No one has yet explained exactly how Fox is going to influence a debate to make the democrats look bad. Debates are about the candidates talking about issues and answering questions from a chosen (by both sides) moderator. I don’t agree with kucinich on much, but he’s on the ball here:

http://kucinich.us/node/3532

Over at MSNBC- there are liberal news shows—like Olbermann’s, and conservative ones-like Scarborough Country and Tucker. The Conservatives are not shills for the administration, but actually disagree with them on substantive issues. This diversity makes their shows much
more interesting than watching a network whose primary purpose seems to be to defend the Bush agenda.

Maybe Fox’s offer to host the debates felt like an ambush in waiting for the Democrats. That’s different in my book than only appearing on friendly networks. Maybe it will send a signal to Fox that they need to live up to their “Fair and Balanced” motto.

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I’m off to my refresher course now.

Who were the giants of news once upon a time? Huntley, Brinkly, Cronkite, Severaid, to name a few. Can you picture any of them making fun of a candidate’s name? Or cutting away from a debate or a speech before it’s done, in order to let an opponent comment on it?

That’s what TV news in general, and FOX news in particular, has come to: predigested junk for the ignorant and indoctrinated. It’s bad enough they treat us like we’re idiots; we don’t need to oblige them by actually being idiots.

You might also note that all of Ailes jokes would be suitable for the CPAC conference. There are no jokes about Bush, McCain, or Giuliani. Just Hillary, Obama and France, particularly reinforcing the recent FOX news controversy that (madrassa educated, closet Muslim) Barack Hussein Obama is a terrorist.

I think that just underlined the obvious for the Democrats organizing the debate.

I have yet to see a debate where a one of the debater’s answers was interrupted by a commentator. Are you seriously suggesting that Fox would cut into the responses of democrats but not republicans? That’s a serious accusation, so I hope you have some evidence to back it up.

But Marlowe, in using the Rathergate story to compare CBS’s bias with Fox News bias, you conveniently neglect to mention an important point. Dan Rather was fired for his fraudulent Rathergate story. When has anyone at Fox News been fired for similar controversies?

All of the major news networks are biased. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC . . . all of them.

But only one of them was founded with the deliberate intention of delivering a right-of-center point of view. Roger Ailes isn’t just some Republican who just happens to be CEO of Fox News. He was a political consultant who was involved in three former Republican administrations (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush). He was also the executive producer of Rush Limbaugh’s short-lived television show.

All of the major news networks are guilty of occasionally blurring news with commentary. But Fox News doesn’t just “blur” the two–it is constantly mixing the two together. Case in point–Your World with Neil Cavuto and The Cost of Freedom are billed as a being “business shows”, and yet these shows are constantly promoting a pro-Republican tilt on issues that HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH BUSINESS. I watched episodes in which the hosts spent as much time lauding Bush and the Iraq War than actually covering business issues.

Then there’s “the Cavuto”–the tendency of Fox News to frame anti-Democrat or pro-Republican talking point in the form of a question:

“”Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?”

“Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?”

“Bush–The Best President?”

Then there’s Bill O’Reilly lashing out against “secular-progressives”.

And John Gibson’s never-ending “War on Christmas.”

And Sean Hannity’s “Enemy of the State.”

And isn’t it odd how the foreign policy panels are ALWAYS stacked heavily in favor of pundits who support the Iraq War? Brit Hume serves as “moderator” of the panel while two of the three panelist spots are typically given to neoconservative hawks such as Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer. Typically it falls to either Mara Liasson or Juan Williams to fill out the final panelist spot as the token “liberal.”

Prehaps calling Fox News a “Republican mouthpiece” is engaging in a bit of hyperbole.

Then again, it doesn’t help your argument when one of Fox New’s former hosts is the White House’s mouthpiece–literally.

Yes, I agree. I recall reading, I think in a bio of the Clinton’s press secretary Mike McCurry, that this was a mistake of the Clinton’s as well — the assumption that their liberal friends in the media would give them an easy ride.

Dowd in the NYT was in ecstasy in writing about the Clinton’s inaugural in 1993…a few years later she was ripping off Bill Clinton’s flesh with her bare fingernails.

CBS News is the most liberal of the main networks — as I said, the woman who greenlighted the Rathergate expose was not just a Democrat, but a senior advisor to five Democratic Presidential campaigns.

