The Fox "News" Discussion

[Peace Alliance]

I'll let y'all go first.

[Firetooth]

They claimed Mass effect featured interactive rape without even playing or watching somebody playing the game, based on the word of an evangelical blogger, who also hadn't played the game...

"On January 21, 2008, a Fox News segment "The Live Desk With Martha MacCallum" discussed Mass Effect[96]  with the heading "'SE'XBOX?' New video game shows full digital nudity and sex." MacCallum stated that the game "leaves nothing to the imagination" and features "the ability for players to engage in full graphic sex" where the player gets to decide what happens, cited critics as saying that the Mature-rated game is marketed to children and teenagers, and read a rebuttal from publisher Microsoft  stating that the company abides by rating systems and provides monitoring tools for parents. Psychology specialist and author Cooper Lawrence and video game journalist Geoff Keighley were interviewed. Lawrence described sexual content in video games as teaching their active users, adolescent boys, to consider women as objects of desire valued solely for their sexuality. She added that the game's player character is a man who decides how many women he wants to be with. Keighley focused on challenging the accuracy of previous statements, saying it is a choice to play the protagonist as a male or a female. He also described Mass Effect as having an optional, brief sexual situation as the culmination of a romantic relationship in a 30+ hour game, and argued against the false accusations of graphic, full-frontal nudity within the game. MacCallum and Lawrence admitted that they had not actually played the game."

"On the 25th, Lawrence, who had since watched someone play the game for about two-and-a-half hours, retracted her earlier statements in an interview. She added that she had been told the game was similar to pornography, and noted that she "has seen episodes of Lost that are more sexually explicit.""

They edited their page on wikipedia.

They claim(ed?) they're fair and balanced, even though they're right wing by a long stretch.

They edited images of New york times members who were on their show to make them look less appealing. (Yellowing teeth, largening nose, moving hair back.etc ) Shown here http://mediamatters.org/research/200807020002?f=h_top and here http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/photo_database/image/fox_airs_faux_photos/

Their view on the apollo 13 landing (rant here http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html)

Just an example of how uniformed these guys are from the link:
"Bad: The program talks about the movie ``Capricorn 1'', an entertaining if ultimately silly movie about how NASA must fake a manned Mars expedition. The program says ``The Apollo footage [from the surface of the Moon] is strikingly similar to the scenes in ``Capricorn 1''.

Good: Is it just an amazing coincidence that the actual Moon images look like the movie, or is it evidence of conspiracy? Neither! The movie was filmed in 1978, many years after the last man walked on the Moon. The movie was made to look like the real thing! This statement by the program is particularly ludicrous, and indicates just how far the producers were willing to go to make a sensational program. "

To be fair, that's fox TV, not fox news. But blerg.

And the name Glenn Beck, urg.

[Juska]

The edited images thing was obviously Fox taking a shot back at someone who was taking shots at them.

They aired the thing on the moon landing sure, but it doesn't mean that actually believe it, they even started it with a disclaimer. They were just giving an opposing view time on the air.

As for Mass Effect, if you think graphic video games are a good influence on our society well then I'm sorry for you and you've proved that Fox News isn't infallible, no surprise every news channel plays stories that aren't entirely true or true at all, at least Fox's was about video games and not the origin of political movements.

What's so wrong with Glenn Beck? He is allowed to have his own opinions and Fox gives him air time. Larry King gets air time too.

[Shadow]

The edited images thing was obviously Fox taking a shot back at someone who was taking shots at them.

Oh I see, so we should trust a news source that plays tit for tat with other networks without actually stating when they are broadcasting truth and lies?

As for Mass Effect, if you think graphic video games are a good influence on our society

Irrelevent, if they want to present that they can, but do it without lying.

What's so wrong with Glenn Beck? He is allowed to have his own opinions and Fox gives him air time. Larry King gets air time too.

Nothing, but what he says is no more News than Steven Colbert or John Stewart, and should not be presented or taken as such.


