NYT & FNC

The New York Times is like anything else. It has its bad moments. But I don’t get it when a factoid is produced, about, say, a picture one day. Or a staff writer a few years ago that go fired for faking stories. I don’t get it why the whole institution is suddenly bunk because of these occasional things. It’s just an easy way to discredit something that inconveniently presents stuff that you disagree with, all the time. It’s a massive double standard.

That’s why it’s instructive to do side by side comparisons. I’d put the New York Times next to any single news source. Anything you can name. Is it flawed? Sure? But I believe it’s better than most. And I believe it’s an excellent source for news.

If the New York Times is a “leftist rag” because of its op/ed page, well, folks, it’s only 2 pages. What about the rest of it?

And let’s not all forget about Judith Miller. The single worst episode in recent NYT history was when the NYT peddled Bush Administration falsehoods. That’s really some “leftist rag.”

So here is a side-by-side comparison of the New York Times with Fox News Channel. There is no significance to January 18. Just a random day.

I have to admit, I’m chuckling to myself even thinking that anyone would consider Fox News Channel something to watch in order to get informed.

Watching Fox News Channel on 1/18/2006, and on many days since, I’ve concluded that you might want to watch Fox if you want to get informed about what your right-wing marching orders ought to be. But that’s about it.

So I took the Fox News Schedule, and I wrote “news analysis” next to the pundit shows, and I wrote “news” next to the news coverage shows.

I created the following chart from the Fox News Channel 1/18 schedule. I didn’t include reruns from the previous day or repeats throughout the day, or the percentage of opinions interspersed into news segments. Damn: it ought to be called the Fox Opinion Channel:



I did the same thing with the pages in the NYT. Here’s what this reveals:



Just looking at the content of the pages of the New York times, most of it is news stories. To do this, I turned the pages of the 1/18 NYT and counted what made up each page.

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When we look a little closer at a few things that occurred on Fox News Channel on 1/18/2006, I think it becomes clear why FNC has very few fans in the reality-based community.

Exhibit A:

Brit Hume reported on a story about whether or not John Murtha really deserved his war medals. How dare he disagree with President Bush! Fox’ll get him. Is this news, or is it a smear campaign? I report, you decide.

Exhibit B:

Brit Hume brought up the Hillary “Plantation controversy” again, looooooong after we thought it was over. Brit Hume reported that some folks were denouncing Hillary’s remarks. Those people were Scott McLellan and Laura Bush. I think they were the only ones, not already on Fox.

Exhibit C:

On Neil Cavuto’s show, he claimed that terrorists were making the US run up a huge deficit. This is opinion, of course, not news. Still, it’s a rather dumb one.

And I'm not making this up, either! Here are Neil’s actual words:

“…this time, it's the terrorists of today who are taking a page right out of President Reagan's playbook and using it against the United States," and if my next guest is right, they're "making us spend so much on the war on terror that it will be our economy that takes the fall."

This is a good one. And my guess is we’ll hear more about it in the future. But you heard it first on FOX! Bush isn’t responsible for our deficit, the terrorists are!

Wow.

Exhibit D:

Later on, in the evening, after I was shaking my head while Brit Hume trotted out the Plantation remark, Hannity and Colmes spent a whole half-hour devoted to it! There was even a segment with three speakers, all three critical of Hillary, and none speaking in support of her. Smear the Dems. The sport of Fox.

Exhibit E:

At the end of Brit Hume’s segment, guess what happened? Brit played a humorous skit from Saturday Night Live lampooning Mrs. Alito’s famous cry. But it was framed as a slam of Senate Democrats. Of course. "Find out why those Senate Democrats wanted to make Mrs Alito cry,” said Brit, with a chuckle. Remember, this is supposed to be "news."

Exhibit F:

Steve Doorcy, on the “Dayside” program said, after viewing an exerpt of Gore’s speech in response to Bush’s illegal NSA spying program, "I think I read somewhere this morning that Jamie Gorelick, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States said that during the Clinton Administration, Mr. Clinton had the authority and that's why it was ok for him to have the warrantless search, physical search, property search, of Aldrich Ames' place."

This is a blatant falsehood. It’s also a favorite tactic: bring up Clinton. Clinton did not in any way violate FISA when he authorized the physical search of Ames' home in 1993, nor was Gorelick incorrect when she made the above statement in 1994. Until 1995, FISA did not cover physical searches, and it was actually Clinton that supported and signed the legislation into law.

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Did I find anything equally outrageous in the news or the opinion page of the New York Times? No, I didn’t. Does the NYT smear Republicans? If so, only with facts. The same facts that it smeared, um, Gore with in 2000. Or Clinton with in the 90’s. Or Reagan with in the 80’s. The facts are biased.

I submit to you, compared to the New York Times, FNC is nonsense. Just a channel full of Democrat smear moments. Mostly opinion. Barely any news. Almost no news is presented without accompanying spin and opinions.

If you want to mention a crappy news source, please mention Fox News Channel first.