There is only one news source that is fair and balanced and that is Fox News?

Question

Why is the main stream media so leftist?

Answer 1

Look at it this way: For forty years, Congress was controlled by Democrats. News people who expressed views sympathetic with those in power soon found that they had more access, got more scoops,, and rose through the ranks. By the time Republicans gained a majority in 1994, the Antique media was thoroughly liberal.

Many attribute the shift away from liberalism to the rise of talk radio. For the first time in decades, the general public was hearing from someone other than the network newscasts and frankly, people whose opinions were closer to their own. All of this created a demand for a balanced news source, and Fox responded to that demand. Fox KILLS CNN in the ratings, but you never here the rest of the media talk about that...

Fair and Balanced is not about who is telling the truth, everyone except Dan Rather is smart enough to not tell a total lie, it's about what truths are told, and in what proportion.

If a network devotes 3 minutes to Democrats ranting against something and 20 seconds to a Republican defense, that's slanted news.

If a network that gushed about the unemployment rate being 4.8% under Clinton NEVER MENTIONS that it's now 4.6% under BUSH, that's slanted news.

If a network asks 100 soldiers if they'd like to be home for Christmas, and then reports that a majority of our troops don't believe in the mission and want to leave Iraq, that's a distortion that comes very close to a lie.

Answer 2

Fox is hardly fair and balanced but yes main stream media is slanted left.

Answer 3

Of all the biased medias and I agree thay all are. The aboslute lowest most intentionaly biased is fox news. Journalism 101 teach's these basic principles and Fox is well aware of what they are doing but it plays well to those who would rather believe a lie.So enjoy it like those who enjoy wrestling but try to remember it is simply entertainment and shouldn't be taken seriously.

Answer 4

Fox News was banned in Canada for making up "facts", so very "fair and balance" of them.

Answer 5

Out of all the news shows I watch Fox News seems to try to tell THE WHOLE STORY, and not just pick and choose what they want you to know. I don't really know why the other news programs slant to the left. I guess most of them are liberal morons.

Answer 6

If a news source has to tell me they are fair and balanced then I have to assume they are neither.

Answer 7

Think about it. News is on privately owned channels, they have commercials about for themselves on other network times, and they practically throw themselves at you with their false advertising and hooks. News is a T.V. show, pure and simple, and like any other T.V. show, it has to do the things people want, not just the news.

Answer 8

A station that employs a sex pervert like Bill O'reilly can not enjoy the claim you make.

tough as hell, THANK YOU FOR THE FACTS.. NEOCONS hate the facts. The truth is disgusting to them.

Answer 9

if everyone else seems bias... perhaps your perception is off...

it's like if you're at a shooting range and everyone else is hitting the bullseye except for you... maybe the problem isn't with the bullseye? maybe it's with your gun?

in other words... 99.9 percent of the time... if something is very different than all the rest... that one thing is not usually correct...

Answer 10

To test Fox's guest list, FAIR studied 19 weeks of Special Report with Brit Hume (1/1/01-5/11/01), which Fox calls its signature political news show looking specifically at the show's daily one-on-one newsmaker interviews conducted by the show's anchor. The interview segment is a central part of the newscast; Hume often uses his high-profile guests' comments as subject matter for the show's wrap-up panel discussion.

FAIR classified each guest by both political ideology and party affiliation. Only two ideological categories were used: conservative and non-conservative. Guests affiliated with openly conservative think tanks, magazines or advocacy groups, or who promote openly conservative views, were labeled as such. All other guests were grouped together in the non-conservative category, including centrists, liberals and progressives; non-political guests (e.g., Cheney's heart doctor); and "objective" journalists who do not avow any ideology. Republicans were not automatically counted as conservatives: Moderate Republicans like Christopher Shays, Christine Todd Whitman and David Gergen, for example, were classified as non-conservatives.

Sixty-one percent of guests were current or former Democratic or Republican government officials, political candidates, staffers or advisors. These guests were classified as either Democrats or Republicans. All others -- including conservatives with no official party connection, such as Jerry Falwell or David Horowitz -- were classified as non-partisan for the purposes of the study, along with bipartisan officials such as career diplomats.

The numbers show an overwhelming slant on Fox towards both Republicans and conservatives. Of the 56 partisan guests on Special Report between January and May, 50 were Republicans and six were Democrats -- a greater than 8 to 1 imbalance. In other words, 89 percent of guests with a party affiliation were Republicans.

On Special Report, 65 of the 92 guests (71 percent) were avowed conservatives--that is, conservatives outnumbered representatives of all other points of view, including non-political guests, by a factor of more than 2 to 1. While FAIR did not break down the non-conservative guests by ideology, there were few avowed liberals or progressives among the small non-conservative minority; instead, there was a heavy emphasis on centrist and center-right pundits (David Gergen, Norman Ornstein, Lou Dobbs) and politicians (Sen. John Breaux, Sen. Bob Graham, Rep. Christopher Shays).

As a comparison, FAIR also studied the one-on-one newsmaker interviews on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports over the same time period, and found a modest but significant tilt towards Republicans, and a disproportionate minority of guests who were conservatives--but in both cases, there was far more balance than was found on Special Report.

Of Blitzer's 67 partisan guests, 38 were Republicans and 29 were Democrats -- a 57 percent to 43 percent split in favor of Republicans. Thirty-five out of 109 guests (32 percent) were avowed conservatives, with the remaining 68 percent divided up among the rest of the political spectrum, from center-right to left.

Only eight of Special Report's 92 guests during the study period were women, and only six were people of color -- making for a guest list that was 91 percent male and 93 percent white. Wolf Blitzer Reports was hardly a model of diversity either; its guests were 86 percent male and 93 percent white.

Special Report's guests who were women or people of color were strikingly homogenous in ideology. Seven of the show's eight female guests were either conservative or Republican, although women in general tend to be less conservative and more Democratic than men. Although African-Americans and Latinos show an even more pronounced progressive tilt, five of six people of color appearing on the show were either conservative or Republican; the sixth was an Iraqi opposition leader championed by congressional Republicans. (On Wolf Blitzer Reports, nine of 15 female guests were conservative or Republican; four out of five of the show's American guests who were people of color were non-conservative.)

The fact that the study included the beginning of a new Republican administration may excuse a slight tilt toward Republican guests. But at a time when the Senate had a 50/50 split and the White House was won with less than a plurality of the popular vote, Special Report's 50 Republicans to 6 Democrats reflects not news judgment, but partisan allegiance.