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Media Government Politics

Microsoft Spinning Against OpenDocument Via Fox News 559

Posted by CmdrTaco from the strangest-thing-you'll-see-lately dept.
srwalter writes "As previously reported, Fox News previously ran an article by James Prendergast criticizing Massachussetts for switching to OpenDocument format. Today, Fox News has distanced itself from that article significantly. In a new front page story they post several emails in defense of Massachussetts and OpenDocument in general, as well as apologize for not acknowledging that Prendergast's organization is funded by Microsoft."
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Microsoft Spinning Against OpenDocument Via Fox News More

Microsoft Spinning Against OpenDocument Via Fox News

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  • Fair and Balanced... (Score:5, Funny)

    by delcielo ( 217760 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:44AM (#13782539) Journal
    Good for them. For once they truly seem fair and balanced.
    • "Mr. Prendergast's affiliation with Microsoft should have been stated clearly in the article" Hmm. It shouldn't fall on them to apologise. Where's the author's integrity? Why didn't he mention his affiliation in the original article?

    • Well, they stuck the apology/disclosure way at the bottom of a long scroll. It's almost certain to not be as widely read as the original article. Subtly dishonest, IMHO.

    • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WhiteWolf666 ( 145211 ) <[sherwin] [at] [amiran.us]> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:51AM (#13782595) Homepage Journal
      As far as I know, Fox News does not have a policy of being biased.

      What they do have is a policy of being *extremely* inflammatory.

      They will always make it a point to mention the truth as a 'viewpoint'.

      They'll also announce every other viewpoint, true or untrue, and the headline will be the one to prompt the greatest amount of reaction, positive or negative.

      Obivously, one can see where this develop its own sort of bias.

      Fair and balanced? Technically, yes. They don't outright *lie*. They don't even particularly advertise one cause over another, except as-is necessary to generate viewer interest, positive OR negative.

      Fox News understands that they can get more viewer by being extremist. Conservatives watch because they can toe the party line. Liberals watchs so they can dispute it. Fox News wins both ways.

      • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by pete6677 ( 681676 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:04PM (#13782694)
        That's pretty much the nature of any news organization. Why? Because hysteria sells. And it's certainly not just an American thing. Just look at how sensational the British press is. It doesn't necessarily mean they are trying to push an agenda, but they are definitely trying to compete for sales/ratings.

      • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:15PM (#13782795)
        As far as I know, Fox News does not have a policy of being biased.

        That's because Fox News doesn't have a policy of having news. Seriously, almost all of their on-air staff are right-wing guys with their own talk shows and books - some with shady pasts (Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo are both from old-school sensationalistic tabloid shows that set the bar for the last 15 years). Hannity, Gretta Van Sustran (who has a nightly rundown on what cute little rich blonde girls have been kidnapped), O'Reilly - then those annoying women (I can't remember their name) have a stupid "talk show" for a couple hours during the day time in which they're INCREDIBLY biased.

        I'm one of those people who saw how clear the "liberal bias" used to be in news. In the last six years, I've become one of those people who has witnessed the shift and now see the insanely biased conservative slant. And you can't tell me that Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Laura Ingram and Anne Coulter are proper, non-biased political analysts? (These are all people that are ROUTINELY on the show to provide analysis of news events).

        To say fox news isn't intensely biased (and barely news-based) is just plain crazy. It goes beyond just being extreme and sensational.

        • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by (trb001) ( 224998 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:57PM (#13783209) Homepage
          And you can't tell me that Newt Gingrich, Oliver North, Laura Ingram and Anne Coulter are proper, non-biased political analysts?

          They aren't, but neither are Susan Estrich, Ellis Hennican or Juan Williams. They are, however, openly left-wing. People rattle off the list of analysts that FNC has on that are conservative/right-wingers and then conveniently forget that they also have representatives from the opposite end of the political spectrum.

          I'll give you this; FNC has more well known right-wingers than left-wingers. While not a great explanation, I offer up that FNC is the most conservative/traditional network out there, so they would be likely to attract the bigger right-wing names just like an MSNBC or CNN would be more likely to attract the bigger left-wing names.

          --trb

          • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @01:40PM (#13783605)
            Sure FOX has liberals on. But debate between right wing nuts and left wing nuts is not news. It's like calling pitbull or cock fights "recreational sports". And you notice the only "liberal" types they have on FOX are the ones that are on the extreme? And then they try to make them look bad in comparison and it makes the crazy slanted right-wingers on the station who are put up against them look legitimate and sensible.

