What makes Faux News so dangerous?

[liberal72]

My top 10 reasons are:

1. Its ability to make it seem like a legitimate news station.
2. All the colonels pushing for war.
3. Saying that people like Newt Gingrich are political ANALysts.
4. Keeping itself young. (If you look at its anchors they are all very young looking and will remain so to keep its ratings up. Remember, we are a very youth obsessed culture.)
5. Saying people like Neil Cavuto are legitimate economic ANALysts, when all they do is talk about supply economics as though it is the gospel.
6. People like Linda Vester.
7. People like Bill O'Reilly.
8. Saying shows like Hannity and colmes are debate shows, when it is just an extension of Hannity's radio show.
9. Repeating "Fair and Balanced" and "We report, you decide" untill it sounds like the truth.
10.It is the progaganda machine for BushCo.

I say it is dangerous because if anyone remembers the study done that showed a vast majority of people who watched Faux News for coverage on the Iraq war had incorrect facts about the war you will see why it is dangerous. While I don't believe Faux News should be banned or taken off the air, I do believe we need to show how Faux News is corrupt and help keep this nation well informed about the truth.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. It's a fine line

telling channels what they can say or smacking them for what they did not.

Not sure how to best handle that.

[KensPen]

2. the fact the "fair and balanced" fox and friends give a daily segment

to "mancow" for him to spew hatred at the Democratic Party, with only slight challenges made to his most heinous remarks.

[BigDaddyLove]

3. The reasons you describe not only make it dangerous........

but in my opinion they also make it useless.

They cater to one small hard core constituency, and as such essentially exclude everyone else...those who think FOX is a beacon of truth are a dying breed, and will one day be completely irrelevant.

[Gothic Sponge]

5. Faux is

"fair and balanced" to many neo-nazis! ;)

[BigDaddyLove]

11. Exactly my point, though I wouldn't use the label 'neo-nazi'.........

they are a small (but extremely vocal) minority, who are becoming more and more shrill as they die.

[Lars39]

12. Unless it has changed , Fox was being broadcast to the troops.

Not even CNN, if IIRC.

[BigDaddyLove]

19. Good example of what I'm getting at if in fact this is true........

How can those troops on the ground listen to Fox's cheerleading with regard to the situation in Iraq, and then look around at the reality of things without realizing that Fox is out of touch with reality?

You can fool some people some of the time..............

[trekbiker]

13. Faux "News"

I'm not so sure Faux is irrelevant. Intelligent and aware people in 1930's Germany probably dismissed Hitler's propaganda machine as too outrageous to be a serious problem. Public TV could counter FAUX but they wont stupe so low. The Left just doesnt have the Attack Dogs the Right is so dependent on

[newyawker99]

22. Hi trekbiker!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[southpaw]

4. Faux keeps the "Liberal Media" myth alive...

The target audience for Faux News actually believes that the station is "fair and balanced". They see Alan Colmes as a pinko-commie extreme left-wing liberal. They take seriously the "we report, you decide" dictum.

Hell, after a steady diet of that kind of shit, MSNBC and CNN, which both lean to the right, actually appear to be liberal by comparison.

It is an insidious propaganda arm of the neo-cons.

[Lars39]

9. Fox admitted at one point that they had censors in the studio. eom

[peacetalksforall]

6. And what makes them entertainers?

1. When they resurrected medieval court jesters. I'd prefer the tights, diamond pattern puff sleeves and the jester hat, however.

2. When they file fun law suits.

[VOX]

7. Repeat a lie five times and it becomes the "truth."

Faux News is packaged up in zippy, entertaining bites, so it has a fairly high entertainment factor.

You go to a bar -- Faux News is on the TV. You go to the gym -- Faux News is on the TV. You get a call from your aunt -- she tells you what she saw on Faux News.

Everything on Faux is right-wing propaganda, and yet the dammned thing is so pervasive in our culture now. The danger has arrived.

[madrchsod]

8. fox news-

for some strange reason i feel much dumber if i watch fox news for over 30 seconds...

[peacetalksforall]

10. Their balanced is comprised of 10 minutes or less five days a week.

If you consider the time they allow Colmes, it comes down to 10 minutes a week, if that much.

Colmes is on five nights a week.
Hannity speaks most of the time.
They have twenty minutes of commercials.
Their guests get about ten minutes.
And you have to subtract the time they spend pushing their books.

Make that fair and balanced about five minutes times five days - about a total of 25 minutes a week.

[KensPen]

14. the Hot babes in Skirts

that they position in camera center,
make me want to believe what they are saying.

[buddhamama]

16. seek help

n/t

[KensPen]

18. Hey....

a couple of dem womens is purty.

[distortionmarshall]

26. name 2 /eom

[buddhamama]

15. FOX is a propaganda machine- plain and simple

what they don't cover in the way of National issues is just as much propaganda as what they do cover.

[tom_paine]

17. Those are all good reasons

And yes, First Amendment imperatives certainly make such purposefully misleading and psychoengineered propganda difficult to address.

They are dangerous for the same reason any party-Loyal Sub-Meddia is dangerous. It has NO OTHER MISSION that the well-being of the Party.

There is a reason that Party-Loyal Sub-Media like Faux are usually precursors or sybolic of Totalitarian Societies.

[Oilwellian]

20. My son called me about something he heard on Fox

He listens to it out of curiosity and was amazed when he heard someone say yesterday that Bush had a saint-like aura about him during his press conference on the gay marriage amendment.

If you have a cable provider, you can call them and ask that they block Fox from your channel choices. It's a small way to protest and let the cable providers know your disgust with the channel. I've encouraged my son to do the same but I guess he's a masochist. :D

[Hippo_Tron]

21. Their links to the RNC and some Young Republicans' Group on their site

I seriously found those links in some article on the FAUX site.

[rbnyc]

23. Last night Fox came to our press conference...

...on gay marriage. They were the last network to get there and the first to leave. The press conference and rally was at our community center in the west village. Fox reported that it was in Chelsea. Chelsea is more notoriously gay so reporting that it was in Chelsea makes it seem like only those Chelsea boys care about the issue. They also only showed very tight shot which made it seem that about 10 people were there, when at least 300 were there. Pretty lame.

[Cleita]

24. The danger is in institutionalizing lies. This is straight out of

Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in his chapter on propaganda, which in a nutshell states that you stick to a few points, repeat them over and over again and eventually people will believe them.

[distortionmarshall]

25. and the lie gets perpetuated....

sheesh - there's only one reason fox is dangerous: idiots watch it.

democrat-wusses need to get this mad obsession with "the other" outta their system, and deal with the fact that republicans have profited mightily on for 20 years or more now: politicians are dealing with a stupid electorate.

I know the thought people are not to be blamed, that their feelings are valid, there is no truth, and the like goes back to the hippies - so much the worse for the hippies on this issue...

make a smarter electorate, and fox news will wither and die... your "10 reasons" are simply the tactics that get used on idiots... the problem is the idiocy, not the tactics...

[Cleita]

27. Critical thinking doesn't come in a bottle and most people

can't think for themselves that well. This is sad but true. I think we need to reinstate the fairness doctrine to force these news outlets to give all sides of a story, not one biased one. A press that propagandizes news is a press in a totalitarian state.

[MichaelHarris]

28. free stuff

where else could ya get a free USS Ronald Reagan hat. That killed me

[CaptainClark23]

29. Number 11

Insidious subliminal graphics and soundtracks.