News should be REASSURING, shouldn't it? SHOULDN'T IT?

Thanks for clearing that up, and I agree that news should be as unbiased as possible, or at least be up front about the bias it holds. In the old days most major metropolitan areas had a Republican paper and a Democrat paper. People read the paper they wanted, and knew that each had a bias. It wasn't a perfect system, but I think it was better than today's "what bias, where?" nonsense.

Democratic (not "Democrat," it's not an adjective, Scrat) paper.

Tartarin
The fox "News Channel" and that is a misnomer, does not present the news just the perverted views of the republican administration. As for O'Brien he deserves a good kick in the ass for passing himself off as a newscaster.

When I was working out at the Health Club and would see (be forced to watch!) Fox (and equally fascinating, Au, others' reactions to Fox in this Republican community) I usually saw the afternoon guy who was horrifying. As part of the "news" he would have interviews with "newsmakers" and, depending on their political stripe, either give them full, unquestioned talk time or interrupt, badger, talk over the top of and, when they were in the middle of saying something challenging, "go to commercials." The only person I ever saw win in this situation (and he won big) was Scott Ritter who quietly, persistently got his point across, proving the host wrong, decimating the host. Even the soccer moms on the Precors were applauding!!

The newspaper was not "Democratic" it was run by Democrats. Get it?

First off, you mean O'Reilly. Second off, Fox News is more conservative than the competition, in the same way that dawn is brighter than midnight. It's amazing how much you notice the inclusion of the conservative side of news when you've been in the dark of its absence for so long. There's a lot of room between leaning left and leaning right, and Fox News can't help appearing pro-conservative when compared with other outlets that are anti-conservative. Of course, the difference often amounts to Fox News reporting that coalition forces are making slow progress in post-war Iraq while CNN reports that the US is getting bogged down there. Both statements mean basically the same thing, but the latter has a negative connotation and the former a more positive one. Depending on your point of view, you might consider either, neither, or both to be biased statements.

Most people who whine about Fox News don't watch it, so they don't know that you see regular contributors like Mara Liason from NPR. One of the things I like about FNC is how often they have a panel of analysts--with the liberal and conservative points of view equally represented--that discuss the news of the day. I don't get one side, I get both sides presented by smart people--some who see things my way, and some who have a different point of view. Perhaps the reason that so many liberals don't like this format is that liberal ideas so seldom hold up well in these settings. (Just a thought.)

The really amazing thing is that I am beginning to see more of this type of analysis on CNN and other places. FNC's success has finally forced other media outlets to take a look at their way of covering the news and evolve or become extinct.

Scrat
Yes I meant O'Reilly.

actually i find that when FNC does straight news, it does a good as job as any other, the problem that i see is that it often presents editorial opinion as actual news.

Scrat: "Democratic" (capital D) is the adjective used to describe (or name) the political party. And "democratic" (small d) is the word used to describe the sociopolitical system. Therefore, in the unlikely case of Democrats running a fascist newspaper, you could say of that newspaper that it was Democratic but not democratic.

The same small r, capital R, system hold for Republicans and republicans. There are committed republicans here in the midwest who will have nothing to do with the Republican Party because they believe it betrays republican principles. They'd run you out of town if you insisted they were Republicans (capital D). But that's another story!

Re "Democrat" vs "Democratic": I've noticed for years that GOP leaders love to say "Democrat" as in "The Democrat congress is wasting taxpayers' money."

As though the word is some sort of expletive. I've always been amused by that...

I think that's a valid complaint, but one that can be leveled at their competition as often as at FNC.

Tartarin - You say "potatO", I say "Democrat Party".

And that, Tart, is the difference.

One of the difficulties with Fox as a news source is the policy of the media group that owns it. The Murdoch reputation was built on tabloid style, and that is what made him make money, so that is pretty much what he keeps. He made the London Times into something it wasn't, which is one reason the London Times is no longer as quoted or cited, or as respected.

Murdoch also believes in keeping his family involved - presumably so that everyone toes the party line. When he put his 20 something son in charge of the the New York Post, that paper went very quickly from being an alternative to the Daily News to being another tabloid. (And they're still running behind in circulation and in advertising revenues.) I don't even know if editorializing can be applied - so many times they seem to headline and write stuff just so they can appear bold. Fox News on the air is the same but different. It's like talk radio tamed down. Very few of its interviewers actually report anything. They are trained to jump in quickly and often. Dean is another who turned what seemed to be a negative into a postive. When interviewed by Tim Russert, and giving his "I don't know" responses, he evoked a response that was almost a sigh of relief from many watchers. A refreshing chnage from the "I'll look it up" approach, and it also denied Russert the oppotunity to take it further with a scathing report.

Many, many interesting reports now on the emerging power of the internet, who watches, who contributes, how it's different As of now, that appears to be a growing Democratic field.

Mamaj -- Since I'm not in the mainstream here (!), I'd much appreciate occasional updates on how Kucinich's campaign is being managed. I've been supporting him too, though to a lesser extent than Dean, and that puts me on his email list. And if the emails are anything to go by, he's not taking advantage of a lot of opportunities to pick up support. Trying to get inside his head, so to speak!

During the build-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the NY Post ran a photo on the front page in which the heads of the French and German ambassadors to the UN were replaced by weasils.

I realize that this must have been a laugh-riot for many Post readers, but it goes beyond the kind of slant newspapers usually give to their reporting. If this is any example of what the Murdoch Empire is doing, then it's ludicrous to call it simply an alternative to, say, the NY Times.

Ah, but you can no more argue that the Post is representative of all of Murdock's holdings than I could argue that the NYTimes is a podunk rag just because one or more of NYTCO's other holdings might be. Each is what it is in its own right.

I noticed that Scrat's response to the Democrat vs Democratic mistake was that, The hell with that, I'll do it wrong if I want to! That's Murdoch's attitude. That's the attitude of the (current) establishment. The rest of us are obliged to put up with a weird world in which people look offended if, having told a big one, they're accused of lying! Hey, as long as it gets them what THEY want, it must be okay. Is this an echo of the Sixties, or what?

Have you ever heard the fun Bush, Rumsfeld et al have with the pronunciation of the country we just defeated? Eye-rack. As if it doesn't matter what the natives say, we just won a war.

Now, of course, it could be argued that if we want them to see us as peace-loving liberators, it might be a good idea to say the name of their country correctly. Apparently not...

Tart - That echo you hear is in your head. :wink:

Aw, D'art, yer been orful mean to our faux Texan. He just wants to be one of the bubbas.

There's a town not far from me in oil country named Iraan (not a typo). They call it Eye-ran, I called it i-rahn, which I thought was proper. Turns out the town is named for its first settlers, whose names were Ira and Anne.