Romney concedes Fox News bias

November 22, 2007

Once in a while, a high-profile Republican will slip and accidentally concede what everyone already knows: the Fox News has a political agenda. Here’s a coffee-shop encounter in Iowa City yesterday with Mitt Romney:

A woman asked the former governor of Massachusetts: What can we do to stop the newspaper and television from attacking the president?

Romney replied: “It’s amazing isn’t it?

“Well, fortunately you can change the channels,” he said, “and there are channels like FOX that gives a different perspective, and you can also go on the Internet and talk radio.”

Wait, Fox News isn’t “fair and balanced”? It’s not the “we-report-you-decide” network? Shocking.

“A woman asked the former governor of Massachusetts: What can we do to stop the newspaper and television from attacking the president?”

One gets the feeling that this woman, if she kept up on current events, would think Pervez Musharraf is a genius for jailing dissenting reporters. She’s obviously one of those “freedom-loving Americans” for wanting to squelch any voices that don’t agree with her. God help us.

  • “A woman asked the former governor of Massachusetts: What can we do to stop the newspaper and television from attacking the president?”

    Maybe she should get together with the woman who wants to know how to beat the bitch, bat a few ideas around.

    Bet she didn’t complain when they really were bashing the president – Clinton.

    It’s impossible to imagine the world that these people see.

  • Give thanks.

    Give thanks for almost seven years of misrule by the Bush crime family… Give thanks for those loyal Republicans, Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who illegally removed some fifty thousand black voters from the voting rolls in 2000 because their names resembled those of Texas felons, and our corporate media who happy covered up this Bit o’ Treason…

    Give thanks for the corporate media who continually smeared President Bill Clinton, since Newt Gingrich let his Contract on America loose back in 1994… Give thanks for the corporate media’s smearing of VP Al Gore during the 2000 Presidential campaign… Give thanks for the corporate media’s going very lightly on the Royal Bush during the 2000 Presidential campaign…

    Give thanks for five Supreme Idiots on our highest Court how managed to stop our 220-year-old Democracy dead in its tracks, stop the counting of the votes in the Florida Presidential Election and hand the election on a silver platter to the very sore loser Royal Bush in December 2000.

    Give thanks for the veritable cornucopia of Bush/Cheney lies, greed, Diebolded-elections, torture, war-mongering, murder, fascism, war crimes, arrogance, stupidity, bullying, cronyism, corruption, smearing, sliming, and treason since that terrible day in December 2000.

  • Isn’t it nice to know that there is a television “news” station just for people who cannot bear to have reality encroach upon their cherished biases? I suppose Republicans can be thankful for stupid voters this time of year.

  • I demand to know which newspapers and TV news shows are attacking the President. As far as I can tell he’s all about public transportation, in that he’s gotten the longest free ride in the history of American politics.

    What the woman meant was “can’t we FORCE the media to stop criticizing THIS President?” I GUARANTEE you she didn’t feel this way from 1993 to 2001.

    Of course, Romney didn’t bother to twll this woman about the First Amendment.

    If this Iowa woman doesn’t like the free press, there are other countries she’ll be more comfortable — countries where she won’t see or be allowed to make comments critical of the authorities.

  • The way the question was worded, one wonders whether the only answer that would have satisfied this woman would have been “lock ’em up.”

  • What can we do to stop the newspaper and television from attacking the president?

    Gee, Romney’s a dope. He should have answered that when the president stops lying and committing fraud and other despicable acts like pardoning criminals in cases that involve him, supporting a dictator who has wrecked his country’s democracy, authorizing torture and illegal wars, giving tax breaks to the rich, wrecking the Constitution, and making sure kids don’t have health coverage, he won’t be subjected to the kinds of attacks he receives now.

    But I guess he knew the attacks won’t stop unless Bush does, so the only place to flee is Fox.

  • Please.. He didn’t concede a bias, he said it’s a different perspective.

    I personally feel that the media moguls — regardless of their network — are less concerned with honest problem solving than they are with high ratings and targeted adspace. And nothing draws interest like a good old fashioned brawl. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s capitalism.

  • Mitt Romney was absolutely right – if you don’t like the reporting, change the channel. It’s a tactful way of telling her he supports free speech.

  • When I was in Kuwait and Iraq, we originally watched some CNN, but quickly went FOX only. It is not that CNN lies (all of the time), but that FOX is more positive. Optimism is also a form of bias, but it happened to attract me and the majority of soldiers I served with.

    There is great power in media, which is why they so easily become pawns. The only check and balance is the availability of more than one perspective.

    There are at least four ways to deal with media:

    1. Don’t watch it.
    2. Watch something else.
    3. Learn to filter or engage bias when you see it.
    4. Set out to change it.

    Filtering bias is annoying, like listening to an R rated movie with 120 F-words in 120 minutes if you don’t swear, or listening to a blatant sales pitch from someone who says they don’t want to sell you anything.

    Changing the media is the bravest course of all. If you don’t like CNN, go work for it as a conservative. Help bring balance to the Force, and we’ll make you a hero.

  • In fairness, I think Romney’s intended implication there would be that Fox News is the only TV news source is “fair and balanced.” Folks on our side of the argument often forget that the right wing has a media persecution complex at least as severe as our own. When they go around harping on alleged “liberal bias” in the MSM, it’s said without a hint of irony in most cases because it’s something they honestly believe.

  • What can we do to stop the newspaper and television from attacking the president?

    Throw him out of office, so that the MSM won’t have the fodder? Not that MSM seems to avail itself of all the smorgasboard of things to criticise all that often or all that willingly…

  • The headline lies. He conceded only that FOX tends to attack Bush less than other networks. The implication is that FOX is LESS biased [against the president].
    Biases can also come in honest reporting, especially of statistical data such as polls. Having repeated early primary state polls where RG and HC are winning and excluding other early states, like Wyoming on January 5th, introduces bias. The media also relatively ignores Nevada and Michigan, both before February 5.
    How do we remove this bias? Pay a polling fiirm $7000 to take an honest state opinion poll of 500 voters for their first, second, and last choice for presidential candidates in their respective primary/caucus. Please help me find someone willing to contribute this kind of money, or just commission a firm directly; I have 3 contacts.

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