Who watches Fox News ?

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Freedom_2018
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Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Freedom_2018 »

Ok...I'm guessing most of the folks on here are not what would typically be considered core audience for channels such as Fox.

However, I did have a personal epiphany moment during 2016 elections when just by happenstance I was on a two month slow cross country road trip talking the back roads and avoiding freeways. During the entire trip, I did not see a single Hillary support sign anywhere till I reached Walla Walla Walla, Washington...where I saw one. Yet I saw so many Trump/Pence signs on people's lawns. I recall seeing a lot of Obama/Biden signs when that election was happening.

All news was saying Hillary will win for sure and I remember even the manager of the largest bond fund saying market will go down 2000 points if Trump wins. To say I had cognitive dissonance then would be an understatement.

And when the results came out, I remember my partner and I looking at each other with that look that says...we saw this coming but had a hard time believing our own eyes.

Since then I have been highly skeptical of the news outlets and decided to either watch none (preferred) or watch everything (time suck) to get my bearings.

I can now see how CNN and MSNBC type channels are almost hoping that this virus creates a lot of mayhem in society so that Trump loses the next election. Honestly if I listened to only those type channels I would be permanently depressed like how most of my left leaning friends seem to be. Most seem to have lost some of their souls and are turning into massive pessimists and killjoys.

Fox has its own agenda ...but at least there is some talk about possible cures or ways out of this pandemic. Lately I have heard some Tucker Carlson and he seems to bring up some good points about this pandemic and our constitution. It does concern me how heavy handed our leaders are being and in many ways the approach seems very un American to me in my gut.The anchors on CNN seem a little too self obsessed with themselves and a bit tone deaf to how they may be perceived by ordinary people in these circumstances.

Any other folks out there willing to admit their media habits?

7Wannabe5
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I prefer reading books to watching news. I do watch Fox News sometimes, because my BF puts it on. My choice is usually BBC World News.

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TheWanderingScholar
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by TheWanderingScholar »

I really don't watch TV anymore, let alone news. I mostly read books, write, and read the paper for updates.

My family watches Fox News or keeps it on for noise, however I personally just don't listen or care that much.

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Alphaville
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Alphaville »

I read most of my news, but sometimes I’ll watch a bit of Bloomberg. E.g., recent video of Powell or Lagarde.

Whenever I catch a snippet of Fox is just for anthropological observation.

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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by jacob »

Our TV is permanently tuned to Netflix, so I don't watch the news. I do however sink way too much time into reading the news using a news aggregator https://www.memeorandum.com/ rather than a preferred outlet. I'm pretty much a news junkie at this point.

I mostly read within the center-left to center-right range on the bias scale. See https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/methodology/ ... This means my range is Washington Post and New York Times on the center-left and National Review and Bulwark on the center-right. I generally don't bother with Fox News, CNN, or MSBNC unless I need to understand why the rather-left or the rather-right are riled up about something. "Anthropological observation" is a descriptive term for my approach to this. Outlets that are even further out on the fringes are pretty much dead to me. I'm not looking for outrage-sallad or tribal affirmation therapy.

I don't mind biased wording so much (although I still think it's childish) but I think biased story-selection is catastrophic. I've pretty much given up on talking politics with people whose main sources are out on the wings because of too many "How come I've never heard about this?"---"Well, you would have if you changed your @#$@# channel once in a while!" exchanges.

Speaking of "corona solutions", one thing that will probably never be reported on Fox News is how areas where viewers favored Hannity (who downplayed the virus) over Carlson (who took it seriously early on) by more than one standard deviation showed a subsequent 30% increase in CV19 cases and a 21% increase in CV19 deaths. See https://bfi.uchicago.edu/working-paper/2020-44/

For more on how Fox works, check out https://www.amazon.com/Foxocracy-Inside ... 1635766613 ... it's a bit of a slog in that it reads very much like a financial newsletter in the "get to the point already"-sense; but it really does lay out the playbook. Warning: Once you know it, further watching might lose appeal. Or maybe it'll appeal more? I suppose it depends on how well you take to kayfabe. The book could use an update from another apostate giving the fracturing between the news section and the opinion hosts which no longer see eye to eye very much. Also the corporate politics of the younger Murdoch. I'd read it.

2Birds1Stone
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Haven't watched the news on TV in well over a decade. Online prefer BBC World News, Bloomberg, Financial Times and a few more oped focused sites.

Lucky C
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Lucky C »

I don't watch cable news but enjoy watching Last Week Tonight, Patriot Act, and occasionally The Daily Show. As comedy shows, these kind of have to be making fun of the American right and their stances more than the left. The reason is one of the main rules of comedy is you don't punch down. You can make fun of the old white billionaire talking about problems with impoverished urban youth while struggling not to sound racist; you can't make fun of the politician trying to help the impoverished urban youth. This is an extreme example but you get the idea. Wealthy capitalist arguing for lower taxes = comedic target, union worker arguing for universal healthcare... not so much. There are of course comedic takes that can be made at the expense of liberal policies that make no sense economically, but that doesn't work so well for a broad audience, because math.

