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To: JohnHuang2
Sigh. . . I will continue to try, though it seems to be without success, to counter this concept that FOX is a conservative news channel. FOX DOES provide both sides of the story -- something that never happened before FOX came along. Libs label them conservative because of that. They've had it made for years, with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, et al, giving a blatantly one-sided (liberal) perspective. If you are existing at the extreme left of the scale and suddenly there's a news show that hovers around the middle (balance) it is conservative from your skewed perspective. In the leftie world "middle" of the scale and balance becomes conservative or right wing. But that's not reality. FOX may drift over the line past the center sometimes, but they never present NEWS (not talking talk show/editorial context her) from a hopelessly biased conservative stance the way the alphabet nets do their liberal-bent news casts -- day in and day out.

20 posted on 11/18/2002 5:22:31 AM PST by Lee'sGhost
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To: Lee'sGhost
If the government were objective, logically elections are unnecessary and subversive.

That is of course a parody of American freedom. Thus we understand the principle of the First Amendment--that the government does not have the right to enforce its idea of objectivity, does not legitimately have the right even to claim to be objective.

FOX may drift over the line past the center sometimes, but they never present NEWS (not talking talk show/editorial context her) from a hopelessly biased conservative stance the way the alphabet nets do their liberal-bent news casts -- day in and day out.
Many have difficulty with that crucial distinction between NEWS and commentary. In truth, its significance lies solely in the legal fiction that FCC licensees broadcast "in the public interest."

Editorial pages didn't even exist when the Constitution and bill of rights were adopted. That does not mean that there was no commentary in newspapers, quite the contrary--it means that newspaper content was not presumed in law to be unbiased. Now (as related to campaign finance regulation and to broadcast licensing) it is. If you read the front page of The New York Times into a microphone you are "objective."

Yet the Times itself is protected by the First Amendment from any government requirement to be objective. Not only in the editorial page but on the front page.

The "objectivity" of journalism is merely the consensus of journalists. A consensus which is defended by the common interest of journalists. Journalism's business model is to purvey interesting reports under the banner of of "objectivity" supported merely by that internal consensus. That is, if the Times and the Post don't argue, each derives legitimacy from agreement with the other.


27 posted on 11/18/2002 7:08:04 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion
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