Matt, do you also find outrage for this, or is your outrage at commentators selective? http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/canon_fodder/0889_what_behind_london_attacks.html
I'd be more outraged if Matt Hutaff (the author of the linked story) claimed to be "Fair and Balanced".
I do, yes. Because I find the self-destructive, intellectually constipated idiocy of the extreme left every bit as vexing as the globally destructive, morally bankrupt iidiocy of the extreme right. Can I go now?
OMG... do we really all need to come on here and say the terrorists are pieces of crap? isn't that pretty well understood? this thread is about hideously offensive pseudo-journalism, not whether bombthrowers are good or bad
Instead of throwing labels around, why don't you explain to us why saying nobody would care if terrorists bombed Paris is meaningless?
Wrong. Read the title. The original intention of this thread was to take the opinion of some little known commentator who works for a particular news organization and to try to attribute his comments (or rather a single sentence from his comments which was taken out of context) to that whole news organization. (Fox News: We're glad it happened...) I realize some people enjoy trying to put down, fairly or otherwise, those they dissagree with. And there is good reason to dissagree with this particular comment, even when it is put in context. I myself gave my reasons why I dissagree with that particular journalist. But regardless of what we may think of any news group, it is still unfair to attribute to them the opinion of any one given journalist who works for them. And even more so to create a sensacionalist title to a thread by taking a comment out of context.
you are correct about the thread title, i'll give you that - the rest of your points would be just as salient if not for the fact that three more FNC personalities have had their shoe chewing mentioned in this thread this is a systematic problem at that network, and frankly, not even the worst symptom of their sickness
Right, the headline is hyperbole, but the problem with Fox News is both pervasive and real. This isn't a one-off incident.
My god that is so damn disrespectful and horrible, Fox news does have some real real real **************s presenting them lol, you'd never get that sorta statement on any other channel.
Agree with you there, Ian is just a guy full of hate towards liberals, he hasn't even condemned the guys comments on about "blowing paris up and no one would care" so that shows what a sick arsehole he really is. a clueless and utter dipsh!t so go on Ian, tell us why Bombing Paris would be meaningless? or condemn the comments he made.
The same sort of minds who bring us comments like "They'd blow up Paris, and who cares?" are the same type of people who brought us... It's all about good PR. It's about embedding that smart one-liner or patriotic image into peoples' minds. That sort of thing plays well to the tired old anti-French crap we still hear.
Uhh, dude, it was a joke. Lighten up, Francis. If I felt Gibson really wanted to bomb Paris I would be concerned. See, the difference here is that I don't get worked up about stupid things that are meaningless and that I'm able to differentiate between terrorists and talk show hosts.
Quote: Originally Posted by M Media Matters now has a far worse audio clip from the day before the bombings from another Fox cretin, John Gibson: By the way, just wanted to tell you people, we missed -- the International Olympic Committee missed a golden opportunity today. If they had picked France, if they had picked France instead of London to hold the Olympics, it would have been the one time we could look forward to where we didn't worry about terrorism. They'd blow up Paris, and who cares? End quote: Ian, the guy said this on TV. No outrage from Bushies? Sane and rational people are outraged. We have to hear this crap from the right-wing hate media everyday. It is disgusting. Gibson still has a job, because right wingers aren't asking for his head.
Was it a stupid joke? Yes. Am I outraged over it? No, not even close. A ton of worse comments are heard on Air America every day.
Apparently you know a lot more than I do about Fox news, so please enlighten me. How exactly do they distribute their daily talking points? And once we establish that, please tell me what you know about this particular case. Did Fox news distribute a talking point which said that they were glad that the bombings in London happened? If you have inside inormation proving this, I'd be very interesting to know about it, because it would certainly change the parameters of our discussion. By the way, here is the website of Fox News. I haven't follow all the links, but it does seem rather straightforward in the reporting of the news. ;I still prefer the BBC though, http://www.foxnews.com/ Perhaps ifpeople go on a witchhunt they might find some outrageous opinions, but that is what they are. Opinions. My guess is that it is likely to be true of any news organization. We will find opinions that we dissagree with. Those of us who are confident in our views do not fear being challenged by differeent opinions, however outrageous they might seem to us.
Difference being, of course, that for Fox News (and other outlets like it, operating in the market as they do) that "opinion" is a core part of the package. Making offensive comments like this is all part of the MO for appealing to and retaining the viewer base - where gormless rah-rah of that kind plays really well ("Dude, it was a joke!") because that viewer base doesn't have the intellectual commitment to deal with real current affairs journalism and prefers halfwit guff of this nature - indeed, prefers it particularly when it manages to say something snarky and provocative about the French. Fox News, it's corporate newscasting's equivalent of your 14-year old brother!! Further, this means those opinions are institutionally promoted, which in turn means that Fox News makes money out of being witless and offensive not only to people who have suffered terrible personal tragedy in a bomb attack but also to people who happen to be French or who conform to the official Fox News hitlist of acceptable "opinion" targets in similar ways as the French do (it could just as easily be "liberals" or illegal immigrants or Muslims or whatever). Now I believe you when you say you don't really watch the Fox News Channel.
Why should I watch those mostly harmless pittiful would be evildoers, when I have Fox sports, and I can watch real evil personified, like the EPL? Serioiusly, perhaps I am wrong, and Fox is evil personified, but I think that based on my discussions with people here, that they overreact. People don't like FOX because it doesn't conform to their own ideology, not because somebody who works for them made a tasteless joke about France. I know at one time I was very upset with the LA times because I thought they were consciously trying to affect a political campaign. (Specifically, the recall election for governor involving Arnold). And it got to the point where I actually got angry at a newspaper, as though it was an individual, rather than an organization which basically exists to make a profit and provide jobs. Then I took a step back and put it in context. The LA times, (and Fox), will give their audience what they want to hear, just as in ny business I give my own customers what I think they want. In today's world, we have greater choice of news outlet than ever. If we want to hear that the US is responsible for the London bombings, or that the jews are responsible for all evil, we can find it. If we want to hear tasteless jokes about the french, we can find them too. But we havae to realize that this diversity of opinion is a strength, not a weakness. I'd much rather have kooks be allowed their views than have an official media which doesn't allow discent at all. And I lived with both.