I tuned into Fox News out of curiosity tonight and holy mole, what liars they are! They’re not even talking about the insurrection. They’re tearing down Joe Biden & his son Hunter. They’re denying the insurrection even happened! How is it possible they are allowed to run this propaganda tv station? It should be against the law!
I tuned into Fox News out of curiosity tonight and holy mole, what liars they are! They’re not even talking about the insurrection. They’re tearing down Joe Biden & his son Hunter. They’re denying the insurrection even happened! How is it possible they are allowed to run this propaganda tv station? It should be against the law!
Fox and News is an oxymoron! Tabloid journalism is more like it. I know it is the sort of thing my Scottish roommate in college liked to have along with Cadbury eggs to while away a nice summer day. There was a lot of stuff with Aliens, but I did not actually read the stuff myself. I still do not think that Rupert Murdoch should be allowed to own an American television station. He is basically a foreign agent even if he did purchase his citizenship.
Ronnie brought him in and allowed him free rein over our communications, timed almost exactly to Walter Cronkite’s retirement. Then immediately went after Dan Rather. Timing couldn’t have been better.
I often got a kick out of reading the headlines of the tabloids in the check-out lanes at the grocery store. My favorite was "FAMOUS PSYCHIC'S HEAD EXPLODES!" The current televised version is a lot less entertaining and a lot more dengerous.
It is the plan, man. Rupert edits the “news” for the ignorant, and the stupid. Aided and abetted by the evil. That this has gone on so long gives me little hope. He is our Goebbels and has been since the 80’s. Now Mr. Money himself (Musk) has joined the “rule by edict” crowd. My paltry donations are chump change.
This is so true in rural America. Growing up in small town East Texas, tv channels were limited, anything reported beyond local news was sparse and certainly not of front page importance, and useful discourse on national issues was nonexistent. References to “D.C.” were 99% negative no matter who was in the White House. Heard many times “those people in Washington are so far away, they don’t care one flip about us and our problems”. And the idea of getting involved or educated about anything other than how much zucchini is in the garden or how the “Mexicans” ( every brown skinned person is Mexican regardless of origin) are on every corner is viewed as strange and suspiciously motivated. Local newspapers may only be published once a week and headlines would never reflect a national event. These people respond to entertainment of any kind as a relief from the mundane and Trump’s delivery was that and only that. He made them laugh and said things they could understand and he was a “celebrity” who never claimed to be a politician and they loved that. The danger of voting for a candidate whose message was change and draining the swamp and nothing else was/is lost on them. It’s this kind of American who will continue to support Trump and follow him and his ilk down his chosen destructive path.
I think I must be older than you. When I grew up in East Texas, let's say, "outside of Palestine, TX at some undisclosed farm" , there was crop news in the morning and weather, and, then, later in the evening there was the normal news. I have no idea what was on during the day but I think my sisters sometimes watched "Days of Our Lives".
Sunday was TV preachers or real preacher.
BUT, at least in my small world, politics was never even thought of. Nobody cared who was President and almost nobody even knew who was President. IF the President, for example, fell out of an airplane and down the stairs, then, we knew that.
But, really East Texas was politics free for me and my somewhat large circle of friends over the years 1971 to 1978 as I grew to 18 years old.
AND, back then, the youth did all the work. Mexican imported labor had not yet found its way to my area anyway. OR, the adults were totally OK working us 14 hour days, which, I feel was absolutely the best preparation for everything I have done since.
My experience as a "half breed" with light skin in East Texas was good. Mostly. A few fights, one of them fairly serious, but, other than that, uneventful.....except for learning how to really work.
You, Mike, from “outside of Palestine”…me, from Palestine proper. What are the chances of our meeting on HCR! I agree, national and even state political references were non-starters. And I stand corrected…Immigrants had not yet arrived during my years there and youth did the work. High school guys baling hay, etc. all summer in that sweltering heat. No, I’m definitely older than you. I was long gone but the 70’s. I was a 17year old senior when JFK was killed. Now I’m that other kind of senior! Ha!!
Great to make your acquaintance. East Texas is what I think of as the best college preperatory area of the US.
I remember after spending so much time doing so much work going to Texas A&M and sitting in the air conditioned library thinking: NO WAY, all I have to do is read books, do some homework and all in air conditioning?
