General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow much harm has Fox News done to the US over the last 20 years?
I believe it has been the single most destructive force in this nation since its inception.
Dem2
(8,168 posts)People are resistant to believe how destructive they've been to this country.
It's so frustrating and discouraging. People want to believe that the "news" is telling them the truth, especially if they have the same political bent.
SharonAnn
(13,780 posts)Some of the me began listening to him raging about shit and decided to adopt that thinking and the behavior that goes with it. It became awful.
CrispyQ
(36,540 posts)Within 18 months she was a different woman. Everything that was wrong was the fault of the liberals, minorities or feminists. Even teachers were bad.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)... what that alternate reality -- no FAUX News, no RW talk radio -- would look like.
The destructive power of the Republican noise machine is greater than anything else. Whenever someone I know to be otherwise fairly reasonable asserts some bizarre RW notion, i ask "have you been watching FOX"? Invariably the answer is yes. It is incredible how insidious they are, and how pervasive the damage.
Dem2
(8,168 posts)"sieg heil!" loud enough for them to hear "under my breath"
ChoppinBroccoli
(3,784 posts)My wife's father is retired. Usually when the weather is good, he spends his days outside working in the yard. But when the weather is bad, he sits in the house and watches Faux News 24 hours a day and just gets mad at stuff. Whenever we visit, I can always tell when he's been sitting around watching Faux News all day. On the days he hasn't been watching, he's pleasant, will joke around with you, you can have actual conversations with him, and everything is fine. On the days he's been cooped up watching Faux all day, he will literally wait by the door for us to come in and will ambush us with, "Did you hear about........." whatever latest "outrage" Faux has been pimping that day, and then he becomes nasty, combative, and borderline unhinged. I've discovered over the years (after much trial and error and many knock-down drag-out arguments) that the best/only way to defuse this is to refuse to engage. I usually either say, "I don't know anything about that," and immediately change the subject, or I just smile and nod until he runs out of gas. And it's like clockwork; predictable as the tides.
He loves to do this to us because his family is all hardline, right-wing, the Republicans can do no wrong types, and I'm the dirty liberal who corrupted his daughter and caused her to "change sides" (my wife describes it as, "he apparently doesn't think I'm smart enough to make up my own mind about things, so it must have been you corrupting me." In short, he's Archie Bunker and I'm Meathead. That's actually a pretty darn accurate description.
Dem2
(8,168 posts)I've started just holding up the "talk to the hand" hand and saying "no. nope. not talking politics". I yell at friends of my dad to "stop with that bullshit". There will be no listening to their BS any more. I'm shutting them out. If they want to talk about it and have an audience, I walk away. My life doesn't need their hate in it any longer. It's the only medicine that I know they despise more than losing an argument - being waved away as irrelevant. They've begged for it, the time has come - they have the government STOP FUCKING WHINING FOR FUCKS SAKE!!
greytdemocrat
(3,299 posts)Hard to believe its been that long!
So much evil.
Beakybird
(3,333 posts)... the morally depraved monster who was successfully sued for millions. Fox News, the spawn of a sick, twisted man.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Murdoch advocated for Reagan via the NYPost
He advocated for Brexit
And he advocated for hate in the US via Fox News
IADEMO2004
(5,566 posts)shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)In a long list of Nixon acolytes; like Cheney and Rumsfeld and more. Never pass on a chance to kick Dick Nixon right in his dead mug I say! We actually do have Dick to kick around for the rest of eternity.
Azathoth
(4,611 posts)Living day-to-day with Fox is like living with asbestos or radiation. The poison is insidious and the damage is permanent.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)Fortunately, with a lot of pressure, we talked her into going "FOX-free" for awhile. Recovery was amazingly quick.
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)She watches either the CBS or ABC news app on our smart tv. She absolutely hates tRump and Blobus Preibus. Yes, she actually call Preibus that.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)... changes began to manifest after she retired to community in FL. We figured out that FOX was usually on in the clubhouse (it was a community of little manufactured homes on a golf course). For whatever reason, she started watching at home too. The danger of injecting FOX into a community like that is that everyday conversations start mirroring the crap on FOX, and the whole place starts getting more and more disconnected from reality.
