Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Down with Tinky Winky

According an article on Slate today an editor for Fox News in London has openly admitted to the right wing slant of their organization. I know this isn’t really news, but I love the rhetoric that Slate pulled from the editorial made by this Fox guy.


Even we at Fox News manage to get some lefties on the air occasionally, and often let them finish their sentences before we club them to death and feed the scraps to Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly. And those who hate us can take solace in the fact that they aren't subsidizing Bill's bombast; we payers of the BBC license fee don't enjoy that peace of mind.
Fox News is, after all, a private channel and our presenters are quite open about where they stand on particular stories. That's our appeal. People watch us because they know what they are getting. The Beeb's institutionalized leftism would be easier to tolerate if the corporation was a little more honest about it.
This from the repugnant “news” group that brings us the ironic statement “Fair and Balanced” as their tagline. I have to say this is entirely a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

This really gets to me because right wingers on Fox have once again been lambasting PBS and NPR for their “left wing” bias. This is a list of things on PBS and NPR that I suspect people may be mistaking for left wing:

· Science programs that challenge the literal translation of the bible
· News stories about Iraq not produced by our government or involving “implanted” journalists
· Multi-cultural or racially varied programs and stories
· Acknowledgement of homosexual voices and perspectives
· Stories about corporate fraud
· The antiques road show
· Educational programming
· The lack of commercials
· Concerts by 60’s “counter culture” performers such as the Mommas and the Papas
· Factual reporting and accountability to their donating listener base
· British television reruns (i.e. Faulty Towers)
· Intellectual elitism

Oh, wait intellectual elitism is a left wing value. Man I hate it when those uneducated ignorant redneck hillbillies are right.

People can hate NPR and PBS, and not want tax dollars to pay for a limited piece of their budget. A percentage of the population has always felt that way because these stations are presenting points of view that can be challenging or subversive to the main stream voice, but I hate to see the rhetoric and accusations being laid on by people from Fox that so clearly have a vested market interest in weakening these stations.

1 comment:

coreyl said...

I don't understand why public broadcasting hasn't just broken free from state subsidy once and for all. There's been increasing criticism of the public channels for moving to the right lately. They might not feel that pressure if it weren't for the government tentacles.