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  • From: James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>
  • To: "Internetworkers:http"@metalab.unc.edu://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/ <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] Editorial vs. News as it applies to Fox News
  • Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 23:29:11 -0400


On Oct 7, 2004, at 3:34 PM, Evan Zimmerman wrote:

In the NYT, an editorial is clearly labelled that
way just as they are at the N&O or any other traditional paper.

Except, for example, when R. W. "Johnny" Apple writes a "News Analysis". Or Howell Raines "flooded the zone". Or Jayson Blair had a byline. Or should I stop there?

I have not ever watched Fox and not seen editorializing, even from
the most "respected" newsman on the channel, Brit Hume. It's
everywhere. I should say that I have watched quite a bit of Fox even
recently, because I like to see contrasting views, even if I don't
expect to like them -- sometimes I get surprised and it's worth it for
that.

Like Mr. Zimmerman, I've noticed editorializing on Fox News.

I've also seen it on the pages of the NYT, WaPo, LAT, N&O; and on CBS, CNN, ABC, CNBC; heard it on NPR, WPTF, WRDU; read it in books, magazines, poems and pamphlets; recognized it in paintings, sculpture, and architecture.

Hey, it's popular to make snide remarks about Fox News. But it's not any easier to make snide remarks about Fox than it is to make snide remarks about CBS, or ABC, or CNN.

A partisan press is natural. What was UNnatural was the 50-or-so-year delusion that the press *shouldn't* be, let alone *wouldn't* be partisan. (Insert long essay on the influence of FDR, the rise of television and the broadcast networks, the FCC's regulatory impact, and the competitive drive to emulate the new medium.)

Fox News has, I suspect, served to point out the obvious: that the emperor had no clothes; that news media have always been biased. That's bound to upset a lot of people who had a lot of their sense of self staked to the idea that they were impartial bearers of Truth - "speaking truth to power", "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable", and such nonsense.

"Grinding axes" would be just as appropriate, and would describe folks in all wavelengths of the political spectrum. But that's what's good about diversity: nobody has a monopoly on truth. Our political and legal systems are predicated on that notion. That's why they're structured as adversarial systems: the recognition that argument is the only way to discover truth.

Cheers --

--
James Dasher
misterdasher dot com
IM misterdasher





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