            Anyway, I can't give any weight to a network that had their "news anchor" interviewing the guy who wanted to take the pledge of allegience out of schools (since it was only dumped into schools to indoctrinate kids and scare the godless communists a few decades ago) - and the woman (I think it was "linda vester") asked the guy "what the hell is your problem?!". Yes. That's very professional investigation, interviewing and news reporting. If he had been a conservative complaining about videogames or half-assed attempting to justify killing abortion doctors, do you think she would have said "what the hell is your problem"? Nope. That extremely biased and unprofessional comment would never have been heard.

            • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:5, Insightful)

              by The Angry Mick ( 632931 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @03:59PM (#13785224) Homepage
              Sure FOX has liberals on.

              And when they do, it tends to go something like this:

              Liberal commentator: "Well you know, Bill, the IAEA found that..."

              Bill O'Reilly: "What! So now you're saying that some commie-loving commission, a commission run by an Arab for Christ's sake, is telling the truth to the American people - people still suffering from the shock of seeing newborn babies falling from the windows of the Twin Towers. I know for a fact that the IAEA is receiving funds directly from Osama Bin Laden himself!"

              Liberal commentator: "Now, that's just not true..."

              Bill O'Reilly: "I've seen the checks!!! When are you lefties going to start loving your country? Or are you only gonna be happy when all of us are dead or worshipping Allah?"

              Liberal commentator: "Now, Bill, don't you think..."

              Bill O'Reilly: "Shut UP!!! I'm not finished talking here! You open your lying liberal mouth one more time spouting your hatred of America and I'm gonna cut of your mike!!!"

              Liberal commentator: "But I . . ."

              Bill O'Reilly: "I'm not gonna tell you again, you pinko bastard..."

              Liberal commentator: "...but..."

              Bill O'Reilly: "That's IT!!! You and me! Outside!"

              Liberal commentator: "...what the..."

              Bill O'Reilly: "Shut him off, Ox. And take his sorry ass outside!"

              Liberal commentator: "...put me down....you can't do this!..."

              Bill O'Reilly: "Well folks, looks like we're gonna have to agree to disagree on this issue. We'll be back after this commercial break, brought to you by the fine folks at 'People for the American Way'."

              • Isn't 'People for the American Way' a left-leaning organization?

                I have become convinced over time that Bill O'Reilly is not actually a conservative. He is a mock conservative with the intention of discrediting conservative ideas by becoming a reprehensible representative of some of those ideals. He's a self-important blowhard first and a conservative a distant third. if at all.

                Bill O'Reilly is as good an example of conservatives as Dan Rather.

                • Isn't 'People for the American Way' a left-leaning organization?

                  Good catch - You're right, of course. I should've used "Americans for Tax Reform" instead.

                  As to Bill O'Reilly. He's nothing more than a thug and a bully - no different than the average high school punk who can only pick on others when the odds are heavily stacked in his favor. Whenever somebody calls his bluff, he backs off. FWIW, here's a transcript [newshounds.us] from a show where Phil Donahue turned the tables.

          • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Minupla ( 62455 ) <minupla@gmail.PASCALcom minus language> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @03:49PM (#13785092) Homepage Journal
            Consider this: Fox news airs an obviously biased article by an openly microsoft founded advocacy group. So to be "balanced" they run an equal time piece by the oposing side. They invite the EFF, or someone from the the govt of Mas. to make the opposing viewpoint, right? No, they run a column of emails from readers with a note at the very bottom, where noone would read it unless they waded through the whole article, not appologizing, or retracting, just stating they should have acknowleged the original piece was an article from a microsoft founded organization.

            Balanced? Nope. They could have been. I'm sure EFF would have been happy to write an opposing piece. Did they bother? No. That's why Fox News has a bad rep.

            Min

      • Re:Fair and Balanced... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:28PM (#13782894)
        Yes, I'm sure it's just biased accidentily. Consider:

        Fox Primarily an "Opinion" Network [pbs.org]
        Fox Viewers More Likely to be Misinformed [thecarpetb...report.com]
        Fox Shills for the War [lewrockwell.com]
        Fox, Neither Fair nor Balanced [msn.com]

        There's lots more out there if you open your eyes.

