Talk about living like an ostrich. Can't these "intellectuals" understand that Americans have figured out how biased the MSM is and watch Fox News to get a more balanced report. Unbelievable.

I watch Fox a lot to hear another viewpoint, but they are essentially anti-Obama all the time in a way that gets to be too predictable and tedious. They will give some voice to liberals, but not much, and even less, now that Colmes is gone. Hey, occasionally the lefty networks will point out some Obama problems or possible missteps...at least as often as Fox will ever admit that he has done something right. But still, it would be nice to have at least one network that was close to fair and balanced. but we don't have any such thing right now.

Of course, Fox admits they aren't O!'s biggest fan. MSM, not so much.

We do not have a TV in our house and get our news from the internet and news magazines like the Economist. Our only way to have a pony in this controversy is the studies that are cited with regard to positive and negative coverage of stories involving Bush and Obama , Republican vs Democrat agendas. The surveys seem to overwhelmingly indicate that FOX News programs (not opinion ones) present more unbiased information than MSNBC, ABC, and CBS. If I had a TV, I'd head for FOX for news and the others for opinions.

Dwight Fox reports the facts, you just find the facts anti Obama.

Weisberg does nothing but parrot the Axelrod-Emanuel lines. The control this White House has over the media is striking.

Fox News is all that stands between us and a Chavez government.

Fox News does point up a lot of Obama/Dem screwups. However, they're doing exactly what Rush did when he first started out: using the bushels of rocks the libs hand them as missiles to fire back. If the libs weren't so damned knee-jerk leftist and corrupt, neither Rush nor Fox would be able to slam them so hard. As it is, the anti-left and anti-Obama stories almost write themselves.

Dems are always corrupt, always perverted and never admit that anything they do is wrong. See Roman Polanski's defenders as just the latest example. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. Charlie Rangel, anyone? Chris Dodd? "Cold Cash" Jefferson? "Chocolate City" Ray Nagin? "Swimmer" Ted Kennedy? Nancy "Tuna" Pelosi? Harry "Land Grab" Reid? The list just goes on and on and on....

Were it not for Fox News, the leftist in the administration would slant unabated. We "old geezers" have been around long enough to know what has happened in the past, and what is happening now. Fox News gives us good information (not available in my left slanted newspapers) and reinforces what we already know. We've been around too long to give up our country without a fight. To HELL with the left!!!

I use FOX as an Information Broker because I know they will report on whatever the MSM doesn't want me to find out about.

Liberal-leftists are analogous to vampires in many ways, and one of those ways is that they can't see themselves in a mirror.

I have one word for Weisberg.

ACORN

Who covered it and who did not? Weisberg is just another tool of the Obama adminstration, and that's an insult to tools.

Also, it says alot that Democrat candidates were too scared to show up in front of Brit Hume and Mara Liasson.

I mean, c'mon: Brit and Mara? They might have asked some tough but fair questions. And the Left is afraid of tough and fair questions.

[...]

Jacob Weisberg: "it serves the public interest rather than those of parties, persuasions, or pressure groups."

Ah Jacob, how sad. I hope you are corrupt or just plain stupid. Otherwise, you define "public interest" as totalitarian.

Perhaps you can explain the very existence of AM talk radio? Because if "the public interest" were served fairly by the press, there would have been no need for conservatives to flock to a parallel venue simply to exercise their freedom of speech.

===

to⋅tal⋅i⋅tar⋅i⋅an  /toʊˌtælɪˈtɛəriən/

1. a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises executive control over many aspects of life.

2. exercising control over the freedom, will, or thought of others.

====

Back when I was a Liberal, my Liberal Mentors always taught: "I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

How's that shirt fit, Jacob? You should lose the arm-band.

Lets see now, Obama will meet with all of the dictators of the world but not with Fox news. Boy are they scary! I'll give you liberals just one area that the MSM has failed to do their jobs and that is vetting Obama. You libs love to call the doubters on the right, "Birthers", and claim that we are conspiracy nuts but did any of the MSM offer any proof to the contrary? The polls for the 911 disaster show that on the left almost 30% of Dems believe in the 911 conspiracy that GWB and the US gov. were behind it. Lets compare the two conspiracies. One is that ONE man will not show his birth certificate or his college records to the public. The other is that several thousand Americans at all levels of government and private jobs colluded to kill thousands of fellow Americans for GWB. Which one seems reasonable? The MSM has reported on the 911 conspiracy thousands of times with neutral or sympathetic coverage but not one time have they covered the back ground questions of BHO fairly.

The hard-hitting criticism of Obama on CNN etc is in the vein of the famous SNL sketch. They complain that he has not yet socialized the entire economy, has not yet turned our power grid into a 15th century Dutch landscape, has not raised taxes to 120%... this sort of thing. Of course most criticism of Bush you would hear on Fox was from the Right: objections to spending/deficits, pusillanimity in the Long War as in the Dubai Ports (although I was with him on that), rubbing elbows with Putin. Whatever. This dufus Weisberg had best brush up his resume and get himself some useful skills, like drywalling. He tells the world to ignore Fox? Can this guy not read a ratings book? Already their OReilly foils can only goose their ratings by slandering the guy with 20m daily. CNNs primetime ratingss are routinely about 5% of Limbaughs from noon to three! Weisberg tells his fans to ignore Fox? And just who has read this plea (other than hostile folks like you and me)? Aren't these people ALREADY ignoring Fox except to slander it? Whew! Okay, how about this? Yeah, Chris Matthews and Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow, go ahead and ignore Fox and other Right leaning media. And then wave bye-bye.

