- George Will

Some sources:
http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2009/10/it-is-official-fox-fabricated-denied.html

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/wh-were-happy-to-exclude-fox-but-didnt-yesterday-with-feinberg-interview.php

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/10/fox-war-on-wh-update-now-the-white-house-lost-me.html

It is the most fascinating PSYCHOSIS I’ve ever seen.

Then I remember Fox Fanatics also believe Terri Schiavo was a chained ballerina and Nuclear Bombs aren’t used enough.

So all you FF’ers here, which world wide conspiracy of Nations do you believe hid Saddam’s Nukes?

If you say so.

“I’m sick and tired of Libertarians inserting themselves into every thread and comments section as soon as they can finagle a segue into Their Favorite Subject (TM). I don’t care if you’re a Libertarian and you just state it as a point of fact, but the details of your philosophy is not relevant in 99.9% of the threads I see it come up in.”

1) I believe this is the second time in four years on this blog that I’ve mentioned my political affiliation.

2) I hope you are as vocal and insistent about relavance when the “big L” is “Liberal.”

- Jack

http://preview.tinyurl.com/ylg738x

Clearly. The ‘Onion’ is quite reliable by comparison!

So… yes?

Far be it from me to police Phil’s blog for him, and he generally lets comments run off topic a little anyway, but I’m sick and tired of Libertarians inserting themselves into every thread and comments section as soon as they can finagle a segue into Their Favorite Subject (TM). I don’t care if you’re a Libertarian and you just state it as a point of fact, but the details of your philosophy is not relevant in 99.9% of the threads I see it come up in. You want to bring it up anyway? Fine, but don’t get hot and bothered when people start telling you you’re an annoying git, or are peeved that you forced a discussion to take a wild irrelevant turn to be all about your pet issue because nobody cares about it otherwise. It’s pathetic and insecure.

In the current environment, I’m afraid I must agree with you. People have forgotten how to be responsible for their own actions and altruistic towards society. There is great comfort in a nanny government where you don’t have to worry about consequences since there is always someone else to blame and some agency to protect you.

> For all their flaws (and there are many) government entities like the FDA and EPA
> are the only checks against private corporations that have enough power to see that
> they behave themselves.

As always, the argument reduces to where to draw the line. Obviously you have never worked for a company that has to perform under the auspices of the FDA. I have. The FDA has the power to show up, unannounced, and demand you turn over all your operating documents. If you hesitate or show any hint of non-cooperation, they can shut you down on the spot without due process. Or have you ever met a landowner whose property rights have been stripped because their back 40 is a potential habitat for some endangered species. Not that they’ve found the critter or plant there, but they want to keep it untouched, at your loss and without compensation, just in case they find some somewhere and need a place to transplant it.

And do I even need to use the example of the IRS where, if they accuse you of wrongdoing, you’re guilty until you can prove yourself innocent? And even if you decide to fight them and you manage to win, there is no recoupment of your expenses.

> Dismantle the oversight and you immediately give companies the license to do just
> about anything they like in order to turn a bigger profit.

Apparently you subscribe to the mindset that the goal of business is to maim and kill its customers and destroy the environment in the pursuit of making money. Are all businesses ethical? Of course not, but just ask yourself what you are giving up for all this “protection” from the government.

> In an ideal world, I can see how libertarianism could work, but in a corporate
> world driven by selfishness and greed, it is a recipe for disaster on a scale we
> haven’t experienced.

So in exchange you put your well being in the hands of people whose lust for power is at least as great as any businessman’s greed, and whose behind-the-scenes machinations to maintain that power is the very definition of “selfishness.”

- Jack

Actually, I was trying to deflect one since the very mention of the big L usually starts the reflexive response of “libertarians want to abolish all government.”

- Jack

We reserve the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves.

Biased against Faux, damn straight they are not interested in the truth, just pandering to one particular partisan group and they won’t let a little thing like the truth get in the way.

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

Back in December of 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by FOX as a part of the Fox “Investigators” team at WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. In 1997 the team began work on a story about bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance manufactured by Monsanto Corporation. The couple produced a four-part series revealing that there were many health risks related to BGH and that Florida supermarket chains did little to avoid selling milk from cows treated with the hormone, despite assuring customers otherwise.

According to Akre and Wilson, the station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox’s actions to the FCC, they were both fired.(Project Censored #12 1997)

Akre and Wilson sued the Fox station and on August 18, 2000, a Florida jury unanimously decided that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury’s words) “a false, distorted or slanted story” about the widespread use of BGH in dairy cows. They further maintained that she deserved protection under Florida’s whistle blower law. Akre was awarded a $425,000 settlement. Inexplicably, however, the court decided that Steve Wilson, her partner in the case, was ruled not wronged by the same actions taken by FOX.

FOX appealed the case, and on February 14, 2003 the Florida Second District Court of Appeals unanimously overturned the settlement awarded to Akre. The Court held that Akre’s threat to report the station’s actions to the FCC did not deserve protection under Florida’s whistle blower statute, because Florida’s whistle blower law states that an employer must violate an adopted “law, rule, or regulation.” In a stunningly narrow interpretation of FCC rules, the Florida Appeals court claimed that the FCC policy against falsification of the news does not rise to the level of a “law, rule, or regulation,” it was simply a “policy.” Therefore, it is up to the station whether or not it wants to report honestly.

During their appeal, FOX asserted that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. They argued that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute Akre’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story, they simply maintained that it was their right to do so. After the appeal verdict WTVT general manager Bob Linger commented, “It’s vindication for WTVT, and we’re very pleased… It’s the case we’ve been making for two years. She never had a legal claim.”

