Fox network and Cosmos....

[Drew Phipps]

Fox network's show the Cosmos is a remarkably rational and evenhanded treatment of science issues. They have spoken favorably of evolution, talked about a "non-Biblical model" of creation, etc. I recall Fox network being home to climate change deniers, right-wing extremists, and foes of the "liberal" science community in general. Two weeks from now, the show is going to be all about climate change.

What gives? Is this a sea change on the part of the owners of Fox? Why else would they permit such progressive and liberal views to be expressed in prime-time? Does the series telegraph a conservative move to a more centrist position? Or is Fox just trying to regain a semblance of journalistic integrity?

[Magda Hassan]

Or is Fox just trying to regain a semblance of journalistic integrity?

:: Too late for that! And never had it to begin with.

I think it is just the token quality program in their sea of putrid tripe like they have the token okay journalist working there amongst the pack of raving hyenas. There is an FBI investigation into Murdoch about to start once the British one wraps up. Wonder what their share price is doing?

[Magda Hassan]

Just came across this this morning and thought it appropriate to your post Drew.

Benghazi Backfire: Fox News Has Lowest Rated Non-Holiday Week in 13 Years

By: Jason Easley more from Jason Easley
Monday, May, 19th, 2014, 9:39 pm

Fox News has gone all Benghazi all of the time, and the result has been Fox's worst rated non-holiday week with younger viewers since before 9/11/ in 2001. According to The Wrap, "During the week of May 5, 2014 the most recent for which numbers are available Fox News delivered an average of 180,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demographic in live-plus-same-day measurement across the total day. That measures programming from 6 a.m. until the following 6 a.m. Fox pulled the same number the previous week, the week of April 28."
To put this into context, Fox News only averaged 4,000 viewers on Christmas week last year. Fox's other record low came during Christmas week in 2012. In order to find a non-holiday week where Fox News had fewer younger viewers, one has to go the whole way back to the week before the 9/11 terror attacks.
It isn't a coincidence that Fox News has seen more younger viewers turn off their network after they decided to go completely crazy on Benghazi. Republicans desperately needed something to distract the country away from the fact that they were completely wrong about Obamacare, and Fox News was happy to provide it to them by trying to turn Benghazi into the biggest political scandal since Watergate.

Fox News has had great success with their formula for turning right-wing conspiracies into legitimate news in the past, but Benghazi has been the rare conspiracy that is actually harming the network's ratings. Younger viewers how demonstrating how much of a turn off this non-scandal is by abandoning Fox News. As each day passes, it is becoming clear that Benghazi is scandal that only your grandparents could love.
One has to question how long Fox News will continue to beat the Benghazi drum if it means low ratings with the most critical demographic. The media isn't buying it, and even younger Fox News viewers don't care about Benghazi. It's the scandal that never was.
Benghazi isn't going to bring down Obama, but it is already destroying Fox News.

http://www.politicususa.com/2014/05/19/b...k-911.html

[Drew Phipps]

There was the birther business, and then how climate change was a liberal plot to ruin America, then how Obamacare was going to wreck civilization, and Benghazi. Of all the four, Benghazi is the only newsworthy bit. We still don't know what exactly the CIA and the State Dept was doing there, and what exactly the bad guys gained by the attack. We do know that no one is apparently looking for these guys any more. But now Fox News has destroyed its listener's patience with thier BS.


It should be an object lesson for us - about squandering what credibility we might have.


Speaking of squandering credibility, last night, I watched Hannity ask an expert on Boko Haram, or whatever those Nigerian clown/kidnappers are called, whether the First Lady is "empowering the kidnappers" by having her picture taken with a hashtag cardboard thingy. (Apparently, Hannity would prefer that the Nigerian government, and the rest of the world, continue to ignore the kidnappings, rather that give the clowns the attention that they so deperately crave.) No matter what it is, its gotta be Obama's fault; right, Hannity? If not the Mr., then the Mrs.?

