Air America Redux

So wow! Al Gore is buying a cable channel to start a new liberal network. This definitely puts him up a notch in my book. But guess WHICH channel he's buying... Newsworld International! International outlet for none other than >Play! Let's hope Jian's show becomes one of Al's staples! Here's the article I saw on the CNN site:

Gore to launch liberal network

Ex-vice president to buy NewsWorld channel from Vivendi to start new network, person says. May 4, 2004: 12:03 PM EDT

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Former U.S. vice president Al Gore plans to announce Tuesday that he has acquired cable television channel NewsWorld International from Vivendi Universal to launch a new liberal network, a person familiar with the matter said.

NewsWorld International currently airs international news broadcasts.

Terms of the deal were not immediately available.

Then he can claim that he invented the cable industry.. just kidding.. I'm curious as to what the content would be. Real unbiased news, (I wouldn't care if it didn't forcus on or relate around progressive issues) would be enough to have me watching.

What this leads me to isa curiosity question I've had for a while....what truly is real unbiased news. I'm really curious...because it seems to me that even if the news presented is true and fair and balanced...there still will ALWAYS be a bias in every news organization of what stories to even present.

Like if I have 50 friends and am pressed to give a pro-and-con assessment of a handful of them. The assessment may be honest and dead-on and really fair. But how I choose that handful could be rife with bias whether I realize it or not.

And I'm not strictly talking political bias when I say there will always be bias in what stories are chosen. I also mean personal bias, commercial bias, constituent bias, etc.

i'm sure its impossible to eliminate all bias (like say if you choose to report on an earthquake and it give it more emphasis than say the st. patricks day parade), but you can successfully go through many of the stories of the day without editorial comment. granted when a discussion of the events does happen, you can state upfront what possible bias there might be. my problem is when someone gets up and says something that is really opinion but states it as fact, esp. when they have a vested interest in putting that opinion out there.

Erm, I wouldn't trust a self-proclaimed liberal network for unbiased news any more than I would trust a self-proclaimed conservative network for unbiased news. That does't mean I think they'd lie, but I think there'd be an obvious slant.

I suppose it could be an outlet for things like TV Nation (which I thought was one of Moore's better projects) and other documentries, but beyond that, I think it would either be like all of the exclusivly christian networks (not even PAX, more the ones that have the preachers on 24-7) or it'd wind up with pretty much the same programs as plenty of other cable networks.

I want the 24-hour Daily Show channel.

Now *that* would be worth watching :-)

But�then I could never leave the house!!!

They know about that, and as a public service, between the hours of 8am-5pm they plan air "The Worst of Weekend Update".

Oh, that would be worth watching! Even though Jon Stewart is pretty liberal, and it can come out in his interviewing of guests, I am impressed how he does make an effort to give equal time to both sides and treats his conservative guests with respect.

Plus, he's one funny bastard. And I like how he just rips apart any silly stuff no matter what side of the political spectrum it comes from.

well, its not a self proclaimed liberal news network, thats just the "spin" because al gore happens to be involved. from what i have read the news content that is currently being run on the network is produced by the CBC of all places. that and it will be geared toward the younger (18-34) crowd once they've gotten around to changing things .. or whatever.

However, we'll have to see how that goes.� Fox News advertised themselves and fair and balanced, and we saw how that turned out.

Not only is it tough to watch the news knowing it may be going through a political filter, it is even more difficult to watch through their corporate filter.� any time there is a story involving business, you have to think to yourself, "OK, now which businesses does the network own, or which business/media conglomerate owns this network..."� It's like how you would never hear of a violent rampage by a GE employee on NBC.

Well, you know pretty much ahead of time that when an organisation that is supposed to be a news outlet has to advertise that its fair and balanced, that there are going to be problems.