Canadians want Fox News Now!

Wheeeeheee!!!

Returning from my usual sojourn on the couch I find six pages to contend with.As a dutiful threader I have read through the lot at varying speeds.It looks like you have all found a mission which will last you the rest of your lives.Once you get married to fixed opinions your destinies are as fixed as the course of the stars or the reproduction cycles of herrings.The gently sloping route of decline is clearly visible when you dispense with proof and desire only to believe and not to dissect.
We have an axe-grinding festival.Books have been laid aside due to the effort per buzz ratio being unsuitable for instant ego gratifications which are so easily catered for by media.Three centuries of scientific thought has produced exhaustion and this is manifested by smaller,narrower and increasingly unfruitful investigations.What we are experiencing
is a diminuendo of brilliant gleaners fastidiously missing the essential as if their very life depended upon it.Modern painting,modern music,modern drama,modern sculpture, clinging pointlessly on to the vestiges of "art",reflect the same exhaustian.No consistent hanging together of forms is remotely visible.Only disguise obtrudes.There is no-one left to connect it all together.There are just millions of seperate cultures all banging their heads against each other as is the way of cultures.All scientific "disciplines" are merged into a mathematical dynamic of matter seen statistically.
Epistemology in mathematical terms proving inacessible to all but adepts and completely desensualised.Is Fox News symbolically radioactive and what is it's half -life?To what extent are the logical and numerical results of science identical with the reason itself and are merely the symbolic expression of our way of life.The less anthropomoric science believes itself to be the more anthropomorphic it becomes. Is it possible to avoid subjectivity at all and,if not,why not accept it?As I said-an axe-grinding festival.The conquest of the visibly apparent is as far away as ever.All progress leads to increased confusion.

What is there to say both for or against these News broadcasts and media manipulation.They play according to the rules one presumes.And they are your rules.They have led you to where you are.There are a very large number of rules and some of them are not written down.Anyone who can run a media conglomerate whilst staying on the right side of those rules when everybody is watching for the smallest error,(the gleaners),is no mug and that's for sure.All comment,for or against,is comment on the constitution and customs and those are the last rule leaving aside violence which has it's own rules.The constitution is the arbiter of News media and to influence that you need to be elected.Critics of News media would all do the same if they had ,say,Murdoch's chance and his talent which is in that realm discussed above.The thread seems to me,as an outsider, configured around either envy or flunkeydom both using subjective principles (poetic licence claimed)as an excuse and there are already quite enough of those in the rules without a tranche of amateurs adding in some more which,they conveniently forget,will have to apply to everybody else.
What it all seems to express is a lack of confidence in the constitution and as I don't subscribe to that I might well be more American than a lot of Americans.

spentius (I don't think I've ever had more fun with a name than this one)

Look, bub, I want to see an accurate and objectively verified map showing precisely where your eyebrows are located. Enough vacillation and ambiguity! You may be an ambassador to england or france, you might like to gamble, you might like to dance, you might be the heavyweight champeen of the world, you might be a socialite with a longgggggg string of pearls, but you gonna have to serve somebody.

MG;-

I do.The Goddess of Complete Being.In all Her ragin' glory.Hence my eyebrow line.

Lowest eyebrow line permitted on a family-friendly site. Your answer is acceptable. Congratulations.

Here's a lovely little quote from Matt Labash, conservative writer at Murdoch's Weekly Standard. The source is an interview at JournalismJobs.com (partner site to the Columbia Journalism Review) and in response to the following question...

MG:-

That's all very well but meantime life goes on all around them.

jesus...now you are quoting george harrison writing while stoned on curry

MG:-

It was given out here last night on Murdoch's news channel that the elected assembly in Iraq has to have a 2/3 majority to get anything done.

There was also an ad on an associated program for a vibrating mobile phone."Very gently" it said.The visual showed a lady receiving a call and I must say it looked rather good but one never knows about that without objective evidence does one?

MG;-

Is it not It's Alright Ma,I'm Only Bleeding?

Well, that tells us why the not 2/3 (and just a wee bit below 50%) was the result.

As to the phone, just go ahead and order it. You'll feel up until you realize no one is calling, likely a day or two. Not bad.

Did zimmy predict the Maharishi? You know, if you listen to Blonde on Blonde backwards, you'll not mistake the injunctions to "respect your parents" and "keep your hands off of bosoms".