      • All news organizations are biased to an extent (Score:4, Insightful)

        by engwar ( 521117 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @01:39PM (#13783596)
        Think about it. Do they call a person "pro-choice" or "pro-abortion"? The term you choose shows your bias.

        When Tom DeLay was indicted most big news sites ran a headling saying something to the effect of "DeLay Indicted." FoxNews' website had the slightly different headline that was something like "DeLay says 'Im innocent'". Now both headlines are true, he was indicted and he did claim innocence. The actual event that happened that day, the NEWS, if you will, was that he was indicted. DeLay's claim of innocence is his side of the story. It may seem minor but if you took a few thousand people (who knew nothing about Delay and didn't claim to be liberal or conservative) and showed half of them one headline and half the other and asked them if they thought he was guilty or innocent I'll bet that the people who saw the "I'm innocent" headline would respond more favorably to him than the "Delay Indicted" folks. Words matter.

        Foxnews is as right-wing as NPR is left-wing. The only difference is that Foxnews claims to be balanced, which is total bullshit. At least NPR doesn't lie to their listeners about their "fairness".

      • Yes they have a policy of being biased. Myrdoch himself used to send down directives on exactly which way he wanted the story slanted. There were focus reports do make people believe a certain way, and "phrases" that were approved to sway public opinion. Fox is VERY biased.
    • This isn't something to be proud of. I mean, this is what any decent news organization should be doing constantly. They haven't done anything particularly outstanding in this case. This is what they should've been doing all along!

      I don't think we should commend FOX News for the lone time they aren't negligent. I think we should rather focus on all of the times that the quality of their reporting has been suspect.

      Just because the standards for corporate news agencies have dropped significantly doesn't mean t

    • "seem" indeed... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 )
      Good for them. For once they truly seem fair and balanced.

      "Seem" being the operative word. It's more like they got caught. Are you going to tell me with a straight face that Fox News didn't do the slightest checking on the guy's background? That editors were so incompetent, they did not check for conflicts of interest so simple they can be summed up in one line? Please. Even at Fox News, these people are professional journalists and editors. I don't buy the "whoops, silly us" excuse...the amount of

      • Call me crazy, but if Fox reported John Kerry was a space alien during the election and then it was later "discovered" that the source was a republican party staffer- Fox would do little more than shrug, because half their audience wouldn't care, and the other half would still think Kerry was an alien.

        As opposed to CBS, where if Dan Rather were caught running a story with no factual evidence, which was received from an admitted Bush-hater and designed to throw the presidential election for Kerry, they wou

    • Everyone knows that Fox News isn't a real news channel. It's an enterainment news channel. Similar to A Current Affair, etc.

      Take "Fox" News with a grain of salt, for real reporting see CNN, Bloomberg, or international news if you can get it.

  • Fox News (Score:3, Funny)

    by geomon ( 78680 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:48AM (#13782570) Homepage Journal
    Fair *and* Balanced.

  • Politics? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:48AM (#13782571)
    Why is this in the politics section? Genuinely curious.

    For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case. It's just become conventional wisdom for them without question.

    Heck, one could make the case that Slashdot is extremely biased and inaccurate every day.
    • They all suck. The only news program of substance is the News Hour, but then that might be more appropriately named the Snooze Hour...
      • I for one enjoy Morning Edition and All things considered. Despire what people say, I just don't seem them as being that biased. Go listen to their election coveraege - if anything I thought Bush was getting more coverage...
      • Well, I'll be honest, back in 2000 and 2001, I just started watching Fox News more. I didn't think it was any more conservative or biased than CNN, and I was unaware of who Murdoch even was. It just seemed more interesting and they covered things more quickly.

        After September 11th when Fox News got really big, I started hearing the claims of bias. The only evidence I ever heard about was that documentary "Outfoxed," which I also found out was a hack edit job (zooming in on split-screen footage to make it

        • Re:Politics? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Krach42 ( 227798 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:48PM (#13783114) Homepage Journal
          I grew up in a right-wing home. I know this for certain. Anyways, I was brought up my whole life "knowing" that "The Media" was left-wing biased.

          Then one day, I talked to this very left-wing girl, and she was telling me that "The Media" was right-wing biased.

