The acceptance of Fox News by other media changed America.

[Funtatlaguy]

It was bad enough that talk radio, primarily the AM band, had become a vast wasteland of unchallenged ultra right wing garbage.
But, when Fox News television was created by Roger Ailes and distributed by Rupert Murdoch, our politics changed forever.
Other networks and media outlets tried to copy Fox, if not in content, in style.
Editorial and commentary were no longer labeled or segregated.
Straight reporting no longer was valued or mattered.
All content got mixed together as infotainment.
Now, facts don’t just no longer matter. They no longer exist.
Trump and Fox have convinced a huge slice of America that facts are fake news if they come from a source that the viewer/listener/reader don’t like or approve of.

In the infancy of Fox News, many of us here screamed and yelled and posted and blogged and had car bumper stickers imploring Americans not to accept Fox News as a legitimate source.
We called it Fixed News or Faux News.
We pointed out all of the lies and propanda.
But, we lost that battle.
America accepted Fox just like America has accepted a traitorous President.

Mueller is the country’s only hope.
Barring that, we either give up on this country as a Democratic Republic, move, or consider a
second Civil War.

[oberliner]

1. This is an important point

The other networks did copy Fox News in many respects - much to their detriment.

However, Mueller is not the country's only hope - he can't make the Republicans impeach Trump (which they will never do).

[Funtatlaguy]

2. But if Mueller soft peddles Trumps involvements

In many areas and just lays the blame at underlings, it will be a clear signal that crooks can now get away with anything.
No, the GOP will never impeach Trump with 67 votes needed in the Senate.
But, Mueller can lay it all out there about Trump, if he’s got the goods and Rosenstein and the DOJ is willing and able to get all of that info out to the American people.

[sharedvalues]

3. YES!!!!!!!!!!!! Fox is propaganda

The rest are infotainment. But Fox is propaganda for the GOP.

This economics article proves it: msnbc and cnn are similar but Fox is far far right.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20160812

[Funtatlaguy]

4. Great article

Thank you.

[procon]

5. The other networks frequently cite Fox News stories, passing along their latest

conspiracy theory as real news stories without even a cautionary disclaimer. This gives Fox News the clock of legitimacy, and a free pass, to continue promoting sketchy articles that have little resemblance to reality.

[sharedvalues]

8. And Apple and Google allow their "news" to go into their phone feeds

Liberals and all Americans that care about truth should be protesting google and apple allowing Fox on their phone news apps. It’s a travesty.

[Igel]

6. The acceptance of new journalistic standards begat Fox News.

There was an attempt to try to report the news straight, without bias. No, it wasn't possible. But that's the way ideals work--just because you can't reach the ideal doesn't mean that there should be no ideal.

The ideal, however, changed, because trying to be objective was oppressive. Instead, reporters were told to have an editorial stance in their news. That always means not trying to present just the facts, but present spin. Leave out stuff. Emotionalize things.

So now I can hear the reporter being flattering or combative with people being interviewed. Softball questions, friendly tone--or being downright nasty and hostile.

I hear 'objective' stories that consist mostly of the reporter playing editorial opinions by people interviewed, with no background. "Dr. Smith has been accused of being unpleasant to the Robinsons," followed by three people quoted as saying, "Those are lies, Dr. Smith has always been their savior," "How stupid, not seeing all of his good qualities--that young thug Will is behind these rumors," and "The fools don't show proper appreciation for such a man of genius and compassion." Followed by the reporter's, "That's what people are saying about this man. Over to you, Adolf." On some stations, even "moderate" stations, that counts as news. Notice that this is a biased survey and the fact was "he's been accused," not followed by anything but contrary opinion.

Oddly, the hostile-media effect still holds. We've gone from that kind of fiction, uh, story being considered supportive of Smith to still being anti-Smith. "The bastard reporter *mentioned* that he was accused, the reporter's obviously in it for the Robinsons."

Once your ideal is that news = op/ed, Fox News is inevitable. The birdcage liner SWP publication my mother got in the '70s was like Fox News, but even as a teenager I realized "news" wasn't the right word for it. A decade later, the MSM was closing on it that level of journalistic integrity. There are even more biased sources than Fox News. RT runs the same way: It's news with a strong editorial slant, and that slant makes it pick up non-news as news (compare the sheer number of 'oops' stories in, say, the NYT or WaPo recently over highly charged political events).

Complaining "they're wrong to have slanted, polarized news, while my slanted news is impartial and a moral good" is just plain incoherent to an outside observer.

[sharedvalues]

7. What? No, opposite. False "balance" is what enables Fox

The main reason the GOP propaganda machine works so well is the OPPOSITE of what you say.


The real media has internalized a crazy fiction that news should be balanced. That it’s possible to have news that is unbiased. That balance is important, not objectivity.

Meanwhile, the right has figured out how to exploit this error on the part of journalism. They have built explicitly biased outlets: Limbaugh and the NY Post in the early 80s, continuing through the growth of propaganda radio in the 80s and 90s until Ailes persuaded Murdoch that Fox could be a TV version of Limbaugh in the late 90s.


Today, while the right spews biased propaganda designed to get Americans to hate minorities and immigrants and liberals so they will vote for Republican billionaires, the benighted mainstream journalists are so shortsighted they remain focused on false “balance”. They can’t say the republicans are the problem because the right has scared them into pretending both sides are equal.

The problem with our media is the LACK of balance. The lack of truth. It’s allowed assymmetric polarization where the right wing press is propaganda and there is no equivalent on the left.

[Power 2 the People]

9. The beginning of the end of democracy- The Telecommunications Act of 1996

It immediately brought us Fox News and a complete onslaught of unrestrained right-wing media monopoly.

On 1/31/96 Rupert Murdoch announces the Fox News launch and introduces Roger Ailes as its head. The Telecommunications act was signed a week later on 2/8/96 making Murdoch's illegal venture legal. Fox News first Broadcast is 7 months later on 10/7/96.

Directly from the FCC's website:

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is the first major overhaul of telecommunications law in almost 62 years. The goal of this new law is to let anyone enter any communications business -- to let any communications business compete in any market against any other. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has the potential to change the way we work, live and learn.

Can't say they didn't warn us.

[Funtatlaguy]

10. Yes. And sadly, with a Dem in the White House

Would love to know what Bill Clinton thinks of it now.

[Power 2 the People]

11. Regret would be an understatement

LOL..Because of DU rules I didn't want to mention his name. Bill Clinton is and was a brilliant man. He knew what he was doing and what it would mean to the future of American media. I truly believe that by creating and enabling this right wing propaganda monster in 1996 it directly led to Hillary's defeat in 2016.

[pwb]

12. I tune in PBS and network news. Cable news is mostly full of shit.

The 1% pays the news talkers big money so they will spew their agenda. Cable news is a joke. Cut the cord you will be better off.