How conservative is Fox News?

When I watch Fox, sometimes I feel like I am watching the equivalent of a Russian state run station.

Is Fox secretly ran by the Bush Administration?

What the devil does "well to the center" mean?

Incidentally, the binary interviews do not make for objectivity, but that's a scorge of modern journalism, not just Fox.

Except for a couple of hours, I can't see much difference between Fox and CNN.

I like some of the programming on both, each have certain hours that lean way to one side or the other.

We dont get Fox here. Only things I can personally check out about Fox are

- Fox News website. Whenever something "big" happens, I check and compare how the different main American news sites present it on their homepage. Just placement and headline and all, no time to read it all. Stuff like Abu G. tended to be presented much less prominently on Fox.

- Fox opinion polls. Some of the results are pretty on-average, but the Fox poll always has the Bush disapproval rating a couple of percentage points lower than all the other polls. The AP polls always have it a couple points higher.

Meanwhile, we DO get CNN here ... exasperating. I used to watch it (when I had TV) whenever acute developments were afoot - they are usually the quickest, after all. But their war reporting ... Gulf War 1 looked like a videogame in their version, full of "precision bombs" (how many time did we get that repeated?), strategy-explaining graphs and comments by retired military. Thousands of Iraqis killed by "bulldozer tanks", fitted out with huge shovels, that just literally buried them in the sand? Not on CNN, and definitely not repeated ad nauseam like the Pentagon-provided precision bomb footage. A "clean war" is what you see on CNN, just like on Al-Jazeera you apparently see the opposite: an obsessive focus and repetition of the killing, maiming and bloody violence involved.

Thats where I'd put CNN - on the "right", with Al-Jazeera on the opposite side, and BBC roughly neutrally in the middle. (Dutch TV news tends to be a little "left" of the BBC).

One more thing is that CNN should stop with the "International" charade. Its all Americans all the time - how often do you get a 'foreign' commentator on there? A foreign view? And thus its all the American perspective, too. There's an awful lot of patriotic rah-rah-rah ..

I remember Crossfire when it had Pat Buchanan versus some bland MOR liberal ... that, to my standards, is like putting a rabid rightwinger against a centrist and claiming to be "neutral". Dunno who's on there now.

I'm with nimh on most of his post, though I'd never considered Al-Jazeera left. Or does opposite of CNN/right mean something else?

Al-Jazeera always reads like a different type of right-wing to me.

CNN is probably central or left to those who are on the far-right - because it is to the left of them. It's on the right for most of the rest of the world.

I havent heard of the "New Right", but the "New Left" is/was a specific (though amorphous) political movement. Much like the definition above has it. The "New Left" almost took over the Labour Party here in the seventies, but has since dissipated.

So the New Left /=/ "the Left" - just a specific subset. Like the neocons or the Christian Coalition have been specific subsets of American conservatism. "The Left", as a whole, would be the whole range of political thought from social-democrat and left-liberal to green, communist and anarchist.

As for "the contemporary popular definition" versus "the classical definition of liberal", I guess most of us out here away from the US must still be stuck in the classical definition, then. In most West-European countries, liberal = right-wing.

Thats perhaps because the economic axis has always determined political polarisation here more than the social axis. Liberals, who are strongly secular, but also strongly pro-market - then end up considered right-wing.

Its different in the UK, where the Libdems are centre-left, and in Eastern Europe, where the social axis predominates and the pro-market, but also secular and free-thinking liberals therefore often end up considered left-wing.

In Australia and Canada liberal also means right-wing I believe.

There is an addition to the right/left leanings in ideology.

Most news orgs pander to the Democrat party here--portraying Dem officials in a much more positive light, whether they are in power, or opposition.

They regularly assail Republicans, and frame even positive stories about them in a negative light.

So, whether they are considered right or left internationally--they have a dog in the big fight.

We're in the middle of a federal election campaign in Canada right now. I'm listening to the second leaders debate on the radio right now.

The Liberal party, as represented by Paul Martin tonight, is to the right of centre. It would probably be considered central, if not slightly left of centre, to most Americans.

Yeah, thats why I carefully did not use the word "left" for Al-Jazeera - just "the opposite side". :wink:

Al-Jazeera leans left when it comes to opposing an (American) hegemony in international politics, but also when it comes to breaking taboos in the Arab world - e.g. its open criticism of the Middle East's authoritarian leaders.

But when it comes to its underlying (Islamic, Arab nationalist) "norms and values", its a different story, you're right.

Interesting question: how's Al-Jazeera functioned re: the appearance of women? I know the station's deemed quite "western" to Arab standards, is that also the case re: women?

I read a fascinating story about the Arab version of "The Weakest Link", which was presented (in appropriately abrasive manner) by a woman - who quickly became a controversial symbol of taboo-breaking female assertiveness. But I forgot what station that was on.

Not quite on topic, but check this book out, nimh. Just out in the Netherlands. An interesting perspective on Islam, women, the world ...

Now, off to consider the Al-Jazeera question some more.

Fox; fair and balanced is a joke.

It's like calling a huge guy tiny.