          Then it occured to me. If someone is reporting fair and balanced news, then it would come up as middle of the road. And to a right-winger, that looks left-wing, and to a left-winger that lookes right-wing.

          After that point, I take claims of bias in "The Media" to be stupid useless political griping. Essentially both sides being upset that the view point isn't theirs.

    • Re:Politics? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Wilson_6500 ( 896824 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:56AM (#13782636)
      I hear this Bill O'Reilly guy is a little right-of-center.

      • Re:Politics? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Buelldozer ( 713671 )
        Ahhh but Bill O'Reilly isn't a newscaster, he has his own OP-Ed show is all.

        The NEWS ITSELF at Fox News is pretty balanced IMHO, it's just the "commentary" shows that tend to be right wing in nature.

    • Re:Politics? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:59AM (#13782659) Journal
      "For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case."

      Then your liberal friends are morons. CNN is also skewed in its coverage.

      Do you want examples? Are your fingers broken? Any search engine can help you out.

      If you want a biased, but truthful, look at examples of conservative bias in the media, check out http://www.mediamatters.org/ [mediamatters.org]

      Yes, Bill O'Reilly has lambasted Media Matters on his program... which is a pretty good recommendation, for my tastes ;)
      • And in the interest of fairness, here is the group that covers liberal bias in the media:

        http://www.aim.org/ [aim.org]

        Like I said, examine the source of the bias claims. Media Matters claims to cover bias in the media, but ALL they cover is so-called conservative bias. Hmm...wonder why that is.

        Accuracy in Media claims to cover bias in the media, but ALL they cover is so-called liberal bias. Hmm...wonder why that is.

        You can't trust either organization exclusively. You have to trust yourself. It's all partisanship

    • Re:Politics? (Score:3, Informative)

      by XorNand ( 517466 ) *

      For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case. It's just become conventional wisdom for them without question.

      Glad you asked [alternet.org]:

      For each of the three misperceptions [about the war in Iraq], the study found enormous differences between the viewers of Fox, who held the most misperceptions, and NPR/PBS, who held the fewest by far. Eighty percent of Fox viewers were found to hold at least o

      • Re:Politics? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:20PM (#13782832)
        Yes, I've read that before. Here's one, a study by Stanford and UCLA saying Fox News Special Report is the most centrist news program [gmu.edu] on television and Drudge Report of all sites is the most centrist online:


        Two researchers have combined these two disparate ideas to come up with a measure of media bias that doesn't depend on journalists' own perceptions of where they fit on the political spectrum, or on subjective judgments about the philosophical orientation of think tanks. Tim Groseclose, of UCLA and Stanford, and Jeff Milyo of the University of Chicago used data comparing which think tanks various politicians liked to quote and which think tanks various media outlets liked to quote in their news stories to estimate two ADA scores for each media outlet in the study, one based on the number of times a think tank was cited, and the other on the length of the citation.

        The media outlets were The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the three network news shows, Fox News' Special Report and The Drudge Report (the [Yale study is online here]).

        "Our results show a very significant liberal bias," they write. "One of our measures found that The Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News' Special Report is the most centrist." And all three papers, plus NBC and CBS, "were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives." Fair and balanced, anyone? To use a simplified example, they say, suppose there were only two think tanks, and The New York Times cited the liberal one twice as often as the conservative one. Then the newspaper's ADA score would be the same as that of a member of Congress who did the same.

        The estimated ADA score for Fox, based on citations, was 35.6. That puts it in the company of Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and a few points below the House median, 39.0. The two highest were The New York Times, at 67.6, and CBS Evening News, at 70.0. The average Republican in Congress has an ADA score of 11.2, and the average Democrat 74.1.

        The authors say they expected to find that the mainstream media leaned to the left, but they were "astounded by the degree." So when people say, for example, that The New York Times may be tilted left, but people can compensate for that by watching Fox News, they don't take into account that the Times is much further from the center than Fox. "To gain a balanced perspective, one would need to spend twice as much time watching Special Report as he or she spends reading The New York Times."
        • I forgot to add my commentary. I included that study just to illustrate my point that there is always a contradictory study against what might be accepted conventional wisdom. I'm not arguing that Fox News and Drudge Report are the most centrist. But I will say that I'm not politically biased toward either end, and I do read Drudge Report often, and I always see both pro-Bush and negative Bush stories (the site in fact links to other stories and doesn't write its own except for exclusives). So when some
    • My favorite part is the "Republican wisdom" that any news source not Fox, Limbaugh, or Bill Oriely, is "extreme leftist tripe."

