[JohnInIndy]

I think the people who are that stupid are the ones which make up their core audience, not their critics.

Jason

You prove my point again.

[GeneV]

You are right, but that also applies just about any "news" source, as well.

I'd say some more than others. No one is perfect and no one is perfectly unbiased, but that does not mean there aren't real differences.

Beck does not acknowledge what he is doing, and has said on his show that his purpose is to provide knowledge, because knowledge is power and has likened his show to teaching slaves to read.

[Parallax]

I'd say some more than others. ...........

Clearly. I wasn't defending Beck at all. I was just making a point that the primary intent of ANY news organization is to make money, not report news. They make money through ratings/viewership and will present the story in whatever manner they find will give them the most viewers and highest ratings. If the story does happen to incorporate a few actual facts, it is at best just a bonus, and in some cases an unintended or unavoidable consequence.

[jeffkrol]

AND speaking of Faux..........
http://www.alternet.org/media/149879/%22we_were_a_stalin-esque_mouthpiece_fo...x_news_insider

It’s worth noting that Fox News employees, either current or former, rarely speak to the press, even anonymously. And it’s even rarer for Fox News sources to bad mouth Murdoch’s channel. That’s partly because of strict non-disclosure agreements that most exiting employees sign and which forbid them from discussing their former employer. But it also stems from a pervasive us-vs.-them attitude that permeates Fox News. It’s a siege mentality that network boss Roger Ailes encourages, and one that colors the coverage his team produces.

“It was a kick ass mentality too,” says the former Fox News insider. “It was relentless and it never went away. If one controversy faded, goddamn it they would find another one. They were in search of these points of friction real or imagined. And most of them were imagined or fabricated. You always have to seem to be under siege. You always have to seem like your values are under attack. The brain trust just knew instinctively which stories to do, like the War on Christmas.”

According to the insider, Ailes is obsessed with presenting a unified Fox News front to the outside world; an obsession that may explain Ailes’ refusal to publically criticize or even critique his own team regardless of how outlandish their on-air behavior. “There may be internal squabbles. But what [Ailes] continually preaches is never piss outside the tent,” says the source. “When he gets really crazy is when stuff leaks out the door. He goes mental on that. He can’t stand that. He says in a dynamic enterprise like a network newsroom there’s going to be in fighting and ego, but he says keep it in the house.”

It’s clear that Fox News has become a misleading, partisan outlet. But here’s what the source stresses: Fox News is designed to mislead its viewers and designed to engage in a purely political enterprise.

In 2010, all sorts of evidence tumbled out to confirm that fact, like the recently leaked emails from inside Fox News, in which a top editor instructed his newsroom staffers (not just the opinion show hosts) to slant the news when reporting on key stories such as climate change and health care reform.

---

Last edited by jeffkrol; 02-11-2011 at 07:27 AM.

[jeffkrol]

Ironic:

It was the day after Christmas. I went in for just regular surgery and I went into a place that’s not even — I mean, this used to be a two- or three-day hospital stay but because better living through pharmaceuticals, I’m sorry, better living through HMOs, we no longer put people in the hospital for this. Nothing has changed. We just don’t pay for it anymore. So congratulations on that. You get to go home right after the surgery.

Hospitals Gone Bad – Glenn Beck

[GeneV]

Ironic:

Hospitals Gone Bad – Glenn Beck

He is also wrong and his article is full of medical misinformation. His surgery was minor. According to other sources, he had some 'roids removed (I don't mean steroids). I remember family members having that done back in the early 70s as day surgery with a local. Unless he had some very serious issues in his lower parts, it would not have been a 3 day hospital stay even before HMOs. Also, Fentanyl is not, as Beck states in his rant, an "end of life" drug. I received it after my craniotomy (surgery around the brain) last month. It is a short-term pain-killer given fairly routinely through the IV line for immediate relief of surgical pain, sometimes because other things take longer to kick in. A shot of Fentanyl seemed to have fewer side effects than oxycodone and a nicer buzz, I might add. Even without a medical degree, it is clear to me that Beck has no qualms about stating nonsense as fact.

If he did wake up during surgery, I would agree that is a problem, and my heartfelt sympathies that his surgery did not go well. It is scary. I also agree and sympathize that the ER is a nightmare for a number of reasons, and that going to the hospital sometimes does not lift your spirits; however, as to his fears about breathing my experience was they tend to use oxygen liberally in the ER, but I'm sure hospitals vary. Nothing about his description of the unsympathetic attitude of the nurses and doctors at his hospital rang true to me, and this is fresh on my mind. But then I tend to understate my maladies, and perhaps Mr. Beck has other tendencies.

A hospital is a scary place where lots can, but usually doesn't, go wrong. In the end (pardon the pun), I don't understand how anything he preaches will help this.

[jeffkrol]

In the end (pardon the pun), I don't understand how anything he preaches will help this.

That was the irony in part........

[GeneV]

That was the irony in part........

Things are somehow not a problem until they happen to Mr. Beck. Now, I suspect they are no longer a problem. The other irony is that, if he wanted to schedule a stay in the hospital for 3-5 days for this surgery rather than do it as day surgery, it probably would have cost him the equivalent of a day's pay.

I don't wish a hospital mishap on anyone, and hope that I will not be in a position to experience one. It is easy to get anxious in the hospital. I do wonder if Mr. Beck's drama gets the better of him. I can possibly imagine a harried ER nurse or doctor who has been dealing with life or death for a very long shift being a little skeptical of a man who fears dying from his hemorrhoids.

[Parallax]

..............I can possibly imagine a harried ER nurse or doctor who has been dealing with life or death for a very long shift being a little skeptical of a man who fears dying from his hemorrhoids.

For some it could be a valid concern. In some people, such as Mr. Beck, brain tumors can easily be mistaken for hemorrhoids.

[GeneV]

For some it could be a valid concern. In some people, such as Mr. Beck, brain tumors can easily be mistaken for hemorrhoids.

Point taken. Further discussion moved to health care thread.

[shooz]

With Beck? it never ends.

The co-founder of an anti-extremism think tank funded by the British government -- who has testified before Congress -- may be lying about renouncing radical Islam.

You shouldn't do Google searches, because Google is "pretty deeply in bed with the government," as evidenced by the fact that a former State Department employee who's now a Google executive helped found a nonprofit group that supports grassroots activists around the world.

MTV is "involved with this," because it sponsors that nonprofit group, the Alliance for Youth Movements, or Movements.org. Beck also listed "CBS, MSNBC, Facebook, YouTube, National Geographic, Columbia University Law School."

Perhaps most unbelievable: The State Department under the Bush administration was "in bed" with the "radical Islamists, communists, and socialists" who are working together against Israel and capitalism, and to overthrow stability. Why? Because the State Department under Bush helped start the Alliance for Youth Movements.

That was part of his Egypt theory.