The Best Fox News Interview EVER - I don't think they expected this

[TotallyOz]

[Guest hitoallusa]

Oh my those anchors need to read more books rather than putting make up on for TV.. I would prefer and even marry who care less about appearance but teams and think more...

[TampaYankee]

Finally!! Somebody tells it like it is and to Fox's face too. Three cheers for Tom Ricks.

I've grown more than weary of the likes of Brokaw and others playing like these guys are authentic journalists. It's guys like Brokaw who give journalism a bad name, not Fox, because these guys cannot be objective and truthful about calling out their own institutions. It's like one has to catch Ailes, Krystol, McConnell and Behner pants down in a circle jerk in the closet before one can infer there is some mutual glad-handing going on between those fellows. (Pun intended.)

Truthfully that is only half the problem with journalism. The other issue is these guys are confused about the purpose of journalism. Many, probably most if one gauges by observation, believe it is limited to purveying propaganda to the people from all sources about issues rather seeking to determine the facts and veracity of views before informing the people. And when that veracity is unsettled, they leave it to the readers to ferret out the facts rather than present them in a cogent form for the people and provide independent information that bears on the issues. Most of the time journalists leave the issues as a 'he said - she said' argument which does nothing for informing the people.

It is not that good journalism is never done, just done too infrequently by too few. The reasons are several: some 'reporters' (eg. Brokaw) feel they should not put a thumb on the scales, even if that thumb consists of verified facts or an independent assessment of the issue. Of course that takes effort and sometimes guile to accomplish. So some are just lazy. Some are incompetent -- too stupid or clueless to ferret out the information.

Some worry that it will offend guests to call into question their views with countervailing facts. Journalism management does certainly. They want talking heads to attract viewers which garner ratings which increase advertising rates. (Thou shalt not offend guests by too deeply dissecting their positions.) Of course this does happen on occasion but is more the exception than the rule.

One sees very few journalists of the caliber of Edward R Murrow, Huntley and Brinkley, Walter Cronkite, Eric Severeid, Harry Reasoner, etc. who thought they were there to inform the people and to hold government and institutions accountable. To be honest, these people frequently were a pain in the ass to their management. They stepped on some powerful toes in their pursuit of the profession but... they were first class journalists. I'm not even sure they could exist in today's environment.

[JKane]

Yep, the nearest thing to the journalism you describe that I can find on the tube is The Daily Show--how sad is that? Though Maddow can get pretty close too.

[TotallyOz]

IMHO Fox News has destroyed the credibility of journalists. Most Americans view Fox as a news group and their anchors as real journalists. That means that half of America is really stupid. I am not an elitist. I just agree that Fox News is no more of a "real journalist" style than Bill Maher is. I like Bill but he is not a journalist, he is a comedian.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Well the media itself has many serious issues and people need to be trained in processing information provided by the media. After all journalists are people with their own opinions and perspectives so there is limit in providing objective opinions. The problem is not limited to the Fox News...

[JKane]

Great article on another way Fox does things:

http://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-charts-tricks-data-2012-11

[AdamSmith]

and people need to be trained in processing information provided by the media.

You know I love your optimism but I lose my lunch over the ungroundedness of your idealisms. How on earth would you propose to enact such training?

I will omit the interminable lecture (read instead any paragraph selected at random from the marvelous effluvia of Umberto Eco). But you see the point.

[AdamSmith]

P.S. For no reason except to escape the mind-numbingly boring presentation that I am right now sitting through at this software conference -- as the price of their free breakfast! God, the cruelty -- my mind is wandering back to Eco's incredible lectures on semiotics. He would speak for 90 minutes without stopping, except to chain-smoke there at the front of the classroom (this was 1980) but he would say next to nothing about the main theoretical points. Instead he would use all the time by just casually uttering a one-line throwaway that summarized a whole big area of theory, and then would spend the rest of the classroom time illustrating it with endless colorful real-world examples.

