Concerning the still on-going elections in the US, I'd like to point to an incident again happened last month.
Ben Carson, a Republican candidate for presidency, in an interview claimed that if the Jews during the Nazi regime had been armed, the dimension of the Holocaust could have been decreased significantly. On top of that, Fox News commentator Dr. Keith Ablow defended Carson in his questionable and insulting remarks, shaping the public opinion about the severity of Germany's most horrible historical period.
Not only as a German citizen I find this very offensive.
Please have a look at the whole article from Mediamatters which can be found here.
29 Nov 2015
23 Nov 2015
The Refugee Crisis
A few days after the shocking terrorist attacks in Paris with over a hundred victims being killed, Fox News uses the increased state of fear among the population to spread their anti-moslem and anti-Obama ideas.
Over the past days I found three news features by Bill O'Reilly and his companions covering president Obama's indecisiveness in fighting terrorism.
In the feature 'Is President Barack Obama delusional?', the president is called "unrepentant", "unwilling" and "delusional" in his attitude towards ISIS. Obviously, the event was completely unexpected by the entire world since not even terror experts had expected a terrorist attack of such a dimension. To take Obama's words as a sign of denial or ignorance is a typical 'Foxian' method to diminish Obama's status as the nation's first politician.
The funniest aspect to this is that O'Reilly suddenly claims Obama alone is responsible for the development of ISIS. In my opinion, the American influence on ISIS and an increase of terrorist formations against Western principles should not be underestimated. But it certainly does not only date back to the current administration's actions in Syria throughout the past years and the 'fight on terror', but even more likely to early American methods such as their Big Stick Policy in the onset and imperialist values deeply anchored in the nation's past.
In his speech during the 2015 Antalya Summit in which terrorism was taking up most of the politicians' interest caused by the Paris attacks, Obama claimed that the United States should wait and carefully evaluate their next steps towards fighting ISIS, and not "shoot first" (as preferred by most Republicans and the Fox audience in general). Though in European press such as in Germany his words were not weighed as a step back in the war on terror but rather resembled the general opinion on carefully planning the next steps towards a solution. Also, the fact that Obama and Russian president Putin had their first private conversation in years during a break at the Summit, was completely neglected by the media coverage. German and British news formats have put the emphasis on just that information and stated that, finally, Russia and America at least share their opinion in fighting terrorism and want to establish that goal together.
Additionally, in the feature Fox News tries to make the terrorists appear as being Syrian refugees themselves. The refugee crisis has started to become a hot debate topic in the US with differing opinions on how to cope with the people "flooding the United States". Hence Fox effectively neglects that none of the eight suspects of the Paris attacks have been proven to be Syrian refugees but rather happen to be French or Belgian residents. One of them is even said to have stolen a refugee's ID to hide his own identity and play with the actual prejudices against refugees. The whole article from the Independent can be read here.
The following formats called 'President Barack Obama continues to divide the country over terrorism', or 'The terror madness continues' take up the same topic only few days later. Fox News, again, constantly emphasize that it should be a President's first and most important aim to "protect the people here (in America)", pesky issues such as the refugee crisis being a lot less valid. The ominous amount of topics relating to Obama's inability to cope with crises is overwhelming in O'Reilly's talks and illustrates how badly his producers try to convince their audience of a certain political viewpoint.
In the ongoing debate mainly carried out at Fox News, Obama is criticised of sharing "Islamic sympathies" (how bad is that) and ignoring the fear of American citizens. During a period of such social upheaval, people tend to move towards rather nationalist, sometimes even xenophobic ideals. This fear is used by politicians as well as some journalists to appeal to the people in a rather populist manner. Barack Obama does not try to position himself in that political field which is why he constantly emphasises that the terror attacks are not carried out by refugees and, furthermore, it can be a huge mistake to lump these two groups together. Bill O'Reilly himself could be considered the biggest populist in the media landscape making use of people's fear to spread propaganda and false or unverified information.
The coverage of the current refugee crisis strongly alludes to the news features during the Iraq War in which also myths and misinformation were spread throughout Fox News channels. A large variety of different studies concerning the influence of Fox News expose how significant viewer opinion is shaped by their coverage. In a 2003 survey by the Program of International Policy Attitudes (University of Maryland) "widespread misperceptions about the Iraq War" were laid bare. Americans regularly watching Fox News were more likely to share misperceptions than the audience of other news sources. The same thing was identified in another research by Stanford University in 2010 which discovers a common rejection of Global Warming among Fox News viewers. People who tended to follow the news source were made believe that ameliorating the climate change would have a disastrous influence on the US economy.
