I kept my opinions to myself all during dinner, until...

[Atman]

RW mother in law asks, right at the end of the meal, "So, what do y'all think of what happened with the policeman shooting the black boy?"

Uh oh. Take another bite of pie.

We actually had a pretty civil conversation for a bit. For my part, to attempt to stay clear of controversy, I indicted the media and they've whipped us into a frenzy for ratings. That worked out well until I mentioned Fox. The in-laws, avid Fox watchers, were totally taken aback at my suggestion that Fox was not an impartial source. I pointed out the history of Fox, and their lack of an actual news division. It got hotter than a fresh scoop of stuffing, but we managed to change the subject after mother in law says she'd like to learn more about Fox and Roger Ailles. Shocker! Wow!

Thanksgiving surprise. But I guarantee we'll awaken to "Fox & Friends" again tomorrow morning...at 110 decibels.

[avebury]

1. I would have looked at her and asked her:

Which police officer, boy and shooting are you talking about? (After all, there has been more then one shooting).

[noiretextatique]

4. boom!

and there you have that!

[Derek V]

31. Bullseye!

(Unfortunately, that word also describes what white cops apparently see on far too many black kids.)

[jwirr]

61. Yes, had she heard about the 12 year old child killed 3 seconds after the police car arrived?

Last edited Fri Nov 28, 2014, 05:46 PM - Edit history (1)

[IveWornAHundredPants]

65. seconds

[jwirr]

66. Thank you. Corrected.

[onethatcares]

2. when the conversation turns to faux news

I always ask if the person knows that company won a lawsuit saying it had the right to lie in reporting.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I use that a lot too.

Doesn't matter much to my audience, but it makes me fell better.

[BlueJazz]

5. I try to make it worse. I usually ask >

"What News Organization asked the Supreme Court of the United States of America if they could continue to tell outright phony Lies to the American public"

[theaocp]

18. Is this the same thing?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/foxlies.asp

I just want to make sure before I bring it up. Thanks!

[SickOfTheOnePct]

21. Guess it's not such a good idea after all n/t

[Art_from_Ark]

25. Change it from "US Supreme Court" to "Florida Second District Court of Appeals"

and you'll be accurate.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

26. I suggest you read the Snopes article

The wrong court name is the least of the inaccuracy.

[Art_from_Ark]

30. I read the Snopes article

But I don't consider Snopes to be the ultimate arbiter of what is true and what isn't true. I suggest you Google "Florida Second District Court of Appeals Fox" and you'll find lots of information from different sources--not just one article recycled over and over-- about the Fox case.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

36. Perhaps you'll believe the actual case documentation

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1310807.html

Quick synopsis:

The case involved a local Fox Television affiliate (not Fox News), WTVT out of Tampa/St. Petersburg, FL.
The employees involved in the case, a husband and wife team, threatened to file a complaint with the FCC. The FCC has nothing whatsoever to do with cable programming. The couple's contract was not renewed, which is why they sued.

Fox News sucks on every level, and we need to be saying that loudly, every day. But it makes us look like idiots when we claim as fact things which are demonstrably false.

[SunSeeker]

45. It was not a failure to renew, they were fired for wanting to tell the truth.

Thanks for the link, but the link does not say the station simply failed to renew their contract. The station fired them without cause, which the station was apparently entitled to do under the contract they had.

The couple was trying to get out a story critical about bovine growth hormone but the station insisted they change it to Monsanto ' s version of the facts.

When the couple refused and threatened to report the station to the FCC for violating the FCC "rule" against distorting the news, the station fired them. At trial the reporter won over $300k on her whistleblower claim that her firing was retaliation for the FCC complaint.

But on appeal, the Fox News affiliate overturned the award on the ground that there is no such official, actionable rule at the FCC, that it is just an apparently unenforceable "policy." As such, it cannot form the basis for a whistleblower complaint.

That court of appeal ruling is of course damning not just to Fox news affiliates but all news stations and the FCC.

