Re: Atheists: America's most distrusted minority


"Paul Harper" <paul@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:5vp182pdensg3h98dsehk1qaaobp5npnja@xxxxxxxxxx
On Thu, 1 Jun 2006 22:31:42 +0000 (UTC), "Carl" <cengman7@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Repeating or rephrasing what the people already believe is hardly
educating or informing the public.

How does the public *know* what it (as a massive body of people)
thinks? What that takes is an entity like the BBC saying something.

Then us, in the Great Unwashed, either accept it as a given truth
(because we agree) or write in and complain because it's a load of
bollocks (and trust me, when it comes to the BBC, we do, and in
significant numbers, when they get it wrong).

O'Reilly, and Fox as a whole seems to represent a certain perspective
that
is clearly different from what had been the "traditional" news outlets.
The
fact that Fox is very popular as a single source of one view and ratings
for
the other side seem to be distributed among the other options would seem
to
suport this.

Doesn't make them "news", though. And that's the disturbing thing (at
least from the perspective of this side of the Atlantic) - they're
pretending to be news when they are nothing more than opinion.

Bill O'Reilly doesn't hide the fact that its a commentary show
Same with Hannity & Colmes.

They're shows are like thie "editorial page" where columnists write their
opinions.


The opinion is, of course, valid, (we are not so narrow-minded and
stupid as to try to suppress something as fundamental as ideas, and
anyone who does is a blinkered idiot) but let's not dress it up as
something else other than opinion.

From what I can tell, O'Reilly constantly has guests with opposing views.
Although he has a habit of not letting a guest speak uninterrupted,
eventually his guest is allowed to speak his or her mind. As to Hannity
and
Colmes, the whole show is based on challenging each other's views.
Also,
he never represents his broadcast as anything other than his opinion.

"Shut up".

Say no more.

Whether I agree or disagree with whatever O'Reilly or anyone else on Fox
may
say, I appreciate hearing an opposing view.

I appreciate the entertainment. But it's not news. It's a *long* way
from news.

It staggers me that there are people who are willing to criticise the
BBC's approach to news but say not a word against the likes of Fox.
Just how biased and stupid *are* these people?!

I'm just being critical of your "reflect views" opinion of the BBC. :-)


No. Give me a politically independent and free-thinking BBC any day.

Free thinking? From your description of the BBC, it takes a poll and
schedules accordingly.

This is bad how, exactly? Why should the BBC *not* mirror the views of
its customers?

Shouldn't the BBC present the facts objectively? If ts mirroring views, and
as above you said that
"How does the public *know* what it (as a massive body of people) thinks?
What that takes is an entity like the BBC saying something."
Well...that's a nice tight feedback loop that could get distorted rather
easily.

That said, It does seem that, on the Fox News's regular news programs that
they are objective.
The commentary shows are of course biased to the views of the host, whcih is
true CNN, MSNBC, etc.


The BBC has an enormous loyalty amongst the British public. That
loyalty is there for a very good reason.

Paul.
--
. Bill Maher: "Tulips aren't flowers, they're gay onions"
. A .sig is all well and good, but it's no substitute for a personality
. Is there a moron carrot above? Have you replied to it? Are you sure?
. EMail: Unless invited to, don't; it's likely to be automatically
deleted.


Dennis


..

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Atheists: Americas most distrusted minority
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  • Re: Atheists: Americas most distrusted minority
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