As a big consumer and creator of many forms of comedy, I'm now wondering how much my left-leaning political stances are driven by the importance of comedy in my life.

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Seppia
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Seppia »

ffj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 9:30 am
the mainstream guys are demonstrably lying to us everyday
This doesn't seem to be supported by facts.
There are many very mainstream media outlets that score fairly high on the balance and truthfulness of their reporting (reuters, bloomberg, FT...)

IlliniDave
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by IlliniDave »

I admit one of my guilty pastimes is watching Tucker Carlson a time or two each week. He's not a news show, but is on Fox News.

I tend to agree that the front line of accessible news outlets are generally pretty bad. Some of the ones you have to go looking for, like the ones Seppia mentions, are usually better.

Hard to even sort out what the truth is any more. So one of my new criteria is "are they appearing to make an honest attempt to get people information that is useful to them in their day-to-day lives?". Not many of those if you are a strict grader.

Campitor
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Campitor »

@Seppia

I see Bloomberg is on your list for truthfulness. Are you sure they are as trustworthy as you think?

Bloomberg News Killed Investigation, Fired Reporter, Then Sought To Silence His Wife.

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Seppia
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

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bostonimproper
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by bostonimproper »

I also mostly read Bloomberg at this point, quashing internal investigations notwithstanding. Has the only opinion section worth reading, in my opinion. Definitely worth the $35 subscription.

I'll listen to policy-oriented podcasts but cable news is awful. I actually quite like Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow in radio interviews-- they are quite thoughtful folks in those contexts-- but their shows are not great.

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Alphaville
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Alphaville »

I find it funny and a sign of the warped reality in which we live that Bloomberg is considered “left” anything. Bloomberg is very much for the investor class aka millionaires/billionaires and not at all in favor of the abolition of social classes, the end of capitalism, the denunciation of profit as exploitation, labor rights, or some such leftist standards.

Reality has shifted to the point that the right has been occupied by a bunch of lunatics, the old right have now become “moderates,” centrists are now labeled commies, and the world looks like a painting by Hyeronimus Bosch.

Same thing with the New York Times—limousine liberals at best, but quite conservative from a global perspective.

To find some semblance of actual leftism in the American media look maybe to The Nation or Democracy Now! or Mother Jones, serious practitioners of journalism who can offer refreshing perspectives from the left, even if you don’t agree with their take.

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Seppia
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Seppia »

ffj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 9:08 pm
All of them lie through omission.
You were mentioning the Hillary collapse before as one of these examples.
That didn't pass the smell test, literally every news channel in europe picked it up at the time, and I was almost certain the american media did pick it up as well.
Some basic googling seems to confirm my impression:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=h ... 0collapses

Many, many times I've heard "the mainstream media will never report this!", when, in fact, they did.
ffj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 9:08 pm
If you don't believe me then pick a topic currently in the news. Read your normal sources. Write down what they are trying to convey. Then start researching ALL angles of that story and don't be afraid to go down rabbit holes you normally wouldn't go down. I can assure you once you have done enough research you will discover that there will be MASSIVE holes and omissions in the normal press. It's not accidental.
I AM afraid of going into rabbit holes I wouldn't normally go down, because there's a reason why some stuff only comes up on youtube, facebook or RT, and it's usually NOT because "the powers that be don't want you to now".
I would much rather get my info from sources that, if caught lying or spreading misinformation, could actually be held accountable for it.
ffj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 9:08 pm
The polling alone was a huge fraud and it was something I really noticed that was off. Trump would hold a rally and draw tens of thousands of people, Hillary might get a couple thousand. Stuff like that, yet they were telling us that she would win handily. They wouldn't report on her physical limitations, her past scandals, etc, but the information was there to be had if you were curious and a bit investigative.
The polling wasn't "fraud". The serious outlets (think fivethirtyeight) forecasted the outcome in probabilistic terms.
The fact that Trump only had a 20% (or whatever, I don't remember exactly) chance of winning, and eventually won, doesn't make the polls "fake" or "fraudulent".
Simply, something that had a lower probability of happening happened.
If you want to think in conspiracy terms, the polling and the general "she's got it in the bag" attitude did much more harm than good to Hillary as some of her voters might have stayed at home thinking it was pointless.
The "they wouldn't report on physical limitations, past scandals etc" simply isn't true. We were hearing a lot about it as stated above.
ffj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 9:08 pm
For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7XZmugtLv4
This seems to come from a highly biased source that has a tendency towards false reporting.
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/project-veritas/
Also, I did not mention CNN among the sources I consider, they are way too partisan for my taste.
ffj wrote:
Fri May 01, 2020 9:08 pm
Here is a guy I like watching who incidentally just did a video on this and it's pretty good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv4TRQ_BQng
If you'd rather believe random guy X recording his "fake news friday" segment from the driver seat of his car VS Bloomberg I, honestly don't know what to say.

