More on the Fair™ and Balanced™ one

[Stratos]

Originally posted by Grojlach: http://blugg.com/stuff/foxs_view_of_the_bbc_player.htm

Blah, blah, Blah...

I would expect a mediaperson to have at least some respect for his fellow reporters regardless of political orientation. He was practically spitting acid at BBC.

[Davros]

Thamks for that link Chewbacca. That ties up with everything I observe about Faux News. Political mouthpiece is a much better descriptor isn't it.

[Timber Loftis]

Dislike Fox's spin though I may, I find the news bit you first linked to be a more accurate representation of the truth than anything the Beeb has said recently. The Beeb commited abject buffonery with the invasion of Baghdad story, and it is true the British government's investigation report regarding Kelly did censure the Beeb. So, I'll stand behind the report and point out that just because you Eurotwits and your news stations don't like the news, it doesn't give you the right the misrepresent it. Bleh. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Dislike Fox's spin though I may, I find the news bit you first linked to be a more accurate representation of the truth than anything the Beeb has said recently. The Beeb commited abject buffonery with the invasion of Baghdad story, and it is true the British government's investigation report regarding Kelly did censure the Beeb. So, I'll stand behind the report and point out that just because you Eurotwits and your news stations don't like the news, it doesn't give you the right the misrepresent it. Bleh. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I think we've already lost Timber... Damn those American news stations and their spindoctoring.

[Grojlach]

Anyways, for those who are unable to view it, here's a transcribed version of the above FOX excerpt, taken from the British newspaper The Independent, plus some comments:

The Media Column: Fox News's balanced version of events: 'The BBC feels entitled to lie'
Vincent Graff
03 February 2004


It's unlikely you have got this far without realising what an outrage the Hutton report was, what a sad overreaction it led to at the BBC and what a ghastly sight it is seeing Alastair Campbell looking so pleased with himself.

But you might not have noticed how the story has been reported by Fox News, the most successful rolling news channel in America. Readers of this column will be aware that Fox, which during the Gulf war carried a fluttering Stars and Stripes image on-screen at all times and consistently referred to coalition troops as "heroes" and "liberators", tells viewers every hour that its coverage is "fair and balanced".

If you wonder why Fox News needs to remind its viewers of that fact, it might be worth taking you back to Fox News's fair and balanced coverage a year ago, on the day that more than a million people took to the streets of London to protest against the Prime Minister's plans to send troops to the Middle East. As the pictures rolled, Fox filled the bottom quarter of the screen with a caption to explain events: "March Madness".

So how did Fox - available in Britain on Sky Digital channel 531 - cover the Hutton report?

John Gibson is the host of The Big Story, an hour-long, early-evening show that Fox says "provides in-depth coverage and analysis of the day's top stories". Each day, Gibson, who sports a bright white bouffant hairstyle that would require planning permission anywhere outside New York City, spends the last moments of his programme delivering a sermon on the day's great events.

Here is the presenter's on-screen analysis of Andrew Gilligan and the BBC, five hours after the Hutton report was published.

"The British Broadcasting Corporation was forced to pay up for its blatant anti-Americanism before and during the Iraq war. A frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest.

"The BBC - the 'Beeb' - was one of the worst offenders in the British press because it felt entitled not only to pillory Americans and George W Bush, but because it felt entitled to lie. And when caught lying, it felt entitled to defend its lying reporters and executives.

"The incident involved the reporter Andrew Gilligan who made a fool of himself in Baghdad when the American invasion actually arrived in the Iraqi capital. Gilligan, pro-Iraqi and anti-American, insisted on the air that the Iraqi army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American military. Video from our own Greg Kelly of the American army moving through Baghdad at will put the light to that.

"After the war, back in London, Gilligan got a guy named David Kelly to tell him a few things about pre-war assessments on Iraq's weapons' programmes. And Gilligan exaggerated about what Kelly had told him.

"Kelly committed suicide over the story and the BBC, far from blaming itself, insisted its reporter had a right to lie, exaggerate, because, well, the BBC knew the war was wrong and anything it could say to underscore that point had to be right.

"The British government investigation slammed the BBC Wednesday and a Beeb exec resigned to show they got it.

"But they don't."

At this point, Gibson made a grab for the small badge on his jacket, and held it up to the camera. Referring to claims from the BBC that the audience for BBC World, the corporation's international news channel, rose during the Gulf War because of its impartial take on events, he continued:

"So the next time you hear the BBC bragging about how much superior the Brits are delivering the news [he adopts a British accent] rather than Americans who wear flags in their lapels, remember it was the Beeb caught lying."

Fox News's other slogan is "we report, you decide". I have done my deciding.

If ever you have cause to ponder why the BBC is worth fighting for, remember that but for the corporation, we could be dished up television "news" just like Mr Gibson's seven days a week. Suddenly the £116 licence fee seems rather a good insurance policy, wouldn't you say?

