I really shouldn't expect anything from Fox news, but the fact that their last name is "News" always leads me to expect more from them. And that always leaves me disappointed.
I was a reporter in college. Sure I was no award winning journalist or anything, but I researched and wrote up news stories. Reporting can be a great pasttime because you can investigate the pricks of the world and expose their assinine nature to ensure they get their just desserts.
I suspect that this is why the media has a label as being liberal and comprised mostly of liberals. There probably is a lot of truth to that. What other job allows a guy making 20K or less to have the ability to take down a corrupt, monstrous individual making billions?
To curb potential abuses, there are tons of rules to keep the media piranas in check. There are laws preventing slander and liable which may not offer as much protection for public officials, but still prevents gross abuses by the press.
So called "liberal" media sources like CNN follow these rules but still seek to deliver the news. That is why they would report on clinton's sex life every day for years. There was blood in the water.
Fox News, on the other hand, selectively reports on things that help the cause of conservitism in the US. Scooter Libby, VP Dick Cheney's former Cheif of staff, goes to trial for lying to the CIA. It has been heavily speculated that Cheney and Bush's Deputy Cheif of Staff, Karl Rove, hatched a plan to leak the identity of one of our spies, in order to get back at her husband, Joe Wilson, who after being sent on a fact finding mission by the president, came back only with facts...
(The administration theoretically needed something that fit in with their "weapons of Mass Destruction" theme they were trying to sell to the public. When Joe Wilson loudly presented his facts, it was embarrassing for the administration, so they theoretically sold out one of our spies to get back at him.)
How is that not newsworthy? It reeks of sliminess. It reaches to the top levels of our government. How is the surge in Iraq getting what seems like no more than 5 minutes or less of each hour? Fox has buried them both under "Anna Nicole death watch... week 3".
(To be fair CNN was only a little better. I won't deny that ratings play a huge role in news---especially in the world of 24 hour news TV. Sex is an easier sale than corruption or war. With Fox near totally ignoring the case in favor of Anna Nicole, CNN execs probably felt they too had to give that signifigant airtime too to retain the TV surfers. Showing pictures of the deceased Anna Nicole in eveningwear is a lot more eyecatching than Scooter Libby walking in and out of a courtroom.)
The problem with all this is that media is a police force in the US. Media exposes corruption in all areas of US life. Liberals AND Conservatives have a right to know when their representatives are being shady. When the media is working for us, we are shown these abuses and we either become enraged and force action or we let it go.
Would our fathers' and grandfathers' media have left this story alone, or would they have covered it in depth? Perhaps even to the point where America as a whole rose up and demanded the removal of Rove and Cheney?
Our media, in the era of 24 hour TV news, lead by fox news, buried the story under Anna Nicole's breasts.
If as a news service you cede your responsibility to reports stories to your audience, you are doing a great disservice to your audience and you have no right to expect them to stay. How can media be bewildered by their audience tuning out to them and looking for people who actually report the news (like John Stewart on his mock news show, The Daily Show)?
America needs harnessed Pirana, not muzzled ones.
I need to remember the word "news" in a name doesn't actually convey any news is actually affliated. "The Weekly World News", "The Weekly World News", "The Weekly World News".....
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