<rant irrationality=50%>
They do that sort of thing for one reason: to up there ratings, by turning everything into a Jerry Springer episode.
This is not a new thing; it wasn't even new in Citizen Hearst's day. Hell, Fox News, which is indeed probably the worst of the lot on TV, is the model objective, ethical journalism compared to the newspapers of 150 years ago. At least they haven't started any wars (yet), unlike Hearst, or CNN.
However, in some ways they are more honest than the 'serious' news sources such as the New York TImes. "Objective journalism" is a contradiction in terms; All journalism has biases, and any good newspaper is honest about it's opinions. The idea of journalistic objectivity was itself spread by the newspapers in t first place, as a defense against their own excesses.
Fox News makes no bones about the fact that their primary interest is in ratings, and that accuracy is of little concern to them; after all, they repeat well-known urban legends as fact fully aware that they are BS, all the while winking at the viewers who get the joke. They will gleefully admit - unlike, say, the Washington Post - that the truth has never gotten in the way of a good story.
</rant> |
