Actual Headline vs Fox News Headline

[Solwyn]

hahahahahaha
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/actual-news-headlines-vs-fox-news-headlines

greatness

[BlueCross]

"Fair and Balanced".

:hurl:

[Swash]

...wow

[Thanatos]

The whole issue of fox news is tough for me.  They are by and large, horrible, reprehensible people.  On the other hand, I firmly believe that virtually every other mainstream media outlet adheres to a powerful liberal agenda.  Sorry!  If you can think that Fox news is run by psycho conservatives, and be right, which you are, I can think that EVERY SINGLE OTHER MAJOR NEWS ORGANIZATION is run by psycho liberals, and be right, which I am!  Honestly, I hate fox news.  They're intolerant, jingoistic assholes.  Unfortunately, I feel the same way about every single other news source, and that's not a popular stance.

[Solwyn]

The whole issue of fox news is tough for me.  They are by and large, horrible, reprehensible people.  On the other hand, I firmly believe that virtually every other mainstream media outlet adheres to a powerful liberal agenda.  Sorry!  If you can think that Fox news is run by psycho conservatives, and be right, which you are, I can think that EVERY SINGLE OTHER MAJOR NEWS ORGANIZATION is run by psycho liberals, and be right, which I am!  Honestly, I hate fox news.  They're intolerant, jingoistic assholes.  Unfortunately, I feel the same way about every single other news source, and that's not a popular stance.

I think the problem is that everything else is a slight liberal agenda, and in most cases, that's because freedom of the press tends to fall on the left side of the political axis in the US (although with all the libertarians starting to take up positions of authority in the GOP, that might change).

It's like the distinction JRR Tolkien made between allegory and allusions with applicability:

Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes of views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.

I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author. An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous.

In other words, there's a difference between letting your political views influence your work and going out of your way to hit people on the head with them.

[Hoopy Frood]

Or in the case of Tolkien, his Roman Catholicism, which played a huge part of his life, and influenced his writings, but was nothing in his writings was ever meant to have any Christian undertones, despite those who tried to make them anyway.

[Solwyn]

Or in the case of Tolkien, his Roman Catholicism, which played a huge part of his life, and influenced his writings, but was nothing in his writings was ever meant to have any Christian undertones, despite those who tried to make them anyway.

And I think he was responding to comparisons of his work and CS Lewis, who did imply christian allegory.

[Thanatos]

Yo, CS Lewis didn't imply Christian allegory.  I'm trying to think of a verb that means "one one hundredth less than 'directly stated'". 

And also, honestly, I disagree about the liberal bias of other news sources.  CNN in particular frequently distorts the news and their headlines, as far as I can figure it out, to promote a liberal political agenda.  I think CNN is just as liberal as Fox News is conservative.  that doesn't excuse Fox News in any way; two wrongs don't make a right, and they're total douchebags.  What can I say though, I hate CNN more! 

Actually, although this isn't as strong as the headlines in the thingy solwyn posted, I have an example.  Morgan Freeman recently gave a (fucking idiotic) headline where he noted that the head of the tea party has publicly stated that they will do whatever is necessary to get Obama out of power.  Freeman's interpretation is that they only want him out of power because he's black; he rephrased their mission goal to "We have to get this black man out of office."  Now, I don't agree with that, I think maybe they just don't like his politics.  Freeman's logic is that if it wasn't a race thing, they would have tried to get Bill Clinton out of office; uhm, 1, lots of conservatives did try to get Bill Clinton out of office, and 2, they failed utterly because Bill Clinton was a frigging stupendous president and the country was in great shape, whereas the country right now is in shitty shape, so it makes sense people will be antagonistic towards the president.  Right?  Or maybe it's just a race thing.  If you're Morgan Freeman.

