[lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 12:55:47 EST
My husband listens once or twice a week to right-wing talk radio. I can't
stand it, but he tells me he listens to it to see what the right-wingers are
saying, and that it amuses him, and that they are nearly apoplectic re. the
Dem. majority in Congress. It appears everyone's adrenalin rushes are being
fed by politics. I wonder how much of politics is just that -- that adrenalin
rush of power or perceived or vicarious power. I probably don't want to
know. I always did like Mr. Spock. And Data, for that matter.
Julie Krueger
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Media exposure
Date: 1/8/2007 5:40:00 P.M. Central Standard Time From: _atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on:
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_ (mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto: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_ (mailto:cabrian@xxxxxxxxx)
To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto: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)
Other related posts:
