Fox “News”

News Sources Evaluated. (This web page may be expand as new information is revealed to the blogger.)

News Sources Evaluated. (This web page may be expand as new information is revealed to the blogger.)

When I started researching news sources I was surprised to find a number of web sites that presented large page boxes showing where major sources fit within their box according to horizontal and vertical criteria – rather clever!  You can view some different website boxes next.

WEBSITES THAT REVIEW NEWS SOURCES.  THE RESULTS ARE SHOWN IN PART BY SHOWING YOU GRAPHICAL BOXES – CLEVER:

 

SELECTED NEWS SOURCES:

  • MSNBC. “MSNBC is a news and political commentary organization that has been the focus of several controversies. It has been accused by academics, media figures, political figures, and watchdog groups of having various biases in their news coverage as well as more general views of a liberal bias. Most of these controversies took place during the 2008–2015 era.” Wikipedia. MSNBC is Score Card’s favorite evening new show because it is dedicated to protecting Democracy and thus not supporting Donald Trump

 

RECOMMEND PODCASTS:
The following list of podcasts does NOT come from any independent source but from this blogger, Score Card.  There are so many podcasts that it is hard to make recommendations based on independent reviews.

 

NOT RECOMMEND AND ALLEGEDLY FLAWED NEWS SOURCES:

  • FOX NEWS.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News
    “Fox News has been characterized as a propaganda outlet. Its coverage has included biased reporting in favor of the Republican Party, its politicians, and conservative causes, while portraying the Democratic Party in a negative light.  Critics have argued that the channel is damaging to the integrity of news overall.[“. Wikipedia
  • SINCLAIR BROADCASTING GROUP
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Broadcast_Group
    “The company is the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations.”
    “The company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial content, including warnings about purported “fake news” in mainstream media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC.”

Truth Social has been described as an alt-tech[4][5][6] social media platform. Such platforms are popular among the alt-right, far-right, and others who espouse extremism or fringe theories, often because they employ less stringent content moderation than mainstream platforms.”

Review by FORBES John Brandon, Senior Contributor. “I Finally Tested Donald Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ App And Here’s What I Discovered:  it’s essentially Twitter for conservatives, my one big surprise is that it appears to be an app designed to promote a future Trump campaign.”

 

NEWS BIAS STUDIES:

Knight Foundation study

“PERCEIVED ACCURACY AND BIAS IN THE NEWS MEDIA”

Are news organizations biased such that they promote an outcome that their customers should buy into?  This study definitely proves that this IS the case!  This study seems to say that each individual who has a political bias then views each news sources as biased to follow their political group.

https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/KnightFoundation_AccuracyandBias_Report_FINAL.pdf (38 pages)

This study really covers how different groups of individuals who fall within a group of right vs left viewpoints believe each news organization is biased in a direction that their group believes..  And, gosh the differences are revealing!  Below is only one example of the study’s presentation.

EXAMPLE:

    • DEMOCRATS RATED MOST OF THE MAJOR NEWS ORGANIZATIONS AS BEING ACCURATE, EXCEPT FOR FOX NEWS AND BREITBART NEWS.
    • REPUBLICANS RATED MOST OF THE MAJOR NEWS ORGANIZATIONS AS INACCURATE, EXCEPT FOR FOX NEWS, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL AND BREITBART NEWS

This might help explain why the support for President Biden and Donald Trump is so close to being equal.  Truth fails to prevail because too many Americas fail to understand what the truth is and maybe fail to value truth.

________________

 

POSTED JUNE 29, 2024
POSTED BY: Score Card

List Of Reasons Why Fox News Is So Bad For Us.

List Of Reasons Why Fox News Is So Bad For Us.

Health Information

“Fox News is leading viewers to take the COVID less seriously, to skip basic public health measures, to avoid vaccines and to greater illnesses and deaths. Fox News talking heads are not just asking questions, they are leading their viewers to their demise.”

Fear Mongering

“Fox’s approach to news dissemination is a particularly potent brand of political theater. The most common tactic the network employs is fear mongering, particularly against black and brown people, with countless stories on migrant caravans and inner city shootings.”

