Well, my dad just spent the weekend here. He is a man who loves to debate politics which is to say that he loves to repeat every negative item about Democrats and Liberals that he hears on Fox News. I love my dad, but there are times when our political discussions drive me towards the brink of insanity. It’s not like I’m hearing my dad sometimes. I’m hearing Fox News coming out of a persons mouth. I ask around, and this is not a limited phenomenon. There are many seniors that sit in front of Fox News and eat it up 24/7.
Fox News even has a wikipedia page dedicated to it’s controversies. The wiki entry goes on to suggest that Fox spins it’s news so much that people have referred to the network as “Faux News”, “GOP-TV”, “Fox Noise Channel”, and “Fixed News.”
Perhaps every Fox News fan’s biggest hero is Bill O’reily. I’ve seen his show on occasion. It tends to give me a large headache. Type Bill O’reily into Google and you will see a negative site like O’reily Sucks float near the top. O’reily claims to be fair and balanced, but it’s clear that when he doesn’t like a response, he will fire off several questions and never let a guest answer. My dad says, “Oh, well he has to keep these liberals in line because they waver off.” How the hell can you ask a question and not even give a person a chance to answer? I found another site mocking O’reily found here. My favorite part is the Bill O’reily Bingo card. Some of my favorite squares are:
- Asking rapid fire questions without giving the guest a chance to reply.
- Use of the word “Ideologue”.
- Unfunny quip about bums followed by nervous laughter.
- Aligning himself with the working class while he wears a $3,000 suit.
The mockery sites are good fun. They wouldn’t be hardly as funny if they weren’t so close to the truth.
Of course Fox News has several other wonderful pundits who find ways to make anyone outside the republican side look ridiculous. One the funniest things my dad says is, “The reason the SUV’s are such a problem is because of these damn democratic labor unions who kept wanting to build big vehicles.” I thought about that statement. I can’t be convinced that SUV sales or the gas crisis can be formed down party lines. Perhaps that’s what bothers me most about Fox News viewers. It’s always somebody’s fault, and usually it’s something the democrats have done badly.
Currently, seniors and the internet generation find their news sources differently.
Around the late 90′s we saw something on TV that was very exciting—so we thought. We started to get 24 hour news networks. Now instead of watching a summery of the day’s events with Peter Jennings at 6 o’clock, we had news all day long. People thought this was exciting to keep up with the latest events as they unfolded.
Something became apparent to me. There isn’t enough quality news to fill the day on a 24 hour news network. In order to fill that time, the news has to be spun up, doctored, embellished and twisted to make it more exciting. It reminds me of that funny scene from The Shipping News:
Billy: Tell me the headline.
Quoyle: Horizon Fills With Dark Clouds?
Billy: Imminent Storm Threatens Village.
Quoyle: But what if no storm comes?
Billy: Village Spared From Deadly Storm.
Fox News appears to be the worst. I wont let the other networks off the hook either. The thing that bothers me the most is that Fox News tends to create a church. Viewers watch only Fox News and begin to describe other networks as overly liberal and so on. It’s a 24 hour march. The show must go on or advertisers will pull their money from the network.
As two people well entrenched in internet technologies, my wife and I don’t watch cable news. In fact, we don’t have cable at all. We are internet people who get information online. This pushes us to find stories in many different places whether the source has a liberal or conservative slant. There are advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that you get news and opinions from many people and countries. It’s more democratic. The bad news is that any wacko can write a blog and make opinions without checking their facts.
The truth is bent all around.
Both liberal and conservative political circles have wackos and extremists who bend the truth. You have to weed through it all and make your own decisions. People like Bill O’reily don’t like the internet because they can’t control it. A news network’s owner wants to spoon feed you a set message. When O’reily writes his book, it’s a set message. When several bloggers voice their opinion about O’reily’s book, well . . . now we have something closer to an open debate.
I don’t want to point fingers anymore. I want to solve problems in this country. Modern television media has us looking at modern politics like a ball game. It’s the red team against the blue team. Networks get you to take a side on the bleachers. Then, instead of discussing an issue, we say things like, “We can’t fix the problem until the other side sees things our way.”
So much of the time, we stray away from talking about the issues and how to solve them. I told dad, “One of the the things I like about Obama’s message is that he wants us to join together into groups and discuss solutions for our country. He encourages public participation in government, not negativity.” Our country is fractured and sinking into a state of idiocracy. We need to discuss the issues and the internet is a fantastic vehicle to accomplish that.
