Slanted Like a Fox: How I Learned To Think For Myself

Posted on 26. Mar, 2010 by Brittney Winters in Politics

I grew up watching Fox News.

No, I am not a Republican; nor do I live in Texas, believe strictly in creationism, scorn science or actively oppose abortion or the separation of church and state.

Whenever I think about a news station, my earliest memories harken back to WFLD 12 (32 if you were using an antenna) and waiting anxiously for the 5 ‘o clock news to end so that I could get to watching The Simpsons. What an 8 year old was doing watching The Simpsons without parental supervision is a completely different topic, but I digress. My formative years were spent listening to the Right Wing impose their “might is right, and by the way, also white” rhetoric upon the media outlet most viewed in the Chicagoland area. No one I knew, as much as an 8 year old actually “knows” people, watched CBS, NBC or ABC. It was always Fox.

I didn’t notice that the news reported by Fox had more slant than the Tower of Pisa until I was older. I noted, during LewinskyGate, that there was an unsettling amount of malicious glee in the reporters’ tone and diction when going over every single dirty detail of Clinton’s affair with the intern. Being all of ten years old at the time, I dismissed the notion that maybe the news wasn’t as impartial as I’d been led to believe, mostly because I figured that if the President of the United States was doing something (particularly a “something” that no one would explain to me) wrong, then maybe the news had the right to properly chastise him.

It wasn’t really until the 2008 presidential election preliminaries that I really started paying attention to news outlets in general. This being the first election that I could actively participate in (I’d somehow forgotten to register to vote until this big election – shame on me, I know), I avidly researched the candidates up for election. As a proudly registered Independent, I actually researched both ends of the political spectrum (except for Nader. I feel that his political aspirations amount to little more than a circus sideshow meant to distract from the real issues). What I found during my research disheartened me.

The purported potential leaders of our country were little more than throwing sand at each other in the playground and media outlets were picking sides. Fox News called Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle, “Barack’s Baby Mama” – a racially charged term equating the classy woman married to an equally classy man with adorable children to a trash-talking, weave-wearing, neck-rolling, ebonics-talking welfare queen with illegitimate children. They also termed an affectionate fist bump colloquially known as “giving dap” a “terrorist fist jab”. “Terrorist”? Really? This isn’t to say that Fox was the only outlet to openly pick sides and display egregious examples of prejudice and preferential treatment. These are just the most offensive examples that hit me, an educated Black woman, when actively researching who I was going to vote for based on the issues. I’ll admit to having chuckled at the jokes made at Sarah Palin’s expense, mostly because I do think her handlers should have tried a little harder to put a leash on at least some of that folksy charm (winking and giving “shout-outs” during a vice-presidential debate? Who on earth briefed her on proper election etiquette?).

I bring this up because today, we’re going through a similar era of mudslinging and non-factual reporting. Today’s news is composed of 85% hyperbole, 10 % sensationalism, 4% B.S. and 1% hard facts. The economy is bad. My current unemployability as a recent college graduate tells me that much. However, reporting about Steve on the corner who was likely drinking his paychecks long before the Dow Jones dropped is not helping prevent hysteria about never, ever getting a job. Swine flu? I had it. I didn’t die. If I did, this article would be the news story of the century. Health care reform? The previously mentioned facts that I am both unemployed and had to be treated for H1N1 would lead you to the reasonable conclusion that I am also uninsured. Thanks, taxpayers of Illinois, for fronting me the cash to not die a terrible death of influenza. I’ll pay you back, I promise. But more importantly, thank you to those who voted for health care reform so I don’t have to jump through flaming hoops backwards to get back on my parents’ insurance anymore. See guys? Health care reform doesn’t mean you’re paying for druggies and illegal immigrants! You’re paying for a broke pre-med student to not die, ironically, of the flu. So please stop generalizing and listening to your senators’ outrageous comments. You’re listening to the rants of impotent old men that are fighting against changes that ultimately won’t affect them anyway. Listen to actual facts, please.

Wading through the mud being slung almost two years ago taught me to sift through the bias and slant given by news outlets because guess what, everyone: Reporting the news is a business. Controversy sells. Straight facts don’t. So when you turn on the news, log onto CNN or MSNBC, read The New York Times, I can guarantee you that every “fact” you read has been sensationalized in order to prompt you to spend more time and money reading the “news”. So how about instead of listening to the talking heads on the television screen, you take some time, read up on the issues at hand from as impartial of sources you can find (if the words “outrage”, “terrorist”, “fear”, “conflict”, “liberal” or “conservative” are frequently used, find another source), and use your own head to make an educated decision as to what you personally believe.

At the end of the day, just ponder this. Republicans voted to go to war in Iraq. Democrats voted to reform health care. Both are costing us approximately $1 trillion. Either way, I’m still not getting my Social Security checks 43 years from now. How’s that for facts?

Tags: Fox News, Propoganda, Republicans, Right-wing