Senator Rockefeller: Eliminating MSNBC, Fox News ‘Would Be a Big Favor to Political Discourse’

[totodeinhere]

Source: New York Times

In a U.S. Senate hearing about the retransmission consent laws, Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) said that getting the FCC to step in and take some sort of action against Fox News Channel and MSNBC “would be a big favor to political discourse; to our ability to do our work here in Congress; and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future.”

Read more: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/senator-rockefeller-eliminating-msnbc-fox-news-would-be-a-big-favor-to-political-discourse_b40370

---

Again here we have an attempt to lump Fox News and MSNBC together.

[Hawkeye-X]

1. Yo. Faux is not a legitimate news source

MSNBC somewhat gets it, so don't lump them together.

If anything at all, Faux should be kicked off the air, permanently.

Hawkeye-X

[bbinacan]

67. On what legal grounds?

And by whom? Who's next? I know, let's have a spelling contest.... But I digress. Who decides what ideas can be aired? Is that you Hugo? This simplistic bullshit really pisses me off.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

2. I hate to say it

but, even though MSNBC and Fox News are in no way remotely equivalent, I would sacrifice MSNBC if it meant that the poison that is Fox News is taken off the air. Then again, I doubt any of that is constitutional so it's a moot point anyway.

[yurbud]

43. the right would still have nearly all of talk radio

and the progressive presence there is pretty slim.

[HughBeaumont]

57. And CNN, and CNBC, and ABC, and Viacom . . .

. . . most newsprint, more than a few magazines, FreeRepublic :rofl: , etc etc

[CreekDog]

56. I don't see how Keith and Rachel telling the truth is bad for political discourse

I realize it causes arguments when you point out that politicians lie when the call Obama a socialist and a Muslim but that's not the reporter's fault.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

58. They're not.

MSNBC is not a bad network. Their regular reporting is straight news (if anything, a little corporately biased) and they have a left leaning editorial stance and hosts(Olbermann, Maddow, O'Donnel,etc.). They certainly have a defined stance and opinion but do not tell bald-faced lies like the right wing commentators do.

[CreekDog]

59. how was Rachel Maddow's coverage of who was really behind the health care meeting craziness harmful?

and how was saying who was behind it based on factual reporting, evidence of left bias?

maybe the news shouldn't criticize the Iraq War on the basis there were no weapons of mass destruction --since Republicans disagree with that and thus...that's left bias

[davidinalameda]

3. is he wrong?

I like MSNBC but how is it any different from Faux other than the fact that MSNBC tries to hid its bias

the whole Olberman thing was so freaking silly

[Frisbee]

6. How about that not everybody on MSNBC is lying...

every time their lips move. MSNBC (Keith and Rachel specifically) may have a very obviously liberal view-point, but they don't make shit up to make their point. FAUX does. HUGE difference.

ETA: Eliminate FAUX and MSNBC and you still have all the right-wing radio A-holes, including Rush, who is at least as bad a Faux.

[Turborama]

22. "how is it any different from Faux other than the fact that MSNBC tries to hid its bias"!

You are joking, right? :rofl:

[AlbertCat]

27. how is it any different from Faux

Any idiot can see the difference.

Fox... lies and more lies. Part of the right wing.

MSNBC.... no lies and mistakes are corrected. Not part of any political party.


And, as Rachel said.... that "silly" Olbermann thing PROVES that MSNBC is not Fox News.


Boy did you miss the boat! Pay attention.

[JDPriestly]

34. Scarborough is on forever in the morning, and someone claims that MSNBC

is like Fox News.

This is yet another attempt to equate Fox with something just to avoid seeming to be biased.

Fox is bad. It's downright evil.

MSNBC is not evil. MSNBC does not advocate violence. Fox does.

Rockefeller is an establishment Democrat. He does not want to have MSNBC tell the truth about what goes on in Congress -- which is the mediocrity of the middle.

[karynnj]

51. Couldn't it depend on what he is referring to?

He specifically referred to the enthusiasm for rumors and news as entertainment - as contrasted to serious analysis and a commitment to getting the facts out once they are Known.