To my dad’s credit, I have him talking more about alternative energy sources like wind and solar. He shows a genuine interest in new technology. There are still things we disagree on like drilling in protected wildernesses like Alaska’s ANWR area. Every now and then I’ll hear something about, “If the damn democrats would have let us open up Alaska, we would have cheaper gas now.” My point is that if we drill Alaska, we will never change our bad habits. We wont learn to conserve energy and find alternative sources.” This is one of the moments when I fell like I’m hearing a debate on Fox News.
How about using “The Daily Show” as “your trusted news source”?
I remember putting on an episode of The Daily Show for my dad one day. He says something like, “but this isn’t real . . .” Apparently, he missed the whole point of Jon Stewart’s tirades. The Daily Show is a spoof, so it has a license to bend the truth. However, if you look around, you’ll find many people feel this comedy news cast is more substantial than news networks that pretend to be serious. He’s always showing you a story and then showing soundbites from all the news networks. It’s usually hilarious to see the various idiot newscasters trying to appear fair, balanced and on top of their game. Jon usually has a serious interview at the end of his show. I think The Daily Show is as good a source for substantial political news as any network.
Talk your seniors about modern media.
If you have a friend or loved one who is addicted to Fox News, or even CNN or MSNBC, I encourage you to discuss alternate news sources with them. With our busy lifestyles we have become lazy when it comes to getting the story. We need to work hard at getting the truth just like anything else in life. News networks go to great lengths to make you feel like they’ve done all the hard work for you. Each network wants you to believe they are fair and balanced. The truth can only come from hearing all the arguments and then making a choice for yourself.
Are you blind? You mock Fox and then claim that John Stewart’s show is a reliable source of news?
You are a perfect example of the youthful group-think and ignorance that has brought about the current state of lemmingship. Without a thought you will fire back and call me a lemming for saying so, completely bypassing the fact that almost all of the mainstream news is biased toward the left. The reason righties watch Fox is because it’s the only one that doesn’t slant things in a way that pisses them off! But that’s not the way you see it. Anything you disagree with can’t be true and so it must be false. Some libs even go so far as to want to censor dissenting opinions. Know what they used to call that a long time ago? They used to call it fascism.
Fox has controversies, so does every other channel. Here’s MSNBC’s section: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Msnbc#Criticism_and_controversy (it’s way too short). Seeing as you like “edutainment” news, here’s the kiddie version (Red-Eye) of MSNBC’s bait and switch story about “white people showing up with guns” at an Obama speech. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jwg-f3dqN4&feature=related Too bad fox also had the tape, showing the part that MSNBC cut; the dude with the gun was a black guy.
Yeah Fox is biased, but if you think the other guys aren’t you are completely incapable or unwilling to think for yourself.
My 80 year old father and 74 year old mother are also hooked to Fox News. It is on 24/7.
It’s very sad…..they are just like your father.
my inlaws believe Fox is the ONLY place for news now.
I can’t even have an intelligent conversation with my 72 year old father anymore. If we talk for more than 5 minutes, he comes up with some outrageous bullshit he got straight from Fox News. For example, did you know that people over 55 years old aren’t being given the swine flu vaccine because Obama wants them to die off? The sad thing is that he and my mother used to be intelligent and reasonable people before they started listening to Limbaugh & watching Fox regularly. And John Galt, you’re full of shit. After 8 years of watching the mainstream news media function as Bush’s ditto chorus, nobody with half a brain could buy into the myth that “almost all of the mainstream news is biased toward the left.”
We must have the same Dad! It’s the Church of O’Reilly promptly at 5pm every day. The relatives won’t even come into town on holiday’s anymore so they don’t have to argue with him. The most common comment from Dad is, “It’s your generation!!”.
John Galt above read your headline, then skimmed the rest, just like my dad would have! Wow, a typical Fox FanBoy! He helped prove your point, btw.
-kyle
Both fox news and cnn are full of shit.Both controlled by jews w/ aims to control and enslave the masses.I know the names and the doctrine.when the power goes out(for good) White militia groups will step up and take care of these assholes and give them an express pass to hell.
It’s a good thing white militia groups are too busy being fags for me to care.