She was a lifelong Democrat and very smart person, so it was shocking to hear her parroting propaganda. After several clashes of real reality v. FAUX "reality" she got it in her head that FOX was not exactly a reliable source. But it took a bit of effort to deprogram -- and this was with a highly intelligent person. (We had to work on one of her friends too -- a tougher case.)
That experience gave me some perspective. And some compassion i think. We are up against powerful forces. It won't be easy, but I am an optimist at heart. I believe there are ways to challenge, reframe, and breakdown the FOX group think that has pulled so many over to the "dark side."
world wide wally
(21,757 posts)This Australin asshole has pretty much torn down the US and is leaving the lions (Russia) to come in and finish us off.
C_U_L8R
(45,025 posts)As much as they try, FOX just cannot destroy the truth.
They might hide it or push it aside for a little while...
but truth has an awesome way of shining through
their bullshit and obfuscation.
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)the polarization. Its like the people who vote republican, they also watch republican news.
hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)What does that make MSNBC ... the Communist Daily?
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)hedda_foil
(16,375 posts)DFW
(54,448 posts)CNN's pretense at objectivity ended when Ted Turner sold it to Republican Steve Case.
For years, their chief political editor, Bill Schneider, was a blatant Republican partisan. I knew the guy. No attempt at objectivity. Candy Crowley was practically licking W's shoes, and Wolf Blitzer, another partisan Republican, is still one of their key anchors. Others shed their façade and went straight to Fox (Van Susteren, e.g.). CNN used to be called "Conservative News Network," and only recently has begun to tilt slowly back toward the center--mostly because their only option left was either to repeat outright lies by the Trump team or call them. There was no "in-between" any more.
Just because a Republican journalist says "I will not not lie deliberately day after day and damage my credibility permanently," they do not cease being Republicans. It only means they retain a vague memory of what it means to be a journalist, and are not on Fox.
titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)350 million people live in the US. 6 million people watch Fox News every day. That's 2% of the population. By the way...about 4 million people watch MSNBC every day.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)MSNBC would be like the left wing version of Fox if MSNBC spent the last year repeating "Russian Trump screw workers poor businessman bankrupt".
MSNBC is fairly left of center compared to Fox News's crazy right wing disinformation.
It is not useful to equate the two.
titaniumsalute
(4,742 posts)doc03
(35,389 posts)and how many votes did that orange faced asshole get? They may not sit and watch it 24/7 like some but they watch
and everywhere you go it is on the TV, hotels, malls, gyms and offices.
LeftInTX
(25,607 posts)Lots of exposure in places that like
kimbutgar
(21,224 posts)There were a lot of Hispanic workers there. They also had CNN on and HGTV. But the biggest tv was showing fox.
pat_k
(9,313 posts)Or status on "when I watch news, it's FOX"?
Even if viewing is fairly rare, if FOX is the primary source, thinking is quickly twisted. I don't think it takes a large "volume" of watching. I don't think many tune into to news every day.
alwaysinflux
(149 posts)Because he killed the fairness doctrine. Was it really such a bad thing? The first taste of it for me was Rush Limbaugh. I don't know if he was the first right wing news media person, but he was certainly the first one I noticed. I agree that Fox has done the most damage because they brought it more into the mainstream.
sharedvalues
(6,916 posts)Reagan courted racists
Reagan negotiated with Iran to keep American hostages.
Reagan was a terrible president who betrayed American values. I blame him for more than right-wing talk radio.
UTUSN
(70,762 posts)dalton99a
(81,636 posts)COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)doc03
(35,389 posts)Turbineguy
(37,374 posts)trump.
But they may have further to go.
roamer65
(36,747 posts)If he has American citizenship, it should be revoked.
mountain grammy
(26,658 posts)The Fairness Doctrine was abandoned by st ronnie in 1987, and they were off. A never ending stream of hate and bile. But, you almost have to go back to the Powell Memo in 1972 calling on corporations to fight the rising tide of people power.
http://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/
Fox was a natural transition. Democracy really never had a chance.
AJT
(5,240 posts)Doctrine"
nikibatts
(2,198 posts)HeartlandDem
(80 posts)incalculable.
Hulk
(6,699 posts)The scourge of the nation. They should ALL be tarred and feathered.