Bias Reporting

Fox News is “practicing biased reporting in favor of the Republican Party, its politicians, and conservative causes, while portraying the Democratic Party in a negative light.”

Misleading Science News

Fox News is “misleading their audience in relation to science, notably climate change.”

 

Summary:  There are many aspects to become an educated person.  Some items that stands out where Fox News fails cultivating the individual properly are practice respect, humility, tolerance and self-criticism, compassion and unbiased knowledge.

Posted: 8-26-2022

Covid Vaccination Rejection Issues

Covid Vaccination Rejection Issues

It is vitally important that every person get inoculated agains the COVID-19 virus.  To not get inoculated really increases your chance of getting very ill and dying.  This is especially true for people of all ages including children who come into contact with the Delta variant.  Please get inoculated!

Misinformation fueling vaccine hesitancy

There also may be a natural selection factor for the humane race at work for individuals who are reluctant to get inoculated.  This some times is also called “survival of the fittest” which means that some of us are born with bodies and minds that can more easily and successfully fight off infections.  

Another related factor for individuals who fail to get vaccinated for reasons they get their information from allegedly bad sources:

There are some legitimate sources that state that the virus inoculation should not be administered:

A medical director of the vaccine-preventable diseases and immunization program at the Tennessee Department of Health was fired for sharing a memo with others that. “according to Tennessee Supreme Court case law, minors ages 14-17 years are able to receive medical care in Tennessee without parental consent.”       Note that Tennessee is a Republican state.

Another Issue:

There may follow some form of follow up retribution against known groups and individuals who promote not getting vaccinated.  The Republican Party has already lost a lot of followers.  Maybe Fox “News” is next.

If those people who reject being inoculated do so because they can not properly calculate how to react to this covid threat, then it is quite possible that the humane race might improve if their death precedes them making children that pass on this alleged deficient factors.  This is a terrible demeaning proposal but if this possibility shames more people to get inoculated, then the better for them, their families and this nation if this changes their attitude.

 

 

 

Posted July 15, 2021
Updated: July 16, 2021
NOTE:  This is an active story and this blog post will change in the future.

Possible Pending Sedition

Possible Pending Sedition

This entry is part 6 of 24 in the series Donald Trump

Opinion:

I have, for the longest time, wondered if a dictatorship  could take place in the United States.  As I watch the progression of U.S. politics, it appears to me that we have quite a few individuals who are now and probably more in the future that support the United States loosing our democracy and sliding into becoming a dictatorship.  This view is promoted by witnessing all the boot lickers in government who fail to tell the truth and work toward a truthful end and pander to a president who is so self centered.

There seems to be a current process for the slide from democracy to dictatorship by President Donald Trump, to delegitimize our last fair election and overturn the results so he can stay in power another four years.

By most measures, the 2020 past election for president and vice president was fair.  So far, the most shining aspect of the American Democracy is how fantastic the legal system has worked to protect our Democratic system.  Just think for a moment of how it is that over 50 courtroom judges all came to the same conclusion that the 2020 presidential election was fair.   This single aspect stopped Donald Trump from becoming an alleged dictator.

One significant problem with a democracy is it is open to a lot of opportunities as compared to a dictatorship which is based on tight control of the citizens.  This democracy openness offers  corrupt politicians the opportunity to use the system against itself.  Here are some examples of corrupting methods used by politicians and political parties to gain and keep power:

  • bribery
  • extortion
  • cronyism
  • nepotism
  • parochialism
  • patronage
  • influence peddling
  • graft
  • embezzlement

The actual voting process is not always fair. 

Possible Corrupt Voting Practices:

  • Gerrymandering 
  • Hacking voting machines.
  • Voter intimidation.
  • Attacks on poling places.
  • Entitlement to vote is challenged.
  • Racial voter restrictions.

One more factor that supports a well running democracy are the values that come with that form of government.

  • Work toward the common good.
  • Honesty and truthfulness.
  • Knowledge of public affairs.

One more factor that hopefully goes against corruption is the factor of norms.  Norms are best past practices that favor a well working democracy.  President Trump has broken quite a few.

