I just saw the documentary last night (it was about the Fox news network). While I knew Fox was conservative, this took it to whole new levels. Journalism, what journalism? The whole station is a giant propaganda machine for the Republican party. I suppose this is a widely known fact already, but… damn. How can anybody actually consider this a respectable news source when you have, for example, Bill O’Reilly interrupting and telling to “shut up” every guest who has a different opinion than him? And they allow this guy on the air, but they try to kick Howard Stern off for being “offensive”?
Anyway, it was an interesting film. Has anybody else seen it?
A) it would probably tell me everything I already know and/or confirm what I already suspect.
B) it would only serve to get me all worked up and pissed off about it all over again. I’ve been angry and bitter and outraged for a long time now. I’d like to try and see if I can get the hang of the whole “being happy” thing I’ve heard so much about.
Anyway, yeah, I’m sure it is a good film, and hopefully it’ll pry a few pairs of eyes open. I, however, just try to avoid watching Fox “news” clips, even in a slag documentary about it, just because the style (as illuminated in the example you refer to) is so insulting and offensive.
It sounds interesting enough, but only because it could concretizise what I already know. I might watch and I might not, depends on when and if it’s aired here.
O Reilly told a 9/11 victim’s son to ‘shut up’ and then lied to his next guest about why (he told him said victim’s son had blamed Bush for 9/11. Obviously the son had not).
O Reilly said Inside Edition won two Peaody awards, then changed this to two Polk awards (it won ONE, AFTER he left the show) then denied the whole thing ever happened when challenged about it.
O Reilly maintains he came from a working class background and grew up from nothing (and still does) when in fact his mother told the media proudly about their middle-class lifestyle and frequent vacations.
O Reilly also maintains he is an ‘Independent’ when in fact he registered as a Republican and his voting papers are almost public record.
O Reilly ascribes to the ‘The media is a tool of the democratic party!’ theory of thinking, even when it’s blatently wrong and he should damn well know why.
O Reilly almost literally ORDERED Fox to sue Al Fraken then denied participation when he lost.
O Reilly is a jerk and everything he says is probably a lie or self-promotion.
Seriously, though, I wonder why people here get so bent out of shape by conservative propagandists (like Bill O’Reilly), but not liberal propagandists (like Michael Moore).
…OK, well, he’s as bad anyway. The only way I could see somebody justifying that Moore isn’t as bad is because Moore is spewing his propaganda through theatrical documentaries, which is a medium that people probably trust less than TV “news”, so the gullible nitwit might be more apt to believe O’Reilly over Moore in that respect. But seeing all these people believe Moore and take what he says as the absolute truth really troubles me. Of course, the same could be said of all political figures, but I digress…
Bill O’Reilly is a warmonger who actively pushed mutually contradictory and false reasons for going to war with Iraq, including claiming a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Later on, he proposed the complete annihilation of Baghdad, specifically advocated bombing civilian targets, and blamed the deaths that would result from such a tactic on the dead civilians themselves. (He later advised the American military to completely destroy the city of Fallujah, with the words, “we know what the final solution should be.”) As he did so, he also did his best to intimidate and shout down any opposition to the war. This culminated in a truly vile display, when he screamed “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” at an antiwar activist, threatened to beat him up, and ordered the studio crew to cut the activist’s microphone so the latter wouldn’t be able to offer any further retort. He also declared people who oppose the war to be “enemies of the state,” and of course ordered them to “shut up,” as well.
It is laughable to compare a man who actively advocates deliberate mass murder of civilians, on the basis of a lie that he also actively promoted, with a man whose rhetoric largely consists of making various (and largely true) accusations against the government and a handful of corporate bosses. By the way, Moore doesn’t claim that his documentaries are “unbiased” or that his political stance is something it isn’t. O’Reilly, on the other hand, bases his entire image on the ridiculous notion that he is “fair and balanced,” a “hard-hitting journalist,” an equal-opportunity “independent” commentator who supposedly doesn’t stump for either side.
SK, I know that you are a die-hard liberal and you hate conservatives, and therefore you SHOULD hate O’Reilly more than anybody else, I guess, if hate is your answer to hate. But that doesn’t mean that Moore is all peaches and cream. The points he makes usually have some basis of truth, but he twists and stretches the facts until they’re pure fiction, for the most part. And he does it in a way that he SEEMS credible. O’Reilly, especially in the anecdotal evidence you’ve given, is so “out there” that nobody with half a brain would take him seriously (although admittedly, people still do, for some reason).
Nor am I referring to the moral character of either one of them. I don’t give a fuck if they they go home and punch kittens in the throat. I’m just talking about their EFFECT ON AMERICANS. People watch Bowling for Columbine and think, “Oh, guns are bad, and so are all gun owners!”. People watch the O’Reilly Factor and say “Oh, the Iraq war is good, and so is Bush!”. They’re BOTH perpetuating a nation of hate.
You are right about Moore not saying that his “journalism” is “fair and balanced”, and O’Reilly saying that his is. But to the average American sitting down to watch a Moore documentary, this isn’t an issue, since Moore’s not claiming his bias within his documentaries, so a person would still probably take anything Moore says at face value, as they would O’Reilly.
I guess the point I’m trying to make (and that I HAVE been trying to make for quite some time) is that people tend to turn a blind eye to one point of view while advocating another. Propaganda is just another example. O’Reilly is bad, and so is Moore. They both lie, twist and manipulate people’s minds. The direction they’re each trying to twist America to is another matter altogether, and isn’t what I was trying to argue at all, SK. But I choose not to be swayed by either of them, because I know that they’re both full of shit.
