Text 12888, 113 rader
Skriven 2008-03-15 04:50:06 av Björn Forsström (2:203/614.61)
  Kommentar till text 12830 av Jeff Bowman (1:229/500)
Ärende: Bush Vetoes Waterboarding Bill
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 JB> My parents tend to watch CNN Headline News a lot since they repeat top
 JB> stories over and over,

As Fox then, even one year old "news".

  JB> Then of course I read a lot of internet news and video, which fills in a
 JB> lot of gaps.

For "news", anything is better than Fox but right now they showed that Atlanta
Georgia was hit by a hurricane, local time 10 pm I guess because we're 11 or
12 hours ahead of you so here it's 10 in the morning.

BF>> Of those I preffer Fox because they are easy to understand compared to BBC
BF>> and CNN send weather every 15 min for 5 and that's *very* annoying.

 JB> That actually sounds a bit like the CNN Headline News channel that I
 JB> mentioned rather than plain CNN.  If a local news/weather segment isn't
 JB> inserted, one would normally see like a nation-wide forecase segment.  But
 JB> without seeing what you get, I couldn't say for sure which it is.

That might explaint it.

BF>> If I read in Swedish papers (online) that something have happend I
BF>> immediatly change to BBC because they are so much better on news than
BF>> Fox but which  isn't that except from Al Jazira.

 JB> I would probably watch BBC more if we got it on cable, just to hear things
 JB> from the European perspective. I'd get it if we had digital cable, but
 JB> that costs a little more. Same with satellite.

It's good to have alternatives.

 JB> As for Al-Jazira, I simply don't trust them.  I feel like they've shown
 JB> bias towards muslims in their arab-based network.  Particularly in showing
 JB> videos of hostages and such, which is against policies in most places.
 JB> They basically give terrorists an outlet to make their demands by doing
 JB> that sort of thing.  And part of me thinks they do it because some in the
 JB> organization are sympathetic to them.

I trust Al Jazira as much as Fox. They are both so biased so the salt bag
beside
the TV is good to have.

 BF>> Don't think any govt. have anything to say about what's on the sattelites
BF>> so Rupert can spread his propaganda just as he can afford but after a
BF>> while one learns to have a bag of salt beside the TV.

 JB> I didn't think about you watching it via satellite when I said that.  I
 JB> thought you meant the cable television carried it.  Maybe they still do in
 JB> some other countries, I have no idea.

I think USA is the only country with so much cable. In most other countries
it's
either sattelite or with a usual antenna.

BF>> Luckily for us, ouside of the U.S. we have alternatives and back home I
BF>> *never* watch Fox. Our news are totally un-biased and news are reported as
BF>> news without any political angles and those who tries to do that is very
BF>> fast removed.

 JB> Problem with news is that they don't expect you to think it's biased.
 JB> That's how Fox News gets away with it.  I never used to think American
 JB> news could be that way. Now I find that almost any news is biased to some
 JB> degree. It's just a matter of how much.  From Fox, to CNN, even to BBC.
 JB> It can be anything from outright falsehoods and twistings of the truth,
 JB> down to carefully wording things a particular way to change the impression
 JB> a report gives off. It might even be an honest case of a reporter applying
 JB> their own personal bias without realizing it.  Other times it's "adjusted"
 JB> to better suit whoever the majority audience is.  Regardless, I tend to be
 JB> a little more observant these days.

That's a good thing to do instead of trusting only one.
Three years ago we even had Russian news here and the truth between them
and Fox was somewhere in between and many times even better than Fox.

 JB>  Our newspaper is another story.  I've noticed
 JB> a lot of bias towards the conservative and religous in there.  I don't
 JB> even read it most of the time.

In Sweden, the left Aftonbladet was even more critical towards the sitting
socialist PM than their opponent was.
Then, if your rights are violated in the press we have the PO and PON and
you can read more about that at:
http://www.po.se/english.jsp?avd=english

 JB> I once had a disagreement with someone from an asian country, I can't
 JB> remember which one it was now after all these years, but they kept saying
 JB> American news was all propaganda and fake, and that their news was all
 JB> free and true. Yet when I read about their country, I found out that it
 JB> was quite the opposite.  All their news networks were government
 JB> controlled, and reporters had been fired and arrested for reporting things
 JB> the government didn't approve of.

Back home the TV isn't controlled by the gov.

 JB>  This person simply didn't want to
 JB> accept any possible notion of bias in their country, or the possible lack
 JB> of bias in some of America's.  The very fact that their government
 JB> controlled all the news agencies should have been an indication of funny
 JB> business, but they just wouldn't listen.

It's like talking to Roy about Fox.

 JB> Don't get me wrong, I'm not outright saying your news is biased of course,
 JB> considering I've never seen it.  But my advice to anyone nowadays is to
 JB> never take anything at face value.  We have these great brains of ours, we
 JB> should use them to find truth ourselves from numerous sources instead of
 JB> just one, and to always keep an open mind.

For some, that is a problem.

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 * Origin: . (2:203/614.61)