Jesse Watters, a reporter and comic relief for Fox News’ O’Reilly Factor, recently visited Cornell University to interview students about the recent finding that over 96% of Cornell faculty political donations over the past four years went to Democrats.
As expected, most of the students interviewed succumbed to the usual antics of Watters, who regularly captures interviewees failing to answer simple questions about politics, economics, or history. Watters also confronted Melissa Osgood and John Carberry of Cornell’s media relations staff, who would not grant Watters permission to interview on campus but failed to state a reason why.
cornell is a perfect example of a liberal democrat campus. those students interviewed have been so indoctrinated that it was just sad but funny. 96% of political donations go to democrats and im sure thats why they didnt want fox news there. they denied watters his first amendment right and their students have been brainwashed. i really feel sorry for the students and their parents because they have become sheeple and it was very obvious.
“they denied watters his first amendment right” – if you had any basic political knowledge you would know that the first amendment protects people from prosecution by the government. Nowhere does this state that Watters has a constitutional right to film on campus. Educate yourself before calling people ‘sheeple’.
Byron, where, oh where, does the first amendment protect people from prosecution by the government??? It protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press (in question here), the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Look in the mirro before calling others ‘sheeple’.
Fox News is a Joke and will do anything for rating. Leave the students along at Cornell. You don’t have a problem with the coke brothers giving all their money to the republicans
Wow Roger…I sure hope you don’t attend Cornell…it isn’t “leave the students along at Cornell”….it would be ALONE…also…”coke brothers”…really…it’s Koch….typical liberal at a liberal university.
Wow Randy…nice job pointing out textual errors rather than focusing on content. Why don’t you address WHAT Roger was saying, not HOW he said it? Prick.
Where is the outrage by the author of this story? Or, since it is not an opinion piece, where does she point out that the first amendment right of the students is also being denied by the staff of her university? Indoctrinated? You bet. What clear thinking parent would encourage their child to attend a university where speech is controlled in this manner? What sort of “journalism” is being taught at Cornell? A sad commentary for America and a poor advertisement of this university.
You could read any other article on this website, particularly any of mine, and you could reasonably assume what my views on this situation are.
P.S. I love that my comment is “awaiting moderation”. That means an editor will decide if it may be posted. Irony. Look it up, Big Red!
Evidently the administration and management at Cornell are cowards unwilling to answer or let their students answer reasonable questions.
Boy this sure makes the Cornell administration look bad. What happened to universities’ being open to others with a different point of view? This was a BAD PR move by Cornell that has made them a laughing stock
At least the students are indoctrinated to use correct grammar and spelling, something poor Kelly clearly missed out on.
Well, Matt, a good grammarian would ask you whether you meant to insinuate that Kelly missed out on the indoctrination or the ‘correct grammar and spelling’. Could you clarify for us, please? Perhaps you went to Cornell?
Nobody’s rights were violated. The interviews could have been conducted off campus and Cornell would not have been able to deny permission.
The tolerant liberals once again showing their fascist roots and their Socialist foundation of censorship of opposing views. They are a train wreck of destructive policies and childish finger pointing and are bent on the destruction of America.
I know it’s off topic, but our country is losing it’s freedoms. We have Donald Sterling forced to sell his NBA team, free speech not allowed on PUBLIC campuses, etc. We have expensive health insurance forced on all of us. Even auto insurance is forced on us (thank god for $25/month Insurance Panda coverage). What’s next? Mandatory phone insurance? We have taxes on top of taxes and our freedoms are slowly disappearing. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would be rolling in their graves.
Liberals are all bullies. They are non tolerant and don’t want any opposition.
What amazes me about this article and the comments that follow is quite simple. This whole interview was based on a single statistic about professors and their political spending habits. Are these individuals not allowed their own freedom and political voice to spend their money for whatever campaign they find reasonable? How’s that for freedom of speech?
As for the comments about students being “brainwashed” or “sheeple”, I have yet to see any statistics about the actual student population in terms of their political standing, simply a few well chosen video editing cuts of students pausing before making a point in front of a media man who is supposed to be representing a viable news station. That’s right, news media.
Not some sort of parady youtube sort of video that degrades their own interviewees and doesn’t even bother to ask permission to view on a college campus (Although that’s exactly what he does…). It’s *always* good policy to notify a campus before shooting media there. It’s a private domain, like most Ivy League campus sites, chartered as a private institution. What he did is most certainly within grounds for legal charges on slander against the school, not to mention the privacy issues. Most of all, it’s impolite and hardly a proper investigation on the diversity of a school that serves thousands of students.