[VanillaRhapsody]

51. Not to mention THEY won 5 other cases in other Jurisdictions

Fox News shopped this around to court after court until it got one that gave them the outcome they wanted...

[SickOfTheOnePct]

63. Why do you keep insisting it was Fox New?

This case had nothing to do with Fox News whatsoever.

And it wasn't shopped around at all - it was handled by all the relevant Florida courts.

Did you even bother to read the case?

[VanillaRhapsody]

64. Yes it was...the couple wanted to report a story about Monsanto putting

chemicals in our cows milk....Roger Ailes was having no part of that and fired them.....and he Court Shopped until he won against them

[SickOfTheOnePct]

68. It wasn't Fox News

It was local Fox network affiliate, WTVT, which is completely separate from Fox News.

Saying the wrong thing over and over doesn't turn it into the right thing.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

62. All true

But very, very different from "Fox News won the right to tell lies."

This lawsuit had nothing to do with Fox News in any way, shape or form, since the FCC has no jurisdiction over cable networks/channels.

[Art_from_Ark]

24. It was actually the Florida Second District Court of Appeals that made that ruling

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/07/31/364678/-Fox-News-wins-in-court#

[BlueJazz]

33. Won't be first or last time I was wrong about something.

Thank you for the info.

[Art_from_Ark]

35. For more information, you can check out the case number

Case No. 2D01-529. The television station that made the appeal was a FOX affiliate, WTVT-TV.

[SunSeeker]

47. Well, there's always the Murdoch quote that Fox News is Entertainment.

In 2012 he said it was in Fox's Entertainment division, not part of its "news" division which includes the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=52363

Fox has also admitted it provides "Opinionated News," lamenting its UK audience's preference for non-opinionated news.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/01/26/news-corp-admits-fox-news-is-opinionated-news/175599

[steve2470]

57. here is the case for those who want to read the reasoning

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1310807.html

[Atman]

6. I used that one pretty quickly.

She had no idea. That actually did seem to raise an eyebrow when I pointed out that Fox won a lawsuit to lie. That seemed to be the turning point for her. I can only hope.

[MisterP]

58. or the Nasserist Saudi prince who owns the company

[Politicalboi]

59. I always do that too

My brother is the avid Faux watcher. I told him Faux is just like The National Enquirer but only live. The key is We Report, you DECIDE. Yes YOU decide if it's true or not, just like the magazines.

[loyalsister]

7. I skipped dinner

I knew there would be something that would get my ire up and it wasn't worth putting myself through it.

[adigal]

20. Me, too. I love my family and most of my in laws, but I loved them more today 250 miles away

The only ones who are liberals are my kids, my husband and I. One BIL is sometimes sane, but that's it. This is a family of devout Catholics who all think that gays are going to hell. Well, not my mother, but she is mostly liberal who thinks she is a conservative.

My head hurts when I think about them, and with this shooting and the lack of indictment, I am so upset, I would have started a brawl.

[yeoman6987]

40. Sorry to hear that...understand though

We had dinner with 14 and not a peep about politics. Couldn't say who was liberal or conservative in the group. I like it that way personally.

[Blanks]

8. The thing that I don't understand about Fox News viewers...

Is why they believe that a 'news organization' owned by an Australian media magnate gives two shits about American patriotism.

Obviously Murdoch cares only about the highest ad revenue generating position, which is consistently the republican position.

[No Vested Interest]

10. Uhh ... Let's hope your audience is ignorant

of the fact that Murdoch became a US citizen in 1985.

Agree that his motives are less than pure.

[Blanks]

29. His citizenship doesn't make him any less greedy or more patriotic...

Conservatives are up in arms when they're told that the president was born in another country, but worship the likes of Murdoch and Ted Cruz who are well established as foreign born.

Just trying to establish a base line for consistency. If foreign born is bad, then is it always bad?

[sadoldgirl]

11. different experience here

My nephew came to help me set up my newer computer. He asked me
"Do you approve of the burning and looting?"
Me:" no, and do you approve of a cop shooting an unarmed teenager?"

Short standoff, but then he gave me a chance to tell him about the
fake GJ, which I hope made him think a bit more.