Our old farm house had zero air conditioning, our trucks did not nor our cars or tractors.
Biggest argument I got in with my room mate in the college dorms?
I wanted the window open so I could hear the birds. He was worried about "sweating".
A/C was definitely a godsend in that hotbox. I can appreciate what it felt like to find yourself in 24/7 air conditioning with the flip of a switch. It’s really a treat to know another from that town who escaped. I understand it’s totally Trump country now. Funny how the friends I’ve kept in touch with, all got an education, moved away and are progressives now. Funny thing what “ejication” will do to…for a person.
It keeps their perceived superior status intact. Then like Wyle E. Coyote in the shed on the railroad tracks with the train (of Climate Change) coming, they just pull the shade down and look the other way as if nothing will happen to them.
We can't even do one thing about a president that lies, and lies, and lies, and bullies, and attacks. He invented the norm for alternate facts, and the 1st Amendment allows it.
“How is it possible they are allowed to run this propaganda tv station? It should be against the law!”
Freedom of Expression. The First Amendment. Freedom of the Press. That is why.
Commonly known as the Chicago Statement. From the University of Chicago on the freedom of expression.
“The ideas of different members of the University community will often and naturally conflict. It is not the proper role of a University to insulate individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Deliberation or debate may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or ill conceived.
It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to judge the value of ideas, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.”
The Chicago Statement may be appropriate for an academic campus, where you don't have billions of dollars being spent on misinformation campaigns, but it is naive to think it applies to our mass media.
And why does this not apply to whatever you hear that offends you?
“…and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.”
The 01/06 committee is “openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.”.
I express opposition with my vote and my money. Not by gagging those I don’t agree with. No matter how rich they may be.
For a service that calls itself 'news,' taking an active , prominent role in a violent insurrection cannot be protected speech. How many current lawsuits are they defending? Murdoch has spread his cancer all over today's democracies.
NPR today reported on the couple whose son was killed and Fox staff created a narrative that maligned the young democrat to deflect news about Russian interference in the election. It went on for years with a pile on by Fox commentators and an effort to bug the family home. This isn't freedom of expression. It is reckless endangerment.
This is the responsibility of all, to discern fact from fiction using ideas and logic
However, the antidote for propaganda eludes us and the enemies of the state have infiltrated the opinions of enough citizens so as to have them believe the Murdochs and Musks of the world have their best interests in mind
How do you avoid succumbing to money and control in the hands of evil?
A thrilling action movie with plenty of guns and sex. It sneaks in what is known about propaganda techniques, what used car salesmen and advertisers know, how our psychological biases hamper our decision-making, in everything. There is a lot of research out there. It needs a movie.
I understand freedom of expression. However, the definition of news is something other than much of what is on Fox "News" so I have a problem with mislabeling. If you want to call lying freedom of expression, then the station is free to lie to people and pretend it is the truth. However, when people on the station are disseminating propaganda that supports interests that destabilize this country and lead people to want to overthrow and subvert the government, they are having undue influence. When you own a television station your influence is outsized that should require a higher standard than I feel Fox News is meeting. I see the lies as contributing to the destabilization of our government vis-a-vis encouraging people to armed conflict to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. That is not what freedom of speech is for.
Depends on who gets to define "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". I'm skipping truth, it has a good dictionary definition. Justice is in the eye of the beholder as I have seen. The American Way, now... That is a belief in a construct that is based on the foundational assumption that white, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian, property owning men would be in power, that women had no say in government, that the Indigenous Peoples had no right to the land, and that Black slaves were property.
We used ro have the fairness doctrine based on the idea that the people owned the airwaves. Of course now we have private cable, but maybe as it becomes astronomically more expensive, and the vast majority still get their news over the air, the fairness doctrine could make a comeback. At least the major networks still have journalistic values to a greater extent.
