May 18, 2012

Pittsburgh Sports, Opinion and Politics | Just Watch the Game Blog

Blog by John Steigerwald

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THIS DOESN’T SURPRISE ME A BIT

Liberals hate Fox news. Do you know why? Because Fox broke up the media monopoly by having the nerve not to be liberal.

The liberals had a media monopoly until Fox came along.

Liberals were mighty upset last week with the news that Fox’s parent company had donated a million dollars to the Republican governors’ campaign.

Now there’s this story that shows how ridiculously biased the three major network news operations are.

Based on my experience in the TV business, I’m surprised that the numbers were so low.

Related posts:

1. FOX NEWS DESTROYING COMPETITION
2. PEDRO WHO?
3. THIS SHOULD BE REQUIRED READING IN EVERY SCHOOL
4. Big Ben Bonanza
5. HE HAS SPOKEN

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Date: August 27, 2010

Categories: Politics

Tags: liberal network bias, networks donate to obama

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Comments RSS TrackBack 44 comments

• Reply

  John

  in August 27th, 2010 @ 21:15

  What a joke.

  First, there is a huge difference between donations given by a news organization and employees of said company. If Bill O’Reilly wanted to donate X, Y, or Z to a PAC or the max donation to a candidate, its not news. He’s a private citizen. It is up to his employers to make sure that he stays neutral. Fox News as an organization has shown that it is not up to the task.

  Second, there is an incredible difference in magnitude. This isn’t a collective of Fox employees donating a grand each, this is a million bucks by an organization which claims to be an impartial.

  Finally, did you read the names of the “journalists” included in the report. Seth Davis of CBS college sports, weatherman Willard Scott, the host of Eye on Philadelphia, and a radio shock jock DJ. Members of the main stream media Steigy? Sure.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 08:35

  I worked in TV. Nobody in the newsroom knows how the corporation is spending its money. Reporters, producers, assignment editors etc are involved in the daily story selection and prioritizing. An assignment editor can ignore an NRA rally and cover a NOW rally. The viewer sees the NOW rally but doesn’t know that there was also an NRA rally. The suits at the corporate level aren’t getting involved at that level. A reporter and/or producer get to decide which pictures get into a story and which don’t. If there are 300 people holding signs at a Tea Party rally and two of them have racist messages, it’s up to the people putting the story together to decide how much attention is given to the racist signs. There was a Roper poll in 1996 that shoed that 89% of the Washington media voted for Clinton. The head of CNN—Rick Kaplan was a regular golfing buddy of Clinton’s.

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• Reply

  Satire 24/7

  in August 27th, 2010 @ 21:33

  Do you think it’s that bad on the local level?

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 08:36

  I think local news stinks and stopped watching it 10 years ago–and I didn’t stop working in it until two years ago. I have a chapter in the book devoted to the subject.

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• Reply

  Richard

  in August 27th, 2010 @ 23:07

  I don’t watch Fox news for the same reason I don’t watch CNN or MSNBC or any of the big three (can’t quit 60 Minutes though). Because it’s all crap!

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 08:39

  60 Minutes is every bit as biased as the networks you just mentioned.

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• Reply

  Richard

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 13:00

  It’s the only program on television that still does somewhat hard hitting investigative journalism on real issues.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 13:44

  Way too liberal, though.

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• Reply

  Chipped Ham

  in August 27th, 2010 @ 23:41

  I find the hatred of Fox News absolutely hilarious. After decades of the Lame Stream Media supporting just one side (guess which side?) of the debate, a news org pops up and has the total gall to show BOTH sides of a debate. The nerve!

  Tree-huggers, hippies, pointy-headed professors, journos, elitists, and the rest of the America Sucks crowd have just taken the liberal news slant for granted. So when a “fair and balanced” network (uh-oh!…the libs just HATE that) comes along, it seems waaaay far right. But in reality, it only seems that way b/c they are being fair, and nobody is used to that! I find it hilarious, and I LOVE listening to the libs whine about it.

  As your link proves, I find this silly argument the easiest to defend among all current political arguments. Whine on, lefties!! The ratings say it all.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 08:39

  FOX is no more conservative in its NEWS coverage than the other networls have been liberal for the past 60 years.

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• Reply

  saneman

  in September 1st, 2010 @ 10:14

  Ar eyou kidding me? Watch the Daily Show on how it takes down FOX NEWS on its inconsistencies and lies. FOX doesn’t cater to merely conservative but right wing wackos too. I havent seen a conservative rebut a single Daily Show montage. If the rest of the media was so liberal, why did they soft pedal the mistakes made by Bush early in the Iraq War buildup and played cheerleader to that war effort instead of scrutinizing the documents as they did when it wsa too late and the online blogggers had to lead the wayt?

  Except for MSNBC, I don’t see the extreme liberal bias one sees to the same extent of the right wing bias on FOX NEWS. What the mainstream news does is be politically safe and usually that is not to offend anyone which is why they get tagged wth the liberal label since liberal parties tend to try to make most people happy with an overly politically correct tone. By the way, NBC which is railed against by FOX, has a lot of execs that are republican,

  That PAth to 9-11 show movie on ABC was a downright joke. If the networks were really that liberal, why didn’t they go after Cheney with the same venom that FOX goes after Obama?