What's hilarious about this is the way Weisberg invents out of whole cloth a completely fictitious past for American journalism.

Is he really so naive or ignorant of history as to think that journalists in the past were unbiased defenders of the common weal with no political angle? Is he even remotely familiar with the differing editorial viewpoints of, for example, major New York daily newspapers from the Civil War through the 1970s?

Fox does irritate me sometimes, but it's an honest transaction. They wear their editorial viewpoint on their sleeve. CNN has just as much of an editorial bias, but it deludes itself and its viewers by pretending to be unbiased.

I rarely watch Fox except when visiting family. Last time I did so, it was clear that they were everything they have been accused of, namely, strongly biased to the right.

The real difference between Fox and CNN is that one is acknowledged as being strongly biased, while the other maintains a ludicrous pretense of not being strongly biased.

Who is Jay?

Look at me. Look at me. I'm ignoring Fox. And writing about it so every one knows. And I'll be sending out reminders in the future, so you don't forget who to ignore.

Hilarity seems insufficient. A good start though.

There are some amazingly ignorant people parading around. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who has read our nation's history of presidential races, wars, and politics cannot escape the FACT that our press has NEVER been unbiased and objective. It may have been independent of governemnt control, but it has always had a strong connection to partisan politics. Depending on the newspaper in question it may have leaned left, right, whig, democrat, republican etc -- but the clear FACTS are that the 4th estate has NEVER been impartial in this country, and Only a fool ignorant of our history would state such. That may be the single most ignorant article written this year, and that is saying alot.

Pam K. wrote

Dwight Fox reports the facts, you just find the facts anti Obama.

Hmmmm, there are more facts out there than any of them (or us) can handle, so we all cherrypick to some degree, but Obama gets no credit for choosing a fairly centrist (starting with Hillary) cabinet and ostensibly supporting the troops in Afghanistan. The FOX STANCE is to be anti-Obama, and essentially not to give him ANY credit for anything. To be fair, O'Reilly, Hume, and a few others will occasionally give him some credit, or at a minimum, acknowledge his difficult position, but the general daily meme is clearly otherwise.

It took Iraq to make the left center turn viciously against GWB, but I think that the right center has turned viciously against Obama BEFORE he has actually reduced troop strength in Afghanistan. He is is getting nailed for essentially continuing the GWB schtick of bailouts, stimulus, and health care stuff.

Help!!! The sky is falling!!! Been there, done that. It was over the top against GWB and it is over the top against Obama, but you know, people beleeeeeve so strongly that they can't help themselves.
So it goes.

I was a bit surprised at Weisberg's rant about the lack of objectivity as he then proceeded to scream about Fox while ignoring why Fox has so many viewers - people are tired of the lack of objectivity on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and ABC. Why watch networks that do nothing but bash the home team, cheerlead for one political party (unashamedly) and then accuse anyone who disagrees with the current Administration of racism. Who needs to have much of what you believe in, stand for, or support criticized continually by left wing media types. The President has truly erred by going after FOX as he has - so much for transparency, debate, and open discussion of multiple points of view. The hypocrisy is rampant, and FOX benefits, the CNN types and the President lose, and the nation suffers more from single focused networks. Weisberg must have been having a bad day - it's an incredibly stupid and shortsighted column.

Seems to me that the MSM needs a period of intense self-reflection . . . .

In the old days (19th to mid-20th century) there were many print media outlets in every sizable town and they were unapologetically partisan -- think of the Hearst papers, for example. One could read the paper that espoused one's political leanings know what you were getting.

It was like, a hundred years ago, the journalistic principle was to "Sell Papers."

Today, J-School graduates claim to be objective Journalists, privileged in many respects.

The problem I have is with their duplicity . . . . There's nothing wrong with media partisanship, per se, its their clearly fallacious denial that I object to.

"Sinestrophobia: is fear of the left; the MSM displays dextrophiobia and sinestrophilia.

Pam K said, "[Obama} is is getting nailed for essentially continuing the GWB schtick of bailouts, stimulus, and health care stuff."

If it makes you feel any better, Pam, I was against these things when GWB was doing them, too.

so let's try just ignoring Fox, shall we?

That attitude toward conservatives is exactly what made Rush Limbaugh a multimillionaire, lead to a host of conservative talk radio shows and made Fox News the leader in cable news. It's one thing for consumers to boycott a business, but Weisberg is in business, selling his opinions, and businesses can't effectively boycott their potential customers and expect to be more than a niche provider.

Talk radio and Fox News serve a huge market that has been increasingly ignored and denigrated by the rest of the media. You'd think that as their business declines, the MSM would take stock and notice that they've failed to serve a huge part of the market, but you'd be wrong. And that's why the press is dying.

The only word to describe such total lack of self-awareness, my friends, is hilarious.

You may call that attitude hilarious. I call it pathetic, if not tragic.

"sinestrophilia"

Good word. But I think "sinistromania" may be a bit better.