    • Re:Politics? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Slothy ( 17409 )
      Here you go:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News [wikipedia.org] (scroll down to "Ownership and management")

    • Re:Politics? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Delphiki ( 646425 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:03PM (#13782692)
      Heck, one could make the case that Slashdot is extremely biased and inaccurate every day.

      One could also make cases for the following:

      • 1 + 1 = 2
      • The sky is blue.
      • Bill Gates is rich.
    • For the record, all my liberal friends tell me constantly that Fox News is oh-so-biased and CNN is oh-so-great, without EVER citing a single example for either case.

      Here's an example: FoxNews posted an editorial about Microsoft products, written by a Microsoft advocate and employee. They did not disclose the author's conflict of interest.

      CNN, in comparison, did NOT post the FUDitorial. This doesn't make them flawless, but in this case they're at least better than Fox.

  • Use openoffice 2 beta, and under save as choose ".doc" its funny how oftenly stupid government is about such things.
    • Way to completely miss the point, Sparky. Mass. doesn't care what software you use. They only care about the file format. You are free to use any program you want as long is can read and write Open Document Format. The Open Document Format is not locked to OOo. Anyone can implement Open Document Format for free. It is a cross-platform, software agnostic format. Unlike .DOC, which is controlled by Microsoft and is frequently broken between version of their Office suite, ODF is not under any single soft

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by zwilliams07 ( 840650 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:49AM (#13782579)
    Today during a recent survey funded by Micro$oft. Playstation 3 will give you brain tumors, and Nintendo Revolution gives you Cancer.

  • What teh..!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:51AM (#13782599) Homepage Journal
    "FUD"?
    "Microsoft has a long and well-documented history of not supporting standards."?
    "embrace and extend practice"?

    O.O OH boy, those ARE slashdotters' comments!
    Guys, we're on FOXnews! :D
  • ...FoxNews is reporting both sides of the story. It really does not matter why they would voice one opinion and then change it at a later date. All that really matters is that both views were reported. :)
  • oh wait... I do know. Because you have drunk the liberal MSM anti-FoxNews kool-aid and are busily jerking your knees in response to anything labeled "Fox News".

    "from the strangest-thing-you'll-see-lately dept."?? Could you be any more self-importantly snide?

    When is the last time you saw CNN, the New York Times, or CBS news print this many well-articulated reader responses to an article? Then own up to the author's bias and assert they made a mistake by not making it apparent?

    Let me think, now. Ummmm..
    • Well, we're surprised because this is a departure from FoxNews's typical behavior, independent of other networks.

      Other networks with an online presence (& also print media) also do this. The difference is, they normally don't have errors so egregious that it requires such a big response.

      The NYTimes does this in its opinion page. Recantments and corrections are also included in paper.

      "When is the last time you saw CNN, the New York Times, or CBS news print this many well-articulated reader respon
    • > When is the last time you saw CNN,

      Yea, they fessed up instantly that Tailwind was a work of fiction and fired the commie bastard responsible for the lie. Oh wait, they didn't. But surely they fired the idiot exec who asserted as a fact that US forces target journalists. Wait, they didn't exactly do that either.

      > the New York Times,

      Well after four tries over a month or so they finally got a semi-complete correction into print about Paul Krugman's 'creative use of fact' regarding the Florida recounts. But seriously, considering how many times they have been caught lying, distorting, confusing the news and editorial sections and outright printing fiction as news (Jayson Blair ring a bell anymore?) the real question is why their circulation is still over a thousand copies a day.

      > or CBS news

      Yup, they fired Mapes and Rather the second their treason was uncloaked. Oh, wait they are STILL trying to hide behind the "factually false but we still stand behind the gist of the story' excuse.

      > print this many well-articulated reader responses to an article?

      Exactly. The got skunked by a Microsoft shill, got called on it by thousands and did the right thing. They put the retraction in basically the same spot on their homepage as the original, picked very good responses to print instead of the raving lunatics and denounced the original author along with stating for the record they should have at least did the background research to spot the PR flack and include that fact in the original story. In short I suspect it will be a while before they fall for this one again.