OTCW
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by OTCW »

Reuters, NYT, and the WSJ are my go to reads. I don't watch any news.

Tyler9000
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Tyler9000 »

I honestly don't really trust the news anymore. It's all a shell of what it once was. My eyes were opened when Dan Rather went to the mat promoting a clear fabrication while the New York Times came to his defense claiming the document was "fake but accurate". And what pushed me over the edge was when during my work travels I learned that both CNN and BBC have completely different news programs in China to appease the communist dictators. I'm sure they make huge bank as two of the very few English channels in China, but watching that with the benefit of knowing the facts they were intentionally omitting was enlightening. Do you really think they don't do the same thing elsewhere?

To talk about news sources in terms of left, right, and center where one trusts what most aligns with their personal views and distrusts everything else is exactly the problem. It's all performance art marketed to specific news bubbles. Even the "fact checkers" have their own agendas and are increasingly used as tools for mass censorship of competing ideas. So these days I approach news assuming that it's ALL biased. My goal is not to find a single trustworthy source, as that just doesn't exist. Instead my goal is to seek out the truth on my own, and to piece it together requires both effort and discernment.

IMO if you can't spot the bias that just means you're part of the target bubble for that particular outlet. Branch out.
Last edited by Tyler9000 on Sat May 02, 2020 2:06 pm, edited 6 times in total.

bmjohnson35
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by bmjohnson35 »

News does not really exist anymore on TV. It's either an agenda, propaganda or opinion or simply entertainment. When I was young, I don't remember a reporter ever sharing their opinion openly on TV, but these days it's the norm. News used to be a snapshot each evening, but now they have to deliver 24/7 coverage. Our politics are so polarized that objective reporting is non-existent. The dems look for every opportunity to identify fault with Trump and his administration. Of course, I saw the same thing with the republicans when Obama was in office. The main difference is that Trump is his own worst enemy and Obama came across as a well educated eloquent speaker. Obama was a politician and Trump is more of a reality celebrity. Politics is a lot more malicious these days.

Although I do still vote, I must admit that it doesn't seem to make much difference who is in office. Our government is controlled by big business and special interest groups. The news agencies appear to be driven by a political ideology and have little desire for objective reporting of the news. I tend to read most of my news and I still approach it with caution and assume that it's less than objective. I tend to read information on both the left and right and come to my own conclusion.

As for the Coronavirus, I reference data based websites with charts and bell curves and read scientific articles for new info.


BJ

Freedom_2018
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by Freedom_2018 »

I think one of the big problems with the news is that it is on all the time and comes at you from all over the world instantly and is then repeated in a loop again and again.

I don't think humans are designed to process so much information psychologically....I mean we can understand it intellectually but parsing so many events from everywhere psychologically is another thing.

Previously most of the 'news' in our life was local and had some correlation to the scale our eyes and ears could take in - the rumor about the butcher's wife, somebody's cow in the village broke a leg, speaking to our spouysese and children etc and perhaps once in a great while news of a war or disaster in a far away land and the like.

Now a baby chimp in the Congo gets separated from its family and in a few seconds its news is on my screen demanding an adequate emotional response from me. This I think creates an illusion of empathy and understanding...just in the same way having a gourmet meal in Bucharest and taking a selfie there might create an illusion of understanding the world as being very similar or worse as 'we are all one'.

I think the best way to make the 'news' relevant in our life is to watch way less of it...more as a spice than a significant building block of the food pyramid. Then it won't matter much which particular channel/outlet we watch.

sky
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Re: Who watches Fox News ?

Post by sky »

My concern with news is that there seems to be a number of secret evil-chaotic forces battling each other using news outlets. Evil because there seems to be no hesitation to lie and report something that has no basis in reality. Chaotic because there appears to be an attempt to sew discord and anger among the viewers to the point of inciting a civil war. Secret because it is not clear who benefits from the false propaganda or why a group would be motivated to cause so much societal distress.

I don't want to start guessing who is behind the misinformation campaigns, because once I get beyond the likely suspects (spy vs spy, east vs west, red vs blue, oiligarchy vs enviros) I would be nothing more than a conspiracy theorist. I don't know who is behind the psywar.

The resulting impact on the individual is dealing with angry people who are angry about some complete fabrication, and believe there is a hated opposition group and you look like you just might be one of them. Once again it is a time to lay low and avoid being the target of a witch hunt.

The intensity of the divisive propoganda will increase as we get closer to election day. It might not be a bad idea to go off net for a few months to preserve one's sanity.

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