Joe writes


You'll get no quarrel from me that 'persuasion is not reporting the news' as I have repeatedly said in numerous threads in this forum. When the journlistic code of ethics was actually followed, any of us reporting the news who included any personal opinion or any obvious slant toward a particular interpretation would receive at the very least a rap on the knuckles from your editor. Those who couldn't learn the difference between news and opinion didn't last long in the newsroom. We were expected to report who, what, when, where, why, and how, all checked, double checked, and verified, and nothing else. There was always the code of ethics that what we wrote was to inform with absence of malice. "Gotcha journalism" was very much against the code.

I disagree that those writing to persuade; those writing analysis, commentary, interpretation, are shills. Okay some are--Roger Moore comes to mind--but those of integrity--Milton Friedman, Andrew Sullivan, George Will, William Raspberry et al--who do their homework and tell the truth as they know it and draw personal conclusions from it--are every bit as much journalists as the straight news reporters. But such writing was once clearly identified as opinion and was relegated to the clearly labeled opinion pages of the newspaper. But as Joe pointed out, the reporter's opinion is now allowed in the straight news story on the front page as well. Because this is not labeled 'opinion' and the average reader does not usually have time or resources to verify the information or separate facts from opinion, the industry has lost much/most of its reputation as a result.

O'Reilly runs a talk show as does Larry King on CNN. These are different kinds of animals than news reporting as it is obvious to anybody but the totally uninformed that these are opinion shows. One can learn from them, but nobody but the utterly uninformed would not understand that we are dealing with opinion and would know that such opinion must be backed up by other sources in order to be credible. I've never really analyzed it but I would guess I disagree with O'Reilly just under half the time. O'Reilly does not need my approval, however, to achieve the rather impressive success he has achieved because he deals with interesting topics and, whether or not you agree with the interpretation/opinion expressed, there is real information presented and he does it in an entertaining way.

News magazines like 60 Minutes are on a different level. They are not straight news stories as they are too easily manipulated to evoke a particular conclusion and are allow some leeway there, but because they have capacity to put out false information or irreparably damage reputations, they should be held to a much higher standard than the talk show. Dan Rather, presenting information as the 'gospel truth' (when it wasn't even close) can be held to a much higher standard than the talk show host running a show intended to be entertainment.

As far as straight news reporting, I am a news junkie and sometime during the day check in via radio or television most of the news networks. In my opinion in straight news reporting Fox does as good a job as any, and a better job than most in keeping slant and/or personal opinion out of the story. So far as editorial slant goes--not to be confused with straight news reporting--the alphabet channels are largely hostile to the current administration and/or many conservative values and find more favor with liberals. As far as editorial slant goes, Fox news and most talk radio is largely supportive of the current administration and/or many conservative values and thus it is the bane of liberals and finds more favor with conservatives.

The well informed avail themselves of both.

MG;-

Gee!I knew I'd been doing something wrong.
Now I know why.

I'm out for the day...gotta tell ya, fellow, you've been a breath of fresh air about this place.

MG:-

Did you see that?

"A rap on the knuckles"."At the very least."I wonder what the very most was.

I can imagine Foxy getting the "who" right most of the time and even the "when" and the "where" but the "what" and the "how" not so often and the "why" almost never.You wouldn't think the first three would need much double checking.But it is a good code I must admit for when a dog gets run over but how about for when one gets cloned.
Still-you have to write something to go on the backside of the adverts.
Then the rule breaking begins.
I'm glad I don't buy any newspapers.

And I can imagine Spendius having never been inside a news room, never having the responsibility of news gathering, and not having a clue about how it all actually is done. But then if one does not buy newspapers, it is unlikely one reads them much either. So sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Foxy:-

I've seen the Billy Wilder remake of The Front Page so I do know a bit about these matters.

I've never been in the changing rooms at Raymond's Revue Bar but I know what goes on in there.Roughly I mean.

Oh then I guess that explains what you know about what I know too then Spendius.

Foxy:-

Who was Noah?

When was this ark thing built?And where?

What was it?

How was it built assuming it was built?

Why was it built?

How do you know it wasn't raining when it was built?It took years to build I heard and the only species taken on board were those you see in children's picture books.I can't remember anything about ardvarks or duck-billed platypussies or polar bears.

Ahhhh. The article I read said the paid interview was televised on Australia's Nine Network television station. Did Murdoch recently buy it? Wilkipedia says it's owned by Kerry Packer.

What and ruin all the fun? No Way! What else is there to do around here? Read and be edified? Not likely lately. Let's just continue on with our Pisin party.