Fox hunting (UK Guardian Hate Speech Demanding Fox News Be Banned in Britain!)

The Guardian ^ | May 8, 2003

[Timesink]

Fox hunting

We don't want biased news over here

Leader
Thursday May 8, 2003
The Guardian

The director general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, was not one of the moral minority who complained to the broadcasting regulator about the lack of impartiality by Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel. But Mr Dyke's comments on "gung ho patriotism" and "narrow pro-American agendas" at the end of last month about the way the Iraqi conflict had been covered by US networks aptly sums up British objections to the raucous conservatism and unabashed jingoism of Fox, which can be received in Britain with a Sky satellite dish. Mr Murdoch's news network used Oliver North, a former US colonel and neo-conservative firebrand, as an embedded reporter in Iraq. The network referred to "our troops" and to anti-war protesters as the "great unwashed". When Baghdad fell, the news anchors addressed those who opposed the "liberation" with the words: "You were sickening then, you are sickening now."

This formula has worked in America, where Fox is the biggest news network. Ominously, there are signs Mr Murdoch would like to bring this revolution to Britain. The billionaire is reported to consider Sky's output as having a "liberal bias" and being a version of "BBC lite". Britain has a tradition of objectivity in broadcasting, which Mr Murdoch probably finds irksome.

Here "due impartiality" rules ensure the news is balanced and independent - otherwise a broadcaster can be taken off air. So if Sky produces a diatribe against asylum seekers, it must make space for the opposite view. British viewers have confidence in television news because it is delivered free of rants or bias. Minority broadcasters might be able to get the constraints relaxed in the future - but not Mr Murdoch. Sky could move from Britain to get round the law. Al Jazeera, based in Paris, is governed by French law. It would be a delicious irony if Mr Murdoch, a committed anti-European, moved to the continent so he could pollute sober fact with pointed opinion.

[Timesink]

Related article: TV watchdog checks claims of bias on Murdoch channel [Fox News]

[Sir Gawain]

Britain has a tradition of objectivity in broadcasting

[js1138]

I miss MadIvan. Did we insult him the other day when his beloved Telegraph was printing rubbish leftist guest editorials?

[Hugin]

Here "due impartiality" rules ensure the news is balanced and independent - otherwise a broadcaster can be taken off air. So if Sky produces a diatribe against asylum seekers, it must make space for the opposite view.

No problem. Fox is Fair and Balanced, plenty of opposition views are aired. What the Guardian really wants of course is no conservative views allowed, just a balance between liberal and marxist views.

[Hugin]

MadIvan was posting as of two days ago. Maybe he's just taking a few days off.

[AMNZ]

I Love this. They don't want except liberals to have the liberty to speak.

[Mears]

Thanks for your hilarious post!! I agree with you but don't have the technical expertise to post with such humor.

[Maynerd]

This is no different than our own home grown liberals bitching about talk radio.

Liberalism hates competition. They always lose.

[Petronski]

I wonder if they'd mind if we canceled that leftist running sore they call BBC?

[anniegetyourgun]

Hey, MAD I - we're hoping you're just on vacation!

[Petronski]

Did we insult him the other day when his beloved Telegraph was printing rubbish leftist guest editorials?

I don't suspect MadIvan would be chased off by a little thing like that.

[HHFi]

Hilarious. The relentlessly leftist Guardian and BBC, which have been nakedly and demonstrably wrong about everything they've said for months, are now the watchdogs of "objective" news. Any truth to the rumor that BBC now stands for "Ba'ath Broadcasting Corporation"?

[browardchad]

The billionaire is reported to consider Sky's output as having a "liberal bias" and being a version of "BBC lite". Britain has a tradition of objectivity in broadcasting, which Mr Murdoch probably finds irksome.

Murdoch's right -- Sky's wartime correspondent in Baghdad was Peter Arnette-lite. Maybe Murdoch should move Sky to Baghdad.

[Shermy]

Oliver North is a "neo-conservative"?

I guess the lefties are using this pseudo-epithet to conveniently define and dismiss more and more people on their enemies list. The term was more hilarious when it was limited to crypto-anti-semitism. Now it's losing its charge. What has Pat B. unleashed on political discourse!!!

[sharkhawk]

Does their fairness doctrine mean that if they have someone from the Simon Wisenthal center, they must then have a nazi like Matthew Hale?

[Grampa Dave]

Use of those two words show how much in bed the lefties and the others are.

It gets harder each day to tell the difference in their hate GW/America and pro Islamofacists opeds/articles.

[KarlInOhio]

Dear Guardian,

You are falling behind on your leftist buzzword quota. Although you included neoconservative and jingoism, you left out hegemony. Please rewrite to include it. Thanks.

[GeorgeWashington777]

The statement "You were sickening then & your sickening now."

Was said by Neil Cavuto speaking about the French wanting to get in on the rebuilding of Iraq, after we shed all the blood! And was his summary of the French at the end of his program!

[Steve_Seattle]

"The network referred to "our troops" and to anti-war protesters as the "great unwashed". When Baghdad fell, the news anchors addressed those who opposed the "liberation" with the words: "You were sickening then, you are sickening now." This formula has worked in America, where Fox is the biggest news network."

1. They are "our troops."

2. I doubt very much one of the "news anchors" made the "sickening" comment. If it was said, it was probably said by Hannity or O'Reilly as commentary, and similar things are said by commentators on both sides every day of the week. Ditto about the "great unwashed" comment - in all likelihood, it was commentary, not a statement by a news anchor.

3. Fox is not the biggest news network, it is the biggest cable network. Its viewership dwarfs in comparison to that of ABC, NBC, and CBS. This liar suggests that somehow Fox is totally controlling American public opinion, whereas it is merely one of five major networks, and it is far from the largest.

[faithincowboys]

BRILLIANT!

Didn't the British "Ministry of Censorship" already do away with the Wall Street Journal Show that used to (and perhaps still is on CNBC on weekends) due to its lack of balance.
Meanwhile, the BBC is so apocalyptically biased--even one of there embedded reporters admittely how slanted against the war their coverage was.