Al Jazeera

Quote: Pacomartin

Foreign news broadcasts always seems more substantive. They seem to be more careful to isolate what is opinion and entertainment from news.

For a long time the BBC world news broadcast on short wave was valued the world round, but think of the heavily censored (on both sides) Falklands (Malvinas) War in which the BBC never once said "our side" but was careful to say: UK Forces and Argentinian Forces. Several times the BBC added "if UK Forces are to be believed" clearly indicating doubts about the censored broadcasts. The English treated this as an almost treasonous attitude while the BBC said we are neutral reporters seeking the truth, we are not propagandists for either side and consider lies from the UK Forces to have no different qualities to them than lies from the Argentinian Forces.

A position the BBC stuck to as staunchly as "Jimmy is just a character".

One advantage of Al Jaazera is that in the Middle East what happens in Tunisia is usually influenced by what happens elsewhere and many "Tunisians" are recent arrivals from other nations that have sent "more militants". So often a Tunisia spokesman is at most a figurehead or a useless, out of the loop hasbeen. This always seems to escape other news sources who seem to think that some stoning of Tunisian feminists is a home grown activity rather than one orchestrated from militants in Egypt or Iran.

O'Reilly is hard on Obama, but he was also very
hard on Bush and Clinton. He used to bash Bush
on a daily basis. FNC has the best mixture of
right and left, that's why they are so far ahead
of the other networks. You can't please Libs. If
a commentator doesn't have his complete face
shoved up Obama's ass crack, he's a right wing
zealot.

We all know the issues with the propriety of NFL players. Whether Peterson or Rice or Burress or Vick, there's always that vein of nastiness. But we also must be aware of the altruism. Whether it's the "Play for 30" or the fairy tale story of Pat Tillman, there is no shortage of good people doing great things. Despite that, the disgust we find with the bad has been enough to turn many off to the whole.

Fox is that same way with me. When someone lauds the coverage of Fox, I'm sure they have a certain segment or caster who is in their mind. And having watched Fox News, it could very well be one of the decent casters that I've personally seen. But when someone says "Fox", I always think of Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly. All three I consider the pinnacle of ass-hat'ery, and I would love to personally engage at least two in some sort of combat.

It is my personal view that anyone that holds to one distributor is damned. All news is subjective, and you need to form your emotions on the event. Holding to one network is forming your emotions on other people's emotions.

Quote: Face

I always think of Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly. All three I consider the pinnacle of ass-hat'ery,.

You can't lump O'Reilly in with those zealots
Beck and Hannity. I used to watch those guys
and stopped years ago. They're broken right
wing records, they have one theme. O'Reilly
bends over backwards to be fair, he really
does. It's infuriating that he does that sometimes,
but it's the reason he's been number one in all
of cable for 14 years. He's scary smart, and
is also a good author. He's had non political
books on the best seller list for years. Killing
Lincoln is especially good, as is Killing Kennedy.

He also has a wildly popular live show he does with
Dennis Miller. They travel around the country all
year to always sold out venues. He used to do it
with Beck, but that didn't last long. Beck is a fricking
nut case.

Quote: Evenbob

You can't lump O'Reilly in with those zealots
Beck and Hannity. I used to watch those guys
and stopped years ago. They're broken right
wing records, they have one theme. O'Reilly
bends over backwards to be fair, he really
does. It's infuriating that he does that sometimes,
but it's the reason he's been number one in all
of cable for 14 years. He's scary smart, and
is also a good author. He's had non political
books on the best seller list for years. Killing
Lincoln is especially good, as is Killing Kennedy.

I would love to see Bill O. moderate a POTUS debate. The Democrat candidate would be too afraid of his impartiality to do it. Why he gets lumped as a "right-wing" host is beyond me.

I had always wished that they would have replaced Colmes when he left the show, but they never did. I think they had problems finding a lefty co-host who would hold their own with Hannity.

Quote: AZDuffman

I would love to see Bill O. moderate a POTUS debate. The Democrat candidate would be too afraid of his impartiality to do it. Why he gets lumped as a "right-wing" host is beyond me.
.

People like Rand Paul and Chris Christie have
a standing invite to go on O'reilly. They never
do because Bill is hard on everybody, even
Republicans. He's an old time news guy, he
remembers the days when reporting was not
biased.

For what it's worth, Bill O. is the one who's not on my "list of people to headbutt". He in a lot of ways reminds me of Limbaugh. If you peel away the BS, I can see a guy that is intelligent and certainly has good ideas that should be agreeable to a number of people. It's just the nature of TV. You have to lacquer on the BS if you are to remain at the top. Normal people would not last on TV. It's this lacquer that turns me off from both of them. Limbaugh, though, just disappoints me. O'Reilly I legit do not like.