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Saturday, October 22, 2011

The Fox Nation audience:

Here's the headline and story featured at the top of their page:

The website has recently added to the end of each stiry a poll of what readers thought. Here are the results:

Two-thirds have a positive reaction. Even though the vote total isn't particularly large (36), it is representative of the attitude of this crows as any frequent visitor to Fox Nation can attest.

That's part of our politics today. There is a real desire to hurt - really hurt - those in distress or showing concern for same.

posted by Quiddity at 10/22/2011 07:43:00 PM

1 comments

That's part of our politics today. There is a real desire to hurt - really hurt - those in distress or showing concern for same.

You'd have a case here if this person had actually attacked and hurt people, and people responded by calling that "inspiring." But that's not what happened at all.

What's inspiring about this story is this. These protesters have been an absolute nuisance to the police, making tons of extra work for them, openly flouting minor laws such as littering, loitering and noise ordinances, and in some cases openly acting out trying to get arrested. Their leaders are a mix of paid communists, self-indulgent "anarchists".

It would be very easy for the police to turn their backs and let the protesters get a little taste of what real anarchy is all about. But of course, they didn't. As usual, they just did their job and exposed themselves to danger protecting the ungrateful protesters.

I love the casual phrasing.

"Police said protesters felt threatened when Aguirre held a knife with a 6- to 8-inch blade and asked, 'Who wants to be first'"

Yeah. I bet they felt threatened. Good thing the police were there. I'll bet those brave, radical anarchists hardly even got a single drop of pee in their pants.

Now contrast this with a Fox Nation story in which someone, one way or another, really did get hurt:

Reporter Hunts Down, Challenges Alleged 'Occupy' Rape Victim

The story is a reposting of a local television news story about a woman who claimed to be raped at the Occupy Cleveland rally. The television report goes, in my view, way over the line in invading the woman's privacy. Either she was raped and the television station is attacking her story, or she made up the story and is being exposed. Either way, this story is about someone who is clearly "hurt - really hurt" and "in distress"

The Fox Nation response:

Offensive: 40
Funny: 2
Cool: 1
Obnoxious: 4
Scary: 18
Inspiring: 1
Crazy: 3

This time we get a 94% negative reaction. Quite a different reaction when someone is really hurt or in distress than when no one gets hurt because the protesters were ironically protected by those who represent the system they are protesting against.

Clearly Fox Nation readers can tell the difference.

By jms, at 10/25/2011 6:40 AM