It can be granted that getting the news in today’s society is somewhat more mind boggling than back in the day. So here are some guidelines for getting your daily dose of what’s happening in the world:
Step 1: chose from the wide variety of media sources – Print? Television? Radio? Internet?
Step 2: decide what media organisation you would like to pay attention to – Fox News? CNN? NBC perhaps?
Step 3: decipher the actual content from the various ways that the news is presented and the ways in which the network could be framing the news, most likely due to the huge media conglomerates who own the channel.
The Media Conglomerate
Media is a crucial element to an informed democracy, in which we should be able to make decisions based on accurate information (What’s Wrong With The News?, Fair, n.d., n.p.). However, today’s media is made up of outlets owned by media conglomerates who are increasingly merging with other organisations, “limiting the spectrum of viewpoints that have access to mass media” and compromising the role of independent journalism (What’s Wrong With The News?, Fair, n.d., n.p.).
One of the biggest media conglomerates in the world is News Corporation (News Corp), which is run by founder and CEO Rupert Murdoch. News Corp owns a phenomenal list of international media ranging from various newspapers such as the Australian, magazines like Donna Hay, publishing companies, MySpace Records label, radio stations, Australia’s NRL, many film studios such as 20th Century Fox, various television channels; free to air and pay tv such as the Fox channels, many internet sites such as MySpace and the list goes on… (News Corporation, 2009, n.p.).
Kaufman writes that that in 1999, “Time Magazine remarked that Rupert Murdoch is the first press baron to be a monster of the entire world”. Kaufman also made the realistic statement of “those who control the news also determine the public discourse” (2004, n.p.). He also points out that there’s really just a couple companies which control most of what we view which is not healthy.
News Corp owns Fox News, a channel which was lunched in 1996 (Kaufman 2004, n.p.) and one which millions rely on for their daily dose of what’s happening in the world. However, there has been quite a lot of controversy over the amount of control that Murdoch and News Corp have on what news is actually presented at Fox News.
Kaufman (2004, n.p.) wrote a very interesting and entertaining article about Fox News which is illustrated with pictures of clowns. Kaufman agrees with many others that Fox News is made up of ‘pseudo journalism’ and says that “relying on the Fox News Channel as your only source of news is like using MAD Magazine as a legitimate source of news” and that it is ‘infotainment’, not reality based news.
Kaufman goes on to say that the views of News Corp and Fox News lye with the American Republican Party, but he also says that they have slightly exaggerated ideas to the mainstream Republicans, and instead follow the “ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party” (2004, n.p.).
Kaufman (2004, n.p.) also says that Fox News is mainly a running commentary on the news. He writes that “cable news is fast-paced and repetitive” and that these 24 hour channels just focus on a set number of stories and repeat them. He also writes that because Fox News is more entertaining than informative, Fox is steadily gaining viewer preference over CNN which could be attributed to the 24 hour availability, more viewers being connected to cable television and also a slightly younger audience.
Check out Kaufman's article at http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/networks/foxnew/foxnews.html
Outfoxed
Outfoxed is a great documentary which really exposes Fox News and how they don’t broadcast journalism but what Rupert Murdoch and News Corp wants to tell and what they don’t want to tell.
Jeff Cohen states in Outfoxed that
"media is the nervous system of a democracy. If it’s not functioning well, the democracy can’t function. We’re heading towards an election where most people are never going to be in a room with Kerry or Bush. What they learn about the candidates is what the media shows them or tells them; decides not to show, not to tell."
The documentary goes on to illustrate that the media and Fox News often broadcast wrong information which gets passed on and repeated over and over until it is very distorted from the real story.
David Brock in the documentary says that
"this is the environment we’re living in and … it’s fundamentally undermining democracy which is based on knowing some good and solid information so I can make an informed choice."
Outfoxed demonstrates that there is a very strong, conservative point of view that Fox News must broadcast, for example one interviewee even mentioned that News Corp didn’t like Fox News to mention racism, aids and the Kennedys. Those working at Fox News are ordered to carry Republican right wing propaganda, not their own news. The interviewees of the documentary go on to talk about the memos which are sent to the Fox News room every morning which state what the reporters can and cannot talk about. They also say that they are unaware of any other organisation which is so extreme in this sense.
Other interviewees in the documentary said that many people at Fox News work in fear because all of their activities are monitored and if they say anything wrong or want to leave the organisation, they face pretty harsh circumstances. However they say that reporters are rewarded for pushing the envelope in demonstrating negativity about the Democrats and positive views about the Republicans.
