From The Department of “No Feces, Forensician” Department
Uncle Andrew
Got this off Fark today:
Man, Fox News is like its very own religion. Bet they apply for tax-exempt status before the end of the year, or the end of the world….whichever comes first.
🙁
6 Responses to “From The Department of “No Feces, Forensician” Department”
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August 23rd, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Everything on TV is on because it sells advertising. We’ll just lump Faux News with Professional Wrestling in the “some people watch it because they think it’s real” department.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Which is why NPR and PBS are more important than ever. 😉
August 24th, 2007 at 7:49 am
You’ve heard it before: “This program made possible by a grant from Some Big Corporation and viewers like you”
Don’t kid yourself, they just do direct marketing instead.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:31 am
On the other hand, The American Life did a full one-hour show on the guy who busted open the Archer Daniels Midland lysine price-fixing scheme, and ADM is a major contributor to NPR. Don’t kid yourself: the bulk of Public Broadcasting’s money comes from individual contributors and the federal government; the rest is from underwriters. And while I’m sure that the human beings who run PBS and NPR are as fallible and subject to temptation as any other, these entities have who systems in place to help keep their funding and their underwriting as transparent as possible. Gotta lotta nerve comparing them to Fox; them’s fightin’ words! 😡
August 27th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Not Faux specifically, (which is truly the WWE of ‘news’ programs) but television media in general. I have a relative who works for PBS in Virginia and it’s interesting to hear her talk about getting projects funded. She says there are a lot of really great ideas that come in, but with no money behind them, they can’t do anything about it. Why do people contribute to PBS? Because they like what’s on it, so they ‘buy’ some in the form of donations. So PBS airs shows that can pay for themselves, either pre-sold as production cost, or fascinating enough to get you to donate. Regardless of whether you bought a ticket, bought the product in the commercial, or sent in a donation, you paid for the type of entertainment you enjoy, thus determining what entertainment will be on in the near future. If it doesn’t sell, you won’t see it.
August 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
All true (to a certain extent: given the amount of money contributed annually by the federal government, you’d expect Cookie Monster to be regaling kids with the benefits of tax cuts for the wealthy), but that doesn’t mean that the shows are inherently one-sided. To say that would be to say that only liberals (or conservatives, or left-handed redheads, or whatever) watch PBS and listen to NPR. I think the demographic is wider than that; I think intelligent people ingest this media, and contribute to it. And intelligent people are both able to acknowledge that there are many sides to every story, and to hear them out. So you get a nice selection. 😉