I watch Fox News on occasion. I do not discriminate; in spite of the fact I think it can be a network full of hacks. I know; I know, but it’s not because it’s a network running political positions contrary to my own. For example, I love and greatly admire George Will, much more so than I like James Carville. My voting record probably falls more in line with Carville’s, but that doesn’t mean I think he states his arguments better than does Will.
My point in that preface is I have never been quite as disgusted as I was this weekend, flipping between stations yesterday. I couldn’t be more serious, I flipped through a Geraldo forthcoming things on his show, and was interested enough to stay on Fox News. In so doing, the lead story was a super-model’s apparent suicide from jumping off a building, where Geraldo’s show had “exclusive footage.” What?! Exclusive footage of someone’s suicide, I turned away immediately; however, there was to be something else that kept me flipping through the station to see if the coverage of that story had concluded. Three times flipping, I saw the profile of the model’s face, lying supine, on the street from the other side of a truck, shot underneath the fire engine’s body.
I could incessantly write about this, but for now I’ll conclude. To write more just leaves me again seeing the image, and thinking about what a relative or loved one would do when faced with something so horrible and tabloid. How anyone can take this channel seriously, makes me wonder so much about our culture.
RAGBRAI 2022
1 year ago
1 comment:
Words can't express my hatred for Fox, but at the same time, I keep watching it!
For me, it all comes down to Sean Hannity. I believe that his presence on the air single-handedly destroys any and all credibility Fox might otherwise have (but I would still hate the Fox N' Friends trio - maybe more).
You rightly point out, Matt, that George Will is a principled voice. He has consistently denounced federal spending during the Bush Years. Additionally, I saw Pat Buchanan on Hardball last night, and even a loyalist like him opposed Iraq (from the beginning) because it betrayed his conservative foreign policy principles.
Meanwhile, party hacks like Hannity use whatever shameless tactics they can (fear mongering, questioning patriotism, exploiting the troops as shields for a political policy, using playground phrases like "cut and run", etc.) to tow the party line and distort the opposition's arguments.
His smug, self-righteousness is actually frightening. Does he really believe it or is he a master provocateur, like Ann Coulter (who I also hate)?
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