Anyway, while I think Freeman is super wrong, he still only said that the stated goals of the Tea Party (and really he just said that the publicly stated goals of the head of the Tea Party, not even the acknowledged party agenda), which admittedly in his words (or close to his words) is "controlling the Republican Party's agenda".  He's right about that, I'm not disputing it, they have a lot of power in the GOP right now.  Anyway, one of the head of the Tea Party's publicly stated goal for the organization is to get Obama out of office at the end of his term at all costs. The CNN headline was "Morgan Freeman: GOP's goals are racist."  It's not what he said, it's not even what he fucking implied, I think he's totally wrong but I'll at least accurately report his fucking words.  "The head of one subsection of the GOP's personally stated goals for his subsection are racist" does not equal "The entire Republican party's goals are racist."  I'll admit it's not as egregious as the headlines in the link above; not even close.  However, I find it more offensive for its subtlety; Fox News makes itself look and sound like a bunch of fucking lunatics.  CNN is smart enough to be subtle about its pervasive bias, and thus much more effective.

[Swash]

It's the whole "grain of truth" thing.  Give people a lie that's wrapped around a known fact (even if that fact itself is false) and people will take the whole package.

[Solwyn]

Yo, CS Lewis didn't imply Christian allegory.  I'm trying to think of a verb that means "one one hundredth less than 'directly stated'". 

And also, honestly, I disagree about the liberal bias of other news sources.  CNN in particular frequently distorts the news and their headlines, as far as I can figure it out, to promote a liberal political agenda.  I think CNN is just as liberal as Fox News is conservative.  that doesn't excuse Fox News in any way; two wrongs don't make a right, and they're total douchebags.  What can I say though, I hate CNN more! 

Actually, although this isn't as strong as the headlines in the thingy solwyn posted, I have an example.  Morgan Freeman recently gave a (fucking idiotic) headline where he noted that the head of the tea party has publicly stated that they will do whatever is necessary to get Obama out of power.  Freeman's interpretation is that they only want him out of power because he's black; he rephrased their mission goal to "We have to get this black man out of office."  Now, I don't agree with that, I think maybe they just don't like his politics.  Freeman's logic is that if it wasn't a race thing, they would have tried to get Bill Clinton out of office; uhm, 1, lots of conservatives did try to get Bill Clinton out of office, and 2, they failed utterly because Bill Clinton was a frigging stupendous president and the country was in great shape, whereas the country right now is in shitty shape, so it makes sense people will be antagonistic towards the president.  Right?  Or maybe it's just a race thing.  If you're Morgan Freeman.

Anyway, while I think Freeman is super wrong, he still only said that the stated goals of the Tea Party (and really he just said that the publicly stated goals of the head of the Tea Party, not even the acknowledged party agenda), which admittedly in his words (or close to his words) is "controlling the Republican Party's agenda".  He's right about that, I'm not disputing it, they have a lot of power in the GOP right now.  Anyway, one of the head of the Tea Party's publicly stated goal for the organization is to get Obama out of office at the end of his term at all costs. The CNN headline was "Morgan Freeman: GOP's goals are racist."  It's not what he said, it's not even what he fucking implied, I think he's totally wrong but I'll at least accurately report his fucking words.  "The head of one subsection of the GOP's personally stated goals for his subsection are racist" does not equal "The entire Republican party's goals are racist."  I'll admit it's not as egregious as the headlines in the link above; not even close.  However, I find it more offensive for its subtlety; Fox News makes itself look and sound like a bunch of fucking lunatics.  CNN is smart enough to be subtle about its pervasive bias, and thus much more effective.

Implication and inference both happen at varying degrees. The only difference is that one takes the bias of the speaker and the other takes the bias of the listener.

Now let me clarify: I think every mainstream media outlet is biased towards whoever is paying them or whatever interest fits the particular mold of the axe they are grinding.

The main thing I find annoying about this is that both sides always try to play the victim when they're holding a bloody butcher knife over the corpse of the story they just murdered.

[Hoopy Frood]

It's why I almost think that the whole requirement under law that the BBC be unbiased in news reporting, to the point that they are regularly reviewed by the British government, is a good thing, in spite of my die-hard freedom of speech and the press beliefs.

Mainly because anyone has a right to say what they want, but just as many who supposedly belong to a profession (e.g. Doctors, Lawyers) have to follow standards laid down by that professions governing bodies, so should those who claim to be reporting news be held to actually stating purely the facts in the stories that are meant as reports. (Editorials, of course, are free to spout whatever shit they want.)