Sorry, that was my mistake, not Mark’s.
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Thanks, but like Mark said, I’d rather stay on the down low. I don’t want any notoriety, however brief. I was just interested in researching Fox News.
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Yep, and I appreciate it. Thanks, Mark.
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Ditto for the Kochs. Tick-tock, tick-tock, mother fuckers.
The only reason this world is not completely dominated by evil is that death eventually claims madmen and saints alike.
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Galileo didn’t have any Science publishing awards either. They’re just like Galileo and everyone laughed at him!
Oh, I hope so, too. Sadly, these people have created immortal “Corporate Persons” each far wealthier than the individuals and with a louder political “voice” (money = free speech).
I can only hope that some human virus (like Kimmo’s hope for Elon Musk or someone like him) can infiltrate the corporate skin and infect them.
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Much as it pains me say this, “what the market wants” = “what the people want”.
But who am I to judge what people want in their entertainment? (Sorry, but I just can’t call it news. Just can’t.)
Totally off topic, this was what i loved about Terry Pratchett. He might see that Fox might indeed provide the coverage that people wanted, and yet still hold a deep and abiding affection for the general populace. He could gently make light of their proclivities, but there was no evidence in his writing of the bitterness and recriminations that come so easily to most of us when contemplating Fox’s audience.
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My usual response to the mouth-breathers who think FOX’s rating somehow give it legitimacy: “Here’s a cool math trick. If you multiple FOX’s rating times the number of journalism awards it’s won, the answer is always zero. Isn’t math fun?”
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Honestly, I really just wonder how long that organization can just keep going on. Presumably as long as that fathead Murdochs money holds out but still…
I didn’t join 20 minutes ago, and it’s a fair point.
They compared a (nominally) nonprofit network with a historically strong focus on good science coverage to a commercial network whose base is politically driven. The OTHER commercial network whose base is politically driven has no one even assigned as science correspondents, but gets a pass, because their political leanings are the ‘right’ ones.
Just saying.
And it may be that MSNBC have people with science credentials who do their science stories, but I think if they did, the piece would have mentioned it.
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I was under the impression CNN had gotten rid of every section that wasn’t about crashed planes, cirminal cases, and celebrities. Do they even do any actual news any more?
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Fox sux but I find it funny that the article says “and of course there’s Ira Flatow” glossing over the fact that he’s no more qualified than any of the Fox guys.
I stopped listening to a Science Friday because he sucks so bad. Inane questions and pretty much every topic is over his head.
Hagee was also the dude from that “rock music is the devil” post from the other day.
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A good science reporter doesn’t just ask their subject questions the reporter doesn’t know the answers to; they ask the questions that their viewing or listening audience doesn’t know the answers to. Sometimes that means asking questions that may seem inane to people who are already well versed in the subject. I actually think Ira Flatow does a pretty good job getting smart people to explain big concepts in a way that makes them accessible to an audience of laypeople. I watched his PBS show “Newton’s Apple” as a kid and learned a lot.
Flatow may not have a science degree but he does have a background in engineering and has been doing science reporting since 1970, so I’d call that “better qualified” than someone who has a couple years of entertainment reporting under their belt.
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For that matter, I think the fact that Fox employs people whose primary focus has previously on entertainment reporting is kind of telling in what they think their role actually is, compared to NPR, which, even when they get things wrong, at least they are attempting to get things right.
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MSNBC can call in science reporters from its sister network, NBC, whenever necessary (and does so frequently).
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Everyone has a first comment. No need to jump down the person’s throat just because they’re new. I think it’s a solid point. I don’t think Fox News is a valuable source for reliable information. But to be honest, I think that CNN doesn’t do a great job of science reporting either. I think it’s still fun as an exercise to evaluate relative scientific accuracy of one compared to the other, but @scooterpooter’s idea might be more instructive.
Maybe to be judged on content, not how long since one joined this fine forum.
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The “point” they were trying to make was that everyone has an “agenda” and therefore are ethical equivalents. The dominant conservative rhetorical strategy is to stand very far to the right, label yourself normal and label everything to the left of yourself as dangerous and deviant. See anti-labor / welfare / minimum wage / ip reform / cj reform rhetoric; any conservative tv / talk show host / McCarthy / J. Edgar Hoover.
See also: the right to broadcast anything as “entertainment” because entertainment is harmless, right?
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