  Stossel, Shepard Smith are the only guys who seemed to be fairly independent on that channel. (I think Stossel does FOX Business now).

  oh, Daily Show did a hilarious takedown on FOX news being partially owned by some Saudi guy while htey were demonizing the funding of the mosque by the same guy except they didn’t use his name.

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• Reply

  Mary hallow

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 01:56

  Big big difference. The reps were given $1m directly from the fox corporation. These donations in the article come from the employees directly as individuals and not the company.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 08:37

  The employees get to decide what stories get covered and how they’re covered. They have 100 times more influence over the every day coverage than anybody at the corporate level.

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• Reply

  DormontDirtBag

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 09:50

  Exactly. That makes it more profound and more insidious. The liberal/Democrat bias permeates and marinates the entire enterprise, from top to bottom.

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• Reply

  Mason

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 09:18

  I would be willing to bet that virtually no one on you blog has actually watched Fox News between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. – this is when their standard news shows are on.

  They prefer to take a couple clips from Sean Hannity (an unabashed conservative) and proclaim that all of Fox News is the same as a couple comments from a commentator.

  Fox has one conservative commentator – Hannity, two middle of the road commentators O’Reilly and Greta. The rest is pure news. By contrast, MSNBC has Shultz, Olbermann, Maddow and Mathews all as radical left wing commentators.

  Studies have proven that Fox News is the most even handed news organization on TV – and that includes the networks.

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• Reply

  Richard

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 13:01

  Sheppard Smith is a good journalist.

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• Reply

  Mike

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 15:19

  Major Garrett just left because he wanted to “speak less and think more”

  http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/entertainment_tv_tvblog/2010/08/fox-news-major-garrett-leaving-for-print-journalism.html

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 17:59

  He’s a good one. He’ll be taking a Major pay cut, too.

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• Reply

  Mike

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 09:25

  pun intended?

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 15:35

  Sort of.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 15:35

  Sort of.

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• Reply

  Mike

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 17:27

  I wonder why he would leave now. Isn’t he their White House correspondent? Fox News just got a front row seat in the White House Press room.

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• Reply

  saneman

  in September 1st, 2010 @ 10:18

  What study? Funded by come some conservative hack? Bill O Reilly is middle of the road? He is conservative while Sean is extreme right wing, not merely conservative. Dont equate hannity with evenhanded conservatives such as PJ O Roruke or Stossell.

  Watch the Daily Show once in a while to see how much full of shit FOX NEWS is. Yes, Daily Show is liberal minded, but they have no problem making fun of bad news whenever they spot it. Or watch the Colbert Report.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in September 1st, 2010 @ 10:48

  Hannity and O’Reilly are not doing news. Watch The Fox Report at 6:00. That’s news.

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• Reply

  Mary hallow

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 16:05

  It’s not that people hate fox. Fox tells people that they are fair and balanced, but then the corporation gives $1m to reps. You can’t brag of your impartiality and then donate money. Yes other shows are liberal but not contributing $1m to dems. If so, prove it.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 28th, 2010 @ 17:56

  GE has contributed plenty of money and GE owns NBC. You don’t think Disney –which owns ABC–has contributed to candidates?
  How about Viacom/CBS? Come on. Fox was the first network to make a point to offer two sides to a story and because the liberals had a monopoly for so long , they’re offended.

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• Reply

  Chad Farthouse

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 14:54

  I’ve seen examples of Fox News not just covering, but PROMOTING Tea Party Rallies. I’ve seen video clips of Fox News Producers trying to fire up the crowd at these rallies. I’ve heard Scott McClellan say that many headlines, stories, and points of view were taken directly from talking points supplied by the Bush Administration communications department. I have seen Olbermann and Maddow directly challenge and criticize the Obama Administration. I’ve seen Robert Gibbs directly ridicule Olbermann and Maddow as “the professional Left.” Fox did not take the Bush Administration to task the way MSNBC does with Obama. The “network” is a joke, but it ain’t a news organization.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 15:35

  Whatds-her-name on Morning Joe just said a few weels ago that she had been getting talking points from the Obama administration. A TV producer could be a raging liberal and still want to rev up the crowd for “good TV” purposes and Fox News did not promote Tea Party Rallies. Hannity may have but the news dept. didn’t. Olberman NEVER has anyone with an opposing view on his show—which is no more of a news show than Hannity.

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• Reply

  Mike

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 17:34

  Olbermann’s show is a joke and impossible to watch. It’s sad when someone like Jon Stewart on Comedy Central is more willing to have an honest and open debate than Olbermann is when he is supposedly on a credible news network.

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• Reply

  saneman

  in September 1st, 2010 @ 10:25

  Jon Stewart took Olbermann to task when he went over the top on the Scott Brown thing. Guess what. Olbermann took it in stride and didn’t whine and he apologized to his viewers for his overreaction. You think Sean Hannity would ever do that?

