Dear Editor:
Mr. Taylor, I read your column on Fox news with interest. If I
understand your first example correctly, you are objecting that
there is one news program on one cable network that gives majority
time to Republican viewpoints. I
Dear Editor:
Mr. Taylor, I read your column on Fox news with interest. If I understand your first example correctly, you are objecting that there is one news program on one cable network that gives majority time to Republican viewpoints. I assume you constructed the corollary of your example: there are no other shows on Fox or any other network that provide majority access to Republican viewpoints.
Did it occur to you that “Special Report with Brit Hume” might intentionally provide different viewpoints than other shows and so tends to invite speakers that are persona non grata in the mainstream (liberal) media?
I have heard that Fox claims to be “fair and balanced’, not unbiased. They’re not quite the same. If, for example, Fox management feels that there is a strong leftward tilt in most media, a strong rightward inclination would be required to restore balance to the Force.
Representatives of CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the LA Times, et cetera claim to be unbiased. Analysis by media watchdog groups other than Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (noted for a leftward orientation) easily find a strong left wing bias in the self-styled paragons of journalistic morality. To an extreme right wing conservative like me, socialist propaganda screams from practically every page of the San Jose Mercury News.
You also cite a FAIR finding that Fox viewers are more likely to have assumptions different from those of FAIR. Specifically, you stated that 70 percent of Fox viewers saw evidence of a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda versus 16 percent of PBS viewers. I saw the same evidence and I don’t watch Fox. My guess is that only 16 percent of PBS viewers also get news from other sources.
Mr. Taylor, most of us do not have direct knowledge of newsworthy events and have to take the reporting pretty much on faith. If one happens to read both mainstream (liberal) and conservative news outlets it is like seeing two different nations, two different worlds.
As I’ve said before, I spent several years comparing the two. Since this was pre-Internet, I ended up with a couple of cabinets full of books on this and that; it’s a lot easier to do nowadays. If you ever get interested in doing the same, remember that you don’t check just one story, you check a thousand stories. You get familiar enough with the viewpoint of the other side that you understand what they think and why, whether you agree with it or not.
I have seen no evidence in your columns that you have done anything remotely like that level of research.
In my opinion, until you’ve done a little more studying, Mr. Taylor, you are not really competent to evaluate the veracity of Fox News.
Stuart Allen, Gilroy
