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The Television News Entertainment Networks have foregone news reporting and have become a platform for opinion, gossip and fortune telling. Endless hours are spent discussing the “what if” and the “what do you think” aspect of each story. It is not the job of a journalist to speculate on or predict the outcome of news. Nor is it the job of a journalist to voice an opinion of any kind. Even more outrageous, or should I say dangerous, the TV News Entertainment Networks have become an infomercial for the Bush administration. If a story, or part of a story does not benefit the image of the administration it will not get reported.
If you watch closely these network provide almost no news. They do however talk a lot about the news. These talks consist of guessing, polling, opinions, expert opinions, public opinions, counter opinions, rumors and irrelevant information.
A quick note on the networks web sites: There is a distinct difference between the TV coverage and the stories reported on the web sites of some of the networks. MSNBC seems to have the biggest discrepancies in that they report a great deal more on line than they do on air. FOX is consistent in that it does not report anything that goes against their agenda. Take a look some of the on line content and see if you hear about some of the big on line stories on the air.
This is not Journalism.
Journalism: 'j&r-n&l-"i-z&m - : writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation and without opinion.
These networks do not qualify to be called “News” networks.
Just for starters:
Fox News – Fair and Balanced.
Let’s start with the very moniker of the network. “News – Fair and Balanced”. “News” is “news”, it is a simple report of recent events. It CAN NOT BE FAIR OR BALANCED! It is information! Only “Opinion” or “Commentary” can be described as fair or balanced! Before they even get to their coverage they have discredited themselves as journalists. If you are at all aware of the principles of journalism you will understand how outrageous this next observation is; I witnessed with my own eyes, live on Fox News, Britt Hume, the Managing Editor for Fox News Washington Bureau, mock the accent and make fun of Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector for UNMOVIC. Simply outrageous. Rupert Murdoch has successfully lowered the standards of journalism for the entire industry. Here is another observation; FOX’s motto is “We report, you decide”. Well, this does not exactly instill confidence does it? If they reported accurate news what is there to decide? News is news. I don’t see what decisions have to be made? Now if you are talking about opinion, bias opinion, (all opinion is bias), then there may be a decision to be made as to how you feel. So as you see between the “Fair and balanced” and the “We report, you decide” monikers, these guys blatantly discredit themselves as journalists. You can not have it both ways. You can not have journalism and imply balance and you can not claim to report news, which is simply the telling of recent events, and imply that there is a decision to be made. If I were the managing editor for a news organization and someone came to me with those mottos for my “news” network I would fire them for incompetence. FOX would give them a raise. Incompetence from top to bottom.
Outfoxed examines how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, have been running a "race to the bottom" in television news. This film provides an in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know.
"I'm not in favour of censorship, but Murdoch would like to do with British television news what he has done with newspapers, which is to force people to compete on his own terms.” - "So if we allow into Britain the kind of journalism represented by Fox, that would bring about a form of censorship." - Julian Petley, chairman of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom
 FOXymoron - FOX News Reported; TvNewsLies.org Decided!- UNFAIR and UNBALANCED! - Selling Snake Oil News
Broadcast News - Ken Davidson talks to Fox, about its conservative political agenda, its personnel, and its future. Bell berates media giants for warmongering words - Martin Bell, the former BBC war correspondent and independent MP, yesterday condemned the hypocrisy of the media owners Conrad Black and Rupert Murdoch, whose news organisations had led the calls for war in Iraq. Dems dump on Rupe - Senators vent as topper defends Fox News - "He said Fox News is fair and balanced and he just can't imagine that there was any kind of a slant there," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) recounted after the meeting. "Members of the Senate were just speechless." Fibbing It Up at Fox - Since the Iraq conflict began on March 20, Fox News has been on a mission to legitimize it. "We distort. You comply" - Even in a down economy, there are some business models that still work -- selling T-shirts comparing Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly to Hitler, for example. Fox fair and balanced; They Can Have It. They Deserve It. - by Rob Kall opednews.com - But, since it has become totally clear to those not on the far right, that Fox news is, as I've defined it, "Fox fair and balanced," why not begin using the phrase to describe any media that shames the word journalism? BBC launches public attack on Murdoch 'imperialism' - The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a "capital imperialist" who wants to destabilise the corporation because he "is against everything the BBC stands for". - Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch's continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people "have a National Health Service, a public education system" and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit. The Media Column: The BBC is brave to spell out the motives behind Murdoch's attacks - "He is against everything the BBC stands for. He is a capital imperialist, isn't he? ... All people of his political persuasion are against the public sector." Fact-Free News - Then don't watch Fox News. The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong. Regarding Media - Miles from 'fair and balanced' - A veteran producer this week alleged that Fox News executives issue a daily memorandum to staff on news coverage to bend the network's reporting into conformity with management's political views, refocusing attention on the partisan bias of America's most watched cable news operation. - According to Reina's letter, "Daily life at [Fox] is all about management politics....Editorially, the FNC newsroom is under the constant control and vigilance of management. The pressure ranges from subtle to direct. First, it's a news network run by one of the most high-profile political operatives of recent times. Everyone there understands that [Fox] is, to a large extent, 'Roger's Revenge' against what he considers a liberal, pro-Democrat media establishment that has shunned him for decades. For the staffers, many of whom are too young to have come up through the ranks of objective journalism, and all of whom are nonunion, with no protections regarding what they can be made to do, there is undue motivation to please the big boss." - At CBS or the AP, if a word got in that suggested bias — liberal or conservative — it was taken out. - "At Fox it was all about viewpoint. I'm not talking about the nighttime personalities. I'm talking about the news report. Fox executives will say their network only appears conservative because it is fair, when everyone else is liberal and biased. That's bull. Fox doesn't 'seem' conservative and Republican. It is conservative and Republican." - In his letter, Reina wrote that "the roots of [Fox's] day-to-day on-air bias are actual and direct. They come in the form of an executive memo" written by John Moody, the network's vice president for news, and "distributed electronically each morning, addressing what stories will be covered and, often, suggesting how they should be covered. To the newsroom personnel responsible for the channel's daytime programming, The Memo is the bible. If, on any given day, you notice that the Fox anchors seem to be trying to drive a particular point home, you can bet The Memo is behind it. The Memo was born with the Bush administration, early in 2001, and, intentionally or not, has ensured that the administration's point of view consistently comes across on [Fox].... Following Fox's Orders - When right-wing/Fox News media mogul Rupert Murdoch says “jump,” it appears the Bush Administration and Congress say “how high?” Fox News: The inside story - A former Fox producer describes the ways -- both subtle and blunt -- that top executives impose a right-wing ideology on the newsroom. You've seen Outfoxed; now check out MMFA's outing of FOX misinformation and get involved - The MMFA team posted 15 researched items in just the last week exposing false and misleading claims on FOX, including Sean Hannity's distortions of John Edwards's Senate voting record; Brit Hume's selective use of opinion polls to make it look like the Kerry-Edwards ticket has less momentum than it does; Bill O'Reilly's misleading claims (twice) about Americans' support for banning gay marriage in the Constitution, and John Gibson's false claim that "80-some percent of reporters are self-described liberals."
 TvNewsLies.org’s Suggested Reading
CNN – The Most Trusted Name in News or the Comedy News Network?
“Most Trusted”? According to whom? You can not simply declare yourself most trusted? CNN is responsible for the demise of TV Journalism. “Truth” is a word of which the people at CNN need to learn the definition. They do indeed report some news; but for the most part they mainly talk about some of the events of the day instead of reporting the rest of the events. Of course all the News Entertainment Networks are guilty of this as well.
- CNN = “Contains No News”- 1 Hour of CNN Yields Less Than 5 Minutes of News - A Detailed Analysis by TvNewsLies.org
- CNN’s Hard News - Serving 0.0001% of America
- Attempted Coup to Topple CNN Unsuccessful in the Netherlands
CNN Accused of faking a story, live on TV!:
”WAYNE LAPIERRE, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NRA: Hi, Kyra. Good to be with you.
PHILLIPS: Well, if the ban on assault weapons expires, what kind of weapons would be legal?
LAPIERRE: Kyra, let me say this to start: I'm glad you ran the story because apparently the only difference between "The New York Times" and CNN is that when a reporter for "The New York Times" fakes a story, he's fired, and at CNN he's not. Your bureau chief, John Zarrella, deliberately faked the story yesterday and intending to show that the performance characteristics of banned firearms on the list are somehow different from the performance characteristics of firearms not on the banned list. He was -- he was implying that these were machine guns or fully automatic guns. That's not true.
PHILLIPS: Mr. LaPierre, I have to stop you there. No one fakes stories at CNN and John Zarrella definitely did not fake a story at CNN. You're very off base. I'm going to let you say your opinion, and let's have a conversation, but don't accuse our reporter of faking any stories, sir.
