hippiechick wrote:
 
You say that like it's a bad thing...

 hippiechick wrote: 

Making it personal, as you do, lessens your observation. You flat out don't like FOX. Fine. But you would better serve yourself by avoiding personal comments like this. If the 'blond chick' be a Con, don't listen if you think she will upset you. Calling her a Con, if that is what she is, is fine. Stating she looks like a drunk soroity gal crosses lines. I detest, for many reasons, the hard Left wing talking points Mr. Olbermann always hews to. Stating I think he's a pathetic gay man would be crossing the line when discussing his on air demeanor or philosophical bend.
 Btw, the 'blond chick' is a lawyer and that means some level of education and achievement and I am not a champion of lawyers.

 musik_knut wrote: 
That blond chick that does the news in the afternoon looks like a drunk sorority girl, and makes comments on news stories.

 Danimal174 wrote: 
The failure to separate or worse, group, FOX commentators with FOX reporters is where many make a mistake. I don't lump MSNBC reporters with Chris Matthews and other MSNBC talking heads. To say Beck is FOX is wrong. To say Matthews is MSNBC is wrong. Both men are links in a much larger news org, respectively.

 islander wrote: 

Touche' Monsignor!

 Danimal174 wrote: 
This happens every time a Democrat is elected to the White House.

 Jack_Jefferson wrote:

Reminds me of the increase in gun sales since Obama won the election. There was such a run that many local stores couldn't keep ammo in stock. Prices (on both ammo and firearms) have also increased pretty substantially during that time; ammo that used to cost me $10 a box now runs about $16.
 

 Jack_Jefferson wrote:
This is the Right Wing MO, masterminded by Karl Rove, which started while Reagan was president, by Lee Atwater, etal. Keep telling the same lies, as loud as possible, as many times as possible, until people believe.
 

 Danimal174 wrote:
I recall Clinton being the target of the same kind of paranoia.  I know of one person that even took action to prepare.  This guy was so convinced Clinton was going to run the economy down the drain that he didn't think he'd be able to afford a haircut.  So he ordered a floby (sp?) from TV.  True story. 

 sirdroseph wrote:
  Y'know, for a misanthrope, you're pretty likable in my book...

 musik_knut wrote:  

Concerning Obama's so-called liberal agenda...I've never seen a public figure attacked more for things people think he's going to do than Obama. He wasn't even in office yet, and people were declaring him to be the most liberal President ever. Concerning his approval rating - the problem is that many in this country have no patience for things to turn around. The economic conditions that were in place around the time that Obama took office were the worst they had been since the Great Depression; those things aren't going to change overnight. During the Great Depression, our forefathers hunkered down for the long fight, knowing things weren't going to get fixed overnight. Now, however, people today, angry that things weren't totally fixed in three months or so, look for someone to blame for the state of the economy right now, and many of those people choose Obama. Rightly or wrongly, it comes with the job. An approval rating for a President is really just an approval rating for the overall state of the union. If the country is in the toilet, the best President would still have a crappy approval rating. Also, it's not that surprising that his approval rating is declining, as this has happened in the first two years of every new President since Truman, with the exception of Kennedy, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. (due greatly to 9/11). Also, out of all of those Presidents, Clinton was the only one who left with a higher approval rating than he started office with; everyone else saw their approval ratings decline during their presidency. (Info from the Wall Street Journal's site, here . I noticed, though, after putting this together, that graphs on other sites, like Wikipedia, look a little different, and show Reagan's approval rating also increased slightly, and that Bush Sr's ended up about the same as when he started office.)

Secondly, I don't get the statement that Glenn Beck is not FOX. I don't know of anyone who has said that Beck controls FOX (if they did, they'd be wrong); however, his show is broadcast on their network, and he is one of the stars of their network, so I don't get the need to distance him from the network that signs his checks. Beck's views are just a more extreme version of many of the messages pushed by Fox News overall and believed by many of their viewers. The stimulus package has hurt the country? Check. Obama wasn't born in the U.S. (or it's at least suspect)? Check. Obama is an extreme liberal looking to push this country towards socialism? Check. For more examples, see below. Generally speaking, these views are the same thing being pushed by Fox News and by the commentators on Fox News.

