A few weeks ago in class we watched a video on YouTube investigating the reporting and management style of FoxNews, who considers itself to be “Fair & Balanced.” This morning the Boston Globe reported an AP story stating that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyers predicted that the health care bill will be passed “because the majority of Americans want it.” In the Globe article the Republican House Majority Leader John Boehner believes that “the plan is a government takeover opposed by the vast majority of Americans” and the Democrats have not locked in the 216 votes necessary to the plan’s passing.
Switch to FoxNews’ report of the story: “He [Obama] faces unanimous opposition from Republicans, who say the plan amounts to a government takeover of health care that will lead to higher deficits and taxes.” In addition to this, FoxNews also states in the story that this issue “has left the country deeply divided.” Are these statements true?
Although I have not been closely following the health care bill debates, I still know that even if these statements are true, it is not appropriate for a news story to report it with that phrasing, because it is biased.
Before watching the video in class, I had knew that FoxNews was conservative, I had even interned at FoxNews for a semester while in undergrad, but I did not realize the extent to which they pushed their own agenda.
After watching the video, I have begun comparing AP stories with what I find FoxNews reporting. Although the stories somewhat align, there is still the overwhelming sense that a conservative agenda is being pushed through, which is not how news should be reported. This also goes hand in hand with Jamieson’s The Press Effect – how much of the news reported can we trust?
How has your view of FoxNews changed since watching the video in class?
On my way back from DC, I was listening to some right wing Christian radio (The program was claiming that US should protect Israel because Jesus was going to come to Israel and all Jewish people will become Christian).
ReplyDeleteAnyway, someone joined the program and claimed that if people only listened to major news networks and not to Fox News or that Christian radio, they were going to get biased news.