LAPIERRE: Let me say it again. In front of the whole country, your reporter faked that story yesterday. It deliberately misread...
PHILLIPS: All right, we're going...
LAPIERRE: There's no way it could be true and I challenge CNN to defend it.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're not going to continue this interview because our reporter did not fake...
LAPIERRE: Because you don't want the truth. The truth you don't want out there.”
PERFECT EXAMPLE OFF CNN BIAS!!! - Pentagon in 2002 Found `No Reliable' Iraq Arms Data (Update3) - A U.S. Defense Department report in September 2002 found ``no reliable information'' proving that Iraq had chemical weapons, even as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was saying the country had amassed stockpiles of the banned arms. - CNN reports the same story with this headline: Pentagon: WMD report consistent with U.S. case - Is this not bias? Is this not a blatent example of CNN delivering the views of the administration as news? Is CNN not exactly what TvNewsLies calls the TV news media; an infomercial for the Bush administration? Laci Peterson is still their lead story! The story is: “REPORT SHOWS THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE” yet CNN reports “REPORT IS CONSISTENT WITH US CASE”. Deception at it’s best! Here is the BBC headline for the same story: Fresh doubts over Iraq's arsenal. Let me show you this again: Clark Alleges White House Pushed CNN to Fire Him - "The White House actually back in February apparently tried to get me knocked off CNN and they wanted to do this because they were afraid that I would raise issues with their conduct of the war," Clark told Newsradio 620 KTAR. - Previously, Wesley Clark claimed publicly that after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he was pressured by the Bush administration to link the attacks directly to Iraq. - Insisting on the accuracy of his military analysis of the Iraq War, Clark said, "No one ever complained about my analysis being partisan except for [House Majority Leader] Tom DeLay and he's hardly an unbiased source," CNN's Downward Spin, Axis of Logic commentary - Everywhere but in the US news media, Operation Enduring Freedom is leaving a sea of blood in its wake. However, if we are to believe CNN, war is not hell; it is merely "heck." There is no blood worth mentioning, no depleted-uranium danger to US troops and no dissent or voices crying in the national wilderness. Smear Without Fear - In short, CNN passed along a smear that it attributed to the White House. When the smear backfired, it declared its previous statements inoperative and said the White House wasn't responsible. Sound familiar? - But if unnamed "administration officials" spread rumors about administration critics, reporters have an obligation to check the facts before giving those rumors national exposure. And there's no excuse for disseminating unchecked rumors because they come from "the White House," then denying the White House connection when the rumors prove false. That's simply giving the administration a license to smear with impunity. An Open Letter to CNN - You have reached a new low in journalism. You have -- with what appears to be malice and forethought -- taken a frenzied wrong turn at every journalistic branch in the road. And along the way, you have mastered the art of sneering, condescending questions. What does this mean? This means that CNN did not report the news, it reported what the Pentagon said. In other words; free advertising for the Bush administration!
MSNBC - First, Fair, Accurate
Sadly, what seems to be the least offensive of the three major News Entertainment Networks is swiftly becoming Fox News Light. If the recent decision to cancel Phil Donahue and hire Michael Savage does not tell you anything, nothing will convince you. Recently this network has become one of the leading war cheerleaders. They have a regular “Wall of Heroes” feature about our soldiers in Iraq yet they say nothing about the reckless cowboy actions of our military that have even disturbed their fellow coalition members. This network is the top violator when it comes to distraction, spending hours upon hours on human interest stories such as Laci Peterson and Robert Blake instead of reporting all of the stories that the Bush administration does not want the public to be aware of. Of the 3 major wannabe news networks MSNBC has the most laughable music. Listen to their news alerts or whatever they call them, listen to the music, then picture a climactic chase scene in a movie where the enemy submarine is closing in on the good guys sub! What they heck is this music? This is news, not a movie! Get serious. Practice journalism, not entertainment!
MSNBC fires Savage on anti-gay remarks - The popular radio talk show host who did a weekend TV show for the cable channel referred to an unidentified caller to his show Saturday as a "sodomite" and said he should "get AIDS and die." MSNBC Host Gets Bitten by His 'Rat of the Week' - Two weeks ago, MSNBC talk show host Joe Scarborough introduced a guest, attorney Mike Papantonio, to point a finger at the "Rat of the Week." - What Scarborough didn't say is that Papantonio is his law partner, and that their firm has filed a lawsuit against Osmose. Instead, he urged viewers to demand that the government recall the company's product.
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