The Outfoxed documentary also shows some very interesting footage of Fox News, such as multiple examples of the Fox News reporters cutting off anyone who starts talking about anything controversial. The documentary also shows the reporter O’Reilly who runs the segment called ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ and how he says shut up so many times to people who do not support Fox’s conservative point of view. Also the Fox News alert, which was invented for very important news such as the Columbine shootings, is now used for news about celebrities etc. It’s very funny that the Fox News slogan is ‘Fair and Balanced’ when it is really the opposite.
Check out Outfoxed at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428
Jeff Cohen states in Outfoxed that
"media is the nervous system of a democracy. If it’s not functioning well, the democracy can’t function. We’re heading towards an election where most people are never going to be in a room with Kerry or Bush. What they learn about the candidates is what the media shows them or tells them; decides not to show, not to tell."
The documentary goes on to illustrate that the media and Fox News often broadcast wrong information which gets passed on and repeated over and over until it is very distorted from the real story.
David Brock in the documentary says that
"this is the environment we’re living in and … it’s fundamentally undermining democracy which is based on knowing some good and solid information so I can make an informed choice."
Outfoxed demonstrates that there is a very strong, conservative point of view that Fox News must broadcast, for example one interviewee even mentioned that News Corp didn’t like Fox News to mention racism, aids and the Kennedys. Those working at Fox News are ordered to carry Republican right wing propaganda, not their own news. The interviewees of the documentary go on to talk about the memos which are sent to the Fox News room every morning which state what the reporters can and cannot talk about. They also say that they are unaware of any other organisation which is so extreme in this sense.
Other interviewees in the documentary said that many people at Fox News work in fear because all of their activities are monitored and if they say anything wrong or want to leave the organisation, they face pretty harsh circumstances. However they say that reporters are rewarded for pushing the envelope in demonstrating negativity about the Democrats and positive views about the Republicans.
The Outfoxed documentary also shows some very interesting footage of Fox News, such as multiple examples of the Fox News reporters cutting off anyone who starts talking about anything controversial. The documentary also shows the reporter O’Reilly who runs the segment called ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ and how he says shut up so many times to people who do not support Fox’s conservative point of view. Also the Fox News alert, which was invented for very important news such as the Columbine shootings, is now used for news about celebrities etc. It’s very funny that the Fox News slogan is ‘Fair and Balanced’ when it is really the opposite.
Check out Outfoxed at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6737097743434902428
The Comparison
It is interesting to look at how Fox News is presented in contrast to other channels, as well as the quality of their news. In order to explore this idea, this blog will focus on the controversial news stories of Nadya Suleman, the woman who was labeled ‘octomom’ by the media because she gave birth to octuplets in January 2009 and already had six other children; all children conceived via in-vitro fertilization. I chose this story because it was heavily broadcasted on many different news channels.
Comparing Fox News with another American news network proved somewhat difficult because America’s two other largest news channels are CNN and NBC. Like Fox News, CNN is also owned by a huge media conglomerate, Time Warner. The same story goes with NBC news which is owned by the giant corporation, General Electric. Fox News, CNN and NBC news each had very similar stories and presentations when it came to broadcasts about Nadya Suleman.
Therefore I wanted to compare Fox News to a slightly smaller news source, CBS News. CBS was once merged with the media conglomerate Viacom however the two companies split in 2006 (CBS, Viacom Formally Split, CBS News, 2006, n.p.). Although the organisation CBS has many media outlets, these media outlets are a network of related television and radio stations, as well as some publishing companies (CJR's guide to what the major media companies own, Columbia Journalism Review, 2008, n.p.). Therefore CBS is not really an organisation which has many different, unrelated assets like News Corp, making these two organisations quite different.
I chose to use the Fox News and the CBS News websites in order to view past video broadcasts about Nadya Suleman and compare them. In this comparison I will start by looking at what videos were available on the websites.
