Talk:Fox News/Archive 4

message: In 2001, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a left-leaning media "watchdog" group, released a report titled "Fox: The Most Biased Name in News" (). The report claims that of the guests on the network's signature political show, Special Report with Brit Hume, 89 percent were Republicans, 65 percent were conservatives, 91 percent were male, and 93 percent were white, while, by comparison, on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports 57% of the guests were Republican and 32 percent were conservatives. FAIR also claimed that since 1998, one out of every 12 episodes of The O'Reilly Factor has featured a segment on Jesse Jackson, with themes such as "How personal are African-Americans taking the moral failures of Reverend Jesse Jackson?"
Many commentators, especially on the right, regard FAIR as biased in its coverage of media issues.
:What has the alleged bias of FAIR to do with the fact that 89 percent of the guests of Brit Hume's show were Republicans?  Unless there is evidence FAIR lies about statistics, its bias, so-called, is irrelevant to an assessment of objective data.  Not to mention that FAIR is already identified as left-leaning in the first sentence.  I'm going to remove this last sentence from the main article. Bds yahoo 23:40, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: FAIR

message: A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, sponsored by the Ford, Carnegie, and Tides foundations, claims that viewers of FOX News were more likely to hold misconceptions than viewers of any other network (, link in PDF). The study lists three beliefs, which it labels "misperceptions," that are more common among FOX News viewers:
:* That evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq had been found;
:* That weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq; and 
:* That the U.S. had received wide international support in its decision to go to war. 
Eighty percent of FOX News viewers polled held at least one of these three beliefs, more than any other radio or television news source. PIPA claims that this trend persists even after adjusting for viewership and political preference. The report also claims that the viewers who watched FOX News more often tended to have more of these beliefs.
Critics of this report such as columnist Ann Coulter condemned the choice of misconceptions as hand-picked "liberal talking points," "deceptive," and "designed to falsely portrary FOX News viewers as ignorant" ().
:I don't think Ann Coulter's criticism of the PIPA study is relevant.  She's not an expert on the subject, just a woman with an opinion.  I might as well cite my own opinion, that Ann Coulter is a vile mendacious windbag.  Bds yahoo 23:16, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: From my userpage: "Why did you (1) revert without discussing and (2) mark a revert as minor?  That's dishonest.  I'm reinstating my edits and hope you will discuss before reverting next time. I admit my change was perhaps a little cheeky, but I gave a reason on the Talk page, and you gave none for the revert, either on the page or in your edit summary.  I'm willing to be talked into the revert, but not bullied into it. Bds yahoo 23:56, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: As for 'minor' - I clicked the admin auto-rollback as I was watching Recent Changes because it seemed very POV to me - the edit summary is added automatically, and it is automatically marked minor. POV is POV, whether one mentions it on the talk page or otherwise. As for Ann Coulter - it is impossible to express an infinite number of opinions, rebuttals, and counter-rebuttals, so I believe the FOX News article should stick strictly to people's opinions of FOX, and not people's opinions of people who have opinions of FOX. Thus the sentence you added to the Coulter paragraph beginning "In the opinion of many on the left..." does not belong. Nor, for that matter, does any lengthy statement concerning the political affiliation of FAIR or PIPA. If you don't mind, I'm going to remove that sentence, and try to get rid of any similar sentences about FAIR and PIPA. — Dan | Talk 00:17, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's fair.  My addition about Coulter was intended to draw attention to a certain illogical standard for POV, where POV is somehow legitimized if attached to the name of a wlel-known person, no matter how unqualified that person may be to make that statement. Bds yahoo 00:20, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: PIPA

message: Rdsmith4 deleted the following text (from the new 'false quote' paragraph).  Rdsmith's objection was that the site did not explicitly accuse Fox of bias, so that it might have been an issue of journalist standards.  Fair enough, that's certainly been a major issue with FOX.  I propose a new section on 'journalistic standards' as indicated below. 
The next day, FOX published a story quoting a "Communists for Kerry" member stating that both he and North Korea supported "Comrade Kerry". The story continued, "It is unclear whether the Kerry campaign has welcomed the Communists' endorsement."  The web page of this group stated that it is, in fact, a campaign of the Hellgate Republican Club. 
An exchange on user talk pages is as follows: Wolfman 01:02, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I find your revert rather purposefully naive.  No, the site did not spell it out, but they clearly did not think it was an editorial mistake.  Do you?  I mean, follow the Communists for Kerry link in the FOX article.  Click "About Us".  That's not an editorial mistake.  So, I'll go find some link that explicitly accuses FOX of bias in this case.  Or would you revert that too? Wolfman 23:47, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry my reversion offended you, but I must stand by it. I don't think an allegation made by a blog on a very minor subject - and one where FOX's malice aforethought is by no means clear - is sufficient to merit inclusion in a Wikipedia article. I agree with the previous item you added since Carl Cameron was clearly in the wrong; however, anyone is capable of an editorial mistake. Since there is no proof, I must give FOX the benefit of the doubt on this one, as I did CBS on their recent instance of clear editorial error. My opinion on the subject is, of course, irrelevant. I don't kid myself about FOX's journalistic practices; I'm simply interested in keeping the article relevant and unbiased. — Dan | Talk 00:10, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your reply.  I think your point perhaps has some merit, though I disagree with point about the blog being minor -- that is linked right now by most of the liberal blogosphere.  The verifiable issue is one of journalistic standards; the suspicion is that these lax standards would never happen in an article about Bush.  I think a new section on 'criticism of journalistic standards' is in order.  The 'communists for kerry' clearly belongs there, as does this  story and many others. The BGH story  would fit better there as well. Perhaps a 'journalist standards' section with a criticism subsection would be more NPOV if FOX has any Pulitzers or the like to report. Wolfman 00:29, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I support some mention of this sort of thing. Wikipedia needn't claim that such events are examples of FOX News bias, but perhaps, rather than giving FOX News the benefit of the doubt, we could mention that it has been viewed by some as mistake and by others as a deliberate distortion by FOX News. It would be more significant if FOX News had made a habit of this sort of thing (and I wouldn't be surprised if it had). Those who give FOX News the benefit of the doubt are unlikely to be impressed by a single journalistic error, but repeated errors would be different. Tim Ivorson 11:27, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My impression is that it's quite the habit.  Remember the fake Fonda/Kerry photograph flap?  That was FOX, too.  Remember the bogus claims Rumsfeld made about the German "Werewolf" resistance.  Those claims were based on a forged Reuters dispatch, initially introduced by FOX.  Wolfman 15:40, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how it should be written. I believe that it is the combined effect of mistakes that make them significant. Should they all be listed? Tim Ivorson 17:14, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: They should all be listed on a list page, and linked to this article.  --Viriditas 22:44, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Journalistic Standards 