So we would have to go back to our dorm rooms from these bewitchingly colorful but totally incomprehensible lectures, and assiduously plow our way through whatever chapter of his book Theory of Semiotics he had been talking about, and thus finally see what the fuck he meant by going on and on about the "wind rose" (medieval term for the face of a compass; thus The Name of the Rose which it later turned out that he was writing that semester) or whatever other example he was fixated on that day.

Sorry, what was my point? As he would say several times each class!

[Guest hitoallusa]

More people have access to education these days but there are too many distractions to find time to think. It's not that hard... I believe that everybody can do it like cooking food... They just have to find time and keep doing it. Discuss with other people whenever they have time and read more... It's not that hard...

You know I love your optimism but I lose my lunch over the ungroundedness of your idealisms. How on earth would you propose to enact such training?

I will omit the interminable lecture (read instead any paragraph selected at random from the marvelous effluvia of Umberto Eco). But you see the point.

[AdamSmith]

For example, here is his description of California's Madonna Inn:

http://lazenby.tumblr.com/post/204409635/travels-in-hyperreality-umberto-eco

...I would give several vital organs to be able to write (and think!) like that.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I usually get my free breakfast and don't go seminars at conferences. I usually walk around or sleep in my hotel room during many conferences I have attended.. So why do you sit through a boring presentation???? Now who is so uptight...

BTW I would have enjoyed ECO's lecture but not his smoking in front of the class... But come to think of it I think I might have found it sexy smoking in his lecture, deeply absorbed in thought...

P.S. For no reason except to escape the mind-numbingly boring presentation that I am right now sitting through at this software conference --

[AdamSmith]

So why do you sit through a boring presentation???? Now who is so uptight...

Score one for your side!

But of course the reason I park my smiling idiot face in the front row is to increase my chances of selling them some consulting services. That is why I bothered to drag my ass out here, after all. So far, looking good.

BTW I would have enjoyed ECO's lecture but not his smoking in front of the class... But come to think of it I think I might have found it sexy smoking in his lecture, deeply absorbed in thought...

I think you would have totally gotten him and his sensibility. Have you read any of his books or articles?

[Guest hitoallusa]

If I were in his class I would like to ask him what analogies he can come up with for a bride in a white wedding dress and... I would also ask privately during his office hours what analogies he would use for "gay".. Not to put him on the spot in the class..

What we communicate about gays has significantly changed and we use more positive signs for gays these days... What triggered communications about gays move toward in a different way than a century ago...

[AdamSmith]

If I were in his class I would like to ask him what analogies he can come up with for a bride in a white wedding dress and... I would also ask privately during his office hours what analogies he would use for "gay".. Not to put him on the spot in the class..

What we communicate about gays has significantly changed and we use more positive signs for gays these days... What triggered communications about gays move toward in a different way than a century ago...

I must confess I don't understand one word of this. Is there a thought in particular that you're trying to articulate?

[Guest hitoallusa]

I simply want to know what analogies Eco uses for terms like "gay" and "bride in white dress"... Both of them represent cultural phenomenon and thus how he communicates these two things I am curious to know..what about you? Aren't you curious?

For me in his article about the Inn he tries to communicate his impression and description of

the Inn using analogy. It's a form of communication we use it everywhere in our life yet we fail to acknowledge it consciously but not unconsciously. For example in movies.. it's hard to present every detail using the dialogues of actors.. So they substitute dialogue with a lot of signs and symbols..

In a culture where a king has absolute power, king's authority is presented with very symbols and signs to a point that it seems ridiculous but they are necessary to maintain his authority. That authority can also be brought down by people use difeerent signs and symbols to undermine it. What symbols and signs people use to communicate their ideas are important clues to understanding one's cultural background and thus gives us the glimpse of the foundation of a society in anthropological sense...

Back to things he used to described the Inn, you can see how lively it is.. He even uses music! The inn has also have a unique sound.. It's like you are actually there.. I think I could have made a short clip out of his article.. Simply beautiful...

[AdamSmith]

OK, understood. I don't thInk he has ever said or written much of interest about homosexuality. (If I've overlooked anything here, eager to be corrected & educated. Mein kommandant!) He is after all an (1) Italian (2) semiotician, not a (1) French (2) deconstructionist. (Speaking personally here as one who was just a bit too late to the game to give head to, or receive it from, Foucault. )

(We will not speak of Derrida.)

