The End of an Era

When I picked that little piece of paper of the hat and read "Fox News. McCain" I knew I would be spending a lot of time yelling at the TV this quarter. I think it is very true that people watch shows and gather information that reinforce their views. I do not think that this is a bad thing, but it was interesting to watch news from the opposite side of the spectrum. Watching Fox news during a time where little faith was left in the Republican Party was very interesting, it was fun to watch what story they would run with and what story's would only be talked about in passing. I saw that Fox liked to cling to story's about Barack Obama's character and any slight scandal such as ACRON. Fox would report these events but bring it to another level of investigation and ask outlandish questions or make innuendo's what made the story worse. Most stations have talk show host such that are outright in saying they support a political party, but most stations are relatively balanced when doing a newscast. I feel Fox News has a problem with this, a news station should not be objective when giving the facts. I obviously have to bring up John Stewart in my last post, two days after the election he showed a montage of story's the Fox News network was talking about in the days leading up to the election. All of the story were about ACRON or Bill Ayers or Barack Obama's illegal Aunt. I feel this is bad for America and news, with days until the American people are casting their ballot real news should be reported about policy issues and how these two men will effect you life if they are names President.
In conclusion, I did enjoy getting the perspective of the election from Fox News. I learned a lot about journalism and the way campaigns are showed in the news. It is said people watch shows and gather information that reinforces their views. However, I feel, if you really want to reinforce your liberal views- watch Fox News.

Fox News- not as excited about historical win

Early in the morning on Nov. 5th, I searched the online news world to check out headlines about Barack Obama's historical win over John McCain. Most news sources had inspiring pictures of Obama making his victory speech, with headlines such as "History is Made" "The World Rejoices" "Mr. President", and so on. I was dissapointed to read the somber headline from Fox News stating "Obama Campaign Promises could Become a Burden in his Presidentcy" and "Many Troubles Inherited by New President." These headlines made me feel that Fox News did not share the excitement that the world was feeling about this historical win. It makes me wonder what the headlines would have been in John McCain was elected President. Would they focus on the negative? Despite Fox New's political tendencies, Obama's winning was a defining moment, and it should have been treated as such by all news sources.

Religon in the Campaign

I read a foxnews.com article titled Campaign Volunteers Scour Churches for Votes. The article highlights efforts being made in Catholic Churches around the country to pass out literature marked as "bipartisan." The pieces of literature speak about abortion and gay marriage, asking the question "who shares out values, you decide." The pieces clearly advocating views from the right about these issues but staying bipartisan by not directly endorsing a candidate. I was upset by the lack of concern for the rights of separation of church and state in the article. The article was not advocating these events but did not seem to point out any problems except for tax exemption problems. I think that this is violating the sacredness of church as a place to come together and worship, not as a place to be told how and who to vote for. I also think it is counterproductive to assume that all church goers will vote for a particular political party because of a few social issues. I wish that foxnews.com would have taken a firmer stances on this behavior and really discussed why this is not good for the country. It makes me wonder how much of this is advocated by the McCain campaign. Passing out literature with two men on top of a wedding cake and dead babies are not ways to gain support from the middle, but it is good way to energize the base. I see this as kind of a covert operation, not indented to gain national attention but to energize the base by scaring them with exaggerated literature pieces.