Fed Up with Fox

The Fox News Network is supposed to be the one without the left-wing bias which grips much of the media. To a point, that’s true — but Fox leaves much to be desired if it is supposed to be a pro-conservative, family-values network.

The rare times I got myself in front of a television, Fox could be relied upon to deliver some of the most offensive programming on network TV. Linking to their home page today would be enough for Cross-Currents to surrender any claim to being a family-friendly publication. Fox is also the only network I know of that spams blogs (we still get posts from “manheim”).

And now, Fox is the company behind the publication of OJ Simpson’s upcoming book, “If I Did It,” in which he offers his personal expert testimony concerning how he butchered would have killed his wife and Ron Goldman when he — oops, sorry! — if he had committed double homicide. After all, there is no one more knowledgeable than he about how it was done.

Mark Fuhrman was the investigating officer, and was promptly cast by the defense as an irredeemable racist who plucked up samples of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman’s blood from the murder site and scattered them around the Simpson estate. He is now a commentator for Fox, and they interviewed him.

I was really disgusted. I was sick. I think I’m ashamed of the professional people that are actually perpetuating this kind of media outlet…

This is unnecessary, it’s not a confession, this has nothing to do with a confession. Judith Regan should realize that a confession, even if it was, would even be more painful, because you can do absolutely nothing to him. Everybody knows who committed this crime on these two people.

This is a man that murdered his children’s mother. He cares nothing about the children, he cares nothing about the outcome of this interview or this book on his children. Psychologically I can’t even imagine what it will do to them.

This is a lack of integrity across the board. I’m trying to craft my words and keep my anger in check so we can get this out, but I am disgusted by what’s going on.

Fox has become the network for the delinquent and the depraved. As a “conservative” network, it is the antithesis of what we’re looking for.

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17 Responses

  1. Bob Miller says:

    Fox’s ownership is also questionable:

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=19652

  2. Ahron says:

    Just to clarify it’s the FOX Network, not Fox News Channel that is responsible for this material. FNC, for it’s part, has also been critiqued by a number of right-wingers who feel that it has earned inordinate respect essentially by just flying a little US flag logo in the top left hand corner of the screen. I wonder if there is any other example in TV history in which a suspected murderer is invited on air to describe how he “would have” committed the murder if he had actually committed it. Maybe we can try this with suspected rapists next. (“How I would have raped 12 women in suburban Denver….IF I had actually done it that is!”)

    While the medium of TV cannot be cheapened further, the value our society places on human life can be, as can the standards of dignity we expect in public. Mr. Murdoch’s network has excelled at transgressing standards of public dignity for some time.

  3. Avigdor M'Bawlmawr says:

    Ah, Yaakov, you didn’t make the proper m’halek (distinction).Fox _News_ is more conservative. News is an east coast operation. Fox Network is, well, not. The network is a west coast op. The folks over at the news are embarrassed about the show, understandably. Bill O’Reilly has gone after it on his Fox news show.

  4. JewishAtheist says:

    Fox News and the Fox Network are in the business of making Rupert Murdoch rich. In both cases, they do it by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

    Regarding OJ, I think it’s disgusting that he’s doing it and that they’re letting him. However, your sentence:

    Mark Fuhrman was the investigating officer, and was promptly cast by the defense as an irredeemable racist who plucked up samples of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman’s blood from the murder site and scattered them around the Simpson estate.

    is misleading. Fuhrman was in fact a racist who used the N-word on tape. Further more, when asked whether or not he had ever falsified police reports or if he had planted or manufactured evidence in the Simpson case, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. (wikipedia.)

    In other words, OJ did it, but then a racist cop refused to deny planting or manufacturing evidence against him.

  5. Ori Pomerantz says:

    Fox’s entertainment department, purveyors of Love and Marriage, The Simpsons, etc., has never been family values friendly. Fox’s news department is politically conservative. Belief in family values and political conservatism have some correlation, but it is not necessarily strong.

    The real question, IMAO, is how much of a market there is for socially conservative TV programming. Would it be enough to justify creating it?

  6. David N. Friedman says:

    I am really sorry that Rabbi Menken is “fed up with Fox.” The Fox news channel has risen to prominence due to its wholesome “we report, you decide” approach and willingness to offer a fair and balanced presentation. It is obvious that the main networks are not fair and balanced.

    Fox News has done some excellent programming. They just aired the movie “Obsession” and the entire news division is a breath of fresh air in the political landscape.