On Fox News, the video broadcasts about Nadya Suleman or octomom available were:
• What Rosie O’Donnell thinks about octomom
• What author Ann Coulter thinks about octomom
• Nanny agencies offering to help octomom
• Octomom’s filmed argument with her mother broadcasted online
• Octomom’s 911 “I’m going to kill myself” call
• Octomom could lose her babies to the hospital’s custody
• A psychologist and a therapist’s opinions about the situation
• Life and Style magazine editor’s opinion about the situation
• Whether or not octomom gave her son a black eye
CBS News on the other hand, had some similar stories yet some quite different ones:
• Legislation to regulate fertility clinics
• Octomom’s 911 call
• Exclusive interviews with Nadya Suleman’s mother, Angela Suleman
• Fired nanny speaking out
• The Suleman home facing foreclosure
In comparing these two media outlets, looking at what sort of video broadcasts about Nadya Suleman were available on the websites, it came across as though Fox News definitely had a particular point of view; that Nadya Suleman did the wrong thing. Also much of Fox News seems to be based on different opinions of people who tend to feel the same way, for example I could not find any stories which blamed the government’s legislation regarding fertility clinic policies. This starts to prove that Fox News is bias.
CBS on the other hand appeared more unbiased; they had the story about the fertility clinic legislation, as well as the exclusive interviews with Angela Suleman about several different topics. These interviews were also unbiased as they covered Nadya’s mistakes, but Angela also spoke of the fact that Nadya is a wonderful mother.
Next I want to compare the quality of news that these channels broadcast news and one of the things that was most obvious to me was the fact that Fox News seems to have poorer quality sources of information than CBS News. For example, with news about Nadya Suleman, although Fox had some interviews with topic related people such as a psychologist and the therapist, most of their interviews (which can appear more like gossip chats) were, in my opinion, with non credible sources such as Rosie O’Donnell, an author, and the editor of a style magazine. Although it’s a controversial topic which does cause a lot of debate, it seems as though Fox’s coverage of octomom mainly consists of gossip/opinion sessions rather than actual news. CBS on the other hand seemed to have more newsworthy stories such as the interviews with Angela Suleman and the news about fertility clinic legislation.
Kauffman (2004, n.p.) writes that
“Fox News uses the ‘talking head’ format for 83% of its evening broadcasts. The network can choose its own ‘experts’ to comment on the news. Usually, these experts hold an opinion in line with the network's pro-Republican Party bias. Though ‘liberal’ or Democratic Party representatives may also appear as talking heads, they are always outnumbered by speakers holding the Fox News viewpoint. The majority of experts or interviewees on the Fox News Channel are in line with the network's views”.
Kauffman also makes the entertaining statement that a “Fox News Channel regular is mentally unstable columnist Ann Coulter… [who’s] appearances on the Fox News Channel are great theater, but devoid of reality” (2004, n.p.).
I also found it interesting that Fox News had quite a lot of borrowed footage. For example, one of their broadcasts was about NBC’s interview with Nadya Suleman. Fox’s segment was named ‘Fox and Friends’ because the broadcast was about their friend NBC’s footage. Fox’s broadcast of octomom fighting with her mother Angela was also not their own footage but taken from radar.com, where all of the news channels got it from.
Fox’s video broadcasts about octomom were mainly Fox reporters talking to others about the issue, but not those involved in the situation. While CBS and Fox both had interviews with the nannies of the octomom, CBS news on the other hand had the exclusive interviews with Angela Suleman and everything was their own footage.
That brings me to another factor about the quality of Fox News, most of the interviews on the channel are via live video and there are very little real face to face interviews, unlike CBS which has many face to face interviews as mentioned above. For example when Fox interview the Angels in Waiting nanny service spokesperson she is there via live satellite, in an interview where she is offering the octomom help. However when CBS interview the same women and another nanny, they are there in the studio in person, this time talking about how Nadya Suleman no longer wanted the nannies.
Kaufman (2004, n.p.) writes that the Fox News channel has become so popular because it’s entertaining. The channel is “colorful, positive and engaging with good-looking anchors and an up-beat style… [using] flashy graphics and triumphant music to punctuate its programs”.
I found this to be true when studying Fox’s presentation. All broadcasts involve a spinning Fox News logo in the corner of the screen, a music introduction for each segment, a flashy segment name and the title of the broadcast in a banner across the bottom of the screen in which the text often changes and constantly glistens to remind you of what you’re watching. Not to mention the bright changing backgrounds behind the news images.
Kauffman (2004, n.p.) also points out the interesting fact that
“the Fox News channel uses patriotism to sell its newscasts. With a digitized American flag constantly flying in the upper left corner of the screen, Fox News always places the United States in the positive light. The network's intention is to make the viewer feel patriotic for watching the network. The Fox News TV screen is filled with red, white and blue in both the text and backdrops”.
