Fox News: “Fair and Unbiased” and Chock-full of Fallacies

J.A.C. Brown wrote in his book Techniques of Persuasion that “Most people want to feel that issues are simple rather than complex, want to have their prejudices confirmed, want to feel that they ‘belong’ with the implication that others do not, and need to pinpoint an enemy to blame for their frustrations” (Gula, 2002, p. 3). If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that Rupert Murdoch and the executives of the Fox News Channel have that written in a playbook somewhere. It certainly seems like they were playing to these human tendencies when they took into consideration the conservative audience they would attempt to reach when they began the network in 1996.

In Gula’s (2002) book Nonsense, he identifies over a dozen behaviors that generally make people susceptible to buying into things that are logically flawed, particularly with regard to advertising and media. These tendencies include an inability to distinguish what is relevant from what is not, an inability to limit their emotions from affecting their objectivity, and tendencies to hear selectively and to rationalize, among others (p. 2). While Gula was describing people in general, he seems to be on to something. These are just the sort of behaviors Fox News seems to rely upon in branding themselves as the “fair and unbiased” news network.

After watching Outsourced: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (2004), the tactics Fox News uses to misinform the conservative public are only slightly more shocking than the lack of journalistic and professional integrity I’d seen previously for myself when idly watching television. Bill O’Reilly has long since held a special place in my heart as a deck-stacking philodox, and watching him cut off and command any guest who dared oppose his views to “shut up” further demonstrates his love of his own opinions. This was particularly unsettling to see the unwarranted attack on Jeremy Glick. Glick was the young man who went on The O’Reilly Factor to discuss why he was not in favor of the war despite the fact that his father was a civil servant who died in the 9/11 attacks. He infuriated O’Reilly by with not only his opposition, but by daring to point out that the Bush Administrations had made it possible for those behind the attacks to have access to the training that allowed the attacks on the World Trade Center to be made in the end. The personal attack that followed Glick’s appearance on the show began the day after his appearance and continued periodically for up to six months later according to Outsourced (2004).

But such an ad hominem attack is not an isolated incident as we saw from footage of the character attack Richard Clarke suffered after his statements to the 9/11 Commission in the film. We also heard from the former Fox News associates in the film that digging up dirt and attacking figureheads of the Democratic Party like Ted Kennedy and Jesse Jackson was not only favorable, but praiseworthy, from the executives on high.

One person in the film asserted that on the Fox News Channel, “news and commentary are not separate” because “opinion cannot be proven false”, giving them license to “report” whatever they see fit by prefacing statements with “some people say” and attributing the statements that follow with a nebulous source, which could be the words of the person who utters them as easily as they could be the words of an interoffice memo from a network executive. The philosophy behind Fox News’s commentary-heavy programming relies on argumentum ad ignoratiam, or an appeal to ignorance, which takes the form of reasoning along the lines of “ ‘You can’t prove your claim, therefore your claim is false’” (Gula, 2002, p. 43). Since there are few if any “true” opponents who appear on the network, many of the salaried pundits rest comfortably knowing that the likelihood of someone beating them at their own game is minimal. And even if they do cross paths with a credible opponent, the producers can simply cut the mic off and go to commercial rather than risk actually presenting a legitimate argument in favor of any liberal person or issue.

To say that the network is “fair and unbiased” is preposterous. Seth Ackerman (July/August 2001) writes in an article published by the FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) Organization that “Putting aside the question of what genuine ‘balance’ means, there are undoubtedly a few reporters in Fox’s Washington bureau […] whose stories are more or less indistinguishable from those of their counterparts at main stream networks” (p. 5) But this statement follows two pages of text exploring the political affiliations of the hosts of the network’s many news commentary shows, all of whom are decidedly conservative. He even states that “Pundit Mara Liasson—who is touted as an on-air ‘liberal’ by Fox executives—sits on the board of the conservative human-rights group Freedom House [and that] New York Magazine cited a Fox insider as saying that Liasson assured president Roger Ailes before being hired that she was Republican” (p. 2). The article includes a personal account from respected New York City cable news reporter, Andrew Kirtzman. Kirtzman had interviewed with Fox News in 1996, and was asked by management in the interview what his political affiliations were, but declined to answer the question. After the refusal to answer the question, “all employment discussion ended” according to the Village Voice who initially reported Kritzman’s story (Ackerman, p. 2).

