MSNBC's top programs provide more than 18 times as much coverage of Haiti earthquake as Fox News' to

@JTT,

Speaking of tangents & digressions ....

I think this last digression might now be over. (Though one can never really be 100% certain about such things!)

Please feel free to continue the discussion now.

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To the extent there is any right wing resistance to aid to Haiti, it is in keeping with conservative thought, not meanness.

Dumping a ton of money on Haiti will help address the immediate needs of the Hatian people and that is a good thing, but it will not address the long term needs of the nation unless it is directed to specific areas and with iron clad mechanisms to assure it will be spent on those needs and not line corrupt politicians' pockets.

Just as Keith Olberman's absurd and inflammatory tirade against Scott Brown does not even suggest that all liberals believe the man to be a racist who supports violence against women (etc etc etc), an example of a right wing pundit's arguing against sending any aid to Haiti doesn't reflect general conservative opinion.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

To the extent there is any right wing resistance to aid to Haiti, it is in keeping with conservative thought, not meanness.

Would appreciate a definition of the conservative thought which would drive such resistance. Please include how such resistance relates both to Family Values and Christian Charity.

Joe(that sound you hear is W. Buckley,Jr. rolling in his grave.)Nation

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

throwing money at problems does not always solve them, likewise throwing compassion and money at people with problems does not always help them. sometimes all it does is make the problems worse.

I don't think that those who oppose blindly tossing aid to Haiti do so out of a desire to stay pure of ideology Finn, I think that they do it because they think that they have a better way to solve the problem, or a different idea of how many resources should be put into this one problem that effects only 9 million people. We should be able to talk about the menu of possible solutions without personal insults.

With global warming we are increasingly going to have vast groups of people in dire need, this wave of compassion and spending on Haiti is not sustainable, fatigue will set it. It is not fair that Haiti should get so much just because they come early in the cycle. We need to be much smarter about deciding who to help, how much, and how.

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@Joe Nation,

Well, that a pretty easy one to answer Joe (Are You Ever Going To Give Up This Affectation?) Nation.

The resistance is not to giving any aid to Haiti (which you well know), it is to allow an understandable emotional response to a human tragedy to govern a response that needs to be practical, measured, efficient, and designed to be effective over the long term.

Americans like myself, and possibly you, see the catastrophe in Haiti and wish to help. For the overwhelming majority of us, that help comes in the form of a financial donation. For many of us there is a, frankly, ignorant belief that our donation will go to directly respond to Haitian suffering. Some of us realize that even the most dedicated of charitable organizations have administrative costs and so it's a good deal when 80 cents of the dollar we donate goes to the Haitian victims. Even fewer of us know that in places like Haiti where human suffering is disproportionately concentrated, the reason for that dubious exceptionalism: a corrupt and utterly incompetent government will always get their cut of any and all relief.

The individual donor can research the efficiency of the organization to which he send money, but he can do nothing about the rapacity of tinpot despots and their legions of thugs. To a large extent, neither can the charitable organizations to which they donate. However, even if they knew that it is likely that less than 50 cents of the dollar they donate will actually help the people who they care about; they would still make the donation, because 45 cents is better than nothing.

The US government, on the other hand, is well aware of how the world actually works and is quite capable of insisting on conditions to its donation of our tax dollars; our money. Neither Obama nor any other DC politician is demonstrating personal charity or morality by sending American tax dollars to Haiti. We can all be generous with someone else's money.

Yes, immediate relief is necessary and that should be the immediate goal of federal aid --- keeping in mind that vast sums of individual donations are pouring into Haiti as well --- but the hundreds of millions of dollars that we are hearing need to be provided to Haiti are not required tomorrow, and if we cannot assure ourselves that such vast amounts of aid will not be appropriately spent, we should not provide it.

You don't know much about William Buckley if you think he would have been in favor of unconditional donations of hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

not sure if this has been linked before

Quote:

By AFP - Thu Jan 21, 4:10 PM PSTPARIS (AFP) - The leading medical journal The Lancet on Friday accused major aid organisations of corporate preening and self-interest that had contributed to bedlam in the effort to help Haiti.