Again, a clever conservative strike against acknowledged scientific studies and also human intellect. Also, another study that should evoke great concern establishes a line between conservative viewing habits and the increase of racism since they provide a "twisted view" on immigrants, foreigners and put all their emphasis on national values. The full article explaining the findings can be found here.
The influence of Fox News on American people is alarming and contrasts with all principles of freedom of the press and unbiased news reporting. Especially alarming are comments visible on all sorts of right-wing websites concerning the credibility of Fox News. On a horrific website called 'The Political Insider' which I do not want to hyperlink here, the full extent of Rupert Murdoch's empire is exposed. Quotes such as: "Fox is the best place to get news. I love Megan Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity" and "Fox news is the only news agency reporting the news!" complete the image of the typical Fox viewer and his great ability not to question anything spread throughout the Murdoch machine. The Political Insider which calls itself "your inside source to what's going on in Washington" and claims to "break down the barriers employed by government and the liberal media" follows Fox News principles directly at first sight. Its cover page presents the limited variety of right-wing reporting with its major issues being petitions against planned-parenthood, an almost natural criticism of President Obama, and, of course, a feature of America's all-time favourite George Washington.
To sum it up, I really don't want to come to Obama's defence at any time since I am not a huge fan of American politics in general. Solely the press coverage of major issues such as the refugee crisis or recent reporting about wars carried out by America are of big concern in my eyes. This style of journalism is redolent of subsequent use of propaganda in earlier decades and should not be carried out in the 21st century anymore.
Over the past days I found three news features by Bill O'Reilly and his companions covering president Obama's indecisiveness in fighting terrorism.
In the feature 'Is President Barack Obama delusional?', the president is called "unrepentant", "unwilling" and "delusional" in his attitude towards ISIS. Obviously, the event was completely unexpected by the entire world since not even terror experts had expected a terrorist attack of such a dimension. To take Obama's words as a sign of denial or ignorance is a typical 'Foxian' method to diminish Obama's status as the nation's first politician.
The funniest aspect to this is that O'Reilly suddenly claims Obama alone is responsible for the development of ISIS. In my opinion, the American influence on ISIS and an increase of terrorist formations against Western principles should not be underestimated. But it certainly does not only date back to the current administration's actions in Syria throughout the past years and the 'fight on terror', but even more likely to early American methods such as their Big Stick Policy in the onset and imperialist values deeply anchored in the nation's past.
In his speech during the 2015 Antalya Summit in which terrorism was taking up most of the politicians' interest caused by the Paris attacks, Obama claimed that the United States should wait and carefully evaluate their next steps towards fighting ISIS, and not "shoot first" (as preferred by most Republicans and the Fox audience in general). Though in European press such as in Germany his words were not weighed as a step back in the war on terror but rather resembled the general opinion on carefully planning the next steps towards a solution. Also, the fact that Obama and Russian president Putin had their first private conversation in years during a break at the Summit, was completely neglected by the media coverage. German and British news formats have put the emphasis on just that information and stated that, finally, Russia and America at least share their opinion in fighting terrorism and want to establish that goal together.
Additionally, in the feature Fox News tries to make the terrorists appear as being Syrian refugees themselves. The refugee crisis has started to become a hot debate topic in the US with differing opinions on how to cope with the people "flooding the United States". Hence Fox effectively neglects that none of the eight suspects of the Paris attacks have been proven to be Syrian refugees but rather happen to be French or Belgian residents. One of them is even said to have stolen a refugee's ID to hide his own identity and play with the actual prejudices against refugees. The whole article from the Independent can be read here.
The following formats called 'President Barack Obama continues to divide the country over terrorism', or 'The terror madness continues' take up the same topic only few days later. Fox News, again, constantly emphasize that it should be a President's first and most important aim to "protect the people here (in America)", pesky issues such as the refugee crisis being a lot less valid. The ominous amount of topics relating to Obama's inability to cope with crises is overwhelming in O'Reilly's talks and illustrates how badly his producers try to convince their audience of a certain political viewpoint.