When the owner of the news outlet, in this case Rupert Murdoch, possesses a staunch and observable political position, and those under him are hired according whether or not they hold similar positions and views, and those who are to serve as the “opposition” are neither credible nor recognizable members of the opposition, the particular news outlet in question becomes a propagandizing agency. This agency, thus, is both reliant upon illogical premises and practices and propagates illogical thinking among both its representatives and its audience. According to Gula (2002) argumentum ad bacculum is a type of irrelevance fallacy where “the person who has the power is by definition right” (p. 43). Fox News, as an extension of Rupert Murdoch’s political agenda, has the power to present its viewership with favorable representation of the Republican Party, its members, and conservative positions on various issues. It simultaneously holds the power to condemn the Democratic Party, its members, and liberal positions on various issues. Considering the evidence from the film, my own observations, and Ackerman’s article, it certainly appears to me that Fox News not only possesses this ability, but exercises this power as well.

With regard to the marketing strategy of being the “fair and unbiased” news source, it seems to me that, in the words of the Bard, “The lady doth protest too much.” According to Ackerman’s article, “the core of Fox’s critique is the notion that mainstream media just don’t tell the conservative side of the story. […] If Fox appears conservative, [network executives] argue, it’s only because the country has grown so accustomed to the left-leaning media that a truly balanced network seems to lean right” (p. 7), yet, as Ackerman points out, the Fox executives have had “trouble backing up these claims with actual facts” (p. 7). To christen themselves as the “fair and unbiased” news network is, as was stated in Outsourced “a genius marketing strategy” works because the executives behind the self-dubbed title know that people “tend to believe what they want to believe [and] often judge from appearances” (Gula, 2002, p. 2). They know that the majority of the general American public, regardless of political affiliation, are sheep who are easily led because of their unwillingness to think critically about the information being presented to them and the agendas of those who are presenting it. So when Fox News Channel claims their own fairness and credibility, those who already agree with the unified position presented on the network have no personal desire to think otherwise or to question it--they want them to be credible and unbiased, so they buy into the claim. Their own opinions are validated, and that satisfies the network's conservative audience.

References:
Ackerman, S. (July/August 2001). The most biased name in news: Fox News Channel’s
extraordinary right wing tilt. Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. Retrieved from
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067.

Greenwald, R. (Producer & Director). (2004). Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on
Journalism. [Motion picture]. USA: The Disinformation Company.

Gula, R.J. (2002). Nonsense: A Handbook of logical fallacies. Mount Jackson: Axios
Press.

Is it possible to find love online?

Possible? Certainly. Difficult? I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but my experience is that it most certainly as difficult to find love online as it is in person.

David Brooks (2003) of the New York Times writes that:

[…]couples who meet through online dating services tend to exchange e-mail for weeks or months. Then they'll progress to phone conversations for a few more weeks. Only then will there be a face-to-face meeting, almost always at some public place early in the evening, and the first date will often be tentative and Dutch (Love, Internet Style, para. 2).

It is certainly true in my experience that the time leading up to a first date is longer with online dating than with face-to-face dating, but the failure rates of flirtations leading to a first date seem higher. But I haven’t logged the research nor have I come across any studies to verify that hypothesis’s validity.

I joined Match.com from March 2008 through September 2008, Eharmony.com from November 2008 through January 2009, and registered for Plentyoffish.com in October 2009 but have not been an active participant since February 2009. My motivation for giving online dating a shot fits the pitch of the advertisements of these sites: no desire to meet people in bars, too busy with career to find time to meet and mingle with high possibility of not meeting anyone suitable, etc.

The decision to give online dating a try was a struggle for me, born of frustration with traditional face-to-face dating, rather the lack thereof. As a high school teacher, traditional networks of meeting available single men are virtually nonexistent unless you are interested in dating co-workers. I had just moved back to Indianapolis in July 2007, and most of my friends from college had moved elsewhere. I’d dated a couple of guys casually that first year, but knew there was nothing serious there.

So I decided to give online dating a try, though I felt like I was cheating—like I was somehow selling myself short for not going the more “traditional” route. I suppose I felt the stigma Jennifer Egan (2003) was referring to when she wrote that:

A fair number of people continue to feel a stigma about dating online, ranging from the waning belief that it's a dangerous refuge for the desperate and unsavory to the milder but still unappealing notion that it's a public bazaar for the sort of people who thrive on selling themselves (Love in the Time of No Time, para. 5).

