Fox "News" and MSNBC

I have just seen Senator Rockefeller saying that he believes both Fox and MSNBC should be banned (or eliminated or however you want to put it). Apparently he thinks that Fox News represents an entirely right-wing perspective whereas MSNBC is essentially the same except from a liberal point of view. I have also encountered several people recently who seem to think the same thing. That is, Fox is right-wing, MSNBC is left-wing and they are basically equivalent. I think this is an entirely false comparison. it is true that Fox is right-wing, and also true that MSNBC tends to be liberal, the comparison has to end right there.

Fox (News?) claims to be “Fair and Balanced,” but everyone by now with a brain larger than that of an ant knows perfectly well that is far from true. Not only is Fox not fair and balanced, it is also, admittedly by now, known to be simply a part of the Republican Party, its spokesperson, so to speak. This is not merely my opinion but is widely recognized as so. And while MSNBC is liberal it is not directly connected to the Democratic Party and, indeed, is not entirely uncritical of that organization. Most of what is reported on MSNBC is factual, they go to great lengths to establish the facts, even asking others to verify if what they say is factual. Fox, on the other hand, is almost completely non-factual, claiming whatever they say is fair and balanced when it represents nothing but their biased opinions about matters. Are we, for example, expected to believe, as Glenn Beck has now said on the air, that the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans organization is a communist organization? There is no basis in fact whatsoever for such a ridiculous claim. Similarly, are we to believe Beck when he says Soros is the leader of a communistic attempted takeover of the U.S.? This is utter nonsense, said on the air by an exceptionally silly man who is paid huge sums for saying such stupid and nonsensical things. Anyone who believes Glenn Beck can be compared to Rachel Maddow in terms of honest y and factual reporting is clearly blinded by something. It is true that those on MSNBC are partisans, most often obviously so, but they are completely upfront and obvious about it, and they don’t just make up lies in place of the facts. It literally pains me when I find people trying to equate the two networks as if they were equal in their reportage and analysis. They are not, not even close. Fox is a disgrace, MSNBC is not. Fox is not news but incessant subtle and not so subtle propaganda, MSNBC tries to tell the truth, however unpleasant it may be. Glenn Beck has no qualifications whatsoever for commenting on politics, a High School graduate with a history of alcohol and drug abuse, a Mormon convert, who admits he has little or no interest in politics, per se, he has managed to parlay his weird brand of utter bullshit into a multimillion dollar enterprise. Comparing Beck to Maddow is like comparing Palin to Obama, a comparison the American public seems to think it somehow meaningful even though, objectively, it is absurd. I do not watch Fox, but I do see excerpts from it occasionally, I find it totally beyond my comprehension how anyone could possibly take this buffoon seriously, but apparently they do. I find it incomprehensible that anyone could believe Sarah Palin is Presidential material, a belief so ridiculous as to make me question the sanity of many of my countrymen. Whenever I start wondering about all this I recall one of my friends who points out that if the average IQ is 100, and if “intelligence” is distributed on a bell curve, half of the population has an IQ below 100. I think of this, but it doesn’t make me feel better.

I have been trying for days to imagine anything worse than American television programming. So far I have failed. Someone once said it was a wasteland. I believe that is too generous. It is true there may be occasional programs that are worthwhile, National Geographic, History and such, but taken in the aggregate, contemporary American television has fallen so low as to be worse than worse.