I'd like to repost what Volkov said earlier, it was a good contribution:

Fox News isn't all lies, their actual news programs don't put too much of a spin on things. Those programs, however, constitute less and less of the programming of Fox News. More and more it's guys like Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly, and Hannity that are getting airtime on Fox News. These are not news programs in the classic sense, they are more properly classed as entertainment programs. Some people even go so far as to call Glenn Beck the conservative equivalent of Jon Stewart. Anyway, those programs are the reason for the high ratings of Fox News. That and the fact that when you get right down to it, most Americans are conservative.

[Firetooth]

Juska, have you played Mass Effect lol!
It's a 12 in the UK, Germany, New Zealand and a 15 in Australia.  It's not a graphic game at all-the only mature part is an optional sex scene that, as stated by one of the woman criticizing, isn't really hugely graphic. It doesn't even have any strong language (eg. Character cut off in the middle of saying bull-")
The 2nd one's slightly different (unlike fox news, I know this because I own it), but neither are graphic like COD, GOW or GTA, so don't misinterpret like foxnews. Also, they damaged mass effects profits and permenanently dented Bioware's pretty clean reputation, with their uninformed claims, so I think the fact they wouldn't even apoligize ispretty low. They claimed they'd offered EA (who own Bioware) to appear on the show, but with people like fox news, I don't blame them for turning the offer down.

Grand theft auto IV, which has sex with prostitues and full male nudity in one of the extra episodes, recieved no such fox "news" treatment., but Glenn beck claimed the violence was used to desensitivise the US army to killing, calling it a "murder simulator," and (falsely) described the game (sound familiar), but ignored the sexual content in it, which Bioware recieved such bad press over? (To clarify: I don't have this game, but what I've posted is fact, not what I've heard from someone-by all means search if you don't believe me)

I don't think Graphic video games are good for society, but neither of the mass effect games could really be described as graphic. And false interpretation from those who don't know what they're talking about isn't exactly positive, either.

Moving onwards...

Also about the editing image thing-I don't even think the article the guy published was very personal-nowhere near as personal (and low, eg. lying) as what fox did. The fact they couldn't win their arguement without (poor) visual editing shows you what kind of people they are. I guess if somebody on the forums took a shot at me I could take a personal picture of them and photoshop it, right?

[Juska]

I haven't played Mass Effect myself, but from what your saying I'm beginning to see the problem, I took you and what your saying as general liberal haticizing and apologize. It is rather disheartening that they never released an apology, although EA did turn down coming on the air according to you.

I don't know what the NY Times guys said, but from the impression I got it seemed like a sort of personal attack and so Fox aired some distorted pictures of them, the retaliation was equal and it was provoked. They don't go around airing distorted pictures of random people they don't like without justification is what I'm saying. Not the best way maybe to handle the situation, but I don't see how that incident should discredit the entire network.

Yeah, if someone took a shot at you, you could photoshop some pictures of them and post them (although that might actually be against forum rules? posting pictures of other people?), but seriously we see that kind of stupid stuff every day on these forums, it's what people do. I'm not fully convinced there was a good argument to disprove, it was a stupid immature response to an immature problem.

No one is saying that Glenn Beck is news, so I'm not really sure what your upset over.

Personally, I don't see how any of the examples so far brought forth constitute Fox News being a false, deceiving, horrible news network and I think that you guys (ok, I am generalizing here) don't like Fox because you disagree politically and ideologically with what is said on their programs.  These incidents seem incredibly minor to me when there are tens of stories aired each day and two get pulled from 3 years of programming.

[Firetooth]

I haven't played Mass Effect myself, but from what your saying I'm beginning to see the problem, I took you and what your saying as general liberal haticizing and apologize. It is rather disheartening that they never released an apology, although EA did turn down coming on the air according to you.

I don't know what the NY Times guys said, but from the impression I got it seemed like a sort of personal attack and so Fox aired some distorted pictures of them, the retaliation was equal and it was provoked. They don't go around airing distorted pictures of random people they don't like without justification is what I'm saying. Not the best way maybe to handle the situation, but I don't see how that incident should discredit the entire network.

No one is saying that Glenn Beck is news, so I'm not really sure what your upset over.

Personally, I don't see how any of the examples so far brought forth constitute Fox News being a false, deceiving, horrible news network and I think that you guys (ok, I am generalizing here) don't like Fox because you disagree politically and ideologically with what is said on their programs.  These incidents seem incredibly minor to me when there are tens of stories aired each day and two get pulled from 3 years of programming.