The GOP know this very well, but don’t decide never to give interviews to CBS. I think this is probably a mistake, though. The Democrats, after all, want to expand their base. Traditional Fox viewers would be a good way to do this. I tend to see FOX News as opportunistic rather than ideological, catering(pandering) to its conservative base; as Murdoch observed in explaining its creation: “I saw a niche market of 125 million that was not being served.”

I can’t judge the speech, then, but FOX has said Osama instead of Obama before. It could be seen as just fun more easily if we weren’t talking about a black guy with a Muslim father, or if Osama weren’t such a powder keg of a name. Methinks this is in very poor taste.

It’s a real eye opener to hear comments about the liberal bias on other networks. I guess people really do see a different world when they look at it from different angles. Aside from Oberman, who is too outrageous to be a serious commentator, I honestly don’t see it. MSNBC and CNN reflect
a corporate view, and that sure isn’t being pro Democratic. People like Chris Mathews were fawning Bush fans until the war started going sour. Do you really think Disney’s ABC has a liberal bias?

On the whole, the media tend to report bad news, because that’s what attracts attention. So, whichever party is in power is going to get bad press. Reporting bad news while hinting at scandal is not the same as being biased, no matter what Rumsfeld and Bush say.

Rather got caught by an over eager dash to get the scoop. I’m sure he would have made a similar mistake if a Democrat was the subject. He paid for his mistake, while dozens of other mistakes on the various networks go unremarked.

On all the networks, there is a steady drumbeat of comments about the newly elected Democratic Congress in dubious terms as to their abilities, leadership, party divides and so on. I see that as reporting on what they think they see. But when they report on missteps by the administration, I have the same reaction. I don’t see either as political bias, it’s a bias to grab attention.

Bias is often in the eye of the beholder.
Except for FOX – I am getting my voodoo dolls out for them!

Murdoch, the guy who owns Fox News, admit it was biased and were actively trying to affect change.

Asked if News Corp. had managed to shape the agenda on the war in Iraq. Murdoch answered: “No, I don’t think so. We tried. We basically supported the Bush policy in the Middle East…but we have been very critical of his execution.�

This is not what a news organization should do.

I’d also like to point out that CBS had more evidence than the forged documents. People tend to forget that.

I just want to say that I am extremely relieved to see that Holly is no longer a contributor here anymore.

She was irrational, stubborn and a bigot as well. I don’t use that term lightly either–Holly definitely had a hatred for all Palestinians.

Truly is pathetic that the Democrats don’t have the guts to just come out and say that Fox News (the 24/7 cable one) is more of an editorial network for Republicans.

I would go as far as to say that Fox isn’t even conservative; they are more of a mouth piece for the current “flavor of the month” Republican party.

The problem with Fox news, particularly for the Democratic debate, is that they tend to cut away from the debate and let their pundits discuss the candidates and their views. When they do this, they criticize the Democratic candidate and discuss their opinion of the candidate rather than letting the candidate express themselves through an uninterrupted broadcast. So technically the Democratic candidates will not be getting their views across and discussing the strength of their ideas because they will be undermined by the Fox cut-in punditry.

The fact that CBS and Rather got nailed in ways that Fox News hasn’t, I think, is indicative of a Republican machine that exists to attack opposition. Democrats do it, but not in the barbaric and orgiastic sense that the right wing does. What happened with CBS happened, not because this machine is good at singling out falsehoods, but that for that one time, just by happenstance, those documents were forged. My other point about Fox is that it already has no integrity, which most people seem to understand, which is why it can get away with what it has.

BTW, Olbermann is the only true liberal anchor that is really taking on the issues. Everyone else tends to echo the Republican talking points. And the fact that he seems to lack more conservative guests, (though they do come on from time to time) I think, is also an indicator that they are unwilling to have their weak positions challenged by someone who is going to ask questions of actual substance. Olbermann also tends to let his guests speak their bit, rather than talking over them like most other anchors currently in cable news.

MSNBC is also only as liberal as its corporate owners. Olbermann is the only liberal, while you have Scarborough and Tucker on the right, and Matthews, who tends to be center-right in my view. Conservatives definitely outnumber liberals in the news business at this point.

But Marlowe, in using the Rathergate story to compare CBS’s bias with Fox News bias, you conveniently neglect to mention an important point. Dan Rather was fired for his fraudulent Rathergate story. When has anyone at Fox News been fired for similar controversies?

All of the major news networks are biased. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC . . . all of them.

