At least we're not fox news

A salon.com writer spent a month using Fox News as his primary news source when reporting.

Or, as he put it, “My personal Fox News nightmare: Inside a month of self-induced torture.” Even if you’re one of the many Americans who uses Facebook to receive news, most of us could spend a few minutes watching any Fox News program and immediately be able to identify its political alignment.

If you’re conservative, Fox News is gold. If you’re a liberal, like the author of the article, it’s “torture.”

I don’t understand how “news” has become so clearly biased.

Fox News is an easy target. I almost feel cheap bringing it up. The only people who would argue with me are the people who regularly consume Fox News as a real news source and, of course, the people at Fox News.

Fox News makes me cringe. I don’t agree with their views, and much of the content just makes me angry.  

For example, the hosts of “Fox and Friends” say ridiculous things. In a guest interview they said feminism demonizes men and therefore somehow affects our national security.

The fact checkers are still trying to figure that one out.

And I can’t help but see links to these stories. Admittedly, Twitter does tend to pick out the stupidest, most Saturday Night Live-worthy clips for me.

It’s interesting because I’m actually in a similar position to those at Fox News.

As a columnist, I’m basically allowed to write what I want. I will openly confess that I can be just as biased as Fox News anchors.  

There’s a reason, though, that articles such as this are published with “Opinion” written at the top. Our arguments are supposed to be supported by legitimate facts, not Fox News-style ones. But they are still our biased opinions on everything from politics to pop culture, which we will readily admit.

Too bad Fox News doesn’t.

Maybe the difference is the clear distinction between news and editorials in publications such as the Indiana Daily Student. Fox News blurs those lines. I suppose you can learn something about the world, but mostly you’ll have to suffer through listening to a bunch of white men and blonde women talk about how President Barack Obama is a socialist.

They may have facts, but only the facts that support their agenda — facts that do not support this can be easily omitted.  

It’s probably the same things readers do with opinion columns. Before I wrote here myself, I tended to follow the columnists whose views were most aligned with mine.

I wasn’t altogether interested in hearing a different take on something, but I am now, because I know that my fellow columnists are intelligent writers who will not make baseless arguments.

We may have biases, but that is why we encourage people who disagree to email us, follow us on Twitter, or write a letter to the editor. We don’t write these columns to force you to agree with us. We write them to make you think.  

Hopefully, the biggest difference between IDS Opinion and Fox News is that reading this column was slightly better than “self-induced torture.”

­— cjellert@indiana.edu
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Caroline Ellert on Twitter
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