In 2005, John Harris referred to Matt Drudge as our Edward R. Murrow. The problem is that in his broader statements, Harris praise Drudge. I take Rockefeller's comments - which I watched in context at the hearing - to be a comment that our democracy would be better served returning to Edward R Murrow journalism - rather than what we have.

An exception to this is the type of work that Rachel Maddow has done where there is genuine, well documented longer segments. These however are the exception. What is wanted is a quick paced, interesting show - with a whole lot of gotcha sound bites. I agree that the few left shows have a far better record of not making stuff up. But, there is a problem when the country is divided on what the facts are - not on what people think should be done.

Maddow, Olberman etc are not responsible for this - they are doing the shows they are paid to do. They could not, even if they wanted to, have the type of News show like Murrow's. First of all, TV was new then and people were not expecting the news to be flashy or fun - it was serious. Years ago, when he retired, Tom Brokaw was credited with making news a profit center by making it more entertaining - and cheaper. Long fluff segments are cheaper than real news coverage. But, the key might be that in the 40s - about the 80s, it was assumed by each of the networks that their news show would be run at a loss. Their view was that being seen as having an excellent news department lent prestige to the network. This meant that they had far more reporters, fact checkers and editors.

[JDPriestly]

61. My personal criticism of the news is the lack of in-depth reporting.

But I realize that many people do not have the interest or patience to watch in-depth reporting.

It is impossible to deal with the complexity of news stories in the short sound bite kind of reporting and the back and forth arguments that we see on TV.

None of the news media do what they should.

We need to have a lot more historical background in the news reporting.

[davidinalameda]

38. thank God Rachel said it!

we can all sleep easier now I guess

if MSNBC wanted to show people that it was truly different from Fox, they would have fired Olberman but they didn't

I personally think the whole thing was a publicity stunt

MSNBC news people slant the news just like the ones on Fox-maybe not as much but they still do it

[Winterblues]

52. You remind me of someone that would equate a person that

reports witnessing a robbery, with being the very same as the robber..There is simply no comparison at all..

[mzmolly]

40. MSNBC has 3 hours of Republican Scarryborough in the am and 3 hours total

of left leaning commentators in the evening. That's actual balance. Faux on the other hand, gives Gretta VS a one hour long crime show and calls her program proof of their fair and balanced approach.

[xocet]

42. Of course, he is wrong.

It is amazing that you equate the one side that reinforces falsehoods 24x7 (Fox News) with another side (MSNBC) that tries to point out the hypocrisy and lies of the first side. Maybe you should check out MediaMatters.

What is the last thing that MSNBC lied about?

[FrenchieCat]

4. Hey......what about CNN?

They can take them all, and simply put Rachel and KO on CBS and get rid of Katie! :thumbsup:

[cstanleytech]

8. CNN probably does the best job out of the 3 main news channels

of remaining truly (to borrow a phrase from fox news) fair & balanced, not saying they are perfect though.

[FrenchieCat]

13. Not really.....

Not even close!

[Doremus]

20. Uhhhh, NO. Not even close.

[cstanleytech]

26. And both of you ^^ are certainly entitled to that opinion and I respect it

though I disagree with it of course :)

[awoke_in_2003]

33. CNN is Fox-lite...

they have seen the Fox model works, and they try to emulate.

[JDPriestly]

35. Wolf Blitzer is a biased Republican.

It is very obvious to see that.

[DJ13]

5. How about eliminating media monopolies instead

Force the GE's (Comcast) and the Newscorp's to divest themselves of more than one media outlet in any one city.

Break them up if you really want to foster a broader public discourse.

[JDPriestly]

36. Yes. That is what needs to be done.

Force divestiture so that we really have diversity in the media coverage.

[otohara]

49. Won't Happen

Shit, they want more consolidation, not less. And if and when the GOP takes the White House, Senate - the media lobbyists will be doing a happy dance as they push for more, more, and more.

