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Fiercely partisan Fox helps restore balance to news
The Australian ^
| 13th October 2006
| Frank Devine
Posted on 10/15/2006 5:30:39 PM PDT by naturalman1975
BILL O'Reilly, Fox News's marquee commentator, is the cleanest-shaven man I've ever seen close up. His tough-guy face looks like it has been laser polished.
His fast-talking, evangelical, overbearing persona reminds me of crusading journalist characters who featured, with ties unknotted at stressful moments, in movies made when radio was king. But the O'Reilly character would then have been played by Broderick Crawford, an actor who shaved, but only just.
O'Reilly's polished face, immaculate grooming and machinegun talk epitomise the tightly choreographed, rough-with-the-smooth formula developed by Fox News (owned by News Corporation, which owns News Limited, publisher of The Australian), the English-speaking world's first and only right-wing television news network.
Fox celebrated its 10th anniversary last weekend. Happy birthday, chaps. With its cousin, Sky, it dominates the ratings in the universe of pay-TV news.
What you get from Fox is a hard-edged conservative perception of events, great zing and more talking heads than on other TV news programs - so many, in fact, that Fox is a bit like filmed radio. This is the result of the network's penny-pinching start-up. Fox is still pretty frugal in deploying its own correspondents and film crews.
But miserliness has morphed into style. Gladiatorial interviews and opinionated harangues from O'Reilly are stirred in with panel discussions that often erupt into everybody talking loudly at the same time. That's the roughage.
The smooth comes from ambience. Fox news is like the sort of party for which control-freak hostesses demand elegant casual dress and several guests get drunk and boisterous early on. Virtually all the men are as clean-shaven and close-cropped as O'Reilly. Geraldo Rivera, who has glasses, a moustache and rather floppy hair, looks in context as if he is wearing an Inspector Clouseau disguise.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand
KEYWORDS: fairandbalanced; foxnews
The Palm Beach News was invaluable when hanging chads threatened the world with Al Gore.
To: naturalman1975
"Fiercely partisan Fox"
If they knew how much I wish that was true...
2
posted on
10/15/2006 5:32:36 PM PDT
by
villagerjoel
(US of A!!!)
To: naturalman1975; Jim Robinson
Two items...
Fiercely partisan Fox...
I wish, and...
The Palm Beach News was invaluable when hanging chads threatened the world with Al Gore.
No, that would be FR. We were on the ground, in their face, and reported everything via Jim Robinson's invention (Sorry algore).
5.56mm
3
posted on
10/15/2006 5:40:07 PM PDT
by
M Kehoe
To: naturalman1975
Although their news could be more conservative than other main stations, many would argue that it is not conservative but more middle.
And their non-news stuff figuratively stinks (for non-cable FOX), more than over-compensating for more balanced news which can be obtained from websites such as this one.
4
posted on
10/15/2006 5:45:11 PM PDT
by
Jedi Master Pikachu
( Microevolution is real; Macroevolution is not real.)
To: naturalman1975
Fox is still too left wing for me.
5
posted on
10/15/2006 5:55:10 PM PDT
by
CzarNicky
(Gentlemen, Dethklok has summoned a troll.)
To: naturalman1975
"Fiercely partisan Fox"
ROFLMAO..... still ROFLMAO!!
It is a measure of how wildly propagandistic most of the media is on behalf of the left, of just how delusional these people really are, that Fox News could ever be described as "fiercely partisan."
Does Fox give more airtime to some (slightly) conservative points of view? Does Fox achieve a more reasonable BALANCE than the "fiercely partisan" hacks of the left like Katie Couric, Dan Blather, et al???
Of course, that is a big part of it's success, that it's not "all liberal propaganda, all the time" ala CNN. But when news is being reported on Fox it is given straight, and during the commentary shows which most libs seem to wilfully misrepresent as something other than opinion shows, there is great effort made to present a range of points of view. Hannity is constantly balanced by the insufferable liberal twit Alan Colmes, the guests on most shows represent a balanced range of viewpoints, etc.
I'm far from the biggest fan of Fox News, don't even watch it much any more (get sick of having to listen to so much LIBERAL/LEFTIST twaddle, in fact!!), but the idea that it represents some hard-core conservative or Republican (not the same thing!!) partisanship is just so ludicrous it could only have been invented by the kind of left-wing propagandists who brought us "Out-Foxed" and similar crap such as Michael Moore-ons execrable political pornography.
6
posted on
10/15/2006 5:55:11 PM PDT
by
Enchante
(There are 3 kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Drive-By Media)
To: naturalman1975
Gladiatorial interviews and opinionated harangues from O'Reilly are stirred in with panel discussions that often erupt into everybody talking loudly at the same time. It is tasteless when they do that... No decorum at all.
7
posted on
10/15/2006 6:18:20 PM PDT
by
Cobra64
(Why is the War on Terror being managed by the DEFENSE Department?)
To: naturalman1975
"Geraldo Rivera, who has glasses, a moustache and rather floppy hair, looks in context as if he is wearing an Inspector Clouseau disguise."
:-D
8
posted on
10/15/2006 6:22:40 PM PDT
by
blues_guitarist
(Black, conservative, Christian . . . . . . and I play guitar!)
To: naturalman1975
Geraldo Rivera, who has glasses, a moustache and rather floppy hair, looks in context as if he is wearing an Inspector Clouseau disguise.
Well they got this part right anyway.......
9
posted on
10/15/2006 6:23:34 PM PDT
by
festus
(The constitution may be flawed but its a whole lot better than what we have now.)
To: naturalman1975; nutmeg; All
10
posted on
10/15/2006 6:43:43 PM PDT
by
SevenofNine
("Step aside Jefe"=Det Lennie Briscoe)
To: naturalman1975
His fast-talking, evangelical, overbearing persona reminds me of crusading journalist characters who featured, with ties unknotted at stressful moments, in movies made when radio was king. But the O'Reilly character would then have been played by Broderick Crawford, an actor who shaved, but only just.
____________________________________________
Evangelical?? Uh I don't think so.
To: Jedi Master Pikachu
Yes, FNC news reporting is somewhat middle of the road relative to the rest of the far-left media like CNN and MSNBC. That said, while much of their more editorial programing is conservative, which I like, I do appreciate objective, "fair and balanced" news reporting, even if I don't agree with the other side.
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