While that was something I was able to get past, my true discomforts were the ones that sat in the pit of my stomach, knowing that this method of meeting bachelors called for me to be particularly skeptical of the men in the profiles that came across my screen.

Knowing that anyone can answer questions on a personality survey or write a few compelling paragraphs of personal description could not account for the fact that I couldn’t look these people in the eye, see if I found them physically attractive, or sense whether or not they had a personality I was truly attracted to. As David Brooks (2003) put it, “All the writers try to show they are sensual yet smart” (Love, Internet Style, para.8).

Despite posted pictures (which were often old, or didn’t clearly depict the person) on candidates’ profiles, they didn’t account for the reduced social cues (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004; 60-61) of body language, eye contact, dress and grooming. Vain as it may make me seem to be, with neither a clear, reliable image of these men nor social cues from the outset, I was left to judge them based on “the facts” as listed in their profiles. When limited to judge based on height, ethnicity, location, age, religion and whether they drink or smoke, and perhaps a blurb or two about themselves to arbitrary questions like “What was the last book you read?”, I find myself judging and eliminating based on superficial information and dismissing them without really feeling like my judgment is based on a valid assessment.

And as quick to discard I may be, the setup of some sites have features that appeal to some users more than others. One such example is eHarmony, which allows users to restrict their “personality profiles” until the owner and interested party have communicated and the owner feels comfortable revealing information about himself or herself. In my experience, this was quite common for people to do, which left me asking questions like “What are they hiding?” The site allows members to also limit direct contact with matches by making them answer five questions before allowing them to learn more, or sometimes even see a picture of their match. (Despite eHarmony's nearly 300 question personality assessment, I never made it out of the pre-communication phase--it was a waste in my opinion.)

The ability to restrict communication in this manner certainly does not support the idea of disinhibition that Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic (2004) discuss in which participants in online communication have a diminished concern for how they present themselves and how others judge them (p. 61). Ironically, these members led me to feel more judgmental toward them, not because they were not willing to participate in “risk taking” behavior, but because I interpreted their withholding such information as them hiding something.

That isn’t to say that there haven’t been any experiences with those who certainly use dating sites for their pursuits of risky behavior as Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic details (p. 70). This was especially my experience with Plentyoffish.com, which has a live chat feature. On several occasions, while chatting with men on this site, I found myself discussing personal things more openly than I would have with someone I had met face to face and often men would openly suggest meeting to “hook up” despite the site’s feature of being able to filter out candidates who were interested in a casual-sex relationship. It was surprising to me that Plentyoffish.com, the only free dating site of the three I tried, was the only one that filtered out matches based on that criteria. I had several people on Match contact me who were listed as “married”, which certainly reflected thrill-seeking behavior from my perspective.

Maybe my lack of success in online dating is similar to my lack of success in face-to-face dating. Regardless of which mode I employ in dating, I have an idea of what I am looking for ideally. Because I get a resume in online dating, I think I am more rigid in selecting candidates to “interview” than in face-to-face dating because I have social cues to rely on in FtF. What I do know is that dating isn’t any simpler online than it is in “real” life, but it does simplify the search for eligible bachelors. As far as the likelihood or success of finding love online, I’m inclined to agree with University of Arkansas psychology professor, Jeffery Lohr, who has studied various internet dating sites for their efficacy at helping people find love. Lohr, who was interviewed by Alina Tugend (2009) for an article about online dating for the New York Times states “It seems to me that everybody is marketing their product far beyond the available evidence. There is none to very little effectiveness in the matching process” (Blinded by Science in the Online Dating Game, para. 4). The online “market” of dating simply allows for singles to find other singles more readily, but love seems to be elusive to most of us for a wide range of reasons.

References:

Brooks, D. (2003, November 8). Love, Internet style. [Electronic version]. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/08/opinion/love-internet-style.html

Egan, J. (2003, November 23). Love in the time of no time. [Electronic version]. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/magazine/love-in-the-time-of-no-time.html

Thurlow, C., Lengel, L., & Tomic, A. (2004). Computer Mediated Communication: Social interaction and the internet. London: Sage.

Tungend, A. (2009, July 17). Blinded by science in the online dating game. [Electronic version]. New York
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/internet/18shortcuts.html.