In the ongoing debate mainly carried out at Fox News, Obama is criticised of sharing "Islamic sympathies" (how bad is that) and ignoring the fear of American citizens. During a period of such social upheaval, people tend to move towards rather nationalist, sometimes even xenophobic ideals. This fear is used by politicians as well as some journalists to appeal to the people in a rather populist manner. Barack Obama does not try to position himself in that political field which is why he constantly emphasises that the terror attacks are not carried out by refugees and, furthermore, it can be a huge mistake to lump these two groups together. Bill O'Reilly himself could be considered the biggest populist in the media landscape making use of people's fear to spread propaganda and false or unverified information.
The coverage of the current refugee crisis strongly alludes to the news features during the Iraq War in which also myths and misinformation were spread throughout Fox News channels. A large variety of different studies concerning the influence of Fox News expose how significant viewer opinion is shaped by their coverage. In a 2003 survey by the Program of International Policy Attitudes (University of Maryland) "widespread misperceptions about the Iraq War" were laid bare. Americans regularly watching Fox News were more likely to share misperceptions than the audience of other news sources. The same thing was identified in another research by Stanford University in 2010 which discovers a common rejection of Global Warming among Fox News viewers. People who tended to follow the news source were made believe that ameliorating the climate change would have a disastrous influence on the US economy.
Again, a clever conservative strike against acknowledged scientific studies and also human intellect. Also, another study that should evoke great concern establishes a line between conservative viewing habits and the increase of racism since they provide a "twisted view" on immigrants, foreigners and put all their emphasis on national values. The full article explaining the findings can be found here.
The influence of Fox News on American people is alarming and contrasts with all principles of freedom of the press and unbiased news reporting. Especially alarming are comments visible on all sorts of right-wing websites concerning the credibility of Fox News. On a horrific website called 'The Political Insider' which I do not want to hyperlink here, the full extent of Rupert Murdoch's empire is exposed. Quotes such as: "Fox is the best place to get news. I love Megan Kelly, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity" and "Fox news is the only news agency reporting the news!" complete the image of the typical Fox viewer and his great ability not to question anything spread throughout the Murdoch machine. The Political Insider which calls itself "your inside source to what's going on in Washington" and claims to "break down the barriers employed by government and the liberal media" follows Fox News principles directly at first sight. Its cover page presents the limited variety of right-wing reporting with its major issues being petitions against planned-parenthood, an almost natural criticism of President Obama, and, of course, a feature of America's all-time favourite George Washington.
To sum it up, I really don't want to come to Obama's defence at any time since I am not a huge fan of American politics in general. Solely the press coverage of major issues such as the refugee crisis or recent reporting about wars carried out by America are of big concern in my eyes. This style of journalism is redolent of subsequent use of propaganda in earlier decades and should not be carried out in the 21st century anymore.
6 Nov 2015
Legalise it!
Since the debate around the legalisation of marijuana is still going on in Europe as well as the United States, I would like to share a video in which Bill O'Reilly's position is arguably questionable.
Obviously, these statistics have to be treated with caution since they were published by a pro-legalisation website. Still, most of the sources I found regarded the new policies as a success in saving taxes for court trials and spending them for better purposes.
As his usual standpoint on the War on Drugs is known to all watching Fox News on a regular basis, he doesn't seem to have any opinion at all in this show. As satirically pointed out by the producer of the video Kyle Kulinski, O'Reilly changes between three positions concerning the drug issue.
First of all, he pretends to be fully against legalisation calling the dangers for young children the reason (which is then torn to pieces by Mary Katharine Ham). He then claims to be content with adults smoking weed, which certainly contradicts his prior statement completely. Towards the end, the host even alludes to decriminalising marijuana, which, therefore, represents another, contrasting attitude towards the issue.
Concerning the state Colorado, which legalised the medical and recreational use of cannabis in 2012/2013, the legalisation is said to have caused rather good side-effects in general.
 |
| pakalertpress.com |
All in all, having in mind the delicacy of the topic, one should be allowed to favour or to be against a legalisation. Nevertheless, as a talk show host who normally shares a rather straight and unalterable opinion on anything, one should definitely deliver a better performance than O'Reilly did in 2014...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)