As a Cornell student myself, I have to say that I’m disappointed in Fox and I appreciate the blunt and emotionless attitude in which this event was presented. It’s a huge waste of 5:27 minutes, and next time I’d like to see Fox present their findings in a more factual and honest way, perhaps with more statistical evidence and some exploration into what a single statistic like that actually implies. Or, perhaps, they could explore psychology and discover the impacts of political leanings in teachers… versus political bias in major media news sources.
How diverse, I wonder, is Fox News?
Rebecca, if I may, I think the point Fox News was trying to make is that you as a student go to college to expand your knowledge by encountering varied points of view. You know, the whole “diversity” thing.. The interviewer was pointing out to students that it may be difficult to obtain this exposure if 96% of the faculty lean only one direction politically. Of course, when the administration shuts down this dialogue between the Fox reporter and the students, it doesn’t look like Cornell is interested in diversifying your experience. Ask yourself if equal play is given to, for example, Black Lives Matter, or CAIR versus conservative groups like NRA or Young Republicans. If you are satisfied that there is a “Fair and Balanced” approach to ideas at Cornell, then I suppose you should be quite content there. Just some food for thought. BTW – to be “fair” to you, you should know that Fox’s slogan is “Fair and Balanced”.
Kevin, I appreciate your input. My response to that, however, is whether politics should even be playing a role in an educational setting. Regardless of the political leanings of the teachers, I haven’t encountered an instance of bias due to that percentage number. It doesn’t really play a role in engineering, or (I’d imagine) in most scientific fields. I guarantee that the political standing of my professor has not affected my ability to learn or fully appreciate such subjects as linear algebra, differential equations, multiple levels of physics, or object oriented programming.
I would also be willing to argue that if these professors are teaching at an Ivy League University, that they’d be capable of displaying both sides of an argument. Most of the time, they leave the decision and opinion making to us, based on our research and comprehension of all the information surrounding the topics. Unless you think that, despite this being a scientific community, this sort of method of learning is improbable? I still don’t see a fair argument for how this would affect the learning environment at Cornell, so the diversity argument seems very shallow to me.
Also, it would seem to me that Cornell would be more than willing to discuss these subjects with Fox News…. provided, that they, like literally every other media that comes on campus (there are rules for this, believe it or not, that Fox broke) asked for permission first. This isn’t shutting down dialogue, it’s about unannounced slander.
And if Fox is so “fair and balanced” compared to Cornell, then how come when I type up political leanings relating to Fox I get a full wikipedia page questioning about bias and their faulty reporting methods? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_News_Channel_controversies
What diversity am I missing? The mocking video clips that he plays after interviewing students who are probably distracted or concerned about classes and are being interrupted by him? Or the insinuation that an institution filled with people who practice scientific method and research have more bias than a media news outlet who has clear political agendas? Anything that I miss at Cornell (which I assure you, we have free access to multiple types of newspapers and political news outlets), I’m sure I could easily even out by watching some Fox.
Rebecca, let me just address your conclusion. Fox was there to ask students if they thought that having a faculty made up of 96% liberals would provide them a diverse learning environment. My answer is that shutting down that debate was not the best decision for students. You clearly do not agree and I respect your opinion.
This debate is welcome to happen, in a formal setting between students and the university. There is no need for national television media to make a parody or spectacle about it. Thus my point: Fox only stirred up chaos and negativity directed toward a university. This debate is still very welcome to happen, but without Fox’s involvement and with actual serious intent. Judging from the mood of his sarcastic and impolite interview methods, it was never his intent to foster serious discussion. So I can see your point, and you have to understand that I (and the school) welcomes this kind of debate, but that most of your points thus far seem weak in the face that Fox was completely out of line trying to make a comedy segment where students were put on the spot and even had creepy comments like taking them out to dinner. It wasn’t his mittens. I’m sure there was distaste because his intentions were never true debate, and it was clear that he was looking to stir up trouble and discomfort.
Other points that might be of interest:
Cornell stated to you that they do not take political leanings of their potential staff into account during the hiring process.
Second, you’re basing your assumption of our school having a Democratic bias and discouraging more conservative viewpoints off of the fact that 96% of some 300 faculty made donations to the Democratic Party.
We have approximately 1628 faculty on this campus, and an additional 8103 staff members (who fill any non-professor related job, including research and extension). You don’t consider the fact that the faculty who donated may have been more financially able to, or any other factor that could have influenced the high percentage of Democratic support. You don’t consider your sample size relative to the total number of faculty and staff. You do not consider the fact that political leanings have no place in a classroom, and for many subjects would be completely out of place to bring into the classroom.
( –> Words borrowed from my erudite friend, Erica, another Cornell student )
So in conclusion, I don’t even think that the statistic is a worthy point of evidence to begin discussion of this topic. Is there lesser representation of Conservatives at Cornell? Maybe. But Fox’s data does not do an adequate job of indicating that, it isn’t a suitable basis for this argument due to the small sample size.