Let’s take the legal aspect one step further.  Once in power, a politician and a political party just might  try to overturn the results of an election.  The problem with this effort is how legal the process is.  As already stated, our legal system put a stop to this illegal attempt.  So is there a penalty for trying to overturn the rule of the people?  Yes there is:

Sedition: conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.

Seditious conspiracy: (18 U.S.C. § 2384) is a crime under United States law. It is stated as follows:

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

As soon as the electoral college certify that Biden properly won the new US president election then the immunity of politicians who are fighting against Biden winning being president by political means should disappear.  Then, any actions to overthrow the election results, after the electoral college certifies that Biden won, could be construed as act(s) of sedition.  

Possible pending 2020 sedition actors:

  • Donald Trump who constantly claims he won the election. 
  • Any individual especially a politician who supports this overthrow.
  • Any media that promotes the overthrow of the current U.S. government:
    • Facebook with Mark Zuccerberg being the person responsible for allowing and possible enhancing the  a platform of overthrow.
    • Fox “News” for allowing and possible promoting a platform of overthrow.
    • Newsmax for allowing and possible promoting a platform of overthrowing the results of the election.

Another despicable factor in Donald Trump trying to overturn the legitimate election results is this process has seemed to undermine the confidence in American democratic processes for a significant group of American citizens.    This possible erosion for accepting our current form of government, right now, might impact the future of our nation.

 

 

 

Posted January 3, 2020

They Don’t Deserve Democracy

They Don’t Deserve Democracy

I received the following e-mail message from an Indivisible activist:

“I’ve moved from despair over not being able to get the goods on Trump to despair over the Republicans and people who don’t want him impeached in the face of ALL the IRREFUTABLE evidence of multiple illegal and impeachable offenses we now have. Sometimes I just get angry and say to myself that THEY don’t deserve Democracy, but of course they take us all down with them!”

My reply follows with some edits:

What you outlined has bothered me a lot also. I am trying to research why about 30 to 40 percent of the electorate support Trump. I do not think there is a single reason. I do think this is rather complicated matter for us to understand. Here are just some of the possible reasons I am trying to put together. They all boil down to prejudice and ignorance. Remember that individuals are naturally self serving.

A significant number of people have given up with this form of government and thus no longer vote. This just might be a partial reason why Trump became popular because he is not the establishment and obviously was going to shake things up. Some citizens do not like this form of government!

White supremacy is an obvious factor probably coming from ego needs and fears of the lesser class taking my job away.

Family influence can be a strong factor where the parents are conservative and instill that viewpoint into their children.

Racism, especially in the former slave states is very powerful. (i.e. red states vote Republican)

Advancement of corporate and rich class interests work against what is best for the nation some times. A prime example is the United States withdraw from Paris Accord for controlling global warming. The oil and gas industries support Trump.

Some religions are against abortion, mixed marriage, and just love the concept of placing Trump into the throne of the chosen one.

Catholics also seem to mildly embrace singular powerful men as rulers. This explains, a bit, why Latin American countries are mainly dictatorships.  And, President Donald Trump is definitely a pending dictator.

Poor education at grade school level is apparent in the United States. Approximately 32 million adults in the United States can’t read, according to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 50 percent of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at an eighth-grade level.

It is increasingly harder to pay for education beyond high school. For some reason, students who enter junior college fail to enter a four year college and graduate. While about 80 percent of entering community college students indicate they want to earn a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 29 percent of community college students who started in fall 2011 actually transferred to a four-year institution within six years.

Communities that are rural can be backward. Just look at the past elections in England where Brexit was voted for in rural but city dwellers voted no. Look at Turkey where Recep Tayyip Erdogan has support in the rural areas but not in the cities. Cities push people with different backgrounds, different educations, different ethnicity, different views together way more than rural areas. Also, rural typically is singular economic enterprises where cities have way more businesses that throw people together.

There are social media platforms that wish to propagandize. Fox “News”, Wall Street Journal, YouTube. A major new study of social media sharing patterns shows that political polarization is more common among conservatives than liberals.

I think there are more factors but these come to mind right now. I am pessimistic too for the reason that facts fail to matter that much to a lot of people.

Take care,
Do not despair. We have a difficult job to do to save this Democracy.

 

Posted December 16, 2019
Updated December 17, 2019