"International organisations, national governments and non-governmental organisations are rightly mobilising, but also jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the best for earthquake survivors," it said in an editorial.

"Some agencies even claim that they are 'spearheading' the relief effort. In fact, as we only too clearly see, the situation in Haiti is chaotic, devastating, and anything but coordinated."

The Lancet did not name names and gave credit to "exceptional work in difficult circumstances" by aid workers.

But, the British journal said, "the aid sector (is) undoubtedly an industry in its own right" and, unpalatable as it might seem, scrutiny of motives and performance was justified.

"Large aid agencies and humanitarian organisations are often highly competitive with each other," The Lancet said.

"Polluted by the internal power politics and unsavoury characteristics seen in many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their own appeal efforts.

"Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their activities. Marketing and branding have too high a profile.

"Perhaps worse of all, relief efforts in the field are sometimes competitive with little collaboration between agencies, including smaller, grass-roots charities that may have better networks in affected countries and so are well placed to immediately implement disaster relief."

http://health.yahoo.com/news/afp/haitiquakeaidhealthmedialancet_20100122001039.html

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Quote:

I Don't Even Want To Be Alive Anymore

BY RUSH LIMBAUGH

I know there are a lot of people out there who are upset about some of the things I've been saying on my radio program lately. My comments about the situation in Haiti have hurt and angered many Americans who genuinely care about the plight of the Haitian people, and that hurt and anger will likely never go away. Many of you are probably wondering, "What would compel a human being to say things like that?" Well, here's your answer: I am a very bad person. And, to tell you the truth, I don't really want to be alive anymore.

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@Robert Gentel,

Oh my goodness. For a minute there I honestly believed it.
I thought he was sharing his Big Moment of Truth, coming clean at last ....
Sucked in! Laughing

1 Reply

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

Oh my goodness. For a minute there I honestly believed it.
I thought he was sharing his Big Moment of Truth, coming clean at last ....
Sucked in!

Fantasy Land...the happiest kingdom of them all....

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I would just point out that the so-called Fox "News" is an entertainment venture, so i don't understand why anyone would expect relevance from them.

Setanta wrote:

My gut feeling [..] is that they simply script the outrage of the extreme right wing, and that the propaganda they peddle is simply a case of preaching to the choir. [..] Fox is the most watched "news" organization in the United States, in terms of regular viewers (i.e., those who tune in every day). But they're like the "ditto-heads" of Lush Lamebrain (a.k.a. Rush Limbaugh) [..]. Fox has captured a market for which they tailor their message. I don't know that i'd consider them influential, because they are just feeding pap to an audience which tunes in to have their prejudices confirmed.

Setanta wrote:

Miss Olga seems fixated on Fox, but i would say that many Americans, perhaps most, had the same reaction when they heard about this as i did, which was to turn on CNN to get reliable news of the details of the story. CNN is the granddaddy of them all.

Setanta wrote:

Well, i've already pointed out that Fox has the highest ratings of any single news service--and that this is because of a loyal following. I still suspect that when a big story breaks, many and perhaps most Americans go to CNN to get the "breaking" coverage. There can be no doubt that among repeat viewers, Fox takes the palm, but then, that's only a percentage of the viewers of all news programs available, and a small percentage at that.

Setanta wrote:

They are sensationalist, with all that implies, and their sensationalism is attractive to a great many Americans, but by no means the majority, and not even a significant fraction.

Setanta wrote:

from among more than three hundred million people, they don't represent a significant fraction of the population. [..] Millions of Americans eat up this drivel. Hundreds of millions of Americans don't.

Setanta wrote:

Miss Olga continues to speak as though she believes Fox has undue influence in the US

I think Setanta has been underplaying the influence of Fox News in America.

His argument has basically been that it may be true that Fox has the highest ratings - but that's because they cater to a relatively small minority of loyal "dittohead" repeat viewers and viewers who come for the sensationalism. Most Americans, when it comes down to it and they need reliable news, would rather go to a station like CNN.

