John Edwards To Skip Fox News Debate

[keithy_19]

RALEIGH, N.C. - Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday pulled out of a second debate co-hosted by Fox News Channel, saying the cable network has a conservative slant.

Ok, Fox News definately has a conservative slant.

The Edwards campaign said it will not attend the Sept. 23 debate hosted by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, but officials added that Edwards will participate in a different debate hosted by the institute and CNN.

So he's going to participate in a debate that is a "safer" enviorment. No doubt CNN has a liberal slant.

This doesn't really bother me to such a huge degree, but I just feel that if he's going to be trying to run for the highest office in the United States, if not maybe the world, than he should be able to take on reporters associated with Fox News.

Full story http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail

[epo]

I see a couple of things at play here:

1. The primary is about the base. How much better positioning can someone make in the Democratic primary than to be the first one to shit on Fox News? Imagine the fundraising letters!

2. Ethics. Fuck, as a liberal I'm glad Edwards is taking a stand. Yes, every journalist does have some form of bias, but Fox News/Republican Propoganda is out of fucking control. A news organization should not have policy positions like Fox News promotes. They should be presenting a story and they are presenting opinions. Good for Edwards.

[AgnosticJihad]

First of all, you can't really compare the ideaological slants of CNN and Fox News. Fox is way more blatant about thier biases than any other major "news" service I'm aware of. CNN usually at least tries to represent both sides of a debate and even has thier reportwers/anchors do so when appropriate, while Fox seems to find the most imcompetent representative of liberal/left views when it actually acknowledges the other side.

As for Edwards refusing to participate in a debate hosted by Fox, why should he? I'm not sure if by hosting the debate Fox has any control over the debate (like the questions being asked, for example), but if so there is no way in hell it would possibly be fair. I say kudos to Edwards; Fox is not a legitimate news service and should not be treated as such.

[Snacks]

I see a couple of things at play here:

1. The primary is about the base. How much better positioning can someone make in the Democratic primary than to be the first one to shit on Fox News? Imagine the fundraising letters!

2. Ethics. Fuck, as a liberal I'm glad Edwards is taking a stand. Yes, every journalist does have some form of bias, but Fox News/Republican Propoganda is out of fucking control. A news organization should not have policy positions like Fox News promotes. They should be presenting a story and they are presenting opinions. Good for Edwards.


Agree and I will add why should he. 90% of people that watch fox news vote republican. No Idependant people or liberals watch it. And those that do, do it to be watch dogs and to prove how far right Fox News is. You get no benifit out of going on Fox news at all.

[foodcourtdruide]

Ok, Fox News definately has a conservative slant.



So he's going to participate in a debate that is a "safer" enviorment. No doubt CNN has a liberal slant.
This doesn't really bother me to such a huge degree, but I just feel that if he's going to be trying to run for the highest office in the United States, if not maybe the world, than he should be able to take on reporters associated with Fox News.

Full story http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070406/ap_on_el_pr/on_the2008_trail

How does CNN have a liberal slant?

[Dan 'Hampton]

Ok so this is what we know about Edwards:

Failed VP Candidate (Failed 2nd term senator)

Wife has cancer

Huge mansion in NC

I don't like Clinton but holy christ at least she has taken a stance on something. This guy is riding the wave of being a WHITE MAN.

[pennington]

Edwards is in third place at best right now and has raised less money than the two "front-runners". He needs all the exposure he can get. Also, I'm not too comfortable with someone who is afraid to talk to someone who might disagree with him. Do you think Rudy would back-down from a CNN debate?

And what is so conservative about the "news" part of FOX News? Sure individual shows like O'Reilly have their own opinion, but I have no idea what Chris Wallace's politics are other than his father, in interviews, is an admitted left-winger. What about Juan Williams? Or Mora Liasson -she's from NPR?

[TheMojoPin]

Everyone's missing the point here that's already been mentioned...primaries are about appealling to your political base. The Democrats' political base, by and large, doesn't watch a lot of Fox News. You wouldn't see these guys doing this for any kind of presidential debates.

[foodcourtdruide]

Edwards is in third place at best right now and has raised less money than the two "front-runners". He needs all the exposure he can get. Also, I'm not too comfortable with someone who is afraid to talk to someone who might disagree with him. Do you think Rudy would back-down from a CNN debate?

And what is so conservative about the "news" part of FOX News? Sure individual shows like O'Reilly have their own opinion, but I have no idea what Chris Wallace's politics are other than his father, in interviews, is an admitted left-winger. What about Juan Williams? Or Mora Liasson -she's from NPR?

There is a lot of evidence of bias from FOX News. You should check out mediamatters.org. It's a great site that exposes and bashes ALL American media outlets. To be fair, the site has an anti-conservative media manipulation bias.

Here are some FOX biases that you might be interested in:

Internal Memos from networks VP:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200407140002
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611150009

You can also check out Wikipedia's page on foxnews bias. There's some compelling evidence on there as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies

If you still don't think the "News" part of FOXNews is bias then I don't know what to tell you. We'll just never agree.

[A.J.]

Ok so this is what we know about Edwards:

(Failed 2nd term senator)

No, unlike Lieberman he actually decided not to seek reelection so that he could run for higher office.

[A.J.]

The Edwards campaign said it will not attend the Sept. 23 debate hosted by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, but officials added that Edwards will participate in a different debate hosted by the institute and CNN.

Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus???????

[K.C.]

First off, Edwards is pretty accomplished as far as a candidate goes. You wouldn't be able to tell that from 30 second news clips, but as far as actual policy positions go, he's the most in-detail right now of the Democratic candidates.

Second, about the FOX News thing, I don't blame him. I think I heard that Obama was skipping this too. Why would you waste your time debating on FOX when:
a) 90% of the audience who watches it would never consider voting for you.
b) You're likely to be followed up with a Post-Debate show featuring either Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity railing for an hour straight about how you're completely unqualified.

At a basic, logistical level it's not worth it. When you see the Hannity phone-in polls where they ask "How did you think President Bush's speech was" and the result is 95% in rating it 'Excellent', it tells you that's not your crowd.