Posted on 12/20/2004 5:50:41 PM PST by AZ Repub
Just received this from Raul. I don't know why I continue to write to him. He has his district locked up and I am unfortunate enough to live in the most Democrat district in Arizona
"Dear Mr. Collins,
Thank you for contacting me to express your support for Fox News. I appreciate hearing from you.
While I understand your support of the news coverage by Fox, I respectfully disagree. In light of several recent reports that Fox News tailors its coverage of news to promote the Republican Party, I cosigned a letter with 31 of my colleagues and sent it to Rupert Murdoch to register our strong concern that news broadcast over the public airwaves be fair and impartial.
As the owner of Fox News, Mr. Murdoch is responsible for keeping the American people informed about the important issues facing them. Yet, as documented in the new Robert Greenwald film, Outfoxed, it seems clear that the Fox News network has a deliberate bias in favor of, and often serves as an extension of, the Republican Party’s policies and ideology.
Studies of Fox News programming reveal a consistently high percentage of conservative and Republican guests and experts, with a lack of representation from guests who espouse moderate or progressive views. For instance, a report recently released by Fair and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) found that Fox’s Special Report with Brit Hume overwhelmingly favors interviews with conservatives and Republicans. In fact, FAIR found a five-to-one ratio of guests with conservative viewpoints as opposed to those with progressive points of view.
It is also deeply troubling to learn that Fox News executives send memos to Fox reporters pushing certain political perspectives on important events. On such partisan issues as the war in Iraq, the President’s tax cuts for the wealthy, the President’s judicial nominees, and abortion, Fox News consistently directs its reporters to advance Republican policies and uniformly expresses its support for the administration.
As a consequence of partial and skewed reporting by Fox News, a recent study "Misperceptions, The Media, and the Iraq War" by the Program on International Policy Attitudes revealed that those Americans whose predominant news source was Fox News were more likely to be misinformed about the truth than other Americans. Those watching Fox News rather than other networks have misperceptions about the war in Iraq, believing untruths about the evidence of links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda and the ‘discovery’ of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The report suggests that the one-sided, partisan reporting of Fox News has the effect of improving the President’s standing with the American people on the basis of disinformation, not facts.
The responsibility of the media is to report the news in an unbiased, impartial, and objective manner. I believe that when Fox News promulgates the White House message of the day through its news programming, it reveals partisan support for the right-wing view points, a partisan preference for the Republican Party, and a partisan allegiance to the Republican agenda. When it instructs its reporters to concentrate on the Bush message, it subverts and undermines democratic debate.
To be truly "Fair and Balanced," Fox News must abandon its role as a proxy for the Republican Party’s communications office. Reporters at Fox News should be allowed to report the news as it happens, not as President Bush wants the American people to believe it happened.
Again, I thank you for sharing your concerns with me even though we disagree on this issue. Rest assured that I will listen to both sides of the debate as we work to keep the public airwaves fair and impartial while maintaining free speech rights for all. I hope you continue to keep in touch with me on the issues of importance to you.
Sincerely, Raul M. Grijalva Member of Congress"
Should read "Excellentay don Raul M. Grijalva de Mexizonia" the pompas twit and member of the Nancy Pelosi Progressive (Socialist) DemocRATS.
You have him and I'm stuck with KONGressKritter Kolbe.
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest, "Appointing Supreme Court Justices: The 'Nuclear Option' in the US Senate"
Knee deep in sarcasm\
Ain't no way Raul wrote this. I was assigned the project of organizing debates my senior year in high school, which included Mo, Soleng Tom, and Raul in his first political season. Mo was gracious and appealing to the democratic youth. Soleng Tom did a good job as well, despite cultural barriers. Raul was defiant throughout and minimally articulate. Ain't no way Raul wrote this.
They have ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, CNBC, PBS, NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, and most other major news publications.
We've got Fox News (some of the time), the Wall Street Journal (some of the time), the Washington Times (most of the time) and a some of the internet.
It's not "fair and balanced," they've got us outgunned 10 to 1 and we're still kicking the sh!+ out of them!
Ah! But, we've got Rush & Sean Hannity...All the time! They put the whole bunch to shame!
It's not our fault that their side sucks!
Do a keyword search on "outfoxed" or click on this link to get info on the so-called Fox documentary:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=outfoxed
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