I wonder which member of the First Family Fox News is going to blame for their abysmal ratings?

[David Guyatt]

Or is Fox just trying to regain a semblance of journalistic integrity?

:: Too late for that! And never had it to begin with.

I think it is just the token quality program in their sea of putrid tripe like they have the token okay journalist working there amongst the pack of raving hyenas. There is an FBI investigation into Murdoch about to start once the British one wraps up. Wonder what their share price is doing?

"Putrid tripe"! ::

Once a hen stealing fox, always a hen stealing fox, I say.

That Oz bag-o-shite is set in stone.

[Drew Phipps]

From news (Twitter) 5/20/14:

"Pat Sajak says that people concerned about climate change are unpatriotic racists."

I winder how Neil DeGrasse Tyson (and by extension, Fox Network) feels about being called an unpatriotic racist? What network airs Wheel of Fortune, anyways?

[Magda Hassan]

Heads will be exploding over at Fox soon. Maybe Cosmos will not be long there? ::headexplode::

After Taking on the Creationist Crazies, Neil DeGrasse Tyson Takes Aim at 'Untouchable' Capitalists


Tyson sets his sights on the deep drivers of climate change.




June 3, 2014 |










If calling out creationists and insulting the religious were not enough for Neil deGrasse Tyson, he has decided to step up his game and go after the very people in the United States who believe they are untouchable: capitalists.
Tyson, the host of Fox's hit television series Cosmos, sat down with MSNBC host Chris Hayes to discuss all things science. One topic that came to the forefront and just happened to be the subject of this week's episode of Cosmos was climate change.
With so many Americans, and almost an entire political party on the side of climate change denial, Hayes wanted to know what would change people's minds, if the overwhelming evidence is not enough.
"People, if they begin to lose their wealth, they change their mind real fast, I've found," Tyson said. "Particularly in a capitalist culture."
Will we have to wait for sweeping global policies to slow down the damage we have already done to the planet? Will the Koch brothers finally take a financial hit as a result of the changing climate?
Let's hope not. Yet melting polar ice caps, animal and plant species going extinct, and war in Syria caused by the effects of climate change are all doing nothing to change the minds of the American people. The Republican Party stands opposed to 99 percent of scientists around the world who overwhelmingly agree that climate change is not only happening, but is man-made.
Yet scientific denialism cannot last forever, and here Tyson seems hopeful, saying to Hayes, "It has been said that every great, emergent scientific truth goes through three phases. First, people say it can't be true. Second, they say it conflicts with the Bible. Third, they say it's true all along. And so, there you have it."
We seem to be somewhere around step two in American culture, as many politicians are of the opinion that climate change is in God's hands and we don't have to worry about it.
Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) was quoted in 2013 as saying, "I would point out that if you're a believer in the Bible, one would have to say the Great Flood is an example of climate change and that certainly wasn't because mankind had overdeveloped hydrocarbon energy." While he sees the climate is changing, he believes it is totally natural and has the ability to write policy reflecting this belief. Unfortunately, many Republican politicians agree with him, or deny the climate is changing at all.
With climate change being the bulk of this week's Cosmos and President Obama releasing his new climate change initiative just the day after, it is no shock that climate change is all over the media, putting the issue in the forefront of people's minds. Tyson hopes we take notice before it is too late.
Tyson says when explaining climate change to New Yorkers, he has them envision a scene straight from Planet of the Apes. When the polar icecaps melt, the Statue of Liberty will be almost fully submerged, all the way to her elbow holding the Declaration of Independence.
Tyson notes that climate change denialism is absurd, yet in true Tyson fashion he reaffirms that people have the right to believe what they want, as this is a constitutional right in the United States. However, there is a point when one's right to belief interferes with public policy. Tyson says, "The problem comes about if you believe what you want and you are responsible for the governance of the nation. I'd like to think that governance is based on objective and verifiable truths. Otherwise, what kind of culture have you created?"

http://www.alternet.org/culture/after-se...now-taking