The Fairness Doctrine was removed from the law governing the media by the Federal Communications Act of 1996, if I remember correctly. ( Somebody correct me if that’s not quite right.) The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine allowed a channel like Fox “News” to spew propaganda bullsh*t with no corrections and no requirement to air “public service” announcements by people who opposed their incendiary propaganda. Then the rise of the internet in the 1990’s never got properly regulated. It democratized the media and gave a platform to a much wider diversity of views, but also removed all the barriers that used to prevent crazy cranks, conspiracy promoters, and extremists from spreading lies and hate. So now, the radicalized NRA has been able to indoctrinate close to half of Americans with the unprecedented and historically groundless creed that defending their “freedom” from “tyranny”requires unchecked civilian access to firearms. And there are no more laws to prevent Fox/Breitbart/4chan/parler et al from spewing QAnon and Dumpster’s Big Lie and any other loony crap they want under the very twisted and battered banner of “free speech”. Much of the blame for our current broken public discourse, radicalized right wing, public hate speech, and rise of authoritarian threats to our democracy traces straight back to the failure of Congress in the 1990’s to maintain proper regulation of all media to keep out lies, crazies, and hate ideologies. Sorry, y’all, preaching to the choir here, I know. End of useless rant.
I seem to recall that removed law, and it has as you have so eloquently pointed out, led to nothing but a heap of trouble. So much has been deregulated and as they say, it is hard to get the Genie back into the bottle. Can the USA ever catch up to the mess of all the things that have been deregulated under the Republican love of making money and not having government interfere with that? In the meantime everything is just a big old mess. Our infrastructure is falling apart, but we are used to roads with holes and bridges collapsing and not getting services, and moldy ugly schools, and school buses that look like they are from the 1940s. I am around people whose countries are older and yet they cannot believe how old our infrastructure looks. I wish we could just have had Build Back Better.
I tuned into Fox News out of curiosity tonight and holy mole, what liars they are! They’re not even talking about the insurrection. They’re tearing down Joe Biden & his son Hunter. They’re denying the insurrection even happened! How is it possible they are allowed to run this propaganda tv station? It should be against the law!
Fox and News is an oxymoron! Tabloid journalism is more like it. I know it is the sort of thing my Scottish roommate in college liked to have along with Cadbury eggs to while away a nice summer day. There was a lot of stuff with Aliens, but I did not actually read the stuff myself. I still do not think that Rupert Murdoch should be allowed to own an American television station. He is basically a foreign agent even if he did purchase his citizenship.
Ronnie brought him in and allowed him free rein over our communications, timed almost exactly to Walter Cronkite’s retirement. Then immediately went after Dan Rather. Timing couldn’t have been better.
He should be deported. I’d like to see that happen to him and his creepy sons.
I often got a kick out of reading the headlines of the tabloids in the check-out lanes at the grocery store. My favorite was "FAMOUS PSYCHIC'S HEAD EXPLODES!" The current televised version is a lot less entertaining and a lot more dengerous.
Faux Snooze
There should be a law against this. They are destabilizing society. It's really not much different that yelling "fire" in a theatre.
It is the plan, man. Rupert edits the “news” for the ignorant, and the stupid. Aided and abetted by the evil. That this has gone on so long gives me little hope. He is our Goebbels and has been since the 80’s. Now Mr. Money himself (Musk) has joined the “rule by edict” crowd. My paltry donations are chump change.
$$$ equal Votes. It’s the American Way.
Apparently, treason, sedition, and anti-government propaganda are welcomed by the American people.
I agree that there should be laws against something as blatantly false and propaganda like as Fox News.
However, apparently, where rich white folks are relevant (owners of Fox News) the USA is toothless to stop seditious content.
Plus, a near majority of Americans WANT to hear BS and lies all day every day. They run to it like a kitten runs to warm milk.
This is so true in rural America. Growing up in small town East Texas, tv channels were limited, anything reported beyond local news was sparse and certainly not of front page importance, and useful discourse on national issues was nonexistent. References to “D.C.” were 99% negative no matter who was in the White House. Heard many times “those people in Washington are so far away, they don’t care one flip about us and our problems”. And the idea of getting involved or educated about anything other than how much zucchini is in the garden or how the “Mexicans” ( every brown skinned person is Mexican regardless of origin) are on every corner is viewed as strange and suspiciously motivated. Local newspapers may only be published once a week and headlines would never reflect a national event. These people respond to entertainment of any kind as a relief from the mundane and Trump’s delivery was that and only that. He made them laugh and said things they could understand and he was a “celebrity” who never claimed to be a politician and they loved that. The danger of voting for a candidate whose message was change and draining the swamp and nothing else was/is lost on them. It’s this kind of American who will continue to support Trump and follow him and his ilk down his chosen destructive path.
Joan,
"Growing up in a small town in East Texas"!!
