Why do our soldiers trust Fox news and Rush Limbaugh?

Question

You hear about it all the time from our soldiers coming back from Iraq. They believe the American people are being misled by the media.

Answer 1

Because these 2 speak the truth, but you guys do not like hearing the truth. You liberals want to hear how bad the war is and how terrible the prisoners are being treated and finally you all love that death toll given out daily. Just gets all you liberals excited. I do not understand why all you dems will not support our fighting men and women in a time of war!

I say Mr Spin has got a contract with CNN by his reaction. Go Fox News!! They Rock!!

Answer 2

The US citizens are being mislead by the FOX news.


An example:
Watch FOX news, and at any given moment turn the channel on, and you'll see "Developing Story". What the crap is that? "Developing Story....". They are so lame that they will title ANYTHING as a developing story, whether it is a cat stuck in a tree or a few of our soldiers killed in Iraq. And they won't have all of the facts yet. They are desperate for high-ratings, and pleasing Bush and the republicans.

"A teen was abducted, we don't know when, or where it happened. Maybe up state New York. It was either a black child or a white child. All of this may be still be a rumor. Stay tuned for more updates..." This is new, but barely informative.

The Dems support the troops, no doubt. But when FOX reports the news, they only report some of the story and CENSOR the news. You don't see actual killings, be-headings. There's no freedom of speech or the news You don't even see a casket with the American flag on it. What an insult to the US citizens. We can't even mourn. We just see numbers every day.

Answer 3

During my tour in Iraq I was in a Brigade TOC and we had cable news running 24x7. This gave me the opportunity to compare what the various media was saying with 'ground truth.'

After comparing this I concluded that Fox news was providing the most accurate assessment of events in Iraq. CNN was providing the least accurate.

And it is no secret that the troops feel that the news media is misleading the American people about the progress of the war.

Answer 4

First of all, to the posters who think the media is controlled by liberals, you need to ask yourself, "who owns this (supposedly) 'liberal media'?" If you're referring to the major networks, that would be Disney, Westinghouse and General Electric - hardly bastions of liberal thought.

If you're referring to the major dailies, like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, do a little research - both of these supposedly liberal papers staunchly supported Bush's wars.

To answer your question, Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are outlets for advocacy, not journalism. Rush and Hannity aren't reporting from the streets of Iraq.

More to the point, people in the military are trained to see themselves as being part of a unit. And if an action they're involved in - like say, a war - is being criticized, then they feel that THEY are being personally criticized (rather the policy which put them where they are).

Feeding into this misconception is the hawkish rhetoric of people like Rush Limbaugh who define the parameters of debate as being "us (the military and talk show hosts) against them (liberals, the media and the terrorists)."

This is not to say, however, that the soldiers in the field aren't smart enough to figure out what's going on - they are and they do. But if you're a conservative talk show host or network who is selling a particular position, you're not going to include footage of dissident soldiers.

In fact, the "liberal media" is also reluctant to include footage or report stories which may be viewed as unsupportive. If you look at the history of the news media's coverage of the Vietnam War, you'll find that, contrary to the notion that the media was "against" the war, the media actually supported the war, for a number of reasons. For one thing, many of the correspondents were either military veterans or media veterans of past conflicts and had no desire to denigrate "our boys." And it's the same thing today. Only after the Tet Offensive (and the revelation that enemy body counts were being inflated by US military brass to justify calls for more troops) did the media begin to express doubts.

The other problems are systematic constraints, especially with respect to attribution. As evidenced by the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1965 and more recently, the Bush administrations claims of WMD, etc., the media dutifully reports whatever the President says without any serious attempt at accountability. This is done, in part, because journalists and the companies for whom they work, value their access to the White House and don't want to do anything to get themselves banned. They also rely heavily on unnamed sources, which allows administration-approved "leaks" of questionable validity.

Answer 5

I hear the term liberal media, and Fox news, neither of which are liberal!
The soldiers hate the news media because they dont understand the truth either- all they know is the media knows where they are going before they do, and they blame many deaths on this!!!

The media does what it is supposed to do, report in a timely manner,
What causes the problem is that the media is being "LEAKED" information before it happens! This is being done by the political administration (BUSH) so that news agencies (FOX) can be on the scene of breaking news!
This is akin to giving the FOX the run of the henhouse, but blaming it on the rooster!

Answer 6

I am a veteran and for some reason many of my fellow troops believed the very right wing partisan views of fox. Myself with some other dems that were serving ,(yes thats right conservatives, many of the people serving and dying for your country are dems.) We did not understand whey everyone bought into the rhetoric. But I support our troops 100% as do most of america. Its bush we dont support. Conservatives have this false belief that because a person is against bush's war, that we dont support the troops. AS A VETERAN, this is the furthest from the truth, We support them even more and don't want them to die for bush and his chronies.

Answer 7

Well, maybe they can THINK for themselves and read the New York Times with all its America-bashing, Bush-bashing and whining. That is a grotesque representation of the free and unbiased press.

Answer 8

it is true, the media is controlled by the liberal fodder and they control what we see and hear, thank god forFox news.