Oh come on, Fox wasn't that bad. Sure, they used CoD and that's so far away from artistic.. The airport segment in MW2 wasn't bad so far as "showing the horrors of war" goes, but off topic.
But the person arguing that the NEA did the right thing didn't argue it very well at all.
"Well in the games development process you have several artists creating something which can only be called art". Wtf is that? The talk show host argued like a talk show host. Loud and louder. Doesn't necessarily know anything, but that isn't a requirement of his job.
You would need people like.. There's this "game", forget who made it. Some people in England, where you can walk around and interact with people in Shakespeare's settings. Forget what it's called, but a quick search gives me links to Arden: The World of William Shakespeare and http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/mar/30/arts.artsnews .
Or that medical training segment in Americas Army which gave someone the knowledge on how to save someones life.
Projects like that, educational and instructional tools would be getting the grants. The games as art argument should include titles like Ico, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, Nikopol: Secrets of the Immortals, Blueberry Garden. Something that creates a story or brings a world to life, does more than just "Here's a gun, here's an enemy, last man standing wins". Using a comparison of John Zorn to Beyonce for example, art for arts sake and popular entertainment respectively when the talk show host said "I was a music major". If he accepts that music is in the arts then games can be too.
Or "Grants like these will fund small developers who are creating games that will help schools, doctors, thus keeping a segment of the arts industry employed doing something useful for the nation.". There's a trading card game http://phylogame.org/classification/virus/ that helps doctors remember the symptoms to viruses. You could structure a video game the same way, build a game where you're a white blood cell seeking out and removing viruses to show people how your immune system works.
Not just "Video games will get funded". To be brutally honest, the talk show host was right to argue against funding as it seems that not even someone who claims to represent gamers (Like this website for instance) is capable of giving a decent reason as to why games can be art, games can be educational.
One last thing before I stop ranting, way back when games were at the mercy of the government, the video game companies in the USA got together and created a ratings system, they enforced this system, and that's what every other system in the world seems to be based on. Why can't gaming websites, companies, etc get together and make these grants themselves? Show that the industry has some depth to it instead of being parlor tricks and cheap makeup.
Or you know, we could just blast Fox News for being "biased" by hosting a debate and NOT EVER GIVING OUT A POSITION ON ONE SIDE OR THE OTHER.
I call OP libel, manipulative and uninformed drivel. Same goes for this site.
EDIT:
Because I can't close "'s -.-