I think I must be older than you. When I grew up in East Texas, let's say, "outside of Palestine, TX at some undisclosed farm" , there was crop news in the morning and weather, and, then, later in the evening there was the normal news. I have no idea what was on during the day but I think my sisters sometimes watched "Days of Our Lives".
Sunday was TV preachers or real preacher.
BUT, at least in my small world, politics was never even thought of. Nobody cared who was President and almost nobody even knew who was President. IF the President, for example, fell out of an airplane and down the stairs, then, we knew that.
But, really East Texas was politics free for me and my somewhat large circle of friends over the years 1971 to 1978 as I grew to 18 years old.
AND, back then, the youth did all the work. Mexican imported labor had not yet found its way to my area anyway. OR, the adults were totally OK working us 14 hour days, which, I feel was absolutely the best preparation for everything I have done since.
My experience as a "half breed" with light skin in East Texas was good. Mostly. A few fights, one of them fairly serious, but, other than that, uneventful.....except for learning how to really work.
You, Mike, from “outside of Palestine”…me, from Palestine proper. What are the chances of our meeting on HCR! I agree, national and even state political references were non-starters. And I stand corrected…Immigrants had not yet arrived during my years there and youth did the work. High school guys baling hay, etc. all summer in that sweltering heat. No, I’m definitely older than you. I was long gone but the 70’s. I was a 17year old senior when JFK was killed. Now I’m that other kind of senior! Ha!!
Joan,
Great to make your acquaintance. East Texas is what I think of as the best college preperatory area of the US.
I remember after spending so much time doing so much work going to Texas A&M and sitting in the air conditioned library thinking: NO WAY, all I have to do is read books, do some homework and all in air conditioning?
Our old farm house had zero air conditioning, our trucks did not nor our cars or tractors.
Biggest argument I got in with my room mate in the college dorms?
I wanted the window open so I could hear the birds. He was worried about "sweating".
I still laugh today about that.
A/C was definitely a godsend in that hotbox. I can appreciate what it felt like to find yourself in 24/7 air conditioning with the flip of a switch. It’s really a treat to know another from that town who escaped. I understand it’s totally Trump country now. Funny how the friends I’ve kept in touch with, all got an education, moved away and are progressives now. Funny thing what “ejication” will do to…for a person.
It keeps their perceived superior status intact. Then like Wyle E. Coyote in the shed on the railroad tracks with the train (of Climate Change) coming, they just pull the shade down and look the other way as if nothing will happen to them.
Wait!
Perhaps they can learn from this frog I just put in a pan of water heating on burner?
:-)
We can't even do one thing about a president that lies, and lies, and lies, and bullies, and attacks. He invented the norm for alternate facts, and the 1st Amendment allows it.
“How is it possible they are allowed to run this propaganda tv station? It should be against the law!”
Freedom of Expression. The First Amendment. Freedom of the Press. That is why.
Commonly known as the Chicago Statement. From the University of Chicago on the freedom of expression.
“The ideas of different members of the University community will often and naturally conflict. It is not the proper role of a University to insulate individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Deliberation or debate may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or ill conceived.
It is for the individual members of the University community, not for the University as an institution, to judge the value of ideas, and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.”
Lies rule, in what universe. Well, Nazi world for one.
The Chicago Statement may be appropriate for an academic campus, where you don't have billions of dollars being spent on misinformation campaigns, but it is naive to think it applies to our mass media.
And why does this not apply to whatever you hear that offends you?
“…and to act on those judgments not by seeking to suppress speech, but by openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.”
The 01/06 committee is “openly and vigorously contesting those arguments and ideas that they oppose.”.
I express opposition with my vote and my money. Not by gagging those I don’t agree with. No matter how rich they may be.
It’s not about agreeing. It’s about Lying!!! It’s about passing off lies as news on National television! It’s called Propaganda and is has to stop!
Agree. About the lying.
Media is the public square. Shouting fire in a theater is not free speech.
For a service that calls itself 'news,' taking an active , prominent role in a violent insurrection cannot be protected speech. How many current lawsuits are they defending? Murdoch has spread his cancer all over today's democracies.
NPR today reported on the couple whose son was killed and Fox staff created a narrative that maligned the young democrat to deflect news about Russian interference in the election. It went on for years with a pile on by Fox commentators and an effort to bug the family home. This isn't freedom of expression. It is reckless endangerment.