• 91 percent believe the stimulus legislation lost jobs
• 72 percent believe the health reform law will increase the deficit
• 72 percent believe the economy is getting worse
• 60 percent believe climate change is not occurring
• 49 percent believe income taxes have gone up
• 63 percent believe the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts
• 56 percent believe Obama initiated the GM/Chrysler bailout
• 38 percent believe that most Republicans opposed TARP
• 63 percent believe Obama was not born in the U.S. (or that it is unclear)

 musik_knut wrote: 
Sort of like the one about how the 'main stream media' is rabidly liberal?

 sirdroseph wrote: 
. . . they channel public opinion . . .

 musik_knut wrote: 

Quite frankly other than maybe NPR and PBS; they ALL suck and it is because WE suck.  In mainstream news media for the most part, there is only ONE consistency; desire for ratings; they give the people what they want and it is the great unwashed that truly SUCK.

For the record, yes I am a proud elitist.

 Jack_Jefferson wrote: 

I would agree with you that many news orgs now blur, not always, but once in awhile, news and commentary. Was a time a reporter would inform his viewers that the following was a Commentary. Now, you might have to shake the news loose from opinion. Not always and almost never on breaking stories: they're too new to form opinions in that sense. And many reporters will speculate *a thin form of an opinion?* 'well, I think the guy with the gun was doing the shootings'...
I do get a chuckle out of FOX SUX...that their reporters are not pros, that the make up news that they yadda yadda yadda...it's such an old lament...shop worn and dog eared. It should be retired because it's now just a reflexive thought for some.

 musik_knut wrote: 

You make good, fair points, but you have to admit, Fox News and MSNBC are still very guilty of intentionally blurring the line between news reporting and commentary.  I'm sure educated people like yourself, me and most RPers can tell the difference and see through that.  As for the rest of the viewing public, I'm not so sure I have as much faith.

 Jack_Jefferson wrote: 

Ummm. No. I think CNN, MSNBC and FOX, along with others, employ professional journalists who do not harm the profession. They seek answers to stories, they keep us informed and I appreciate their efforts, often under the most trying conditions. Where many folks, I think, confuse FOX is between FOX reporters and FOX commentators. They are not one and the same yet to many of my friends on the other side, FOX sucks and they make no distinction between FOX opinion pieces which do run middle—->conservative and FOX reporters who walk a street looking for the story or tag along in Afghanistan in harsh and deadly conditions.
As I stated, CNN and MSNBC handled the Chilean story different than did FOX. Each org made a decision. It seems FOX dumped scheduled programming while CNN and MSNBC stuck with their programming and provided updates on the Chilean story. If you were inclinded to follow each drum roll of that story, FOX was there. I watched it for a few and then it became more of the same with each rescued miner which was truly a great story and a lift to all of Chile and others. But 3 or so hours of coverage? Its like Super Bowl Sunday...you can only repeat yourself so many times before the kickoff...

 musik_knut wrote:  

A snide comment about a republican or a positive comment about a democrat, homosexual or racial minority is still very much grounds for dismissal at Fox News.  So are you essentially conceding that Fox News has started or, at the very least, joined in on this race to the bottom when it comes to journalistic professionalism?

As for your second point, I don't doubt that the miners' story was newsworthy.  I think you and I just disagree as to how newsworthy it really was.  It was a great compelling human interest story.  I agree with you there.  Was it really necessary to block off two or three hours of waiting for each and every miner to be rescued?  I'm not sure.  I think a lot of people would have found something that had a more immediate impact on their lives more newsworthy.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Ok. Thanks for the pertinent data.

 musik_knut wrote: 


If I recall correctly Reagan had to deal with some rather steep unemployment figures as well, which would be confirmed by the stats above (timing might suggest that Reagan increased those figures to an even higher level than is currently the case). Of course, unemployment figures aren't entirely uncontroversial/unambiguous either.