What do Dutch people think about Fox News and their coverage of the Netherlands?

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Thanks Vincent, that's 15mins of my life that I won't get back again :0) (joke)

Yes I watched both the video's..... granted with a bit of a open mouth at some points because I couldn't believe what I was watching

So ok, I have to share a couple of my thoughts on the content first

<First video>
Let's face it, the opening paragraph showed the lack of research "Amsterdam's pot shops" (no researcher who has done even the basics would call the coffeeshops "potshops")

So everything here is an experiment and we are all into "free love" living in a "cesspool of crime" and "anarchy"..... well you know what, I must have been walking around with a blindfold in when living there until last year because I couldn't recognise the city that I know from the one that was being described in these segments.

What also made me almost cry with laughter was the story of the Albanian tourist who left socialist Europe to move to the USA. Since when was Albania following any model of socialism? It was centre-right government last time I checked a credible news source.... but hey, if a taxi driver says it is so, then it must be. (remind me never to ask any taxi drivers anything more than how much will this cost in the future).

What is ironic is that there are three speakers, and all of them are patting one another on the back, reinforcing one another's opinion with "my friend said" Not a single source, statistic or offical figure in the whole "debate".

Yes Amsterdam does have a problem with attracting a certain type of tourist and I won't deny it as dodgeing them in the early hours of the evening to get home wasn't much fun, but then Amsterdam is not representative of the rest of the Netherlands anyway and even representative of Amsterdam without tourists (if you understand what I mean)

Fortunately if you look at the comments on Youtube then they are overwhelming scorning Mr O'Reilly and his portrayal of Amsterdam. The damned shame is that American families will have been watching this and many probably walked away with this as another fallacy about what goes on in the Netherlands and Amsterdam.

<second video>
"Welcome to the Netherlands where almost anything goes" (well at least in this video they got halfway there and called them "coffeehouses"

Weddings with more than 2 people - well perhaps they conviently forgot the 1st time around that this statement was made and the resulting rebuttal in the statement. http://www.anonymousliberal.com/2005/10/is-polygamy-really-legal-in.html

<Fox news>
Well I have heard it before that Fox news is not news, it is just an entertainment channel making "straight to dvd" movies to "entertain" the general masses.
Read here for more about the reaction as well http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=186956&st=15&start=15

The owner of Fox is one Mr Rupert Murdoch! Well I don't need to say a single word further really (if anyone knows him from other media outlet scandals he has been involved in)

Therefore I would take it with a pinch of salt normally, but I sincerely wonder how many people actually watched this and accepted it as the "truth".

I know there are a few Americans which regularly read this section and am very curious about their take on it, and what their opinions are about Fox News?



P.S. So fortunately I also watched the video mentioned above me, and thankfully as at least I could smile for the right reasons..... did you see it? .... made by someone called "Vince the Man!!!!)

EDIT @ Enterprise: lol, I am not going to give a rebuttal about blindfolds lol, very dangerous ground there!...Show more

Being Dutch and having spent my share of time in Amsterdam, I was wondering if any part of Fox News coverage with regard to the Netherlands was based on facts. They depicted a Sodom and Gomorra style society with rampant crime, sex, strange kinds of polyamorous marriages and other nonsense. A "news" organization basing its "knowledge" of a certain nation on travel guides isn't worth looking at. A news presenter like O'Reilly basing differences in crime and drug use rates on the difference in statistical techniques used by the Dutch is doing nothing but bloat propaganda that suits his agenda. That does not make people like him look credible in the eyes of those who know what reality is, but it will probably enforce the views of his ill-informed viewers.

This kind of network does not offer "news", and it's anything but fair or balanced. Still, it's no use trying to convince most of the people watching it. Good thing we don't have a TV channel like that in the Netherlands....Show more

particular, the information courses in the morning and Shepard Smith's comments relatively are approximately as honest and balanced as you may get. it is to no longer say they're thoroughly impartial. no person provides you a thoroughly impartial record on activities. yet for the main section, you recognize whilst Fox hosts are editorializing. CNN and the others attempt to bypass off editorialization as certainty and not opinion. What makes Fox information greater 'honest' (on condition that fairness is a basically subjective term) than the different networks is that once O'Reilly, Beck, and Hannity are on, you're made conscious that their shows are remark/opinion shows. Glenn Beck tells his objective audience various circumstances a week that he's not a journalist. Plus, do you think of those adult men ought to get a instruct on (P)MSNBC? Beck wasn't even allowed on great CNN yet had to settle for CNN Headline information it is now a misnomer because of the fact it left the 'headlines each and every 0.5 hour format'....Show more

Hi- I wanted to chime in on your question though I am not Dutch. I think that this sort of coverage is meant to inspire fear and antagonism toward progeressive public policies and tolerance, and fox news has a well known reputation for this tone in their reporting. The idea of continental Europe as both "too soft" and intellectual and of America as a muscle-y super power that needs to stand strong with its Christian values is perpetuated by this rhetoric.
In the first video, there is a lot of talk about "O the Netherlands really regrets their liberal social policies now." This is clearly trying to support the heavily criticized US drug policy, which jails people for posession of extermely small amount of drugs.This policy, in part, has created the huge prison population in the US. There is an effort to decriminalize marijuana and other drugs mainly because of the incredible social burden that has been created by people going to jail and having a criminal record for the rest of their lives, which makes it difficult for them to get jobs, to get credit, to get educational loans, etc., for being in posession of a very small amount of drugs.
The separation of religion and politics in the US is one of the fundamental ways that equal treatment under the law for all people is maintained. However people like Bill O'Rielly at Fox news want to reintroduce "Christian values" into state policy to form a mobilzed constuency that believes that they have the right to decide what is moral, not just what is legal. By showing one block of the redlight district at night, they try to create the impression that Amsterdam is a seedy, run down slum. If they had shown the beautifully maintained 400-year old houses and the Rijksmuseum, they could not make their point that moral weakness leads to economic weakness.
The economy in the US is currently in terrible shape, as everyone knows, and this kind of misinformation supports the wasting of money on the "war on drugs." It also obfuscates arguments about how much money could be saved by decriminalizing and even taxing some drugs.
Under all this talk of "Christian" morality, we are really talking about a justification for racism towards Muslims and the efforts to institutionalize this racism within the law and government.
Shows like the O'Rielly factor expolit Americans fear after September 11th and their generally limited knowledge of world politics due, in no small part, to news coverage like that on the O'Rielly factor. Most people in the US know that the Netherlands is a liberal country, but most likely couldn't tell you the names of capital or the Prime Minister. These sort of shows use this rudimentary knowledge to misinform people about the "consequences" of tolerance and intellectualism....Show more

It makes me wonder.
Have the people who make this kind of "news" and write this type of "information" ever been to The Netherlands - or do they just read the questions on Yahoo Answers?

@ Vincent : no offense taken;)
And yes, i know Wilders to be rather opportunistic - but in that respect he really isn`t that much different from the mainstream politicians. even the ideas he launched come back in more diplomatic forms nowadays .

I think our problem is that we do not have any decent politician left in The Netherlands - or if there is, they are keeping very quiet. (They must be hunting wabbits)...Show more