Fox primary: complicated, contractual

When reading the article written in Yahoo news by Martin and Hagey I noticed that the elections are more about business than ever before. The article stated some key information that is important for voters to note. The article states that Fox news has the rights to all the broadcasting of the elections, and for the other news programs to have access they need to go through Fox. The reading stated that, “The matter is of no small consequence, since it’s uncertain how other news organizations can cover the early stages of the presidential race when some of the main GOP contenders are contractually forbidden to appear on any TV network besides Fox.” This does make it a question about the truth in the information being brought up in other sites if the only station that can broadcast the first news is Fox. Not only does it seem that the information being shown on other stations may be repetitive or false due to the fact that the news sites are unable to access the politician but it makes you wonder about the politician themselves. I wondered what benefits the candidates have for being exclusive to Fox. The article continued and stated that, “when C-SPAN tried to have Palin on for an interview, he was told he had to first get Fox’s permission — which the network, citing her contract, ultimately denied. Producers at NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC all report similar experiences.” The fact that Fox has the rights to the exclusives for the candidates and has a contract or is paying them to not talk to others without their permission I think that it makes the playing field hard for the rest. I think that it gives Fox an unfair advantage for Fox to basically own the rights of the candidates and being the ones that pick and choose who else they can talk to. The article states it plain and simple; “At issue are basic matters of political and journalistic fairness and propriety” this is important to state since the article states an even bigger subject that has to do with the makes the subject of fox ownership and the fairness of it a bigger question then it already is. “Their Fox jobs allow these politicians an opportunity to send an unfiltered message in what is almost always a friendly environment. Fox opinion hosts typically invite the Republicans simply to offer their views on issues of the day, rather than press them to defend their rhetoric or records as leaders of the party.” To me it becomes a bigger issue since the fact that these candidates are not allowed to talk to other sites that could possible ask more important questions and bring up bigger issues, and the only site that can talk to them doesn’t is an issue for me. To me it is an issue since how will these people know the important things about the candidates and where they fall on certain topics if they are not asked. The last quote that the article brought up reiterates my issue with Fox and the candidates as it states, “All contributors are exclusive to Fox News. On occasion, they will make appearances on other networks — when they have books to promote — and in those cases their contributor agreements are suspended during that period. Fox News has made rare exceptions for various contributors in terms of appearances on other networks, but instances are few and far between,” Fox News said in a statement. It is good to hear that they are allowed to talk to other networks at some point but it does not make a huge difference since they are limited to what they can talk about. This to me reminds me of the telephone if no site can talk to them about the important subjects and can only get their information off what Fox puts out how real and truthful will it be. Fox can alter what is said and no one would know and things can be changed on other sites once taken from Fox to seem different. I thought that candidates should go into this for the better of everyone but seem they do it only for their own benefit since fox exclusivity must bring some benefits possibly economic ones to the candidate.