Saturday, May 05, 2007
Whining about YouTube and Fox
Glenn Reynolds has an interesting batch of links and commentary about YouTube and its perhaps excessive willingness to take down videos after people complain for one reason or another. Glenn reminds his readers that if YouTube turns too much to censorship, particularly at the behest of the political left, it now has plenty of less censorious competition. One of those readers responded with this email, which I think is close to the mark:
What I find interesting is the contrasting response to effective information outlets. Those on the right bristled at liberal media domination. What did they do? They went out and built competing outlets such as talk radio and Fox News. And what was the reaction by the left to the dominant effectiveness of conservative talk radio? The attempts to force equal time via the a revived Fairness Doctrine. They have been thus-far ineffective, but watch for its revival under a Democrat administration. Liberals also want to shut down Fox so they can re-dominate television news. I find it interesting that 7 of the 8 major news outlets are slanted to the left and yet, liberals want it 7 of 7 (or more likely 1 of 1).
That is why I find it gratifying to see that conservatives countered YouTube's bias by creating their own internet video network instead of whining like little cry babies. Bravo to them.
Whether or not YouTube is guilty of "bias" so much as spinelessness is a good question. Still, the reader's point is a correct one -- whatever might be said of Fox and conservative talk radio, the rest of the national broadcast media remain obviously dominated by internationalists. That, by the way, is the Fox difference. It is not that Fox is so much "Republican" as the other networks are "Democrat," but that Fox's tone reflects American nationalism and the other networks more often than not sound like "global citizen" transnational progressives. That emphasis, obviously, translates into political appeal -- today's Republicans are proudly nationalistic, whereas the leaders of the Democratic Party seem to view pride in country as a necessary if potentially dangerous opiate of the masses.
10 Comments:
By 
Purple Avenger, at
Sat May 05, 01:50:00 PM:
The left is SO far left it has lost perspective and thinks the middle is far right wing. This is the situation Fox (and the Bush administration) are in.
In reality, both Fox and Bush are rather centrist.
By 
, at
Sat May 05, 01:54:00 PM:
given that google is definitely a leftward leaning company, and they bought you-tube, it's pretty likely the latter is also leftward leaning.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Sat May 05, 05:00:00 PM:
In the U.S. most of the true "citizens of the world" are libertarian Republicans (not to be confused with "big L" Libertarians).
The so-called "global citizens" among the Democrats are wannabes. They are not pragmatic enough to be the real thing.
The entrepôt Singapore is full of so-called "citizens of the world." Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew said last autumn: "I am not among those who say that it was wrong to have gone into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein and who now advocate that the US cut its losses in Iraq and pull out. This will not solve the problem."
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat May 05, 07:44:00 PM:
DEC's point is well-taken. The "internationalism" of the left is primarily a western Europeanism and UN-ism. The world is, uh, a little larger than that.
Many Europeans still fear nationalism because they associate it with fascism. That nationalism also defeated fascism seems left out of the equation.
By , at
Sun May 06, 12:29:00 AM:
I dont watch the news at all its too damn left-wing for me
By , at
Mon May 07, 12:32:00 PM:
Just to stir things up a bit, couldn't we just as easily say that Fascism was defeated by American internationalism (and a distinctly European-oriented internationalism at that, i.e. Roosevelt, et. al.), allied with Communism (though certainly Russian nationalism was a greater motivator for the Russian populace than allegiance to Communism)?
I disagree with my fellow lefties who get all worked up about Fox. It's right-wing, but so what? We have Comedy Central. The more viewpoints out there the better. The central question is do people form their beliefs based on what channel they watch, or do they choose what channel they watch based on their beliefs? And how many people at this point get their news from only one source?
That said, since I tend to read right-wing blogs more than left-wing blogs, I see a non-stop stream of complaining (including on this site) about the pinkos at the Times and CNN -- so I hardly think the left has a monopoly on "crybabies".
jk
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon May 07, 03:03:00 PM:
Interesting comment, JK.
But you seem to be forgetting the fight against Japanese "Fascists" during WWII. Powerful Americans like Time magazine publisher Henry Luce had strong ties to China. (Luce was born there.)
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon May 07, 03:12:00 PM:
P.S. FDR's maternal grandfather, Warren Delano Jr., supposedly made a fortune in the opium trade in China. FDR had a "global viewpoint."
By , at
Mon May 07, 07:20:00 PM:
DEC,
Not sure if the proper conjunction is "but". Seems an "and" is in order. As in, AND our motivations for fighting the Japanese weren't American "nationalism" either.
Oh, perhaps you're critiquing my use of "European-oriented" internationalism." Fair enough.
jk
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon May 07, 07:32:00 PM:
Yes, I was referring to your use of "distinctly European-oriented internationalism." Nothing more.