Apology accepted.
I'll see if I can find the article, but I think it was over who was better out of them and other news broadcasters, so I don't think it was hugely personal.

[Shadow]

So you're saying there are times when it is justified that a news organization spreads lies about someone? That it is justifiable for a news organization to knowingly and maliciously slander someone and present it as truth? Give me a break...

If someone said something that was not true about Fox they could set the record straight with a statement, but to retaliate in kind is hugely childish and does not inspire me to trust anything they say about anyone they might have reason to dislike.

[Firetooth]

Juska:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/arts/television/28rati.html?_r=1
Doesn't seem personal to me. More just not saying fox is the greatest thing since sliced bread. A few things were a bit personal, but nothing warranting the response fox gave.

[Juska]

Ok, I read the article and assuming that's what the reference is to solely then I see how Fox's response was unmerited.

That being said I don't see what the whole flare-up is about, airing those pictures is just like printing cartoons of people.

This is kind of like those Swedish cartoons of Muhammad, get over yourselves seriously.

How is this a big deal lol, it doesn't equate to spreading lies at all.

I admit they were wrong to air distorted images, but I'm not getting why it proves that everything they air is false.

CNN lied about how many people were at the 9/12 protests in Washington D.C., that seems like a much bigger deal to me or how they portrayed the Tea Party Movement as being an "astro turf" movement as opposed to a grassroots on, with no evidence.

[Firetooth]

Ok, I read the article and assuming that's what the reference is to solely then I see how Fox's response was unmerited.

That being said I don't see what the whole flare-up is about, airing those pictures is just like printing cartoons of people.

Cartoons can be very effective political tools-everyone from Obama to Stalin has been in Cartoons, and they're effective on young people and old alike. That's often why they're used.
The point is, because of slight (at best) derogatory comments, they photoshopped the faces of two slight fox opposers to make them less appealing. I mean, that screams despicable. They could have at least made it clear they'd edited it-otherwise they were just trying to make it appear all fox opposers were physically unappealing-I think people have a right to be annoyed, considering they consider themselves "fair and balanced"

If someone said something that was not true about Fox they could set the record straight with a statement, but to retaliate in kind is hugely childish and does not inspire me to trust anything they say about anyone they might have reason to dislike.

This.

[Gen. Volkov]

(Carried this over from other thread.)

Except Jon Stewart is a comedian... Glen Beck makes every effort to appear to be a legitimate news source. It's called "fair and balanced" news, and it's on a major 24 hour news network. Jon Stewart is on a 24 hour COMEDY network.

Glenn Beck's roots are as an entertainer, just like Stewart. He started as a radio DJ, in the tradition of Howard Stern, or Bob & Tom. Beck never claims to be a legit news source, just like Stewart. People just ascribe that to him, like they do with Stewart. Beck has repeatedly stated that his show is an entertainment show. The fact that Beck was on Headline News and now Fox News, where as Stewart has always been on Comedy Central does mean that Beck is probably taken more seriously than Stewart is, but when you get right down to it, both Beck and Stewart present their selected news stories with their own twist on it. Beck has even done comedy shows, which were broadcast live to theaters around the country.

[Alazar is Back]

Say what you want about Fox News, but almost all news stations are hugely biased, and air stories that help their personal views. The most unbiased news you can get imo is NPR. They do a good job of just reporting facts. This is a pointless debate, because again just look at CNN, MSNBC, etc etc. Don't start tearing down a news station because you don't agree with it, especially when the one you are watching is doing the same thing, except in the opposite way.

[Gorak]

actually CBCN has very little spin for the most part, can be a little left wing at times, but The National (the main news program) is very unbiased. Plus Rex Murphy kicks butt!
CTVNN isn't bad either

don't watch CNN
and what I've seen of Fox News... well I wouldn't put any stock in the poo that comes outta mouths there.

[Juska]

and what I've seen of Fox News... well I wouldn't put any stock in the [poop] that comes outta mouths there.

See this is the sort of ridiculous statement that makes it worthless to have this debate.