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Opinion based reporting is the other trend in "news" that really takes away from the value of the information. The Fox News Channel spends a huge chunk of it's total time each day on opinion discussion with talking heads. From O'Really to Greta, it is all "in depth" coverage that quickly stops being coverage and starts being "here is a harvard janitor with his opinion on a shooting that happened on the other side of the world".
Speculation, opinion, and "what if" fantasies are not news.
The whole "white girl abducted on holiday island" thing got so far out of hand. Little has been released, what is in the media is a combination of speculation by these "newsies" plus the rantings of an upset and unstable mother, and the cross pollenation of opinion breeding with opinion to create near fact and innuendo. In the end, all that is known is that an 18 year old girl went on holiday, went to party with one or more boys not sure and never appeared again. How can this have taken up over 100 hours of Fox News time?
The other part of this is the partisan nature of the news and opinions expressed. Even in the worst of Katrina, even as the President ducked out to California to do a public meet and greet to receive a gift guitar, and even as the FEMA head at the time screwed things up beyond understanding, never once did Fox suggest that maybe the president could have done more, been more attentive, or somehow accept even the smallest amount of responsibility for the situation. They couldn't bring themselves to do it.
Even now, with the President's poll numbers lower than a snake's belly, they still continue to be the republican whitehouse official press organ, gaily spinning out victory after victory and all but ignoring the defeats and challenges.
I guess it plays well to the majority conservative over 60 crowd they are talking to.
Alex
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