[Terra Alta]

12. this is one reason why I'm glad I was working today.

Would have had to spend the day with mostly RW family members, and I would have had to kept my mouth shut or it would have gotten very heated.

[maindawg]

13. RWNJ stood down today

The death of children just not worth celebrating I suppose. I did get called a liberal a couple times and they asked me if I was in a union,Im not. They know that. But for 4 whole hours, that was very good. Indeed.

[NJCher]

41. they asked if you were in a union!?

Wow, the propaganda job they did is more comprehensive than I thought.


Cher

p.s. by RWNJ did you mean Right Wing New Jersey?

[lastlib]

14. I refer to it as 'Fox & Fiends'......

(even more fiendish @ 110 decibels.)

[Jenoch]

15. I would have changed the subject.

[yurbud]

16. send them OUTFOXED. Once they see that Murdoch made the same deal with commies in China

He made with republicans here.

That should sow a pretty serious seed of doubt.

Or the Saudi ownership or...

[Electric Monk]

27. Hulu or Youtube

http://www.hulu.com/watch/407929

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL54FC814AE797FA21

Don't have an hour? If they only have two minutes, then see this clip

[s-cubed]

17. Ask if they know who is half owner of Faux? nt

[Fred Sanders]

19. Fox is an illness, a disease, their high cable news ratings tell me it is spreading like a virus.

Foxbola is killing American brain cells by the trillions, it adds up.

[tblue]

44. Yup. Much more damaging here than Ebola.

I can't wrap my brain around people believing Fox is a credible anything. Does not compute.

[Fred Sanders]

46. Fear easily warps the weak minded, Fox sells fear to them and twists those minds with hate, along

with belonging to a "tribe" that will protect them from that faux generated fear...fear is addictive, folks cling to it once infected, witness Fear-bola.

Fear makes the brain dead and morally rudderless wingnuts feel like they belong, they feel alive, mollified by their fear, real or imagined does not matter.

Fox delivers what they want.

[nikto]

22. Having an eye on the future, I would have said...

"I don't know about any shooting, but did you hear about the US Army drone that killed that
white family in Texas the other day? Do you think it was really an "accident"?
The officer working the drone was black, I think.
The Army says it was just a tragic mistake and it is very sorry, but too bad.

OK ok...
(I get my headlines from the future---This one is probably from around 2026 or so---"Errant Army Drone kills Texas family on Thanksgiving-Eve"--The Dallas Sun-Times-Tribune, a cyber-news site established by a vast corporate merger in 2021).

Why waste time on the present, when the future is so much worse?

Or...

A 2nd choice would be to change the discussion to Fukushima, and argue over whether a banana
being radioactive means radiation is good for you, etc etc etc

Oh, and by-the-way...
is there any green-bean casserole left?
I love that stuff.

Ba-doom!
I'll be here all week, folks.

[ErikJ]

23. Ask them why Fox ignored the GOP's House Committee' own Benghazi debunking last week

From 7 days ago:
Fox News story on House Benghazi report ignores the entire report
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/22/1346743/-Fox-News-story-on-House-Benghazi-report-ignores-the-entire-report#

And all the other debunkings:

From DU Aug 2014 http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025339126

From DU Jan 2014

[vlyons]

28. You should invite them to explore alternative media

Tell them, you know that they are good patriotic people, who want to be open minded and fair. Then invite them NICELY if they would be willing, as a fair and open-minded person, to at least hear another perspective. Then tell them to watch Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, Lawrence O'Donnell, and read DU, KOS, and TPM.

No one wants to be accused of being unfair and close-minded. Play to their curiosity about what the other side says. Who knows? They might check it out.

[jberryhill]

32. That's an irresistable ellipsis you have there.

[jberryhill]

34. In children's stories, the fox is never the good guy...

...didn't these people pay attention to all that stuff about the wily crafty evil fox and his schemes.

[TheKentuckian]

37. The Fantastic Mr. Fox was pretty cool.

[marym625]

38. Maybe show the "new" Al Jazeera to them

Worth a shot.