CentralMass
(15,265 posts)zentrum
(9,865 posts)...is to FOX-i-fy every English speaking country in the world. It's world-wide propaganda for oligarchical racism and resource extraction regardless of environmental harm. And war in his view is good for business.
kimbutgar
(21,224 posts)Fox is a pimple on America's a$$ that can't be removed.
Saboburns
(2,807 posts)I learned to hate Fox News in the run up to the Iraq War II Invasion 2002/2003.
S
As i watched how much damage Fox News was doing to the people in this country I wondered what I, a mildly patriotic Democrat could do to stop the madness of Fox News and the un-repairable damage its doing to our country.
The only thing I could come up with was to build a rocket to blow up their orbiting satellite. Now I know this wouldnt actually cause long term problems for them, but damn it would make me feel good. And be a helluva news story in itself.
I still dream about doing it. Lol
Botany
(70,614 posts)They "called" Florida for w and the we got w and then we got 9-11, Afghan war,
Iraq war, Ohio 2004, Cheney shooting somebody after drinking, the gulf oil spill
(cheney took off the requirement for emergency shut off valves on deep water
oil rigs), torture, wire taps, crashing the economy, Katrina, Big Branch mine
explosion, ......
Vinca
(50,318 posts)We've always had differences, but before we were able to meet in the middle and come to a consensus. I think we have to give some serious thought to officially splitting the country up. As a blue stater, it's bugs me to no end we are donors to some of the nastiest people anyone can imagine. We would welcome the sane to our side of the fence, but let the hatemongers stay in the red states and enjoy their "freedoms."
democratisphere
(17,235 posts)Their reporters for the most part are no better than Putin.
Zing Zing Zingbah
(6,496 posts)that they can be brainwashed by it.
SDJay
(1,089 posts)with the author of Murdoch's authorized biography. I forget his name. Anyway, they were asking him all the usual questions and I was about to change the channel when he was asked if Fox and other assets were a reflection of Murdoch's beliefs. The guy said that no, they weren't all that aligned. Then he was asked if Murdoch would swing around and change Faux to the other side of the pendulum - meaning the complete opposite end of the spectrum - if he thought it would make him more money. The author, without a second of hesitation, said that yes, he would. Fox would become the new home of far-left propaganda immediately if he had that thought. He didn't say these words, but his expounded answer basically said that Murdoch sees huge opportunity in fooling rubes.
I'm not sure if it's better or worse that this entire toilet of a network - which I agree has done incalculable and perhaps irreparable damage to the country - is based on cynicism.
librechik
(30,677 posts)If you show them proof that most Americans, issue by issue, are overwhelmingly (over 60%) "liberal"
(and there is plenty of evidence of that fact already, google it) they still won't change, because they are simply, irrevocably, personally biased toward the other side. Profit has nothing to do with it. They actually are blind, calculating greedy conservative psychopaths.
Still the question remains: why don't liberals take advantage of that 60% market share and start their own "LIBnews"-- We Report, You Empathize-- ???????? Or graft themselves with a death grip onto some existing organization to get our message out. And even more importantly, WHAT AND WHERE IS OUR MESSAGE??? If you can find it, let me know.
SDJay
(1,089 posts)They stridently deny evolution. I will show them a picture of a fossil (channeling Lewis Black) and just point at it and say, "FOSSIL!"
They just look at me with those dead fundy eyes and say, "FABRICATION! LIBRUL CONSPIRACY!"
There simply is no reaching people like this with facts, reason, logic, science, math, data, history... all evil things, of course.
I'm not talking about profit from the standpoint of the rubes. I'm talking about it from the standpoint of Murdoch. Profit has everything to do with it for him. According to his biographer, he couldn't care less what Faux's message is as long as it cranks up the ratings and ad revenue.
The rubes simply want to be validated for their dumbass beliefs, and Faux gives them a safe harbor.
kacekwl
(7,024 posts)Fox is the biggest reason for the spread of racism and the biggest cause for the division destroying the country. They are why we can't have nice things.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)fox news, rush limbaugh, etc to go unchallenged...
thegoose
(3,115 posts)In every public place I go (gym, restaurant, hotel lobby), I change the channel or ask for it to be changed, explaining, "That's not news. It's hate propaganda."
yuiyoshida
(41,867 posts)Bullshit mountain!
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)I'd call it the highest treason and would fully support the death penalty for all that work there.
raven mad
(4,940 posts)Faux calling itself News.