FOX'S LIST

I just listened to the list provided by Fox News Sunday as a corrective to Nightline's list. (I wonder if it will get anything close to the media attention ABC's list got.) I was sort of multi-tasking, so I'll watch it again when the show reairs at 5pm on the Fox News Channel. But my initial take is that it was enormously powerful.

If you missed it, try and watch it this afternoon.

My one thought was this: at one point they say, "this has come at a high cost, these three soldiers were killed defending . . ." and it occured to me that it's a real shame that this turned into dueling lists. Both are, really, context free and incomplete. To speak of the dead without telling what their deaths bought is something that, as you know, I disagree with. But, by the same token, to speak of the accomplishments without telling what price we paid for those accomplishments is also half a story.

To really do this right would have meant listing accomplishments and for each one -- stopping and listing the soldiers who died in the process of getting that particular job done. It would take a very long time. But it would tell us the real story.

But given the way Nightline started this, good for Fox for trying to finish it.

Comments

[Richard Meixner]

Yes; kudos to Chris Wallace and Fox News. I also just watched (er, like most of us, kinda-sorta multi-tasking while covering other 'bases') NBC's Meet the Press and was impressed with the interviews, views (especially Lindsey Graham), and, the Carville-Matalin piece at the end of the hour. The WOT was front and center, the challenge of these times and for the foreseeable future. But the purpose for that war (at least one of them): the freedom to celebrate family, as we do today, came through for me. I have been displeased in the past with some of the segments on MTP, but today I was left with a feeling of pride, in being a beneficiary of our American tradition.

[Patterico]

Isn't this pretty much Fox News in a nutshell? They often don't provide the full context -- but they provide viewers with the information that the other networks don't provide.

[dauber]

I think that's fair: Fox gets busted b/c it's partial, has a point of view. But the people who embrace it doso because it's the point of view that often isnt heard and the information we often wouldnt get. Part of my argument on Fox is that the reason its so threatening is that it challenges the idea that there is one and only one narrative surrounding a news event and that it is self-evident, contained in the event, not hte people covering it, and also challenges the notion that what is newsworthy is likewise self-evident. Of course the other argument to be made there is that all the reasons people think their conservative slant is so very "obvious," word choice, narrative structure, choice of B-roll, etc etc etc, somehow doesnt work as evidence regarding the other nets liberal bias: it all suddenly becomes too ambiguous to work as "real" evidence.

[Media Hound]

Regarding Sunday talk shows in general, how is it not scandalous
that former Clinton lackey George Stephanopoulos is the host of
ABC's "This Week"??

If this isn't bias by design, what is?

Would the networks have a "Meet the Press" hosted by Karl Rove??

[dauber]

Isn't Tony Snow a former Republican operative? The revolving door works for both parties. I think the problem there was less that he had come from a Dem admin but that he had been moved into that position so quickly -- he had been doing reasonably well for them at ABC Nightly and then, WHAM! there he is with the Sunday show.

I still think, for us, we would need to point to particular texts to claim individual cases of bias. But for them, it don't look good. Because if they want to make the case that they take every available precaution, they're left arguing that they have every trust in him. Great for them. Why should we? It's the appearance that doesn't work. And I think that you dont have to argue that it's a case of "bias by design." You can just argue that no matter how well intentioned he is, or they are -- come ON. We all KNOW precisely what his predilictions, assumptions, biases are. It blows the game.

[Media Hound]

Interesting points, but on this item: "Isn't Tony
Snow a former Republican operative?"

Sure, but people claim Fox is biased, and that ABC is
"objective."   :-)

I prefer what Brit Hume does with Special Report:
have the liberals from the Washington Post and NPR
debate the conservatives from the Weekly Standard.

Hearing both sides is far more revealing to the full context
of an issue than hearing only one side in the guise of
objectivity.

CNN attempts to do this with "Crossfire" but the partisanship
is so poisonous that the entire show is rendered worthless.
The difference between the two is that Special Report has honest
left vs right debate, instead of the meaningless partisan point
scoring found on Crossfire.

The panel Chris Wallace puts together on FNS is similar to
Brit Hume's panel, and I don't think you'll find more
intelligent discussion anywhere else than on these two shows,
regardless of political orientation.

[Patterico]

I agree. Special Report and FNS are the only Fox shows I find watchable, for exactly the reasons you expressed.