I compliment you. I can't speak about it without going into a rage. Truly a rage. Never felt this way before about anything

[Iamthetruth]

39. I had a very racist father in law as well

Unt il we adopted a black son years ago. While he loves him as a grandson, he is still racist which I will never understand.

[tridim]

42. Same thing happened to me. I had to excuse myself from the table...

until they were finished voicing their faux newz prompted ignorant opinions.

It is absolutely awful to hear.

[MADem]

43. We had a very congenial group.

Anyone with "opinions" and there were perhaps two, kept them to themselves.

[spanone]

48. the frightening thing is that the fox watchers assume they're getting 'fair & balanced' reporting

[dorkulon]

49. Thanksgiving 2014 ;)

[JohnnyRingo]

50. Murdoch admits his network isn't impartial

He justifies this by accusing all the rest of the media as being liberal. He spuriously claims that he adds balance by covering news from the right. Those are Rupert Murdoch's own words.

I usually point out that Fox is the only network that is owned by and shares the political ideals of one man. The rest of the alphabet news channels are owned by faceless corporations held by shareholders, from Time Warner to Disney, hardly bastions of liberalism and anti-capitalism.

[Octafish]

52. Roger Ailes glommed on Nixon and admires NAZI filmmaking.

FOX News' Roger Ailes is a Big Fan of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite NAZI filmmaker.



According to the new biography (and a history going back a ways in GOP circles), The Loudest Voice In The Room: How The Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News — And Divided A Country:

Ailes was “a big fan” of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s notorious favorite filmmaker—not for her Nazi ideology but for her cinematic talent as a propagandist. “Ailes was especially taken by Riefenstahl’s use of camera angles.”

SOURCE: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/01/extraordinary-revelations-about-roger.html

Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviewed Gabriel Sherman, the guy who wrote, the book today.

This is the kind of information that Fox viewers might appreciate knowing before watching their television screens.

Something everyone should know: Roger Ailes and the Big Money has been in bed with Big NAZI for a long time. Way to go, Atman! People know something's wrong with the media. Helping them understand what that is goes a long way towards bringing back justice and democracy.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

53. I didn't get that far.

I only stopped over at the parents for a few minutes, to wish my sister a happy birthday, and everyone a happy thanksgiving. Within a couple of minutes of my arrival, my teenage nephew had brought a 'Black Friday' ad to his mom to show her the sig sauer he wanted.

Which left me saying 'with all the young men being shot, maybe that's not the best thing to buy him'. (Although what I was really thinking was that I think the world is going to be a less safe place with a gun in his hands...)

And got us discussing Ferguson, and my sister (who is married to a former cop) saying something along the lines of 'Anybody who grabs a cop's gun loses breathing privileges' or something similar, while I countered with 'It's only human nature, if somebody points a gun at you, for you to try and NOT point it at you.'

The convo could really only go downhill from there, so I said my goodbyes and ducked out again.

[cling2reality]

54. Did you happen to notice...

...All of the people arguing that Michael Brown was a "hoodlum" or "thug" at Thanksgiving defended Cliven Bundy as an American hero standing up to an over reach of the government.

...The same people who say an unarmed man was shot because he was"aggressive" believe it is ok to point guns at federal agents without consequences

.. say Michael Brown deserved it because he stole $5 worth of merchandise, are ok with Cliven Bundy stealing millions in grazing fees


... Still trying to figure out the difference between Cliven Bundy and Michael Brown. Why do some people "see" them differently.

Hummmmmm

[Ineeda]

60. You DO know that

one of them is white and the other.........wasn't. Those people you speak of noticed that, for sure.

[War Horse]

55. An oldie but goodie

What's the most deadly creature to come out of Australia?



Rupert Murdoch...

[kairos12]

56. Fox at 110 decibels. Not even Dante had a Circle of Hell equal to that. Feel for you.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

67. FOX "News" will probably VANISH when Ruppert dies....

Imagine how utterly LOST these people will be when they aren't constantly pumped full of crap.