And we can thank President Clinton for this mess, at least in radio...the result is Limbaugh/O'Really, Beck and the rest of these assholes are one 1200 stations.

Their next target, news papers owning TV stations - ugh....

[cstanleytech]

7. Well both fox and msnbc do tend to try and cater to a certain

(though opposite) political spectrum though of the two fox is far worse.

[onehandle]

9. If Fox News was 'eliminated,' I would Gladly lose MSNBC.

As much as I appreciate Keith, Rachel, Ed, Lawrence and others, Fox News does a Fuckload more damage than MSNBC does good.

[gkhouston]

21. I wouldn't. We'd lose Rachel's excellent reporting and be left with CNN, which

is Fox-lite.

[Doremus]

23. Is the lack of ability to negotiate a Democratic trait?

Why don't we just do away with Faux? Why should we have to lose the few existing liberal commentators?

Unlike Faux, they do not spout lies 24/7.
Unlike Faux, if they get a fact wrong they are quick to admit it and apologize.
They resemble NOTHING about Faux.


And Rockefeller can BITE ME.

[JDPriestly]

37. I love MSNBC although I only watch it on the internet and only in small portions.

If you want to know what lies in the genes of Senator Rockefeller, read up on his great-great-great (don't know how many) grandfather, John D. Rockefeller. He was the ultimate control freak. Really bad.

If we want to change the media, then we need to get more diversity. End the huge media conglomerates. Do not give too many licenses to any one media outfit. That is how to get fairness and different points of view.

[Grassy Knoll]

10. Keith Olbermann named him worst person.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x526578

[Metta]

11. He'd sure like no one taking his pants off on tv anymore.

The answer, Jay, is to be honest and helpful instead of being a right wing water carrier.

[mikesm]

12. We can't silence speech even if we don't like it

Sen. Rockefeller doesn't get it. You can't silence speech just because you don't like how it inconveniences you. If you look at his voting record, you can see that he's been criticized on both Faux News and MSNBC, albeit for different issues. He's a corporatist and is happy to sell out the Dem base.

If he gets his way, what's next? Mandatory Internet filtering? How about being honest Sen. Rockefeller? Why not just say you should take anyone off the air that disagrees with you or makes you look bad when they point out stupid things you regularly say and do?

Faux news is best fought with the truth rather than censorship. If Rockefeller had a spine he'd be able to do that too.

[Hoopla Phil]

15. "Rockefeller doesn't get it" Sadly, many here at D.U. don't either.

Popular speech doesn't need protecting does it?

[defendandprotect]

18. Thanks in large part to Jon Stewart -- !!

[AlbertCat]

28. Sadly, many here at D.U. don't either.

I'd be satisfied if they just made it so "Fox News" couldn't advertise itself as "news"....because it's not...

[Wednesdays]

31. Sure, people like Hannity and Limbaugh have a right to their free speech

But there's nothing in the Constitution that guarantees them a monopoly on 100-megawatt stations to broadcast it!

[Arrowhead2k1]

14. Another fucking moron that thinks MSNBC is as extreme and full of shit as Fox News.

These guys that try to play the "middle" piss me off more than Conservatives sometimes.

[defendandprotect]

16. Yes -- another attempt to make MSNBC synonymous with Fox News ....

and it's wrong -- evidently in the am there are many right wing shows --

but by 6pm Schultz is on ...

Schultz, 8pm Olbermann -- Maddow -- O'Donnell a few nights or is that a regular now?

And these people have only been at this ... Olbermann about 4 years ... and Maddow 3?

Schultz 2 years --

And, how long has Fox been at this?

And, Limbaugh and Beck? Limbaugh for decades with no response from the left!!

[sadbear]

17. The Congress could reinstate the Fairness Doctrine

And all this would be a moot point.

[Chan790]

53. Bingo!

It amazes me when people skip over the easy solution to suggest more difficult and onerous ones.