But only one of them was founded with the deliberate intention of delivering a right-of-center point of view. Roger Ailes isn’t just some Republican who just happens to be CEO of Fox News. He was a political consultant who was involved in three former Republican administrations (Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush). He was also the executive producer of Rush Limbaugh’s short-lived television show.

All of the major news networks are guilty of occasionally blurring news with commentary. But Fox News doesn’t just “blur” the two–it is constantly mixing the two together. Case in point–Your World with Neil Cavuto and The Cost of Freedom are billed as a being “business shows”, and yet these shows are constantly promoting a pro-Republican tilt on issues that HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH BUSINESS. I watched episodes in which the hosts spent as much time lauding Bush and the Iraq War than actually covering business issues.

Then there’s “the Cavuto”–the tendency of Fox News to frame anti-Democrat or pro-Republican talking point in the form of a question:

“”Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?”

“Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?”

“Bush–The Best President?”

Then there’s Bill O’Reilly lashing out against “secular-progressives”.

And John Gibson’s never-ending “War on Christmas.”

And Sean Hannity’s “Enemy of the State.”

And isn’t it odd how the foreign policy panels are ALWAYS stacked heavily in favor of pundits who support the Iraq War? Brit Hume serves as “moderator” of the panel while two of the three panelist spots are typically given to neoconservative hawks such as Fred Barnes, Mort Kondracke, Bill Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer. Typically it falls to either Mara Liasson or Juan Williams to fill out the final panelist spot as the token “liberal.”

Prehaps calling Fox News a “Republican mouthpiece” is engaging in a bit of hyperbole.

Then again, it doesn’t help your argument when one of Fox New’s former hosts is a the White House’s mouthpiece–literally.

Personally, I like Brit Hume’s show in the evenings and Fox News Sunday. The talking heads include arch conservatives like Kristol but also libs like Juan Williams. I don’t see similar diversity in any of the network shows – in fact, I haven’t since Bill Buckley’s show, also conservative, was on years ago on PBS.

To suggest that network news somehow has more “journalistic integrity” than Fox is specious. Ashen laments that Fox “gets away” with all this stuff, but if Fox was compromising it’s integrity on the level of what Rather did, you’d bet the liberal wolves (including the other networks) would be all over that fresh meat.

Back to the real issue though – apparently the Democrats don’t have enough faith in the strength of their ideas to weather whatever criticisms they might have to answer from Fox moderators – that says a lot. They should have done the debate no matter what the radical nutroots demanded. How much can a network really skew a debate anyway? Both candidates must agree on the moderator(s), so what is the real complaint? The camera angles, reaction cuts, or post-debate analysis? Stupid decision imo.

All journalists have their bias, whether liberal or conservative. Even networks have bias, it is just to what extent. Dan Rather and CBS were wrong for what they did, and they were rightly punished for claiming false documents to actually be genuine. Whether or not they knew the true nature of the documents, I’m not sure.

Fox news, unlike the other news networks, pushes a total conservative agenda that is thoroughly hostile to Democrats and liberals. Yet there has been no public outcry over poor journalism over at Fox (linking Obama to a Madrassa for example) that has led to the resignation or the firing of any of its employees. Again and again fox does stuff like this, and yet they get away with it, which is likely, I think, more because people have come to expect this from Fox rather than other news organizations that still have their journalistic integrity intact.

But by the same rule, the GOP could rightly object to any debate being conducted by, say . . . CBS (the network responsible for the Rathergate fiasco – which attempted to take down the GOP candidate for president on the basis of documents that everyone…with the exception of hard-core leftists…now concedes were faked).

I would point out that the woman who was Executive Producer of “60 Minutes 2″ was a senior adviser to 5 (!) Democratic Presidential campaigns – from McGovern to Mondale – before joining CBS. She ultimately Green Lighted the Rathergate “expose”.

Do liberals believe that liberals in media are all unbiased, and only conservatives media figures cannot control their biases?

The Las Vegas Review-Journal points out the aburdity in this position: “Imagine if every political organization created litmus tests for news organizations before agreeing to appear on their programming. Republicans would have boycotted PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, National Public Radio and The Associated Press decades ago.”

But I think the Nevada Democratic party was just looking for a reason to get out of the debate on Fox. They should never have agreed to it in the first place since Fox is the undeniable mouthpiece for the Republican Party and demonizes Democratic candidates each chance they get.

I think the Democratic Party should have been a bit more honest, rather than using this as an excuse and just say 1) They were pressured by their party constituents 2) They decided Fox news was not the best network to host a debate that would portray its candidates fairly.