I feel your pain! My mother in law, a housewife, stays home all day and Fox News is on until she goes to sleep at night. She keeps it on in the background while she’s cleaning. It’s all loud sounds, (“DUH-DUH-DUH… FOX NEWS ALERT!”) and bright, large graphics which I suppose is a draw for senior citizens who are hard of hearing with poor eyesight. Brainwashing, indeed!
My 72 year old mother says Fox is her second family, this makes me so sad, she was alway’s my best friend. Now she tells everyone she can’t talk to me because I don’t believe in Fox News. I just want my Mom back.
Before her death last year my 82 year old mother in law had become a Fox disciple. Unable to think for herself, she bought the “fair and balanced” tag line, hook, line and sinker. Even bought me O’reilly’s book for X-mas.(Did not read it but started charcoal grill with it’s pages, worked well.)She would engage anyone she came across with Fox’s lunacy. I was never so happy as the day a man waiting for his wife in a doctors office told her “Lady, I’m sorry, you’re facts just don’t add up”. He went on to explain why she was wrong. She asked, “why haven’t I heard this before”?
He asked, “Do you watch Fox News”? And when she replied “yes”, he said,”that’s your problem, garbage in garbage out”. Just then his wife came out and he quickly left and got the car. She was in a huff and asked me what he meant. I explained as best I could that if you watch Fox News and repeat what they say you’re just spewing lies and inaccuracies. Sadly, she died that weekend still beleving Fox News was gospel. A very sad and angry woman.
Great comment Ted. I wrote this article before Obama got elected, and since then, it seems the network has gone into overdrive with constant propaganda that defies logic. Bill O’Reily used to seem like a menace until Glen Beck came along. Now there is a whole new level of crazy that makes O’reily tame by comparison.
The good thing is that more and more, journalists and other shows are starting to call out Fox on the ridiculous things they say. Jon Stewart just got through doing a whole show mocking Glen Beck and his childish chalkboard ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/jon-stewart-glenn-beck-parody_n_505329.html ). The bad news is so many seniors around 65+ eat every word and refuse to believe anything else, labeling it “those liberal networks” or chanting ‘fair and balanced’.
I read an article at BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8474611.stm that made a great deal of sense, even though it didn’t make me feel any better. Basically, the deal with the Fox News audience (and the extreme right) is that they function solely on emotion. Thus when anyone even close to the middle or the left tries to explain something in logical terms, they are labeled elitist or some such other nonsense. In my latest argument with my dad, I asked him to think clearly if each broadcast by Beck or Hanity was explaining things in logical terms or just trying to stir emotion with words like “Stalin”, “Marxist”, and “Hitler”. Of course you know the answer, “He’s very logical. He has well respected guests on . . .”
I think to myself, “How do you explain to someone how ridiculous they sound when they refuse to understand logical, rational thought?
Remember when Steve Martin played a traveling preacher-healer in Leap of Faith ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_of_Faith_(film) ) . That’s the kind of audience we have here.
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My wife’s parents and my parents are all brainwashed as well. It’s crazy too because they used to be fact oriented free thinkers. I think all of the fallacies, especially the “appeal to emotion” fallacies have just completely sucked them in. It’s almost like they need something to be angry about.
I think a lot of it also stems from not having a lot to do. Fox News addicts them and then make them feel like they are involved in something important. In reality they are just being manipulated and fed fiction.
Yesyesyes! Thank you all! I try to stay out of that end of the house when my dear 85 year old mother has it on, but now she has so little energy that it’s on from 1 to 7 or 8. Thank goodness she rarely brings it up in conversation, but what I hear from the TV as I walk through the room makes me so tense, such blaming, such linguistic twisting, such self-righteous, pitiful propaganda with just enough “now, I just want to be fair, so blah blah, BUT…” Yes it contributes to her sadness, disconnection from life, and anger. At least partly misplaced, I think, from the natural sadness and anger as life winds down, in a generation that was too busy surviving to look inward. And insecure about intelligence, not as much college as us, so relieved to have someone make the intricacies of life seem simple: immigrants, free-loaders, tax and spend, leftists, the godless, intellectuals and the media. I am so sad, and angry myself. I so wanted a huggy gramma instead of this bitter one, generous but resentful, proud but closed-off. Yes we can also be closed off. I so struggle to see her view!