New Fox News Controversy

I think you'll find most people in Uni are much more understanding and accepting of other peoples beliefs and lifestyles, so most people on campus will be in favour or indifferrent towards the items Curulean has mentioned. Its only the hardcore religious types or the right wingers who visibly oppose things like gay marriage and abortions.

I've always found that argument curious... ''people at university are more tolerant''.

In my experience, it's more the case that people at university are clever enough to work out the possible consequences of speaking out against something highly controversial that they dislike.

Anyway, on the subject of Fox, I'm particularly enjoying this graphic on their website:

http://www.foxnews.com/images/168999/30_27_450_london_britain.jpg

What more information do you need?

Well, with the greatest of respect, you're quite, quite wrong.

Whilst it is a ''linguistic editorial decision by the US media'', as you term it, it is one that has stemmed from the Bush administration's use of the term, and the encouragement from said government for the US media to get on board and use the phrase. It is an editorial decision that has been influenced by a political group, not one which has been independently decided upon.

A quick check on Google News shows that the term is in use by only Fox (shocker), the Jerusalem Post (shocker 2), the right-wing National Review (shocker 3), and a few ''hometown'' newspapers and TV stations across the US, with the very occasional use elsewhere, typically in quotations.

The Bush administration has actively encouraged the media to employ the word, and it is telling that Fox is the only network to adopt it. It is not the same as The Times and the BBC choosing ''Taleban'' whilst Sky and the Guardian went for ''Taliban'', not the same at all.

That completely misunderstands the nature of extremism. Evangelical Christians, Christian healers, and the like, are not nearly as far removed from Christianity as Muslim Extremists are from Islam. The closest thing Christianity has to extremism is the KKK - and last time I checked, the last thing they were spreading was ideas of religious healing.

I think I once heard a FOX presenter calling the BBC a 'recruitment channel for the Ayatollah' or something very similar....

Well O'Reilly just laid into the BBC again tonight... He interviewed a US communications professor (who teaches at O'Reilly's old college I believe) who had been "monitoring the BBC" throughout the day...

They then stated that there was "sparse coverage of the attacks" on the BBC... Odd - it seemed pretty blanket to me on BBC One and News 24 most of the day... However, unfortunately, the guy being interviewed was based in Boston and thus could only watch BBC America (BBC World is not available to the public in the US, neither is News 24 or BBC One) - but that didn't stop the sweeping assumptions and O'Reilly stated that the BBC America coverage was "the same" as the BBC in London...

They just can't resist slagging the BBC off can they?

Given that one of the bomb attacks today was only a few hundred yards away from TV Centre, and on a tube line that actually passes through the BBC TV Centre site, it angered me more than I thought it would. (Especially as the BBC has already been bombed previously by the Real IRA.)

On the other hand - the Boston professor got away with quite a decent semi-jibe towards Fox (well I detected it) - when he said that the BBC went in hard on interviews with members of all three mainstream UK political parties - and weren't biased towards any particular party when it came to interviews (and were harder than Fox)... Can't imagine what he was implying there.

There also seemed to be a tone in a previous interview that deference was the correct tone when interviewing a president or prime minister - implying that you shouldn't really ask tough or awkward questions... Glad I live in the UK and we don't have Fox News (or anything similar) as our "most watched" news channel.

It really is a joke - worrying thing is Americans watch it, trust it, believe it, and vote for their president based on what they hear on it...

One thing I noticed whilst flicking around the news channels yesterday... Fox News's London map graphic had "Shepard's Bush" instead of "Shepherd's Bush" - maybe they thought we'd named it after their presenter Shepard Smith?

I think there was also one other spelling mistake I spotted as well - you'd think that with Sky News showing similar things, and them taking Sky News coverage most of the time, they'd actually pay attention to how we spell our place names, etc?

Last Nights O'Reilly Factor really was beyond the pale.

He just doesn't seem to get the UK's style of television journalism, where fairness and balance actually exist as a concept rather than Fox's "We Deceive, You Believe" mantra.

And what other news channel sells a collar and lead for your dog
http://shop.ecompanystore.com/foxnews/FOX_productdetail.asp?TYPE=What's%20New&PRODUCT=FOX17001100
http://shop.ecompanystore.com/foxnews/FOX_products/FOX17001100.jpg

It is a pretty damning indictment of what happens when you let regulators (the FCC in this case) become political tools of an administration, so much so that they think it's more concerning that Janet Jackson's breast was glimpsed for 2 seconds than factual inaccuracies being broadcast to millions on a regular basis.

What is more worrying is that few of the other broadcasters in the US are any better. They don't have any commitment to news anymore, just chasing viewers. Just look at what CNN have been doing, or CBS considering putting John Stewart from the Daily Show to do an op-ed at the end of the Evening News. It's tragic, really.

I find it hard to watch without finding something shocking on there. At the moment, for instance, they are advertising ''On the Record'', their 'justice' show, and telling people that if they have a tip or information about an unsolved murder or mystery they should email their show... presumably the police just don't get a look in until it comes up on Fox? Amazing.

As for the dog collar, one is tempted to make a Tony Blair-poodle-George Bush-Fox News joke, but can't quite fathom a snappy enough connection between the four.

My... that conjures up all sorts of images. None of them particularly pleasant.

I notice O'Reilly is now attacking Ken Livingston, just two weeks after Fox were saying how well he had handled things.

Yep - watching all of the mainstream US news networks is disappointing. I watched ABCs Nightly News last night - and their coverage of the bombs contained massive amounts of speculation - and very poor use of pictures. The most worrying element was that one of their correspondents being interviewed live stated as fact that two of the attempted bombers were in police custody - something that certainly wasn't being stated at that point in the day by any UK broadcaster... They were mainly using BBC pictures - but consistently used them as wallpaper, so shots of Shepherds Bush when they were talking about Warren St etc.

The quality of basic journalism - fact checking, attribution of unconfirmed reports, differentiating between confirmed facts and reports and informed or uninformed speculation is appalling.

There also seems to be a basic lack of challenging questioning. Musharraf was being interviewed "exclusively" on ABC and blamed the UK for allowing terror groups to operate here - yet they didn't really counter with any form of cross-question asking why three of the UK suicide bombers appeared to have attended religious schools in Pakistan prior to their attacks in London...

On the other hand - given that there often seems to be more incisive comment on political situations on The Daily Show than there does on network news, having a Jon Stewart commentary on a network news show (clearly flagged as such) might actually be an improvement - at least he seems to ask obvious, difficult questions...