message: The "ratings success" section states, "Television observers credit the success to what they see as FNC's better production values, better graphics and more personable hosts." Is this true? FOX News's overuse of bad graphics is the kind of thing that satirists make fun of. Friends of mine complain about the news ticker. FNC routinely shows muted video of somebody talking, while a host delivers his opinion and this causes people to say, "this is really badly dubbed." Where can I hear praise for such things? Also, I'm not sure that FOX News does have more personable hosts. It seems to me that the highest rating and most distinctive hosts are abrasive (e.g. Bill O'Reilly), and that this is part of the channel's gimmick. I suggest deleting the quoted sentence. Tim Ivorson 11:27, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: For what it's worth, Fox's coverage of the vice-presidential debates on 5 Oct 2004 had several major errors including interruptions of the feed for seconds at a time and apparent loss of audio-video synchronization. --Random Reader, 02:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratings success 

message: I have made an archive run, removing a lot of material (about 500kB) to Archive 21.  Some of the regular editors here may want to break that up into smaller chunks.  If some threads were unresolved, I urge editors to reference the archived material, *if necessary*, but try not to reintroduce any inflammatory posts/edits to the current discussion.  Please, everyone, be on your best, most polite behavior.  Thanks,  R. Baley (talk) 00:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Great. I've been meaning to do a history merge of this talk page, as the first archives were done using copy/paste and the most recent archives were done using the move method. I'll likely get to it tomorrow, but may make a stab at it tonight if I can't find something to entertain myself. - auburnpilot talk 00:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I just cut and pasted, feel free to archive however you think best.  R. Baley (talk) 00:55, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at the archives, only 4 of the 21 were created by moving the page, so we'll stick with the copy/paste method; it's easier anyway. Feel free to archive as you see fit, as we can always reference previous discussion. A fresh start might be the best approach. - auburnpilot talk 01:10, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: All done. Much easier than I expected, but with just under 4400 revisions, I think I nearly killed the server. Never seen so many consecutive database locks... - auburnpilot talk 01:31, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and did the UCLA section as well.  Discussion petered out, and since the consensus is to avoid referencing the lead the point is now moot.  We can revisit if the source is proposed for the body at a later time.  /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 02:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems an overzealous vandal fighter reverted your edit, readding the UCLA discussion. - auburnpilot talk 03:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Speaking of archiving, has anyone ever considered archiving by topic since many may seem to get ressurected whether here or elsewhere? Sometimes archiving chronologically makes it harder to find previous discussions.  It would be a good way to guide newcomers to see how we got to the current affair of things.  MrMurph101 (talk) 16:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like a pretty decent idea, though I think we'd need a consensus-blessed blueprint of topics (and what goes where) that we all agree to abide by.  Anyone know of any precedents or similar situations?  /Blaxthos ( t / c ) 21:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a bad idea, but it may be quite difficult to implement on this page. Our discussions tend to weave in and out of their intended topic, frequently changing subjects more than once before coming back to the original thought (the "Response: UCLA Paper" section being a good example). It may be easier to simply create an index, where we can list certain topics and the chronological archives where related discussion can be found. - auburnpilot talk 21:53, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen something before like this, thought it was the Evolution article but that does not to appear to be it.  The FAQ gives somewhat of a topic-based archive but maybe something more specific.  Those who have been around this article more would know which topics get brought up more so I would defer to them as to what topics could be specifically archived, obviously one-time discussions don't merit this.  I think one example for archving could be based on a particular source.  The UCLA study comes to mind.  Archiving threads devoted to this discussion go in one topic.  Another could be the discussions about issue of bias.  Basically, highlight topics that keep coming up. Also, just to clarify, this does not mean we shouldn't keep the chronological arhciving.  MrMurph101 (talk) 22:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I remembered seeing a bot that would auto-index talk archives, so I've set it up to do a test run. Should run sometime in the next 5-6 hours. - auburnpilot's sock 22:06, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Check out Talk:Fox News Channel/Archive index for the bot's work. - auburnpilot talk 15:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not bad, it wasn't what I was picturing but still addresses my issue.  This is good for articles that draw a lot of discussion.  MrMurph101 (talk) 20:21, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archiving