blonde bimboesque and ugly pitbull guy anchors (except for closetcase Shep Smith), everpresent American flag graphics, never anything good to say about, or to Democrats....

September 28, 2004 8:21 PM

Hey Canada! Now you can "Shut Up! Shut Up!" too.
Are our nice, polite, enlightened neighbors to our north really ready for Fox News?
posted by amberglow (41 comments total)

Tough to say how it'll go. There's a solid core of anti-socialism conservatives in Canada, so they'll certainly be tuning in. But most of Canada seems pretty sharp: 22 Minutes was must-see-TV during its heyday, and it's all about caustic political humour, much of which savaged conservatism, Americans, and stupidity. So Fox is going to come off as the worst of all three, and will be ridiculed by lots of people.

If Fox is rude, I think most of Canada will take offense.

I really hope it doesn't prove so popular that it changes the social values and social interactions that stereotype Canada.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:44 PM on September 28, 2004

Well, Fox isn't as popular here as you'd think either. It's the network we love to hate (with CNN nipping at its heels, as Fox-lite).
posted by amberglow at 8:48 PM on September 28, 2004

I'm not sure who's going to give a damn about this. Least of all Fox News, whose world view has always defined by "us" (Americans) and ""them" (fur'ners).
posted by clevershark at 9:01 PM on September 28, 2004

>(with CNN nipping at its heels, as Fox-lite).
I agree with that. But the articlist for maclean's seems to like cnn.

>Canadians should be applauded for inviting in a network that challenges prevailing values.
That sentence be a bit ranklin' on a number o' levels. I'd rather news stations from Kenya or India if prevailing values need a-challengin'.
posted by philfromhavelock at 9:09 PM on September 28, 2004

Fox as "challenging prevailing values"?

"Prevailling values" being also known as honest journalism, surely... then Fox indeed throws those "prevailing values" out the window entirely. FNC is like a 24/7 informercial for the American right wing.
posted by clevershark at 9:15 PM on September 28, 2004

Reminds me of this Mefi thread:Al Jazeera approved for broadcast in Canada. I guess they pretty much had to approve Fox News then.

I watched a lot of Fox News while visiting the states, and I don't think it'll have any great effect in Canada. My veiw is that Fox News tends to present a right-wing viewpoint that is already familiar to Canadians through watching other Canadian and American news sources.

And American networks hardly talk about Canada anyway so I don't think it'll change any opinions on Canadian issues.
posted by bobo123 at 9:35 PM on September 28, 2004

Unfortunately, when I read the "shut-up shut-up" link, I was thinking "Glick" was "Glick". Strange reading.
posted by tomplus2 at 9:36 PM on September 28, 2004

Hey Canada! Now you can "Shut Up! Shut Up!" too.

Paging mcsweetie to Canada...mcsweetie to Canada
posted by trondant at 9:47 PM on September 28, 2004

mcsweet may have to go to Canada anyway, being of draft age and all.
posted by amberglow at 9:49 PM on September 28, 2004

Jack Shafer of Slate just wrote another piece about O'Reilly (it was about how to "beat" him if you're a guest on his show). He went and checked the transcripts and found that O'Reilly had stopped saying "shut up" not too long after Shafer had written a piece listing how many times (a lot) O'Reilly had said that to his guests.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:08 PM on September 28, 2004

Fox News is good news entertainment, though. O'Reilly can surprise you sometimes on his viewpoint, and make you start wondering when you start agreeing with him. Sean Hannity gets lots and lots of guests that won't appear anywhere else. Shepard Smith's Fox Report is local news brought nationwide, while Brit Hume is NPR for conservatives. I still haven't pinned down what Greta is, but maybe that's because nobody actually watches that show.

Now I'm sounding like a Fox shill.
posted by calwatch at 10:39 PM on September 28, 2004

And by the way, this is not the first foreign country Fox has penetrated. Israel has had Fox News on its cable and satellite systems, along with its corporate sister Sky News, for years.
posted by calwatch at 10:47 PM on September 28, 2004

O'Reilly is a walking logical fallacy and he violates every law of argumentative decency I can imagine. He's also a very lazy journalist, if you even want to call him that. I'd love to see him on a third-party show with a host who doesn't stand for his abusive, embarassing shtick (unlike the weak Russert). He's a blind ideologue who I'd love to see thoroughly debunked in front of his core audience, but only for my own self satisfaction, since I don't think there's any chance his followers would accept actual facts anymore than he would.

I never actually read that link of his "conversation" with Glick though. That's some unbelievably trashy stuff right there. It's frightening that people watch and respect that man, but it's hardly surprising.
posted by The God Complex at 10:52 PM on September 28, 2004

There's video of that interview on the OutFoxed documentary dvd.
posted by dobbs at 11:22 PM on September 28, 2004

bein so close to the border an sich, we get merkin news up here all the time, and mostly we just point and laugh. is this "fox" channel some kinda reality news or sumthin? can i phone in a vote?
posted by sharpener at 11:58 PM on September 28, 2004

The television critic for the Globe and Mail, John Doyle, has been an enthusiastic proponent for Fox News, on the grounds of its skunk-with-rabies entertainment value. He wrote a column about this in April (google cache here). Follow up column, outlining his subsequent spat with O'Reilly, is cached here.
posted by jokeefe at 12:30 AM on September 29, 2004

The triumph of Fox News is not only a testament to the relentless message hammering of the RNC (Fox is the propaganda wing of the RNC), but the horrible, horrible, horrible ineptitude of CNN and MSNBC. I think Fox is terrible. I think the others are worse because instead of trying to be actual networks, they go for Fox Lite.
posted by owillis at 12:32 AM on September 29, 2004

All your O'Reilly dreams are here
posted by owillis at 12:33 AM on September 29, 2004

O'Reilly is a walking logical fallacy...

