Obama rips Fox News viewers: ‘You are living on a different planet’

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PaulinVA said:
“One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don’t share a common baseline of facts,” Obama said. "If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR.”
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On that point I long for the days we had the “Fairness Doctrine” in place to ensure some balance. I think we need an updated version that applies to the major networks.
 
Is anybody surprised that Obama hates half the country?
 
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No ,not surprised here,nor am I not surprised by the pretzel logic from the usual suspects that disparage FOX as faux news
 
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Well, truth be told, I have a degree in broadcast news. Shh, don’t tell anyone.

So, yes, we learned all about the equal time rule and the fairness doctrine all those many decades ago. It was a good idea when there were three major networks, and in some places one couldn’t even pick up all three.

Now, with new media and cable and broadcast, no one outlet is “fair”, but, taken as a whole, Americans have access to a complete smorgasbord of opinion. One has to make sure that they do not fill their plate entirely with any one dish. You need a well-rounded information diet. Watch a little Fox, a little MSNBC, CNN. Read the NYT. Stop by the Huffington Post occasionally.
 
dvdjs said:
So are you declining to publish the full text, or are you indicating that what is published is the full text?
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It’s all I got. I’m not hiding anything. I linked to the story on Fox.
 
The problem is two fold as I see it.
  1. Media no longer cares about their old code of ethics
  2. People laser focus into 1-2 sources of info, they don’t take the time to sample a range of sources.
I still think we should require balance from the major networks, that do reach most people and broadly influence the discussion. This would require some regulation to steer them.
 
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PaulinVA said:
It’s all I got. I’m not hiding anything. I linked to the story on Fox.
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There is more, as I have already posted.

This from Time:

“One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don’t share a common baseline of facts,” Obama said. “What the Russians exploited, but it was already here, is we are operating in completely different information universes. If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you listen to NPR.”

“At a certain point,” he continued, “You just live in a bubble and I think that’s why our politics are so polarized right now.”


Note the difference in the FOX vs TIME headline.
’
We Don’t Share a Common Baseline of Facts.’ Barack Obama Reflects on Divisiveness in Politics
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People read the FOX headline and suddenly the remars were about denigrating FOX viewers. See?
 
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Theo520 said:
The problem is two fold as I see it.
  1. Media no longer cares about their old code of ethics
  2. People laser focus into 1-2 sources of info, they don’t take the time to sample a range of sources.
I still think we should require balance from the major networks, that do reach most people and broadly influence the discussion. This would require some regulation to steer them.
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And what would this balance look like? Would it say, look like “President Trump said something outrageous, but here, for balance, is someone that denies he said it.”
 
niceatheist said:
And what would this balance look like? Would it say, look like “President Trump said something outrageous, but here, for balance, is someone that denies he said it.”
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Read up on the Fairness Doctrine that was in place for many years. Your question is the same thing they had to deal with, nothing has changed.
 
Theo520 said:
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niceatheist:
And what would this balance look like? Would it say, look like “President Trump said something outrageous, but here, for balance, is someone that denies he said it.”
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Read up on the Fairness Doctrine that was in place for many years. Your question is the same thing they had to deal with, nothing has changed.
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The Fairness Doctrine didn’t meant not picking sides, and it applied to the major networks and affiliates, at the time. I’m afraid the cable TV era rendered it moot, and it never applied to newspapers.
 
I believe liberals brains are wired differently than those of conservatives so I definitely
believe FOX viewers are different than NPR listeners. I don’t know if Obama actually meant the two groups live on different planets and I no longer have cable so I can’t
watch FOX anymore, but if the only radio channel I could get was NPR, I would sell my
radio.
 
niceatheist said:
The Fairness Doctrine didn’t meant not picking sides, and it applied to the major networks and affiliates, at the time. I’m afraid the cable TV era rendered it moot, and it never applied to newspapers.
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Right, it would need to be updated, I already said that.

As in the past, it doesn’t have to apply to every source before it influences the national discussion, and reduces some of the current polarization. It would swing some of the weight from the extremes towards the middle.
 
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Theo520 said:
The problem is two fold as I see it.

Media no longer cares about their old code of ethics
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I think that the rise of the prime-time opinion shows on cable have blurred the line between hard news and whatever you call Hannity or Cooper. I won’t say they don’t have ethics.
Theo520 said:
People laser focus into 1-2 sources of info, they don’t take the time to sample a range of sources.
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Absolutely! You need to go to the sources you are predisposed to “hate” and watch their programming. You might learn something.
Theo520 said:
I still think we should require balance from the major networks, that do reach most people and broadly influence the discussion. This would require some regulation to steer them.
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That was interpreted in the past as presenting “both” sides of an issue, a premise one of my J-school professors swore us to fight every time we could. There are always multiple sides to a story.

Anyway, it was never envisioned as pro-Trump and anti-Trump shows or interviews. It always was enforced on the party binary - Democrat and Republican.
 
Theo520 said:
40.png
niceatheist:
The Fairness Doctrine didn’t meant not picking sides, and it applied to the major networks and affiliates, at the time. I’m afraid the cable TV era rendered it moot, and it never applied to newspapers.
Click to expand...
Right, it would need to be updated, I already said that.

As in the past, it doesn’t have to apply to every source before it influences the national discussion, and reduce some of the current polarization. It would swing some of the weight from the extremes towards the middle.
Click to expand...
The Fairness Doctrine was justifiable in very large part because the Big Three were using spectrum for their broadcasts, thus putting them under the jurisdiction of the FCC. While that probably could be made to apply to some degree to the current slate of networks, it’s unlikely that it would be constitutional to try to impose it on a newspaper, and I question if you could even make it stick to online media. The Fairness Doctrine, for better and for worse, was of a different time when the technology by which people watched television was considerably different.

And really, do you think Fox News and Breitbart would want to be forced to take part in some sort of new Fairness Doctrine?
 
You are not paying attention. I never suggested the update must apply to newspapers or every other source.

Practically, you would only need to get the major networks on board to have a discernible impact.

New regulation would require new law, I’m sure something could be worked out that would in turn give the majors a badge of credibility they could use to their advantage.
 
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dvdjs said:
Note the difference in the FOX vs TIME headline.

People read the FOX headline and suddenly the remars were about denigrating FOX viewers. See?
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I read this somewhere else, and when I searched for it again, Fox was the first link.

I think Obama was dissing Fox, don’t you?
 
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