(And I alas lacked the Ingre-esque curves that attracted my revered Harold Bloom to my classmate Naomi Wolf. About whom the phrase 'lack of candlepower' was deliciously applied in private by another prof there, my undergrad senior thesis advisor J.D. McClatchy, one of the most deliciously catty & vicious & accurate gay bitches it was ever my privilege to study under. Or occasionally alongside, sandwiched betwixt he and his bf the poet Alfred Corn (his real name, yes!)

...Ah, the early 1980s. Life was sweet.)

As for the bride in white dress, you remain way ahead of me. Maybe the answer lies somewhere out there on the Internets. My quick lazy scan of my recall of Eco's writings comes up empty on this.

[lookin]

I don't thInk he has ever said or written much of interest about homosexuality. (If I've overlooked anything here, eager to be corrected & educated. Mein kommandant!)

Did find this:

In discussing homosexuality and the church, here is what Eco says:

"I confess that homosexuals who want to be recognized by the Church and priests who want to get married exasperate me. I take off my shoes when I enter a mosque, and when I'm in Jerusalem I accept that in some buildings, on Saturday, the elevators run on automatic and stop on every floor. If I want to keep my shoes on or control the elevator, I go somewhere else."

Very interesting.

[AdamSmith]

I did see that. Still trying to puzzle out whether it's wise, hateful, both, or something else yet.

Got any ideas? (Quoth Sully, seconds before splashdown.)

[lookin]

I did see that. Still trying to puzzle out whether it's wise, hateful, both, or something else yet.

Got any ideas?

Other than that he stick with semiotics and hotel critiques, not a one.

Though I wouldn't count on him to give you away should Hito fancy a Church wedding.

[AdamSmith]

Mm hm. Think you're right.

That is to say, I think his thoughts there are a little hateful. Or a lot. Most insulting piece of it may be how throwaway he treats all of it. In lecture, as in his writings, he could get borne aloft on his eloquence and lose sight of the object. Getting supercilious and superficial in the going.

...A failing which, it occurs to add, I never ever observed in either of my beloved Bloom or Price. Certainly they were both full of themselves, as are we not all, but their hounds' noses never deviated from whatever scent they were following in that day's lesson.

Nor from a whole trench of deep moral truths they held. Eco by contrast was studiedly superficial in that dimension.

This line of pondering is useful in thinnin' thru what is truly valuable pedagogy, vs. just public mental masturbation.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Wow what a beautiful wedding! But what does that long tail of that dress symbolize? What does it try to communicate? Lastly, but not the least does the above slightly sign that Lookin wants to marry me? Why does he communicate the way he does? He could just give me a ring?

[lookin]

Lastly, but not the least does the above slightly sign that Lookin wants to marry me? Why does he communicate the way he does? He could just give me a ring?

Hito, the last time I saw anybody with as many rings as you have, he was tickling the ivories in Vegas.

Entranced as I am by your suggestion, I think I'll just stay on the sidelines until you're finished shopping it around on MER. I'm not a Mormon, you know.

[MsGuy]

Hito, the last time I saw anybody with as many rings as you have, he was tickling the ivories in Vegas.

I think I'll just stay on the sidelines until you're finished shopping it around on MER.

You got that right, lookin.

Last time I thought Hito and I had something going, AdamSmith rang the doorbell and, whoosh, I was shoved out the back door faster than a Log Cabin Republican at the conservative national convention.

In all fairness to Hito, I have to admit when I received my pants and shoes back by mail two days later, they were cleaned, pressed and polished.

[Guest hitoallusa]

MsGuy I didn't send back your stuff to end our relationship.. They just needed to be cleaned as a good wife would do for a husband to be...

You got that right, lookin.

Last time I thought Hito and I had something going, AdamSmith rang the doorbell and, whoosh, I was shoved out the back door faster than a Log Cabin Republican at the conservative national convention.

In all fairness to Hito, I have to admit when I received my pants and shoes back by mail two days later, they were cleaned, pressed and polished.