Boy, does Fox News love to put on a show!
For a long time now, I have banned Fox News from my TV programming. It is not because I am some liberal who can't take views other than my own, nor because I have some left wing agenda. It is because this channel is a disgrace - seriously. Fox News is irresponsible, blatantly biased, yellow journalism of the 21st century. It baffles me that America would allow such a politicized news outlet to even be called a news outlet. There are no "news" being presented by Fox, because behind the news what they present is a clear motivation to persuade the viewer into one direction (theirs!). It's just.. so awful! it reminds me of Venezolana de Television, which at least doesn't pretend to be unbiased as it is run by the government (if you speak Spanish, you will notice that only glancing at the headlines it is obvious who they favor). That there may be a portion of this country who only get their news from this news-outlet-farce is not only worrisome, but downright scary.
Proof of my assertion is this week's Shirley Sherrod circus. The whole story can be sumarized in the following events: idiot blogger posts a doctored video of Sherrod talking about how she allegedly didn't want to help out some white farmers. Fox News and other media outlets get a hold of this and run it. The stupid Department of Agriculture fires Sherrod. Finally somebody thinks of checking the source and listening to the whole tape. It is revealed that no, she was not being racist, in fact she did help the white farmers. The administration apologizes and she is offered her job back. The media outlets go back on their accusations and start running the story of the how "badly" the administration handled the case (not how badly they handled the new, duh).
Upon this dizzying whirlwind of events, we realize that this is a story of flat-out yellow journalism that was able to affect somebody's job. What?! There could be something scarier than Americans being glued to Fox News; the government listening to Fox News! The real story here is that of Shirley Sherrod. A woman whose dad was killed by white men who were never convicted, who was able to overcome her injustice-driven anger to lend a hand to a white couple and save their farm. It is ironic and tragic that such a story, which should serve as an example to overcoming racial problems in America, ends up being twisted into a story of racism in America by some idiot blogger. That Fox News would deliberately take this twist and place it as front-page-style news is simply irresponsible.
This whole fiasco reminded me of a recent piece I read in the New York Times, by Paul Krugman. The piece is called The Pundit Delusion and it deals with the ways in which politics is driven by stupid media pundits. I agree! not a lot of Political Science makes it to the media and we end up having these ridiculous theories crafted by these "analysts" on these networks. Who are these people?! what do they know?! Ah you may ask the same about me, "who are you Black Mamba!?", "what do you know!?". I will proudly say I am a Political Scientist and I'll tell you what I'm not: perfect. And I'll tell you what I try to do, despite lacking perfection, I try to think critically - I actually like to explore both sides of an issue. I may not always succeed, but I surely try, very hard. And sadly, the same cannot be said about the current state of affairs of Journalism in America. It has gotten so partisan, that the only alternative to partisan news is reuters news blips. Sad!
**Although I will make note that there is one news show out there that is very much worth people's attention: Fareed Zakharia GPS. Great interviews, great pieces, really thoughtful... just great journalism. I don't ever feel like I'm being persuaded, I feel like I'm being stimulated.
A long time ago, when I was in the seventh grade I used to aspire to be a journalist. I had this admiration for journalists and the difficulty of their job. There I was thinking "wow presenting a news without putting your own interpretation of it, that is so admirable!". What do you know, it was really when I moved to America that this dream quickly died. I have been disillusioned ever since and I can't get my head around the fact that "news outlets" such as Fox News have the high viewership they do. It makes me a little sad for America, actually.
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