Meanwhile, Campbell was on Radio Five Live the other day, criticising the fact that the British media does not know how to separate news from comment.

If anybody in the Daily Mirror's reference library has copies of the pieces Campbell wrote for the paper when he was political editor in the early Nineties, would they please send them to him. The poor man seems to have forgotten all about them.

[Davros]

LOL - thanks for that article Groj - I love to see a fair and balanced view, which is why I avoid the "Fair and Balanced One" .

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Originally posted by Barry the Sprout: That disturbs me - its not a case of him being biased in that link he's just actually lying. It got to the stage where I was no longer even counting the lies he told, ironically enough in a piece about lying. I swear I will later on get round to replying to the other thread, but I just wanted to say that I'm absolutely disgusted with that link and the lies told in it.

I'm interested in something here, Barry, and I wonder if you would help me out. You say that you finally reached the point where you quit counting the lies in the report - would you be willing to take the time to look over the transcript Grojlach provided and list the lies told in the article?

I don't agree with the manner in which the story was presented, but as Timber pointed out, the story itself does contain a lot of facts.

The BBC was "anti-American" and especially "anti-Bush" in it's stories, at least to the best of my memory. I'll agree they weren't "frothing at the mouth" about it, but all of their articles were consistent in being "anti-war". They also were caught exaggerating (or even falsifying) certain facts in their articles.

I'm not slamming the BBC, because they certainly weren't the ONLY media outlet guilty of such infractions. CNN even got caught "creating" an interview with some British soldiers in which they spoke of the utter incompetence of American soldiers. It was later discovered that the "British soldiers" were actually paid actors and the entire interview was nothing but a fraudelent production made by CNN.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that - if you can ignore the "spin" put on by Fox - the story itself does contain several facts. Since you said it also contained several lies, I would be interested to know which parts of it were falsified. Thanks.

[Cerek the Barbaric]

One other point I wanted to address was the concern most of the Europeans have in wondering if this "news clip" from Fox is representative of all the other "news programs" we see in America.

NO..it isn't. Fox is definitely the exception to the rule rather than the standard. While many network news programs can be accused of "spinning" their news to the left or the right, NONE are as blatant and transparant about it as Fox. This is a consistent theme in ALL of thier programming. And most people see it for what it is.

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: I'm interested in something here, Barry, and I wonder if you would help me out. You say that you finally reached the point where you quit counting the lies in the report - would you be willing to take the time to look over the transcript Grojlach provided and list the lies told in the article? I don't agree with the manner in which the story was presented, but as Timber pointed out, the story itself does contain a lot of facts. The BBC was "anti-American" and especially "anti-Bush" in it's stories, at least to the best of my memory. I'll agree they weren't "frothing at the mouth" about it, but all of their articles were consistent in being "anti-war". They also were caught exaggerating (or even falsifying) certain facts in their articles.

*sigh*
I'd love to see proof supporting your claim that the BBC was "anti-American" in their reports concerning Iraq, as that's quite an extreme claim to make, even in a "non-mouth-frothing" manner.

I suppose the term "anti-American" has been over-, mis- and abused so often lately, that it has simply lost its actual meaning. Being against the Iraqi war is not anti-American. Disagreeing with Bush's policies is not anti-American. Being left of center in reports concerning the war isn't anti-American. Countering blatant war propaganda (Jessica Lynch, anyone?) with a taste of its own medicine is not anti-American, just war rhetorics.
The only "frothing at the mouth" that occurs at the moment concerns itself with criticising Lord Hutton's report, which is regarded by a majority of the British as a shameless "whitewash" attempt; especially considering the fact that a large part of the evidence to support the BBC's case wasnt even taken into account.
If you look beyond Gibson's childish and petty name-calling, it's not necessarily lying that he's doing, it's omitting a large part of the main picture that's the most reprehensible. Gibson's narrow-minded black and white perspective gave me the strong feeling that he hadn't even done the slightest background research... Good thing the British themselves are a lot better at it:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/hutto...027691,00.html
But I somehow doubt anyone working at FOX News would seriously consider any of the criticism on Lord Hutton's report to be relevant enough to report in a neutral manner, without accompanying it with their usual self-indulgent flaming and twisting of the facts.

[ 02-10-2004, 04:17 AM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

[Grojlach]

Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric: One other point I wanted to address was the concern most of the Europeans have in wondering if this "news clip" from Fox is representative of all the other "news programs" we see in America. NO..it isn't. Fox is definitely the exception to the rule rather than the standard. While many network news programs can be accused of "spinning" their news to the left or the right, NONE are as blatant and transparant about it as Fox. This is a consistent theme in ALL of thier programming. And most people see it for what it is.

That's a relief.