  • Fair and balanced (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ruie ( 30480 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:53AM (#13782611) Homepage
    Foxnews did fess up, but I don't think this was enough.

    If someone runs an article with a title "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" (which is a rather one-sided title) then I feel the correcting article should have a title like "Everyone should drop Microsoft"

    • Right, because the best way to recover credibility from one ignorant, biased editorial is to follow it up with another.

      No wonder Slashdot enjoys so much popularity.
    • Yes, but "Massachusetts Should Close Down Open Document" is a lot more clever than "Everyone should drop Microsoft." Maybe it should be "Everyone should whack Microsoft with a big hard stick" or something like that.

  • Not a front page story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Red Flayer ( 890720 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:54AM (#13782624) Journal
    Great for FoxNews to do this. But, this is not a front page story -- this is a story that has a link from the front page, which has the equivalent of a selective Table of Contents.

    I love the editor's note down at the bottom of the column -- they bury their corrections as well as print papers do :). They don't even call it a correction.

    Also, in mentioning the founders of ATL, they don't mention that Citizens Against Government Waste is not a citizens' group -- it is an industry-funded group.

  • Fox news is like a slashdot poll.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by MrByte420 ( 554317 ) * on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:58AM (#13782647) Journal
    If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.

  • HowTo Letter an Editor (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:58AM (#13782652) Homepage Journal
    The message FoxNews reprinted, from "Bob Halloran of Jacksonville, Fla", in their article, is a perfect example of how Slashdotters should reply to bad articles ourselves. It's strongly worded, but not hostile. Every sentence contains a fact or direct logical point. The counterexamples aren't sweeping worldview declarations, but clear alternatives that speak for themselves. The points are easily quotable by the editor in a followup article. It's brief.

    In short, Halloran's message makes it easy for the editor, and a followup reporter, to change their story. It doesn't require FoxNews to change anything else, or admit anything else (like the unprofessional journalism that saw the original astroturf article published). We rant among ourselves here on Slashdot, but when we mix it up with the normals, we must abide by their weasel ways. Because that's what works - for Halloran, for the many FoxNews consumers he's reached, and for us, who he represents (if mildly, and not all of us ;).

  • Not Fox's Fault (Score:4, Informative)

    by merky1 ( 83978 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:02PM (#13782682) Journal
    I emailed them mentioning that the original article was an opinion piece, and really didn't seem to follow the we report, you decide motto.

    They actually emailed a non-automated response, and mentioned that the article was in the Views section, which indicated it was like reading an opinion column in the newspaper.

    While I'll let Fox slide on that, they really do not do a good job of indicating that the article is an opinion, or that you are in the views section, unless you look at the banner add looking header of the page. I was thinking of emailing them back and mentioning a site design update to further differentiate opinion articles of this type from the usual news propoganda.

  • Nice job (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lunartik ( 94926 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:04PM (#13782697) Homepage Journal
    This was a perfect example of a correction and editing. They not only owned up to the mistake, they also included an avalanche of opposing opinion. They noted that the author's connections were not properly identified and have appended a correction to the earlier version of the story.

    This is a reader-friendly, no-bones-about-it correction, and the New York Times [nytimes.com] could actually take a lesson from Fox News on this one.

    Of course, the best thing would have been to get it right in the first place.

    • Re:Nice job, but yer playin' with fire! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Absentminded-Artist ( 560582 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:41PM (#13783041) Homepage
      Be careful. You just said something positive about FoxNews. Groupthink around here is that FoxNews is in bed with Satan. Waitaminute, groupthink around here holds religion to be bad, too.

      At any rate, to go and point out that FoxNews corrected the actual news article in question and took full responsibility while also posting dissenting views flies in the face of all the posts above yours. Never mess with groupthink, man. Groupthink still holds to the belief that conservatives believe Sadam Hussein bombed the WTC. You go and confront groupthink with actual facts and you'll get it all grumpy and everything...

      • Pot, meet Kettle (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Tony ( 765 )
        Never mess with groupthink, man. Groupthink still holds to the belief that conservatives believe Sadam Hussein bombed the WTC. You go and confront groupthink with actual facts and you'll get it all grumpy and everything...

        Facts [usatoday.com] are funny [harrisinteractive.com] things.

