Conning the media with the term "balanced".

[gulliver]

Ever notice just how poisonous a concept the word "balanced" (as in Fox's "fair and balanced") can be? As used by Fox News, "balance" is a toxin against truth offered as a credo of integrity. In the "balanced" formulation, journalism is no longer to be about trying to report the truth. It is to be about assuring that two arguments for an issue are given equal coverage in the name of balance.

I hope journalists are not taken in by it. Truth in reporting has no hope if journalists feel obliged to give lies and innuendo the same weight as well sourced, well researched fact.

[whistle]

1. In the case of Fox "balanced" is anything but balanced and "fair"...

...is only fair when advancing the neo-conservative distorted view of the world. The tactics used in the name of balance are normally associated with attack dogs, jackets and sharks in a feeding frenzy. Truth is most certainly the sacrificial lamb in all of this. The last people who should be entrusted with uncovering the truth are news journalists associated with big media conglomerates. Anyone care to suggest who we can rely upon for finding and reporting truth?

[Catherine Vincent]

2. I don't know who the execs at Fox News think they are fooling

with this "fair and balanced" crap. Oh, excuse me...I guess they are fooling conservatives. LOL.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. I agree completely -- there are not two sides to every issue....

Sometimes there is just the truth. This new journalism of "balance" is not journalism at all; it's just a meaningless exercise, a show.

[kentuck]

4. It's the assumption the "other" side is wrong....

and there has to be an opposing viewpoint, no matter what. FOX makes this assumption. Whatever the Democrats say is questionable so they offer another viewpoint, and call it "balanced"... It would never occur to them that the so-called "liberals" may be telling the truth.

[baldguy]

5. Neocon lies balanced against the truth.

I'll take the "biased" truth any day.