Netflix just dropped Web of Lies. This story is documented, and horrific.
This is the responsibility of all, to discern fact from fiction using ideas and logic
However, the antidote for propaganda eludes us and the enemies of the state have infiltrated the opinions of enough citizens so as to have them believe the Murdochs and Musks of the world have their best interests in mind
How do you avoid succumbing to money and control in the hands of evil?
Find the antidote
Education, including the ability to think critically. But we're failing there, hence TFG et al.
A thrilling action movie with plenty of guns and sex. It sneaks in what is known about propaganda techniques, what used car salesmen and advertisers know, how our psychological biases hamper our decision-making, in everything. There is a lot of research out there. It needs a movie.
I understand freedom of expression. However, the definition of news is something other than much of what is on Fox "News" so I have a problem with mislabeling. If you want to call lying freedom of expression, then the station is free to lie to people and pretend it is the truth. However, when people on the station are disseminating propaganda that supports interests that destabilize this country and lead people to want to overthrow and subvert the government, they are having undue influence. When you own a television station your influence is outsized that should require a higher standard than I feel Fox News is meeting. I see the lies as contributing to the destabilization of our government vis-a-vis encouraging people to armed conflict to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power. That is not what freedom of speech is for.
"FIRE!!!" Fox's freedom of expression ends when they create murderous bedlam in a fire they set.
Difference of opinion is fine, but what ever happened to “Truth, Justice & The American Way”?
Must be for Supermen only!
Depends on who gets to define "Truth, Justice, and the American Way". I'm skipping truth, it has a good dictionary definition. Justice is in the eye of the beholder as I have seen. The American Way, now... That is a belief in a construct that is based on the foundational assumption that white, heterosexual, cisgendered, Christian, property owning men would be in power, that women had no say in government, that the Indigenous Peoples had no right to the land, and that Black slaves were property.
“Freedom of Expression” in Florida…
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/06/06/draft-legislation-shows-desantis-plan-control-higher-ed
The sad fact is that the First Amendment cuts both ways, and we have not yet found a way to block propaganda, or at least neutralize it.
We used ro have the fairness doctrine based on the idea that the people owned the airwaves. Of course now we have private cable, but maybe as it becomes astronomically more expensive, and the vast majority still get their news over the air, the fairness doctrine could make a comeback. At least the major networks still have journalistic values to a greater extent.
The Fairness Doctrine was removed from the law governing the media by the Federal Communications Act of 1996, if I remember correctly. ( Somebody correct me if that’s not quite right.) The repeal of the Fairness Doctrine allowed a channel like Fox “News” to spew propaganda bullsh*t with no corrections and no requirement to air “public service” announcements by people who opposed their incendiary propaganda. Then the rise of the internet in the 1990’s never got properly regulated. It democratized the media and gave a platform to a much wider diversity of views, but also removed all the barriers that used to prevent crazy cranks, conspiracy promoters, and extremists from spreading lies and hate. So now, the radicalized NRA has been able to indoctrinate close to half of Americans with the unprecedented and historically groundless creed that defending their “freedom” from “tyranny”requires unchecked civilian access to firearms. And there are no more laws to prevent Fox/Breitbart/4chan/parler et al from spewing QAnon and Dumpster’s Big Lie and any other loony crap they want under the very twisted and battered banner of “free speech”. Much of the blame for our current broken public discourse, radicalized right wing, public hate speech, and rise of authoritarian threats to our democracy traces straight back to the failure of Congress in the 1990’s to maintain proper regulation of all media to keep out lies, crazies, and hate ideologies. Sorry, y’all, preaching to the choir here, I know. End of useless rant.
I seem to recall that removed law, and it has as you have so eloquently pointed out, led to nothing but a heap of trouble. So much has been deregulated and as they say, it is hard to get the Genie back into the bottle. Can the USA ever catch up to the mess of all the things that have been deregulated under the Republican love of making money and not having government interfere with that? In the meantime everything is just a big old mess. Our infrastructure is falling apart, but we are used to roads with holes and bridges collapsing and not getting services, and moldy ugly schools, and school buses that look like they are from the 1940s. I am around people whose countries are older and yet they cannot believe how old our infrastructure looks. I wish we could just have had Build Back Better.
Healthy place to rant.
:--)
Ask Rupert, the king of flim flam .