  Chris Matthews is not typical liberal. He switches based on mood swings. He was guilty of praising Bush as a man of action during the iRaq war buildup and then changed his tune after he was accused by many bloggers of being blind to the obvious blunders going on. And only then, he started hitting back with a vengeance. He was slow to go after Delay during the scandal. Maybe he is trying to make up for the fact that he was slow to criticize the Bushies and Cheneys back then.

  Maddow is ultra liberal evne for me, but she gives her guests time to talk instead of shouting them down.

  A lot of the mainstream media which FOX news likes to whine as the “left” are really more concerned with political access than real incisive reports. This is why a lot of media outlets dropped the ball on the Iraq War when it was happening.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in September 1st, 2010 @ 10:47

  I’ve seen Fox refute the Daily Show a lot. Fox was the only network that thought it was a good idea to investigate Obama’s record while the other networks were chasing Bristol Palin around in Wasilla and trying to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin. The other networks show their bias by omission. It’s the stories they don’t cover. It’s the questions they don’t ask. How about the running score that the networks did during the Iraq war. They went out of their way to emphasize every milestone. !000 dead, 2000 dead. Do you see any of that happening now? The Associated Press is one of the most biased organizations in the world and it has a monopoly on feeding stories to every newspaper in the country. They can serve their agenda without anybody knowing it simply by ignoring a story. The poll was done by Roper—hardly a right wing organization. I worked in TV for 30 years. I don’t need to see a poll to know which way the majority of reporters and producers lean. Rick Kaplan ran CNN during the Clinton years and he was Clinton’s golfing buddy. ABC hired George Stephanopolus to host This Week. What are the chances of ABC hiring Karl Rove for that job–even though more people in the audience agree with Rove’s politics?

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• Reply

  Mason

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 08:03

  Chad – by contrast, the MSM would barely give the Tea Parties a mention. So which organization is the fair one? the one that promoted the upcoming major event that would be attended by well in excess of 100,000 people or the news channels that refused to mention it, wouldn’t send reporters to cover it, then would like about the number of attendees so as to diminish the importance?

  If that would have been the ‘Million Man March’ from a few years back, the MSM would have been hyping it for weeks and would have had wall to wall coverage. Tea Parties and Beck’s rally, do not fit into the MSM liberal agenda, so therefore are marganilized.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 10:16

  i can’t tell you how many times KDKA would send a camera to a “demonstration” that included a “crowd” of about 12 people and put it on the news. Trust me. It was the left wing protests that got their attention.

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• Reply

  saneman

  in September 1st, 2010 @ 10:39

  Local news is a joke regardless of ideology. I have seen news reports in the south do that for right wing protests too. Local news seems to highlight tabloidy stuff more than anything else. Who raped who. Who murdered who. Like some local version of a Nancy Grace show. Then amidst all that, they spend way too much time on the freaking weather. Just tell me where and when it’s going to rain. I dont need to know in detail about weather systems. Do that in some early morning weather forecast when the farmers are up.

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• Reply

  Mason

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 07:58

  It took about 30 seconds to google and click first link. make sure to read the two comments below the story since I know your first comment will resemble the articles first comment.

  http://amerpundit.com/2010/08/19/msnbc-parent-company-has-given-democrats-1-1-million-in-2010-cycle/

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 10:15

  Everybody has known for years that “Hollywood” contributes huge amounts of money to the Democrats. That includes Disney (ABC, ESPN etc) and CBS (Paramount etc.).

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• Reply

  Mario4Prez

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 15:37

  Call me when CNN or MSNBC sponsors a political rally in D.C. hosted by an inflammatory talk show host and likely 2012 presidential candidate. Maybe then I’ll believe Fox provides a true counterbalance.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 29th, 2010 @ 18:23

  Fox didn’t sponsor it.

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• Reply

  Mario4Prez

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 00:21

  They seem to be offering quite the platform.

  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,600363,00.html

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 10:13

  Beck’s show is not news. If he gets a couple hundred thousand people to show up in front of the Lincoln Memorial–THAT’S news and if CNN and the other networks don’t treat it as a huge story, they’re not doing their jobs.

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• Reply

  Mary hallow

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 11:13

  Mason you are missing the point. NBC never advertised fair and balanced. Fox does all the time. You can’t be balanced and then give one party more than others.

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• Reply

  JohnSteigerwald

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 11:40

  Yes you can. And you can give NO MONEY to anybody and be totally biased.

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• Reply

  Mason

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 15:29

  Mary – you are kidding, right? Just because NBC doesnt use the tag line Fair & Balanced, doesnt mean they don’t intend to represent middle of the road.

  News = reporting of recent events. The term ‘news’ itself, implies ‘fair & balanced’. The reason Fox News went with the moniker was the perceived presentation of all other news sources as being slanted left. Why does it kill those on the left to have ONE news org that slants right.

  and the truth is, studies have shown Fox News to be the most ‘Fair & Balanced’

  http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/14/fox-news-barack-obama-media-opinions-contributors-s-robert-lichter.html

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• Reply

  Karl Marx

  in August 30th, 2010 @ 13:48

  If you are watching this crap you have too much time on your hands. Read a book, plant a tree,, hells bells rob a bank but quit poisoning your mind with network TV.

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