Obama joins Edwards in ditching Fox News Debate

[Thorgrim]

Barack Obama has chosen not to attend September's Democratic presidential primary debate co-sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and Fox News, an aide said, effectively dooming the event.

Obama is the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus running for President, and his decision allows other candidates to skip the debate without facing criticism that they are turning their backs on a leading black institution.

Friday, John Edwards was the first candidate to announce he'd skip the debate. The CBC Institute is hosting one other debate, with CNN in January, in which all candidates are expected to participate.

"CNN seemed like a more appropriate venue," the aide said, adding that Obama himself had not called CBC leadership or Fox executives to deliver the news. "It was handled at a staff level."

The aide said that Obama will participate in the six officially-sanctioned Democratic National Committee debates, whose existence provided candidates a measure of cover to drop out of the Fox-sponsored debate.

A Fox News spokesman didn't immediately return a call and email seeking a reaction.

Ben Smith's Blog - Politico.com

Great news, I'm sure the Washington Times is capable of hosting a fair debate, but really, you are only asking for trouble, you gain nothing from it...

The Democrats are making moves to unify, after 08 you may see them skipping Fox News all together...could you imagine in 2003 if Bush and the GOP Congress didn't talk to ABC News at all...that would seriously hurt the network,

You have to give props to Edwards for being a white southerner and dropping out of a CBC debate before the black candidate said anything, but I give Obama credit for backing him up and leading the way to see who the REAL candidates are

If the Democrats hold to this, they could finally stop all the memos directing news being so blatantly anti-democrat, and have them direct their news programs to adhere to a set of ideological rules that govern against bias both ways...or Fox News could ignore them and have their press passes possibly revoked as they become the New York Sun of cable TV

[Thorgrim]

Can't change the title, but Clinton just ditched them too

My Way News - Obama, Clinton to Skip Fox-Backed Debate

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

If the Democrats hold to this, they could finally stop all the memos directing news being so blatantly anti-democrat, and have them direct their news programs to adhere to a set of ideological rules that govern against bias both ways...or Fox News could ignore them and have their press passes possibly revoked as they become the New York Sun of cable TV

Fox is the Top Rated Cable Network News period. When did Presidential Debates break a News Outlet!


And do you have anything, and I do mean anything, to back the conspiratorial tone of those remarks? The only memos that come to mind were the fakes on CBS but I wonder who would boycot them after proven election manipulation? They either knew what they were doing or were to dumb to see through the political operatives who supplied their information.

[Thorgrim]

Here are over 30 memos from almost 3 years ago, much more have happened since:
Fox News Memos: The Whole Batch - Wonkette

That shit doesn't go down on any other network

That CBS shit is so weak, Dan Rather got conned by someone with fake documents because he thought he had a hot story, he is one man they did their basic backround check they just didn't do a double or triple check like a news souce should do for that kind of story, he is one man who made one mistake and you anchor your whole case for the liberal media on it

Like Bill Kristol, head neocon at fox news said: "I admit it: the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."

You ignore the fact that Dan Rather was basically forced out of his job after that failure, you see Brit Hume getting pushed out of his job after asserting it was fact that it was safer to be a soldier in iraq than a citizen in california? Not only was it ridiculously bias but it was flat wrong, and he put on his prime time "objective" news show basically as a defense of the war...the CBS piece wasn't even "looking at this, you should vote for Kerry"

It's the ultimate hyper-partisan non-logical step to look at hundreds of cases of Fox being blatantly bias, and then look at one story where one man didn't check his sources enough and was conned, and say "oh well they're equal"

[Thorgrim]

BTW Fox News is top rated only because of a huge audience no one wants, the extremely elderly

the 18-45 crowd is the rating ad firms look at most, and people like Olberman beat Orly despite the fact that on any night Orly has 2 million compared to Keith's 300-400k

That's only possible because of the huge amount of old white republican men who watch...its not much of an accomplishment

[Phantom]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

BTW Fox News is top rated only because of a huge audience no one wants, the extremely elderly

the 18-45 crowd is the rating ad firms look at most, and people like Olberman beat Orly despite the fact that on any night Orly has 2 million compared to Keith's 300-400k

That's only possible because of the huge amount of old white republican men who watch...its not much of an accomplishment

Don't forget who votes and who doesn't. Those elderly vote in droves, while the 18-45 crew wake up hungover and listen to Howard Stern in lieu of voting. You're right if you're talking about advertising bucks though.

[garbagemanlb]

Originally Posted by Phantom

Don't forget who votes and who doesn't. Those elderly vote in droves, while the 18-45 crew wake up hungover and listen to Howard Stern in lieu of voting. You're right if you're talking about advertising bucks though.

Those people watching Fox will likely vote Republican no matter what any of the Democrats say, so there really is no downside to refusing to appear on such a ridiculously biased network.

[RMNIXON]

Excuse me, but not bashing Bush in every story is hardly "being so blatantly anti-Democrat." Unless you wish to confess the party is all negatives?

I did find this memo curious:

ABC News has "a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides 'equally' accountable when the facts don't warrant that ... It's up to Kerry to defend himself, of course. But as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest [sic]. Now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right" (quotes in original).