The phrase that came to my mind when reading that was "roaring fallacy machine"; the only time I’ve seen such a streak matched is when Moore, with his false dilemmas, beat him at his own game.
posted by ed\26h at 1:50 AM on September 29, 2004

CBC Newsworld just showed Control Room so maybe they could follow it up with Outfoxed.

Either way, one can never underestimate how stupid and bitter a good chunk of Canadians really are. I accidentally stumbled on a newspaper column saying that canada was 'lost' now that we're going down the same-sex marriage route, telling readers to give up on Canada and embrace George Bush's America. As far as I could tell this was a mainstream daily paper, somewhere in that wasteland between Toronto and Winsor.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:48 AM on September 29, 2004

I predict that when Fox News is played in Canada it will get the same reception as Howard Stern's show. Toronto's Q107 picked up Howard Stern for a few years in the mid-nineties. Some people thought he was an idiot and didn't listen to him. Others thought he was an entertaining idiot and did listen to him, but then found his act got old and their enjoyment diminished over time, so they stopped listening. It wasn't long before Q107 found their audience dwindling, so they ditched Stern.
posted by orange swan at 5:16 AM on September 29, 2004

we've had fox via cable here in Sweden for a couple of years now. it's entertaining. or, it would be, if it wasn't so fucking scary.
posted by mr.marx at 8:35 AM on September 29, 2004

I predict that when Fox News is played in Canada it will get the same reception as Howard Stern's show.

It'd be wonderfully heartening if you turn out to be right, orange swan, but I'm inclined to think that it can stitch together enough Sun readers and people watching it for the ironic entertainment value that it survives as a digital cable channel. I mean, some of those specialty channels - BookTelevision, say, or Lonestar - count their audiences in the hundreds.

I'd probably watch it a bit at first just to gawk, but in the long run I worrry that it'd be so strangely compelling I'd watch it all the time. I can get mild indigestion from some of the jingoism on CNN, so I can only imagine what O'Reilly & Co. will do for my poor stomach . . .
posted by gompa at 8:38 AM on September 29, 2004

mcsweet may have to go to Canada anyway, being of draft age and all.

you better believe it! if they try to send me to war, I'll be north of the border faster than you can say, "dodgin' the draft, eh? what's that all aboot?"
posted by mcsweetie at 8:40 AM on September 29, 2004

McSweetie: If you actually say "aboot" like that we'll send you back so fast the only thing remaining from your brief experience in the Great White North will be the lingering scent of back bacon and Tim Horton's doughnuts. ;-)
posted by Turtles all the way down at 9:14 AM on September 29, 2004

mcsweet may have to go to Canada anyway, being of draft age and all.

They'll even build a statue in his honor.
posted by homunculus at 11:57 AM on September 29, 2004

turtles is right. Everyone knows we pronounce it "a boat".
posted by Space Coyote at 11:59 AM on September 29, 2004

I thought we said it as in "I had a bout with the 'flu."
posted by orange swan at 12:10 PM on September 29, 2004

Fox beat all rivals combined in 3Q. So sad.
posted by adampsyche at 12:13 PM on September 29, 2004

We say it like "a-buh-ut" (only run everything together) - as opposed to "a - ba - ut". Explanation from a linguist, with all the proper phonetic symbols, and examples.
posted by jb at 5:38 PM on September 29, 2004

Fox is all the way over here in New Zealand on free-to-air TV. Can someone please make it stop...
posted by meech at 5:50 PM on September 29, 2004

Do they change it for other countries? Is it all jingoistic and patriotic and unquestionably supportive of the local conservatives in power in NZ?
posted by amberglow at 9:30 PM on September 29, 2004

I doubt there are localized versions. We see the american one, anyway.
posted by mr.marx at 6:54 AM on September 30, 2004

Sky News is the internationalist version of Fox News, and actually is pretty centrist by US standards (which means center-right internationally). As far as Fox News in other countries, I would hope that countries like Canada would not censor a valid viewpoint from coming into their country, and that New Zealand keeps Fox on, if only to remind them what a significant portion of the United States population believes. I'm sure you're not advocating censorship heech.
posted by calwatch at 7:06 PM on September 30, 2004

No, we are. We don't need that kind of noise on our airwaves.
posted by jb at 7:09 PM on September 30, 2004

What you describe would not be censorship, calwatch.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:10 PM on September 30, 2004

So the Fox reporter covering the Kerry campaign puts together this Kerry-bashing parody right out of the RNC playbook with phony quotes intended to peg him as girlish fool and somehow it found its way on the Fox website as a news item.
Imagine that.
posted by amberglow at 7:24 PM on October 1, 2004

and more Fox fun, this time with photoshop
posted by amberglow at 9:36 PM on October 1, 2004

What is the pertinence of those two photos?
posted by ed\26h at 9:18 AM on October 2, 2004

Fox made Bush taller.
posted by amberglow at 9:19 AM on October 2, 2004

Apparently they didn't; it's a wholly different shot, from another angle. Fox chose the shot that made the men look about equal height; they didn't ps it.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:04 AM on October 2, 2004