Likewise, I'd like a law saying the finances of news divisions of media conglomerates have to be completely-separate, those divisions must be "administered in the public interest" (that is, you have to be providing news-media as a public service and preface all opinion journalism with a "this is opinion, not fact and should not be considered as a unbiased source of news" warning) and non-profit. (Yes, I'd let them write off the losses as legitimate 501(c)3 donations) Violations (such as reporting opinion journalism as news) should be fined and result in taxation penalties, same as any other NPO. If we're going to castrate the mouthpieces of the corporate-media, we should do it right.

[verges]

19. I honestly believe that

ifFox were to disappear right now, MSNBC would rapidly tone down and drift more towards straight journalism. If MSNBC were to disappear right now, Fox woulod continue to spew their venomous lies.

[Blacksheep214]

46. My thoughts exactly! eom

[SoapBox]

24. Only select shows on MSNBC give any hope for Progressives.

The entire program line up is anything but fully liberal.

On the other hand...FoxNoose Channel is 24/7 for the far Right.

There is no comparison.

[Greyhound]

25. Gee, a Rockefeller making a false equivalency, what a shock!

:eyes:

[glinda]

29. MSNBC has one small set of programming compared to the 10 X of Faux?

[karynnj]

30. View his whole statement at the Commerce committee's subcommittee

on Communications, Technology and the internet. The main subject was dealing with the repeated disruptions of channels when cable companies and content providers use the threat (and the actuality) of taking the channel off the air.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/296636-1

Skip through Kerry (though he is always worth listening to) and Enzi - and Rockefeller is next.

Rockefeller speaks of the system that packages content is broken - entertainment is a race to the bottom and news is becoming entertainment - journalism that is ravenous for the newest rumor, but not interested in the what the facts are. He also hits the need to buy so many channels. People tired of rates that go up continuously.

[JDPriestly]

32. So the Fourth Amendment and parts of the Fifth Amendment have been

decimated, and now Senator Rockefeller wants to start on the First Amendment.

I thought he took an oath to uphold the Constitution.

Do I like Fox News? No.

But Senator Rockefeller should not take an oath to uphold the Constitution and then make comments that suggest that he wants to limit speech based on its political content.

If the Congress wants to do something about improving the press, they need to end the laws that permit a media source like Fox News, Clear Channel and other similar huge conglomerates from owning more than a certain number of TV and radio stations.

MSNBC is the only liberal news source that we have. If Fox News and MSNBC did not exist, we would invent them.

Besides, Rush Limbaugh and the umpteen-million right-wing, fanatical talk show hosts that monopolize the radio airwaves are also divisive.

Fox News's story about Acorn was demonstrably false and Fox should have known it was false. A minimal amount of factchecking would have determined that it was false, but has Acorn sued any of the people who prepared, edited, wrote, broadcast the falsehoods for defamation?

I don't think so. And, yes, in some circumstances, you can sue the news media. They cannot just recklessly repeat or report obvious lies. The Acorn story was clearly a lie, and a rather unbelievable one to boot.

[mzmolly]

39. What about Limbaugh? And why in the heck did it take until we had a few anchors on MSNBC before

anyone gave a rip about supposed media bias?

[digidigido]

41. I'm with him in a heartbeat, but only if we lose Scarborough

and Chris Matthews too. Make Bill Moyers come back and be
a real anchor

[WizardLeft62]

44. Scott Ritter on U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller

From Apr 13, 2005

Semper Fraud, Senator Roberts

by Scott Ritter

As the chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Senator Roberts was responsible, along with the ranking minority member, Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia, for preparing a report on the failures of the U.S. intelligence community regarding prewar assertions that Iraq had massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. These assertions, aggressively made by the Bush administration, served as the principle case for the 2003 decision to invade Iraq. As the postwar report by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee showed, the U.S. intelligence community got it completely wrong about Iraq – it turned out that there were no WMD in Iraq at all for a decade prior to the president's decision to go to war. In fact, the intelligence was so bad, and so far off track, that legitimate questions arose in the aftermath of the invasion about how the decisionmakers in the Bush administration used this intelligence, and if there was any willful misrepresentation, or indeed outright fabrication, of intelligence by those who supported invading Iraq…..Such questions were fraught with political implications, and when raised within months of a national election for the presidency, both Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller decided that any investigation into how the Bush administration used this flawed intelligence – the so-called "Phase Two" of the Select Intelligence Committee's report – would wait until after the election was done.

