could finish his smirk, I had emailed this to Fox News Sunday:
Please tell that fascist little fuckhead Fred Barnes that if Cindy Sheehan is a
crackpot, then he's psychopath.
Thank you,
Mike Geary
Memphis
Brilliant, eh? I have such delicious hatred for those pompous asses, namely
Brit Hume and shit-eating-grin-boy Bill Kristol and that smug-smarmy Chis
Wallace -- they give me an adrenaline rush that lasts me all week. I love Fox
News Sunday.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 3:34 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure
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
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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