The Fox News-White House fracas raises issues aplenty about objectivity and fairness, especially at the cable networks. The Obama administration was clumsy in its attempt to single out Fox, but its larger point is well taken: Fox News (and MSNBC for that matter) are many things, but fair and balanced isn't one of them.
But there's another, more disturbing aspect to this: The tendency of more and more news consumers to tune in only the coverage and commentary they agree with.
This isn't theorizing on my part. A study done at Ohio State University found that people spent 36 percent more time reading articles that agreed with their point of view than they did reading text that challenged their opinions.
"We found that people generally chose media messages that reinforced their own preexisting views," said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, co-author of the study. "In general, they don't want their views to be challenged by seriously considering other viewpoints."
The result? A decline in informed opinion formation, a more polarized and fragmented electorate, and reduced political tolerance, the researchers say.
In other words, right-wingers watch Fox, lefties choose MSNBC, and they're all living in an echo chamber that reinforces the views they already hold.
But it's the echo chamber that people seem to love. Fox News and opinion shows like "Glenn Beck" bring home ratings gold, while the newsier CNN's ratings are in the tank.
Jill Geisler, who teaches management and leadership skills at the Poynter Institute, a journalism training center, says the splintering of the once-monolithic news media has only aided this all-too human tendency.
"There was a time when we tended to hear multiple sides to a story in the mainstream media," she says. "The effort was there in traditional newsrooms to vet for bias and fairness."
Now, she says, "It's so easy to set up your RSS feed on your web browser to keep you in touch with a world that reminds you everyday that the opinions you have are right. All you hear everyday is that your opinions are right.
"People are more able than ever to expose themselves to things selectively, to choose to hear only what they believe already," she adds.
The only problem is, when all we hear are opinions that echo our own, real thinking stops, and a kind of intellectual autopilot takes over. We stop questioning our own assumptions and biases, and become ever-more entrenched in our own partisan positions. Real dialog between people of differing viewpoints is replaced by rancor and shouting that sheds lots of heat but little light.
Sounds like an episode of "The O'Reilly Factor."
Photo courtesy Getty Images
Follow me on Facebook & Twitter
Comments
Amen.
For years right-wing talk radio has basically consisted of one blowhard or another yelling, “See, I told you so.”
When I see Keith Olbermann or Michael Moore playing loose with the facts to the same end, it makes me want to slap them.
My own practice is to use reporting from different sources to inform my own opinions.
I do this because I think it is a mistake to honor the opinions of the misinformed, no matter how popular or powerful they may be.
That isn’t to say that I immediately reject opinions that differ with mine. But, when I do reject an opinion I try do so on evidence that is as impersonal to me as possible.
This way, my identity isn’t attached to my opinion.
I think the bigger problem is our collective inability to responsibly answer, “I don’t know?” when confronted with tough questions that we don’t know anything about.
So often people feel they must have an answer, and will offer an opinion that has no basis in fact or, even more frequently, is at odds with the facts.
In the internet age that we live in, I have no time to argue over facts. I just look it up and gauge the source.
That brings me to Fox, an institution that has decided to do away with the line between fact and opinion.
Often, conservatives bemoan The New York Times as “left leaning”. If that is so, then Fox has leaned so far right, they are practically lying down.
For me, the crux of any argument is the objectivity of the facts that go into it.
When I ask myself if Fox is objective, I answer, “No.”
The same is true of MSNBC.
When I ask myself if Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is objective, I say, “Yeah.”
The same is true of the New York Times.
And so the question of objectivity informs my positions, even before the assumed stance of the source.
Fox News’ primetime lineup is opinion, pure and simple, with Greta Van Susteren a bit more “fair and balanced” than O’Reilly and Hannity.
But it is entertaining, better than most of the dramas and comedies, so I watch it. I might give Olbermann a try on MSNBC as I have heard he is entertaining as well.
While these programmes are more entertainment than news, one does learn something about the events of the day from them, so long as one is aware of their biases.
Let’s see if I have it right.
On one side of the balance are CNN, CBS, ABC, MSNBC and (in Canada) CBC and CTV, all of whom support, unashamedly peddle and propagate news with a liberal slant–to the exclusion of everything else.
On the other side of the ’slant’ is solitary FoxNews. And everyone is fretting about the ‘bias’ inherent in FoxNews.
Can it be the liberal establishment is running scared because of the success FoxNews enjoys?
As a Canadian, the basic difference between the two sides of the balance, so to speak, is accuracy and lack thereof.
Let the people–not un-elected media mavens–vote on this. Actually, they already have.
Tarring discerning viewers as ‘right-wingers’ is an oversimplification. Demonizing FoxNews has had the unfortunate and disastrous (to mainstream media) effect of informing the public where the demons really reside.
Entities like The New York Times should examine themselves and their dismal reporting standards before snottily dismissing success when it stares them in the face.
I find it amazing that a webpage touting how objective the New York Times is is owned by the New York Times.
Or maybe it’s not that amazing. Imagine a “journalist” being critical of his own employer!
The other thing that is obvious and getting boring as hell is this inability to see that O’Reilly, Hannity, et. al. are OPINION programs by pundits.
OPINION programs.
Most of Fox News is NEWS. Straight news.
Can it be that the “journalist” paid by the New York Times who runs this webpage is incapable of differentiating between NEWS coverage and OPINION programs?
It’s hardly surprising. The left blurred that line a long, long time ago. It also explains why newspapers as an industry committed suicide.
I agree with Pete and Katy.
Not to mention, I have read both sides and listen to both sides. Sir, I can’t help but think what some people call the conservate news is more “fair and objective” than the so called liberal news.
Perhaps, the newspapers and broadcasting news should do a survey to the people around to find out what they want. They should get back in touch with people instead of alienating them.
The point is well made about news and commentary on Fox News.
O’Reilly does claim to some extent to be a journalist and has had actual reporting experience. Hannity makes no bones about being a commentator and Van Susteren, who, with her staff, does real reporting, still calls herself a commentator.
But I’d be hard pressed to find reporters any more fair than Shep Smith or Bill Hemmer, whom Fox stole from CNN. Brit Hume, while conservative personally, was a fair newsman and certainly is well within the political mainstream, same with Bret Baier and many of the Fox Business staff.
To those who would make false equivalencies, I dare you to come up with a documented instance of Keith Olbermann playing loose with the facts that even remotely compares to the bald-faced lies right-wing propagandists spew every 5 minutes. Keith is a good man who has tried to get to the truth on behalf of his fellow citizens and his country, I think it’s insulting to compare him to these creeps.