cuchulainn
Member
A question and and two observatons.
Question: Why is non-commercial news superior to commercial news? Both are equally biased in their own ways, so it can't be legitimately about bias. Is it simply a matter of not wanting to sit through silly commercials?
Observation 1: As far as I know, Fox has never made a claim to being unbiased. Indeed, they wear their bias proudly on their sleeves. They claim to be fair and balanced. Neither fair nor balanced is a synonym for unbiased -- understand that, and you'll better understand what Fox is about.
Observation 2: There is absolutely nothing wrong with bias in the news. In fact, it was a biased press that the Founders were protecting with the the 1st Amendment. Look at the press of their day and on into the early 20th Century. It was rabidly biased -- that's what the Founders were protecting. There never can be an truly unbiased press (the idea was a 20th Century fantasy).
The problem is not that the press is biased, but that the audience doesn't want to be active readers/watchers. They would prefer to passively trust what's being fed to them. Thus we need to fix the audience, not the press, which is a much harder task.
Question: Why is non-commercial news superior to commercial news? Both are equally biased in their own ways, so it can't be legitimately about bias. Is it simply a matter of not wanting to sit through silly commercials?
Observation 1: As far as I know, Fox has never made a claim to being unbiased. Indeed, they wear their bias proudly on their sleeves. They claim to be fair and balanced. Neither fair nor balanced is a synonym for unbiased -- understand that, and you'll better understand what Fox is about.
Observation 2: There is absolutely nothing wrong with bias in the news. In fact, it was a biased press that the Founders were protecting with the the 1st Amendment. Look at the press of their day and on into the early 20th Century. It was rabidly biased -- that's what the Founders were protecting. There never can be an truly unbiased press (the idea was a 20th Century fantasy).
The problem is not that the press is biased, but that the audience doesn't want to be active readers/watchers. They would prefer to passively trust what's being fed to them. Thus we need to fix the audience, not the press, which is a much harder task.