I enjoy watching Fox- I admire the way they keep their audience interested, and it is fast paced and well put together. It is entertaining- but you just have to remember to ignore the rubbish they peddle every day.
I won't slag off O'Reilly- yes, he's a dirty old man (you'll find it all over the internet and in US papers), but his coverage of the election has been pretty good by Fox standards- both sides, and he has tried to make Fox a bit more respectable on the election coverage. As for almost every other presenter, they're laughable.
The best is Hannity and Colmes (menat to be the most fair!)- have you noticed that every segment is advertised with something like ' Why is John Kerry lying about Bush's record- we'll see what he said' and 'The Democrats resort to scare tactics again- are they getting desperate?' That is literally every segment, and Sean Hannity has about 3/4 of the time. Apparently, Sean, on average, speaks twice as much as Alan. Poor Alan!
I question what use writing to OFCOM on mass would do. Sure we could get the carriage of Fox News here in the UK banned, but it would not influence their editorial stance one bit.
I refer you to John ‘Man that hair must take hours to brush’ Gibson who made himself out to be some kind of martyr when he was given the OFCOM slap on the wrists the first time. Can you imagine what they would say if they were banned from broadcasting here altogether?
“The Socialists in the UK have gained momentum in UK politics and Fox News is the first casualty of their totalitarian view of media. The Left wing have purged the United Kingdom of true fair and balance, God rest their souls”
I personally think it is important Fox stays and I would also advocate getting 24 hour carriage of MSNBC and the domestic version of CNN. These outlets sway with American popular opinion and are often an excellent gauge on the American view of the world.
Sure Fox News is offensive if you watch it for news value, chuffin’ hell, who would watch it in other context other than ‘Right Wing Comic Book’?
Unfortunately it doesn’t have the same widespread comic value in the US and is seen as a fair, balanced name in news. When really all they are is a mouth piece for the far right consistently (and this what really annoys me) crying about the poor treatment they receive from the American left. If John Kerry does win the US election (and lets all hope for world sanity he does) expect there to be all kinds of sleaze allegations from Fox News. I would give it two weeks before Fox News did an exclusive on how President Kerry fed Catfood to his dogs…
"USA Election the debate" is on BBC4 at the moment and it looks like Bill O'Reilly is ranting on about the BBC on the programme.
Stephen Sackur vs Bill O'Reilly on tv, quite amusing!
Yep - interesting to see O'Reilly out of his normal Fox News home. Particularly liked his jumping on BBC "bias" - but then not actually listening to the reports he claimed were biased carefully enough, and mis-quoting them.
