Gutter Journalist Gets A Roasting

Nothing to do with spanking. Anyone who has enjoyed seeing the demise of The News of The World and the gradual crumbling of the Murdoch Empire will surely enjoy this short video. Paxman had him stuffed like a Christmas Turkey as ex News of the World hack seeks to defend the indefensible.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16191676

Unfortunately, here in the USA Murdoch's poorly-named "Fox News" still seems all too alive and well.

He has one thing going for him: The public (at least the USA public) is terribly lazy and unquestioning when it comes to news. Fox News keeps a certain segment of our population in their "comfort zone" by only feeding them "news" from one certain viewpoint.

Myself, I'm uncomfortable with biased reporting, regardless of the viewpoint, so I prefer to receive my news from a variety of sources. In that respect, I'm afraid I'm not a typical USA'n.

Guy is correct. I am hoping that the UK will take more action. As far as the political action in the USA, I wouldn't be surprise if nothing is done to the Murdoch empire. They have too much influence with "FOX NEWS" for the USA to investigate. If Murdoch was a born citizen, you could see a Murdoch and Trump Republican ticket (LOLOLO).

I hope by that quote ("news") you mean that their opinion pieces have a certain viewpoint. And they do--it's definitely conservative, no doubt about that. But a little historical perspective. Before Fox News there was no major broadcast company in America that ever provided a conservative viewpoint on anything. All the major news organizations except for Fox are populated by left/progressive viewpoint reporting. Sometimes its blatant, sometimes it's subtle, but my point is that at least Fox provided an alternative. It's popularity shows that in a moderate/right country Americans do want to hear the conservative position on issues and they won't get from ABC,CBS,NBC, or their affiliates. So to get both sides you have to listen to both and its unfortunate that journalism on both sides has been co-opted by political agendas.

First, let me say that you are entitled to your opinion, (and I will still respect you in the morning).

By "news" I meant to say that (in my humble opinion) Fox shamelessly mixes news and opinion into one seamless Pablum. I won't put up with that an any news outlet (left, right, or middle) and never have.

As I said, I prefer to get my news from a variety of sources. That includes both domestic and overseas sources. In the age of the Internet, this is trivially easy to do.

Unfortunately, today you have to do that because there is no one outlet you can trust not to spin it a certain way to promote an agenda. Journalism used to be a profession in which hard reporting of facts without bias was a virtue. Sadly this is no longer the case.

When was this (in practice, not theory)? There have been house organs. There have been newspapers that, while "independent", got so far into bed with politicians that they might as well been house organs.

There have countless criminal cases tainted by someone being charged when the local newspapers were having circulation wars. Lizzie Borden, Leo Max Frank, OJ Simpson - name the average "trial of the century" and you can find news organisations twisting facts to boost profits.

There may have been a brief, idealistic time when facts mattered more, but against that I'll stack:
"You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war".
Most of the career of Lord Beaverbrook.
Murdoch.

And countless others.

The good old days, if you really look at them, weren't so good.

Goodgulf

I'm the same way. I read my news (online) from a variety sources - Fox to Huffington Post, CNN to Drudge Report, MSN/NBC, Washington Post, NYT, WSJ, local papers. The big difference isn't so much how a story gets reported (though there IS a difference), but WHETHER a story gets reported. I pretty much ignore opinion columns, preferring to form my own.

Nothing quite in the class of The Murdoch's I'd venture to suggest. They have helped take the tabloid press so far downmarket that the contributors to these sleaze sheets cannot possibly call themselves journalists! The Daily Mirror for example was a quite respectable newspaper at one time. However I am sure your right about the good old (bad old) days!! The Daily Mail cosying up to the Nazis comes to mind!