Fox News

I'm sure that I have mentioned this before, but I read all the mainstream news sites as well as some that are not so mainstream in order to get a clear picture of what each is reporting. Media with a liberal bias is no better than media with a conservative bias, and I find both extremes reprehensible. So, in order to formulate an opinion that isn't tainted by the spin, I take everything in and draw my own conclusions. I say this because I am about to pick on Fox News, and I don't want to give anyone the impression that I roll my eyes at them any more or less than I would "It's not news, it's CNN..."

I deleted a post a few months ago in which I pasted in several examples of the comment section on the Fox news site because it looked messy and wasn't as hilarious as it was the first time I read it. I'm not going to pick and choose bits to paste in this time because this is a two-fold attack on Fox, starting with the reporting and ending with the type of people that comment.

On one hand, I appreciate that Fox News will report on the world news stories that other American news outlets won't touch. Sure, it's all sensationalized beyond credibility, but you are made aware of them, and then have the option of clicking over to a less biased, foreign news source to get a better picture of things. What I don't appreciate are the things they leave out. Stories of religious discrimination are only printed when it's a Christian crying foul, or when a non-Christian is being obnoxious. The real stories about atheists getting run out of small towns, Wiccans being demonized and marginalized, or blatant Christian abuses toward others never see the light of day. In Fox's world, Christians are a downtrodden minority that try to be tolerant but get shafted in their Christ-like attempts to embrace everyone. The picture that they paint is concentrated bullshit, of course, but if they spun it in any other way, people might start to exercise some critical thinking and abandon the agenda that is being pushed.

It goes beyond heartwarming (or vomit inducing) tales of "downtrodden" Christians that make good, however. When there is a brutal murder, it gets far more attention when the killer has a foreign sounding last name, particularly if it's Hispanic or Middle Eastern. I'm not saying that a murderer named Smith won't get a bit of front page time, but when the killer is a Martinez or Abdul, you would think that they were the only news story that needs telling. When a cute white girl goes missing, all media outlets jump on it because no media outlet really cares about missing black girls even if they are cute, but Fox takes it to new levels, and the cute white girl takes precedence over even world events.

The worst of it, however, are the comment sections attached to the news stories. I know that not every conservative is racist or even necessarily bigoted, ignorant, and opposed to science, but it's only those people that post to the comment sections. It doesn't matter what the story is about, the bigots come out of the woodwork to use any random comment section as an attack on the president, foreigners, black people, women, homosexuals, illegals, non Christians, and scientists. The story could be a feel good tale about a puppy and it will draw these sorts of comments. If they were smart, Fox News would not have comment sections because it makes their entire readership look like xenophobic, bigot racists who think the earth is flat.

I read the comment sections for fun, and most of the time, I laugh so that I don't cry. If I had never set foot in America and went in there to read them, I would be afraid to ever visit America. A recent story about a Londoner exposing people on a flight to measles brought out gems like, "Probably an illegal and a liberal..." Any story involving England, no matter what it's about becomes a Euro-bashing because all Europeans are apparently, Commies. I'm actually sort of glad for this because if they knew about the BNP, they would be sending those bigot bastards donations not unlike the American support the IRA has had over the years. Any story in the science section becomes a free for all against science, because scientists are all godless heathens that hate Jesus and want to lie to the public about their discoveries. It's embarrassing, but when you look at it in the right way, hilarious, because they are shooting themselves in the collective foot.

These comments are an eye opener to the type of people we need to look out for in the world. The ignorance is astounding because it is willful ignorance in the extreme. They are basically exposing themselves so that the rest of us know what not to be, and what we are all up against in the world. They are the "Christian Taliban", and if you ever have any doubts that these people exist, log in some time.

That said, the media outlets with an extreme liberal bent are just as frighteningly hilarious, and they are not safe from my critical eye. Watch this space, because they are next.