Fox News's detrimental impact on America

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond, I've had a busy couple of days. For times sake, I'll be dropping arguments 1&6. Additionally, those two arguments aren't necessarily important to affirm/negate the resolution. Rather, I'll be focusing my attention on 2-5. 2. Fox News serves those most interested in the news. Con argues the reason FNC's informed rate is low, as opposed to Bill O'Reilly's rather high informed rate, is that FNC attracts people of all informed rates by using a mix of soft stories, entertainment news, and their popular morning networks. While this could be an explanation, it really doesn't answer the question of why these people are leaving their viewing sessions so uninformed. This quote from Fox News SVP Michael Clemente [1] “An increasing number of viewers are relying on FOX News for both news and opinion. And the average news consumer can certainly distinguish between the A-section of the newspaper and the editorial page, which is what our programming represents. So, with all due respect to anyone who might still be confused about the difference between news reporting and vibrant opinion, my suggestion would be to talk about the stories and the facts, rather than attack the messenger…which over time, has never worked. ” In there lies the problem. He claims news consumers are certainly capable of distinguishing actual news reporting and vibrant opinion pieces. However, with Fox's rather large viewing base additionally depending on their opinion pieces, along with the actual news, to shape their views on world views, Fox now has a duty to make sure all the information they're reporting to be factual. I'm not so sure some Fox viewers are capable of differentiating objective news and vibrant opinions. So when Fox begins to push their political agenda, most of which contains certified falsehoods, their audience picks up those talking points, and uses them as their political foundation. This is why Fox News is looked upon with disdain. When FNC's commentators give their opinions that are littered with objective lies, the audience takes that to be the absolute truth. 3. Fox News provides debate on the issues. Here, Con argues Fox is the only major news network that allows for discussion among various political platforms. He then goes on to name a list of liberals who contribute to FNC, and then even names a socialist that frequently appears on various FNC programs, more specifically O'Reilly's show. I'll concede that Fox provides ample opportunity for discussing/debating issues on their programs. However, its the way the FNC commentators conduct themselves during these discussions that's objectionable. One specific example I can point out is the interview O'Reilly had with Joan Walsh. The debate ended with O'Reilly screaming at Walsh and claiming she had 'blood on her hands' for her pro-choice ideology. Not only is that no way to conduct yourself on national television, but O'Reilly's audience most likely picked up that talking point and used it whenever debating abortion rights. Lets be honest, FNC probably hires people to pretend they're liberals, in order to allow their conservative commentators to destroy them over whatever subject they're talking about. Whatever the reason may be, its not the amount of debates on FNC that's a problem; its the way they're conducted, and the faulty information contained within the discussions. 4. Fox News provides unique news coverage. Con argues Fox provides news stories no other network covers, citing Benghazi as a key example. Now, as Tom Ricks pointed out in my second round argument (Source 3), the obsessive coverage the Benghazi situation received from FNC was due to the election being several months away. This was a chance to smear the Obama Administration for potentially covering up the murder of 4 Americans. Often, the only reason Fox ever provides 'unique' coverage of a specific news story nobody else is covering, is because its their opportunity to over blow the otherwise normal situation in an attempt to smear false attacks against the Obama administration. Con also brings up Hillary Clinton commenting on how Fox provided a fairly objective/fair coverage of her campaign in 2008. I'm not sure what drove her to say that, as several Fox commentators frequently smeared her as being [2] Too emotional Calculated Suffers from Mythomania “B-word” Vampire Another reason she could of said this is because the majority of their time attacking Senator Obama, calling him things such as [2] Muslim Anti-American Unpatriotic A terrorist Socialist Obviously, not only were all of those characteristics of Clinton/Obama completely false, but they were slanderous and harmful to their reputation. Fox News should have been ashamed of themselves for promoting such falsehoods as objective truths. When Fox does this, their audience believes all these falsehoods are true, which is dangerous to a democratic society, as millions of people believe utterly ridiculous claims against a potentially good candidate are true. 5. Fox News is the primary source for Libertarian opinion on televisionCon then argues FNC is the only source of Libertarian News. Due to time restraints, I don't have time to fully respond too it. What I can say though, is that most Libertarians don't rely on cable news programs for their news, due to their viewpoint usually never being represented. Libertarian's have plenty of websites and online media programs that they can rely on to get their news. I will now turn the debate over to Roy. Sources1. . http://mediamatters.org...2. . http://mediamatters.org...