FOXless in America
This is a great idea if you have cable. Remember, direct nonviolent resistance in the form of economic boycott can be extremely potent:
If you, too, have had enough with the FOX news channel, please read below. This action will make your voice heard while simply choosing not to watch the station can not.
I have decided to make a political statement. I called my Satellite TV provider and asked them to remove Fox News from my television. Since the election I have wanted to stick my head out of a window of a tall building and shout I can’t take it anymore, but I soon came to realize that there is a better and easier way to send a message to Rupert Murdoch and his blathering bunch at Fox News and that was to simply make them disappear from my life.
I called my cable TV provider and had Fox News deleted from my television. It was simple. I called the Repair Department at Comcast and said I wanted to be Foxless in America. I then wrote an email to the following: Reed Nolte VP Investor Relations for News Corporation (the parent company of Fox News) at rnolte@newscorp.com and Brian Lewis, Senior VP Corporate Communications for Fox News at brian.lewis@foxnews.com and to top it off I copied rmurdoch@newscorp.com.
I told them that I cannot take the Fox distortion and biased presentation of the news any longer and that they ought to inform their sponsors that there are millions like me. I can’t tell you the immense satisfaction I gained from becoming Foxless in America. I am asking you to follow me in this protest and let it be heard by all that want to control what we all see and hear. This could be a way to have your voice heard - Become Foxless in America. We can start a movement if each of you send this email to all the others you know who are fed up with Fox News.
Mia said,
November 30, 2004 @ 5:08 pm
Gee, that’s funny, because I never heard of a cable company FORCING anyone to watch Fox News, or any other channel for that matter…
Emily said,
November 30, 2004 @ 6:52 pm
So what if we’re not forced to watch it? Not every boycott has to be around a forced issue. (E.g. African Americans in Montgomery didn’t have to ride the buses. The point was that by withdrawing their patronage, they were awarded some political power where they had none before.)
Ugh, the whole “well, no one’s forcing you” argument is not only flimsy, but as I see it basically another way of telling people to quit their complaining. It’s a line that kills any sort of dialogue or investigation.
Mia said,
November 30, 2004 @ 9:41 pm
I see, so you are implying that if enough people remove Fox from their cable package they will, what, end Fox altogether? Infringing on others’ right to watch whatever they want will not encourage them to “see things your way.” If your boycott is solely a question of Fox’s conduct and not an attempt to drive them off the air, then simply not watching is a sufficient method, for if enough people join you, their ratings will drop and they will feel the economic harm. That way others will still be able to watch if they so choose, without your permission.
Emily said,
November 30, 2004 @ 9:55 pm
I disagree that not watching is sufficient enough to call attention to the bias, distortion, corporate pandering, and warlust that is Fox news. The problem is that, unchecked, Fox news has become the new norm for television news in this country. I think a more active boycott could be a useful tool to take the station down a notch or two.
Pamela said,
December 1, 2004 @ 12:03 am
I’m doing it tomorrow. To Mia, are you serious? For all the crunching of Dixie Chicks CDs (who was FORCING those people to listen and buy?) and boycotting of their concerts, for all the angry calls to CBS over the idiotic Jackson nipple debacle and threats in re: Dan Rather (who forced them to continue to watch CBS?), for all the Michael Moore haranguement and website attacks he has endured (did Moore force his website on his detractors?), you are actually indignant over a boycott of FOX?
Can you say, hypocricy?
And Mia, we are a capitalistic society. Ending Faux, oh sorry, I meant Fox News is exactly the way to enact change. If you don’t like it, don’t participate.
Others that so need Fox that they can’t cope without it will have to learn what it felt like to be a Gore supporter in 2000, or a Kerry supporter on November 2, 2004. At least this is an honest boycott. You can’t always get what you want, and in a society driven by $$ and a “majority rules” mentality, that’s just the way it is I guess.
pril said,
December 1, 2004 @ 2:29 pm
i would just cancel cable all together. Oh wait- i haven’t had a TV in nine years. Heh. Just CHUCK the TV. Who needs TV anymore anyway? You can get exactly the viewpoint you agree with, and only the viewpoint you agree with online if you want to.
But, you know, i’m 35 and of the last generation who didn’t have to pay to watch TV. paying for cable is like paying the trash guys to dump the trucks in your living room anyway.
BlueOregon said,
December 2, 2004 @ 2:30 am
We own the airwaves
By Bill Deiz in Portland, Oregon, a former print and broadcast journalist; now communications director of a statewide non-profit. I was chatting with a soccer dad the other day as we stood on the sidelines and watched our kids play.
Anonymous said,
December 2, 2004 @ 8:30 pm
I assume you will have all the biased news sources blocked as well? Liberal and conservative.
Pamela said,
December 3, 2004 @ 1:58 am
Personally I don’t get any of my news from mainstream media …
There is a strong argument that no source of information is unbiased. This gets into philosophical discussions of the subjective and our relationship to objects … so I’ll leave it at that.
That said, bias isn’t a problem when the bias is noted as such. But when you present your “news” as “fair and balanced,” when copious information has been revealed about suppressed news stories which favor corporate and elite interests to the detriment of the public, I would take issue with that. Fox News reached my radar for unfairly firing reporters who unearthed the dangers of our farming methods–namely inhumane and dangerous practices of pumping cows with growth hormones.