CBS on the other hand has more classy features in my opinion. CBS does use the broadcast title banner but it is not as annoying as the Fox News banner. Also a lot of Fox News reporters are featured in front of news room tv screens and flash to various news photos etc but in CBS news, most of their broadcasts start with a lot of good quality video footage, often with a reporter at the scene and their voice behind the footage. It’s fair to say that CBS get much more time to prepare these sort of things as they are not a 24 hour network like Fox News, however CBS definitely appears as a much higher quality news channel because of it.
Kauffman (2004, n.p.) also writes that Fox use some interesting methods to mutate the news, such as leaving out important facts, repeating certain words or names to really emphasise their angle on the issue, using the most unflattering images and also warping statistics so things sound different. For example when Fox reported how many U.S. soldiers had died in Iraq they did not compare the number with anything else like how many soldiers were there, creating unrealistic data.
Also, just to let know you, while studying these video broadcasts on these news channel websites, I also had Fox News on the tv and every so often I would look to see what they were broadcasting and yet again there were the colourful, flashy different segments with some strange photos shown here and there. There was often several reporters laughing together at a panel and one time I looked at the tv and the Fox News team were looking at different pieces of fashion, very important indeed.
Check out Fox News videos at http://www.foxnews.com/video/ and search for octomom
Check out CBS News videos at
Comparing Fox News with another American news network proved somewhat difficult because America’s two other largest news channels are CNN and NBC. Like Fox News, CNN is also owned by a huge media conglomerate, Time Warner. The same story goes with NBC news which is owned by the giant corporation, General Electric. Fox News, CNN and NBC news each had very similar stories and presentations when it came to broadcasts about Nadya Suleman.
Therefore I wanted to compare Fox News to a slightly smaller news source, CBS News. CBS was once merged with the media conglomerate Viacom however the two companies split in 2006 (CBS, Viacom Formally Split, CBS News, 2006, n.p.). Although the organisation CBS has many media outlets, these media outlets are a network of related television and radio stations, as well as some publishing companies (CJR's guide to what the major media companies own, Columbia Journalism Review, 2008, n.p.). Therefore CBS is not really an organisation which has many different, unrelated assets like News Corp, making these two organisations quite different.
I chose to use the Fox News and the CBS News websites in order to view past video broadcasts about Nadya Suleman and compare them. In this comparison I will start by looking at what videos were available on the websites.
On Fox News, the video broadcasts about Nadya Suleman or octomom available were:
• What Rosie O’Donnell thinks about octomom
• What author Ann Coulter thinks about octomom
• Nanny agencies offering to help octomom
• Octomom’s filmed argument with her mother broadcasted online
• Octomom’s 911 “I’m going to kill myself” call
• Octomom could lose her babies to the hospital’s custody
• A psychologist and a therapist’s opinions about the situation
• Life and Style magazine editor’s opinion about the situation
• Whether or not octomom gave her son a black eye
(Top Videos, Fox News, 2009, n.p.)
CBS News on the other hand, had some similar stories yet some quite different ones:
• Legislation to regulate fertility clinics
• Octomom’s 911 call
• Exclusive interviews with Nadya Suleman’s mother, Angela Suleman
• Fired nanny speaking out
• The Suleman home facing foreclosure
(Video, CBS News, 2009, n.p.)
In comparing these two media outlets, looking at what sort of video broadcasts about Nadya Suleman were available on the websites, it came across as though Fox News definitely had a particular point of view; that Nadya Suleman did the wrong thing. Also much of Fox News seems to be based on different opinions of people who tend to feel the same way, for example I could not find any stories which blamed the government’s legislation regarding fertility clinic policies. This starts to prove that Fox News is bias.
CBS on the other hand appeared more unbiased; they had the story about the fertility clinic legislation, as well as the exclusive interviews with Angela Suleman about several different topics. These interviews were also unbiased as they covered Nadya’s mistakes, but Angela also spoke of the fact that Nadya is a wonderful mother.
Next I want to compare the quality of news that these channels broadcast news and one of the things that was most obvious to me was the fact that Fox News seems to have poorer quality sources of information than CBS News. For example, with news about Nadya Suleman, although Fox had some interviews with topic related people such as a psychologist and the therapist, most of their interviews (which can appear more like gossip chats) were, in my opinion, with non credible sources such as Rosie O’Donnell, an author, and the editor of a style magazine. Although it’s a controversial topic which does cause a lot of debate, it seems as though Fox’s coverage of octomom mainly consists of gossip/opinion sessions rather than actual news. CBS on the other hand seemed to have more newsworthy stories such as the interviews with Angela Suleman and the news about fertility clinic legislation.