Maybe the wish here was the father of the thought, as we say in Dutch, or there was a little too much extrapolation from oneself and one's surroundings onto the whole country. Because it doesn't appear to be true:

--------------------------------------------------------

Poll: Fox most trusted name in news

Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

A Public Policy Polling nationwide survey of 1,151 registered voters Jan. 18-19 found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News, 10 percentage points more than any other network.

Thirty-seven percent said they didn’t trust Fox, also the lowest level of distrust that any of the networks recorded.

There was a strong partisan split among those who said they trusted Fox " with 74 percent of Republicans saying they trusted the network, while only 30 percent of Democrats said they did.

CNN was the second-most-trusted network, getting the trust of 39 percent of those polled. Forty-one percent said they didn’t trust CNN.

Each of the three major networks was trusted by less than 40 percent of those surveyed, with NBC ranking highest at 35 percent. Forty-four percent said they did not trust NBC, which was combined with its sister cable station MSNBC.

Thirty-two percent of respondents said they trusted CBS, while 31 percent trusted ABC. Both CBS and ABC were not trusted by 46 percent of those polled.

“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said PPP President Dean Debnam in his analysis of the poll. “But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”

The telephone poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

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@nimh,

Quote:

... found that 49 percent of Americans trusted Fox News,

...

“But the media landscape has really changed, and now they’re turning more toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”

These folks, I guess.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushdumbpeople.htm

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@nimh,

Quote:

Fox is the most trusted television news network in the country,

That is really concerning.

How bad are they in their non crazy shows?

Like...do they de actual news in their news bulletins, without too much censoring/shilling?

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@nimh,

Thanks, nimh.

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@nimh,

Maybe someone is simply disgruntled because someone's thesis was given scant credibility.

The information you are posting about Fox being the most trusted news source was posted in another thread here, and when i tracked down the source, it was an unapologetic, partisan web site filled with sensationalist stories about the horrors of the socialism which is now taking over the country under Mr. Obama. I have been unable to find any information on Public Policy Polling, which doesn't meant there is anything wrong with their polling methods or data, but it is unusual among polling organizations, for which it is typically easy to obtain background information. In that thread, i found the claims suspect for that reason, and i find them suspect here in Habibi's post, as well.

I did not say that Fox caters to a "relatively small minority," that's a straw man argument, but unfortunately, i don't think we can expect better from Habibi. I was, in fact, the first one in this thread to point out that Fox has the highest ratings of any of the "big" news broadcasters. But i have also pointed out that in a field with so many entrants, it is possible to have the biggest audience share, without that being evidence of widespread influence.

I also did not say that people would rather go to CNN for their news, because, once again, Fox has the highest rating. What i did post (and the source for it was an article linked originally by Miss Olga) was that it appears that when people go looking for news, i.e. looking online, they go to CNN, by a factor of more than three to one. Yet another straw man from Habibi. You're batting a thousand, Bubba.

With this current snit of Habibi's i see no reason to come to any other conclusions than the one's i have so far articulated. Perhaps with Habibi's obsession with finding information online, he can tell us all about Public Policy Polling so that one can form a reasonable opinion of their reliability. It seems incredible to me that Fox would be trusted by such a huge majority, and yet does not have anything like that market share of news broadcasts. Perhaps Habibi can explain that one, too.

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@Setanta,

I make a motion that we vote on it.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

I suggest we debate all the issues again!
To make sure we haven't missed any of the finer points.

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Sure, FM, we can do that if you like.

I just find it a little incredible to think that 49% of the population trust Faux News over any other source, and yet Fox does not have a 49% share of the news broadcast ratings. That doesn't seem to add up. Help me out with the math here, Boss.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

How bad are they in their non crazy shows?

I was unaware they have non-crazy shows.

1 Reply

@DrewDad,

I thought they had news readings like other stations?

1 Reply

@dlowan,

Even the ones that are ostensibly news get bogged down in craziness.

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MSNBC's top programs provide more than 18 times as much coverage of Haiti earthquake as Fox News' to

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