        It may not be the majority anymore, but it's still almost half of Americans (could that be the *conservative* half?), and considering that George W. Bush himself promoted the idea that Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks, it's no wonder the rest of the country consid

  • Headline? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by oGMo ( 379 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:05PM (#13782704)

    I'm probably misreading the headline, but it seems to imply Microsoft is somehow doing something here. Spinning the OpenDocument using FOX, for instance. The article doesn't seem to have anything to do with that; even the text of the slashdot summary. Am I grossly misreading something, or what?

    • Re:Headline? (Score:5, Informative)

      by VidEdit ( 703021 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:16PM (#13782802)
      Hmmm...did Microsoft manipulate the news by funding the "think tank" that James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership speaks for?

      Yes.

      That is the whole point of the organization. To add the false imprimatur of impartiality to Microsoft's propaganda.

  • Conservative != Pro-Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:07PM (#13782717) Journal
    There seems to be this assumption that if you're a conservative, than you're in bed with MS and hostile to Linux, Open Source, yada yada.

    This is, plainly spoken, bullshit.

    Go to a place like FreeRepublic, and you'll find a good deal of Linux advocacy and Microsoft distrust.

    The most prominent popular culture conservatives don't run Windows, nor are Microsoft cheerleaders. Rush Limbaugh and Tom Clancy are OSX users, and Clancy is a longtime critic of MS software.

    • The source of the confusion is Neo-Cons referring to themselves as "Conservatives", which they're anything but.
    • There seems to be this assumption that if you're a conservative, than you're in bed with MS and hostile to Linux, Open Source, yada yada.

      It's probably part of the misconception that there is only one kind of Conservative. The news story in question will cause rankles between at least two sub-species of Conservatives: Idealogues and Corporate Whores.

      Idealogues favor a free-market capitalistic approach in which a minimal government acquires its services from the free market at minimal cost. Being locked int
  • FoxNews is clearly scared that all their usual "anonymous sources" are getting indicted [google.com]. They need to recruit new sources from the public, and not hew so closely to their favorite monopolists' propaganda.

  • 1 Equals Many (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:20PM (#13782828) Homepage Journal
    Closed Source advocates rightly fear the direction Mass. is taking. A multiplier effect [wikipedia.org] will come into play with the adoption of Open Standards.

    Government employees will be exposed to Open Standards formats and likely Open Source software. This will have a spinoff effect in the buying decisions of some govt employees.

    Likely, govt contractors, seeking uniformity with their potential employers, will adopt Open Standards in submission of their bids. Again, this will have a multiplier like effect in terms of employess and business associates.

    Closed Source advocates are fighting to keep the stopper in genie's bottle.If she gets out the outcome is more likely to be a closed source nightmare.

    In Canada there is, if IIRC, a principle of government that requires govt agencies to use the most widely available, least expensive format for it's citizens to interact with govt. There may even be some case law on this. Is it possible legal action could be launched in a effort to force govts to adopt the most open, least expensive venue?

  • I'm shocked! That never happens with Fox News! Absolutely Never!
  • People pay to subscribe to this shit at slashdot and to watch Bill Gates spin about making College Appearances....

  • This was not an article (Score:4, Insightful)

    by isa-kuruption ( 317695 ) <kuruption AT kuruption DOT net> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:33PM (#13782950) Homepage
    The original piece was not an article, it was not written as a piece of news, but a piece of commentary by a columnist... as specified by the 'Views' header on the top of the page. If you need to understand the differences between a Columnist [wikipedia.org] and a Reporter [wikipedia.org], click these links. In any case, the liberal fodder against Fox News is once again ablaze with insufficient facts and ignorant assholes. Note: Yes, this is flame, grade it as such. Thank you.

  • More junk food for the brain than news (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Y-Crate ( 540566 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @12:39PM (#13783004)
    Link [wikipedia.org]

    A study by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, in the Winter 2003-2004 issue of Political Science Quarterly, reported that viewers of the Fox Network local affiliates or Fox News were more likely than viewers of other news networks to hold three views which the authors labeled as misperceptions.

    67% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al Qaeda terrorist organization" (Compared with 56% for CBS, 49% for NBC, 48% for CNN, 45% for ABC, 16% for both NPR and PBS). However, the belief that "Iraq was directly involved in September 11" was held by 33% of CBS viewers and only 24% of FOX viewers.