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php?125324-Semper-Fraud-Senator-Roberts&p=1362209&viewfull=1

[Psephos]

69. Dude, are you seriously quoting Ritter, who's been arrested 3 times for soliciting sex with minors?

I actively avoid reading anything written by that lowlife.

Here are a couple of paragraphs from wikipedia:

Arrests

Ritter was arrested in April 2001 and again in June 2001 in connection with police stings in which officers posed as under-aged girls to arrange meetings of a sexual nature. The first incident did not lead to any charges. He was charged with a misdemeanor crime of "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child" after the second, but charges were dropped and the record was sealed on condition that he avoid further trouble for a period of time. News of the arrests became public after sealed court records were anonymously provided to the press. Ritter claimed that the timing of the leak was a politically motivated effort to distract attention from his statements about Iraq.

Ritter was arrested again in November 2009 over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site. Police claim that he showed himself masturbating via a web camera after the officer said she was a 15-year-old girl; Ritter claims he was not made aware of the ostensible age of his correspondent before the act. The next month, Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on a $25,000 unsecured bail. Charges included "unlawful contact with a minor, criminal use of a communications facility, corruption of minors, indecent exposure, possessing instruments of crime, criminal attempt and criminal solicitation". Ritter is scheduled to face trial on these charges in September 2010.

[DFW]

45. Hey, Jay, wanna make it easy on yourself?

Since half of MSNBC's air time is spent exposing Fox lies, and Fox spends no time attempting to report truth,
just eliminate Fox, and MSNBC can go back to straight news.

Or is that too much to grasp in one train of thought?

[BumRushDaShow]

47. Re-institute the Fairness Doctrine. n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

48. You lost me at "Rockefeller."

[MaeScott]

50. Pushing that fake equivalency thing again. Push back! nt

[Little Star]

63. exactly

[robcon]

54. Rockefeller: shut up. There's a first amendment.

A fool.

[harun]

55. Deny all mergers and aquisitions by News Corp.

[cstanleytech]

65. I agree however

they need to go further and fox news should be severed completely from news corp and taken out of the Murdoch families control.

[sally cat]

60. Let's compromise. Eliminate Fox, keep MSNBC.

[Warren Stupidity]

62. As a halfway measure only MSNBC will get eliminated.

Part of the new post-partisan 'lets work together' spirit in warshingtoon.

[fascisthunter]

64. rrrrrright... how about you represent everyone rather than just millionaires and billionaires

thanks in advance


ps - where was this guy the last ten years????

[bbinacan]

66. I don't think the FCC has jurisdiction here.

Maybe Rockefeller should put some of the old Pravda guys on staff. What a fucking blowhard.

[wordpix]

68. sorry, at this point I'm tuning out billionaire BS

[defendandprotect]

70. Isn't there more or less a Rockfeller-controlled medical system...????

Are the Rockefeller's concerned about some liberal truths that MSNBC liberal

hosts may uncover? Rather a fast use of Jon Stewart's convoluted and mistaken message!!

[Tabasco_Dave]

71. How brave of them to wait 15 years for a liberal equivalent to Fox.

before they could say "I don't have a liberal bias both networks are equally bad" :hurts: :eyes:

[alp227]

72. Isn't the plaza where MSNBC operates named after a Rockefeller?

Wow, the irony! Dear Mr. Senator, please show me hard evidence that MSNBC has been engaged in big-time smears against the Republican Party and conservatives. Please. I've seen a bookshelf of evidence that Fox News has done non-stop irresponsible biased anti-Democrat anti-liberal racist stupid etc etc put-in-whatever-adjective-you-want journalism and commentary in the past decade.

[Arkana]

73. He's about 75% right, sadly.

[John Kerry VonErich]

74. FCC has no jurisdiction on satalite and cable channels

nt