No one asked. Or are you trying to start a flame war?

Balanced reporting only applies where *opinion* is being reported upon. This means things like political stories. “Fair and Balanced” makes perfect sense when reporting on politics.

However, when you’re reporting on a car accident, where is the “fair and balanced” approach suppose to fit in? Clue: it doesn’t, because you aren’t reporting on opinions. When you’re reporting facts, that is *all* should should be doing. You shouldn’t be attempting to twist the facts in any fashion. You deliver the facts, and that’s it.

This is suppose to apply to most science journalism too. When consensus has been reached among the scientific community, for the purposes of news distribution that counts as “fact”, with fact meaning “this is the best knowledge we have at the current time”. Before you go off about what “fact” really means, think about how a news agency would report on a car accident: “At least 4 people killed. More as it comes in”. That is facts-based reporting. Just because you don’t know everything doesn’t mean that you don’t report on the available evidence as it arrives.

Unfortunately facts-based reporting rarely happens. Consensus has been reached that Luna is not made of green cheese, that Earth is not flat, that Sol is not the centre of the universe, and that continents do in fact drift. Yet (often mentally unstable) nutjobs are brought in and used to try and artificially insert balance into a story where no balance exists.

(Note that it doesn’t apply to things like “string model vs quantum loop gravity”, because that’s not based on available evidence, but is rather a strictly opinion based situation, so fair&balanced would apply there instead.)

Unfortunately every major news organization has canned their entire science journalism department and replaced it with political journalists. Because all they’ve ever reported on in the past is politics, they apply the fair&balanced mantra to stories where it isn’t applicable. IE, reporting heavily on what is basically a SINGLE nutcase’s fear that the LHC will destroy the world (cause it’s a 50-50 chance, of course! Either the world will be destroyed… or it won’t. See? 50-50), or reporting some people’s idiotic belief that the moon would be destroyed by LCROSS as if it were a real possibility.

That’s “fair and balanced”, but it’s not proper reporting because it’s an inappropriate application of fair and balanced. I don’t understand why the MSM can’t understand this simply simple concept.

@38:Jack: We believe in minimal government, not no government. Some sort of authority is necessary to regulate your civilization, especially one that has as many disparate elements as ours.

At the risk of starting another flame war about libertarianism (and I am conveniently going out for the next 8 hours!), even minimal government would be license for disaster. For all their flaws (and there are many) government entities like the FDA and EPA are the only checks against private corporations that have enough power to see that they behave themselves. Dismantle the oversight and you immediately give companies the license to do just about anything they like in order to turn a bigger profit. Using the courts to fight them is a non-starter since you’re pitting people with pennies against companies with billions of dollars, and the damage has already been done.

In an ideal world, I can see how libertarianism could work, but in a corporate world driven by selfishness and greed, it is a recipe for disaster on a scale we haven’t experienced.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/01/27/2012.maya.calendar.theories/index.html

Just a bit of history:
Until the Networks changed the News Division to be part of their Entertainment Division, it was expected that News would be a money loser. The income from Entertainment would cover the losses, allowing News to be separate from the rest of the Network, meaning that advertisers could not influence reportage.
Then, as the ‘bean counters’ came into control, all News was subsumed into Entertainment.[quote: Edison Carter - since when has news been Entertainment? Murray, his 'editor' - since it was created? from Max Headroom]
That means that the Advertisers gained (some) control over the content and presentation of News – look at local stations who do ‘reports’ on businesses who advertise on the station – which has handicapped reporters and journalists. [BTW, the control of content and presentation by editors is one of the important items left out of the 'the Media is Liberal' reports, if a reporter is a Democrat but his editor is a Republican, the report will most likely show more of the editor's view than the reporter, as a general rule]
Oh, and I did reporting from 1977 until last year, so I have seen this exact situation.

batted around the idea of reviving the “Fairness Doctrine” and regulating political conversation on private news stations.

Except they aren’t ‘private’, they (broadcast stations, which are the only ones affected by the old FD), they are using the public airwaves and are required to meet certain criteria, including a Public File of comments mailed/called in to the station. Cable stations (e.g. Fox, MSNBC, CNN) are not subject to any regulation (unless a new version of the FD were to include them) by the FCC. *
Also, the ‘equal time’ provision is usually misunderstood.. no one has the right to take 3 hours and rebut everything Rush Limbaugh (e.g.) says during his show. A specific claim or comment made by the broadcasted commenter can be rebutted, with sufficient time to make the case against the specific “misinformation”. That could be half the time or twice the time, though most cases will be limited to an equivalent (say, five minutes) length of time.
Learned this in Broadcast Law.. when the FD was still in effect.
J/P=?

As for this 2012 Business, I find it irritating but no more so than Y2K was a decade or so ago. All the news channels are jumping on the band wagon. I especially like the ones where Nostradamus is linked to 2012. The one observation I have though is that New Agers, who tend to be on the left politically, are more apt to believe the 2012 end time garbage than devote Christians. Something about having a pagan religion predict the Second Coming of your lord and savior that just doesn’t sit well with them I guess. That means FOX’s target audience is probably less appreciative of the 2012 coverage than your average TV viewer. Of course I could be wrong. And if it bugs you a lot you could just change the Channel.

Benjamin

Finally, confirmation that I am not alone on this blog.

And for the rest of you, “Libertarian” is not a synonym for “anarchist.” We believe in minimal government, not no government. Some sort of authority is necessary to regulate your civilization, especially one that has as many disparate elements as ours. However, the complete intrusion into all facets of daily life that the current system has is quite onerous and should be reversed wherever possible.

- Jack

Or are you more the “give them enough rope…” type? Because that’s cool, too.