    33% of FOX viewers believed that the "US has found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction" "since the war ended". (Compared with 23% for CBS, 20% for both CNN and NBC, 19% for ABC and 11% for both NPR and PBS)

    35% of FOX viewers believed that "the majority of people [in the world] favour the US having gone to war" with Iraq. (Compared with 28% for CBS, 27% for ABC, 24% for CNN, 20% for NBC, 5% for both NPR and PBS)

    Fox viewers were unique in that those who paid greater attention to news were moderately more likely to have these misperceptions than those who paid less or no attention to news.

    ----------

    I had to cut out some of the stats because of the lameness filter

    Further proof that there is a direct correlation between the amount of FOX 'News' programming you watch and your level of ignorance. FOX News succeeds in the ratings because it tells people what they want to hear, it does not challenge the mindset of its viewers with facts or differing opinions. It merely presents a proverbial warm cozy blanket of facts blended seamlessly with opinion and outright fabrication.

    CNN, CBS, ABC, et al are often accused of downplaying or not reporting stories because they are deathly afraid of losing access to the sources of information that they rely on. In recent years they have moved to emulate their 300lb gorilla competitor by simply swallowing the information they receive from the government and playing along with whatever policy directive has come down from the White House. The remarkable lack of investigative spirit and widespread complacency during the run up to the Iraq War was simply amazing - and utterly gutting - to witness.

    None of them, however, have adopted the perfected formula devoid of credibility and objectivity that FOX News has. They are merely wannabes, as FOX has seemingly nailed it down to a science all its own.

  • While I Like Fox News... (Score:3)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @01:17PM (#13783365)
    While I like Fox News, and as another poster has already pointed out so well, they are centrist, and not right-biased (except when measured against much of the rest of the mainstream media), the Microsoft affiliation of the opinion columnist should have been pointed out at the top of the article -- not the bottom.

  • A report from within the media (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mhollis ( 727905 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @05:30PM (#13786070) Journal

    I work for a national news service that "competes" with Fox. There is an understanding that if you work for Murdoch, you have sold out any attempt at integrity for cash. Fox does not deliver news, they deliver opinion (and I'm risking flames here). Their standards are set so low and their "spinners" are part of the report that one cannot truly expect that their material is free enough of bias to allow the viewer or reader to come to any meaningful conclusion.

    Fox reports on the national events just like everyone and that is why they are insidious. You'll see coverage of Katrina, of the horrible earthquake in Pakistan and India. You'll see sports scores and weather on the local Fox channels. But the spin cycle is fully on for political coverage and for coverage of big business. At Fox, big corporations can do no wrong and if they make a claim to a Fox reporter, those claims (and all the spin inherent in those claims) are never fact-checked. They're reported as if they were truth. Up until the very end, Fox did no reporting that questioned the accountability of the Enron chiefs, while ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS (yeah, those Commies) reported questionable bookkeeping and deals that were pretty nigh illegal on the surface on their books. Enron was sued by the State of California for artificially raising energy prices to "create a crisis." Fox did not report on those suits. Everyone else did.

    Instead, Fox began an attack on then-Governor Gray Davis and how he was incorrectly handling an energy crisis that was probably not of his own making. I believe the Fox television network (at least) was partially responsible for the recall election and the subsequent replacement of Gray Davis with Arnold Schwarzenegger. If the court cases finally decide that this was all Enron's making, I'd have to say that this kind of manipulation is pretty insidious.

    Of course, when Enron declared bankruptcy and was called to question, Fox joined the bandwagon and launched "investigative reports." But even now, they hold Kenneth Lay blameless. Why? Because Fox is the "pro-Bush network" and any friend of the Bush family is a friend of Murdoch and his network.

    I have read extensively the history of our country, which started off on the premise that the Press should be free. I have read diatribes against our founding fathers, aspersions to the characters of George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Monroe, Mrs. Adams and her "pet President John," and so on. I defend Murdoch's right to broadcast and print opinion. He has a right to do so and he has created a media empire for that purpose.

    But understand that what he does with his empire is not necessarily tell you the truth. Almost everything of consequence is spun. And what I find unfortunate is that the other networks and news outlets think that they have to "chase Fox" and be more like them. Which means, increasingly, almost all of the news you receive has bias and spin. Don't believe everything you read in the papers and don't believe most of what you see on television.

    This is a report from inside a media giant.

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