Kauffman (2004, n.p.) writes that
“Fox News uses the ‘talking head’ format for 83% of its evening broadcasts. The network can choose its own ‘experts’ to comment on the news. Usually, these experts hold an opinion in line with the network's pro-Republican Party bias. Though ‘liberal’ or Democratic Party representatives may also appear as talking heads, they are always outnumbered by speakers holding the Fox News viewpoint. The majority of experts or interviewees on the Fox News Channel are in line with the network's views”.
Kauffman also makes the entertaining statement that a “Fox News Channel regular is mentally unstable columnist Ann Coulter… [who’s] appearances on the Fox News Channel are great theater, but devoid of reality” (2004, n.p.).
I also found it interesting that Fox News had quite a lot of borrowed footage. For example, one of their broadcasts was about NBC’s interview with Nadya Suleman. Fox’s segment was named ‘Fox and Friends’ because the broadcast was about their friend NBC’s footage. Fox’s broadcast of octomom fighting with her mother Angela was also not their own footage but taken from radar.com, where all of the news channels got it from.
Fox’s video broadcasts about octomom were mainly Fox reporters talking to others about the issue, but not those involved in the situation. While CBS and Fox both had interviews with the nannies of the octomom, CBS news on the other hand had the exclusive interviews with Angela Suleman and everything was their own footage.
That brings me to another factor about the quality of Fox News, most of the interviews on the channel are via live video and there are very little real face to face interviews, unlike CBS which has many face to face interviews as mentioned above. For example when Fox interview the Angels in Waiting nanny service spokesperson she is there via live satellite, in an interview where she is offering the octomom help. However when CBS interview the same women and another nanny, they are there in the studio in person, this time talking about how Nadya Suleman no longer wanted the nannies.
Kaufman (2004, n.p.) writes that the Fox News channel has become so popular because it’s entertaining. The channel is “colorful, positive and engaging with good-looking anchors and an up-beat style… [using] flashy graphics and triumphant music to punctuate its programs”.
I found this to be true when studying Fox’s presentation. All broadcasts involve a spinning Fox News logo in the corner of the screen, a music introduction for each segment, a flashy segment name and the title of the broadcast in a banner across the bottom of the screen in which the text often changes and constantly glistens to remind you of what you’re watching. Not to mention the bright changing backgrounds behind the news images.
Kauffman (2004, n.p.) also points out the interesting fact that
“the Fox News channel uses patriotism to sell its newscasts. With a digitized American flag constantly flying in the upper left corner of the screen, Fox News always places the United States in the positive light. The network's intention is to make the viewer feel patriotic for watching the network. The Fox News TV screen is filled with red, white and blue in both the text and backdrops”.
CBS on the other hand has more classy features in my opinion. CBS does use the broadcast title banner but it is not as annoying as the Fox News banner. Also a lot of Fox News reporters are featured in front of news room tv screens and flash to various news photos etc but in CBS news, most of their broadcasts start with a lot of good quality video footage, often with a reporter at the scene and their voice behind the footage. It’s fair to say that CBS get much more time to prepare these sort of things as they are not a 24 hour network like Fox News, however CBS definitely appears as a much higher quality news channel because of it.
Kauffman (2004, n.p.) also writes that Fox use some interesting methods to mutate the news, such as leaving out important facts, repeating certain words or names to really emphasise their angle on the issue, using the most unflattering images and also warping statistics so things sound different. For example when Fox reported how many U.S. soldiers had died in Iraq they did not compare the number with anything else like how many soldiers were there, creating unrealistic data.
Also, just to let know you, while studying these video broadcasts on these news channel websites, I also had Fox News on the tv and every so often I would look to see what they were broadcasting and yet again there were the colourful, flashy different segments with some strange photos shown here and there. There was often several reporters laughing together at a panel and one time I looked at the tv and the Fox News team were looking at different pieces of fashion, very important indeed.
Check out Fox News videos at http://www.foxnews.com/video/ and search for octomom
Check out CBS News videos at
http://search.cbsnews.com/?q=nadya+suleman&x=0&y=0&num=10&type=Videos&newsvideo=1&offset=0
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