Not that you find blatant anti-Republican marching orders here either, but I won't hold my breath for the ABC Debate protest.

And you must be joking about CBS? You take memos by an Anti-Bush operative. You don't even have someone who can understand a font problem? Then don't ask the right people about them? You don't understand that they saw what they wanted to see and went with it with glee? If they had been John Kerry memo's they would have spent a good amount just to expose whoever tried to pull the wool over the media's eyes. Rather has a huge staff of people. He was the father figure of CBS News. Now he is just one man?

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by garbagemanlb

Those people watching Fox will likely vote Republican no matter what any of the Democrats say, so there really is no downside to refusing to appear on such a ridiculously biased network.

They host the debate. Many news outlets pick up the feed!

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

BTW Fox News is top rated only because of a huge audience no one wants, the extremely elderly

the 18-45 crowd is the rating ad firms look at most, and people like Olberman beat Orly despite the fact that on any night Orly has 2 million compared to Keith's 300-400k

That's only possible because of the huge amount of old white republican men who watch...its not much of an accomplishment

They have a smaller % of younger viewers. They still have more youngers viewers! Is this the kind of data that you use:


"Fox had 59,000 viewers under 35, MSNBC had 53,000, CNN averaged 42,000 and Headline News 41,000 for a total of 195,000 viewers; that’s only 6.4% of their audiences.

In total day Fox averaged 774,000, CNN 460,000, MSNBC 300,000 and Headline News 249,000; a total of 1,783,000 viewers. In 18-34’s Fox produced 42,000 viewers, CNN 41,000, MSNBC 37,000 and Headline News 28,000. A total of 148,000 viewers; that’s 8.3% of their audiences."


Me and Ted ... Updated Bits & Pieces



I would hate to go to my media boss and make a case of how rosy that looks for our network. The assuption here is that old people will die off and lower the numbers for Fox without considering the ability of Fox to pick up more young people and at the same time keep those 35 and under watching as they get older. It is wishful thinking at best.

[Roonie]

Glad they are ditching Fox because Fox sucks!!! One of the most blantantly biased network out there

[imind]

And you must be joking about CBS? You take memos by an Anti-Bush operative. You don't even have someone who can understand a font problem? Then don't ask the right people about them? You don't understand that they saw what they wanted to see and went with it with glee? If they had been John Kerry memo's they would have spent a good amount just to expose whoever tried to pull the wool over the media's eyes. Rather has a huge staff of people. He was the father figure of CBS News. Now he is just one man?

i think you have an unclear understanding of the memos...

Several other assertions made by document experts in an ABC online piece (9/10/04) appear to be similarly ill-grounded. "The font used in the memos is Times Roman, which was in use for printing but not in typewriters," ABC reported. Actually, Times New Roman, as the font is usually called, was adapted for the IBM Selectric (a brand of typewriter Knox said she used-- Dallas Morning News , 9/14/04) by the font's original designer, Stanley Morison, in the late 1960s (AIGA Design Forum ,

link

rather's career is long and rife with reporting errors, both in favor and against conservative admnistrations.

[SoFlaJDM]

maybe it's because they do things like this:



the whole quote was "I think that nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground."

[motivez]

Originally Posted by SoFlaJDM

maybe it's because they do things like this:



the whole quote was "I think that nobody wants to play chicken with our troops on the ground."

Fox, as a conservative mouthpiece has an interest in making Democrats look bad.. and these types of incidents happen far too often to simply ignore.

The same is not true for any other network sponsor and any other political party.

[Diesel66]

Originally Posted by motivez

Fox, as a conservative mouthpiece has an interest in making Democrats look bad.. and these types of incidents happen far too often to simply ignore.

The same is not true for any other network sponsor and any other political party.

cnn
cbs

[motivez]

Sorry, but it's hardly the same as 's organizational effort to make Democrats look bad by allowing gross misrepresentations of facts to go unchecked, or to help further the Republican effort by being a White House mouthpiece that gleefully repeats all of their talking points [see various Daily Show clips].

Yeah, everyone has bias. Just not on the level that Fox does.. and @ the idea that cnn and cbs do!

There are what, two big incidents people are crying about? The 'X' over Cheney's face because someone left it on a split second too long? And Dan Rather screwing up by not checking his facts clearly enough?

Hardly the same, and incidents of that magnitude (though the Cheney thing is completely laughable) are much more rare on the other networks.

[grembert]

Fox has some interesting stories that aren't related to politics. And many viewers, I think, are not that interested in politics.

Fox slants news on the Iraq War. That's there main difference.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

Fox, as a conservative mouthpiece has an interest in making Democrats look bad.. and these types of incidents happen far too often to simply ignore.

The same is not true for any other network sponsor and any other political party.

Another Cut and Paste screen freeze? Where is the link to the story? What Program? Was it an opinion segment? O'Reilly? What? Did they run the entire quote? Have comments from guests of each political side as they normally do?

This is childish pure and simple. You don't think if I had endless time to waste I can't do a freeze frame on CNN or MSNBC that looks bad totally out of context? When did the blind following of internet political troll sites become objective news reporting?

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

[see various Daily Show clips].

That is what I thought. We get our News Analysis from the Comedy show cut ups! It's all just one big joke. I don't need to watch an actual Fox News program.