Bernd Debusman has written an op ed piece titled “The lucrative business of Obama bashing” that is worth a quick read. He takes on the recent Obama vs. Fox News story and tries to dissect the reason for the feud. You should read the whole story, but this quote is what got under my skin:
“The White House war on Fox,” he wrote on the website The Daily Beast, “shows its ignorance of the network’s true purpose: show business. And Team Obama is giving Murdoch just what he wants.
I know and love and respect people that won’t watch anything besides Fox News and I know and love and respect people who wouldn’t watch Fox News if you gave them a million dollars. If Batchelor is correct, what does that say about us as a country? It pains me to think he is right. (Although it shouldn’t surprise us since we are the same nation that is enthralled with the divorce of Jon and Kate plus 8 and we are dutifully watching, for entertainment, 8 lives being ruined in the privacy of our own homes).
As I see this, there are basically two options here:
1 – The Fox News team (on the right) and MSNBC (on the left) is purposely causing discord in this country for the sake of money.
The thought of this astounds me. I don’t know why it does, history has shown us that the depravity of man is not below doing anything, to anyone, at anytime. But seriously this is disturbing. The USA is basically in the middle of a divorce. Red vs. Blue. All that is left is to decide is who gets the house and what weekend we want the kids. And Fox News and MSNBC are showing up every day to our divorce proceedings with reminders of why we hate each other, urging the divorce to become more bitter and drawn out longer.
OR
2 – Both sides emphatically believe that the future of our country is at stake and nothing can be held back from this fight.
The people that I know on both sides of this debate are emotionally involved in this debate. It is filled with civil comments, but there is this deep desire to scream at the others “How can you be so ignorant?”, “We raised you better than this” or “If you had/hadn’t gone to (enter college here) you would understand”. Some believe that the very future of our country is at stake which is causing fear which is causing us to act irrationally.
Both options are messy and will not be able to be cleaned up easily.
I personally think that this is a direct result of our loss of community. I bet half the comments posted on blogs, Twitter and news websites would be much more thought out and civil if it had to be said face to face. Why? Because we are cowards. We like to throw jabs and run away. This is no way to live. If you want to throw a punch great, but stand there and be ready to get punched back…or maybe you won’t throw the punch in the first place.
I know that Fox News is for profit, just like CNN, NBC, ABC and all the other networks. They are all want your dollars more than they want what is good for you and shame on us, not them, for thinking otherwise.
One of my favorite quotes is very appropriate right now:
“The reason God gave you two ears and one mouth is so that you would listen twice as much as you talk”
It is time to start listening and stop talking.
Amen! I am so sick of being labeled because of 30 second soundbites.
Of course the networks are in it for profit. How else can you broadcast 24/7? I do think that all of the networks are good at presenting the facts on their straight news shows and then they provide commentary and a bit of spin based on their overriding politics (left or right). I see no harm in this as it helps people relate to the news better and associate it with their own lives and beliefs.
I watch a lot of Fox News but I also watch some CNN and get a lot of info from the web. Fox speaks to me and many of my beliefs. It’s for that reason that their programming is the way that it is. It is relate-able to many, many Americans.