    I will not defend Judith Regan or Fox for airing the OJ matter. Further, Fox TV has produced some poor shows and some pretty good ones. The point that TV needs to create more socially conservative programming is very valid and this remains the promise of cable TV.

    As for the larger question, Fox News is truly a big improvement and I do not believe it should be condemned in this forum.

  7. Calev says:

    I’m surprised that Rabbi Menken is surprised. Many Israel supporters have flocked to Fox because it’s less likely to take the knee-jerk, Israel-is-wrong line. Many of these people are conservative politically and culturally (allow me to include religion under ‘culture’ for the moment). I fear that they have unconsciously accepted an illogical progression that, because Fox is more in tune with their political perception of the Middle East, then Fox will be more in tune with their cultural (including moral) leanings. Nope. Fox is a business. It’s out there to make money and it’s not sentimental about it. None of us should have felt any kind of kinship, ever, with Fox just because it strokes our own sympathies.

  8. Jim says:

    The Fox News Network is supposed to be the one without the left-wing bias which grips much of the media

    True, however it’s deeply in the grips of a RW bias, one that far surpasses the bias in the other direction seen at some other networks.

  9. Raymond says:

    OJ Simpson, with more money and fame than he apparently knew what to do with, murdered two innocent people, wasted taxpayers money trying to deny the obvious, and has continued ever since to thumb his nose at basic moral human decency. can anybody imagine even the most left-wing, secular, self-hating jew behaving in such a manner? i truly believe that we jews are indeed different.

  10. Bob Miller says:

    Book and interview now cancelled:
    http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-11-20-voa63.cfm

  11. bagelblogger says:

    Seems Fox has prudently pulled the rug out from OJ.

    Seems the saying a Fox can’t smell it’s own stench might not be true after all.

  12. Rare Find says:

    Raymond: why single out the most left-wing, secular, self-hating Jew? There are plenty of scams involving Jews of various ilk, from right to left wings, from secular to uber-frum. You can’t assume that we are totally pure just because we are Jewish, and to contend that left-wingers are ‘worse’ than right-wingers is not only preposterous, but insulting. Look in the mirror and realize that we have plenty of problems within our religion, INCLUDING the right-wing/ultra-orthodox. Sure, it would be great if we Jews didn’t behave in such a manner. But don’t assume that we get a free pass because we’re Jewish.

  13. Raymond says:

    The reason I singled out left-wing secular Jews is because they are the Jews most divorced from the Torah and its traditions, and yet even then, they behave much better than OJ Simpson and other similar scumbags. Furthermore, when a Jew on the secular left is a good and decent person, it is in spite of their lack of connection with the Torah, while when a Jew on the far right behaves badly, it is in spite of their supposed connection with the Torah. See the distinction?

  14. Patrick says:

    reason I singled out left-wing secular Jews is because they are the Jews most divorced from the Torah and its traditions

    Slander. The Jews on the secular left are often ballei tzedaka, and ballei rachamim. How can you call such a person divorced from the Torah?

  15. Raymond says:

    It sounds to me like you are romanticizing the secular left. The overwhelming majority of Jewish leftists know virtually nothing about Judaism. Perhaps Judaism’s greatest gift to the world is a G-d based ethics, that how we treat each other is not only of paramount importance but that how we need to behave toward each other can only have ultimate validity if it emanates from G-d. But without learning the Torah, how can one even know what these rules of living are? Therefore when secular Jews are kind people, it really is accidental, perhaps by osmosis, while in the Orthodox Jewish world, such rules are learned in a specific manner and then applied in everyday life.

  16. Ori Pomerantz says:

    The Torah teaches Tzedaka and Rachamim, but is it the ONLY source for them? When Yithro, then a priest of idolatry, took in Moshe who was a refugee fleeing Egypt, was he motivated by the Torah? When the people of Sdom sinned in their selfishness and cruelty, was it a sin because they did not follow the teachings of a Torah they did not know?

  17. Rare Find says:

    “Therefore when secular Jews are kind people, it really is accidental.”

    How is this not insulting? It’s an overly broad statement that pertains to an entire group of people that you apparently know nothing about. “Left” and “right” ane no more than labels, and don’t do a good job describing the lifestyles of the people they supposedly describe. To attest that “The overwhelming majority of Jewish leftists know virtually nothing about Judaism” shows that you have an oversimplified view of such people.

    I don’t mean to say that ALL Jewish leftists are good people, but to say that most of them are not is just as preposterous, if not more.

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