FOX NEWS has been the bane of liberals at MSNBC and other bastions of the extreme left for a long time. You will recall the White House war against FOX which I commented upon in earlier posts. The attempt to isolate FOX failed miserably, and only helped shoot its ratings through the roof. Apparently FOX had 7,000,000 viewers for its election night analysis, topping even the main stream media (NBC,ABC,CBS) by millions. There also have been attempts by other groups to organize boycotts of FOX NEWS. None of this has worked.
All of these efforts to marginalize FOX were welcomed by MSNBC and others. I like to switch between US news channels to see what is being said about the world (i.e. the United States); so I routinely switch between CNN, MSNBC, and FOX. CNN is the most balanced and has been trying hard to move its coverage more to the center away from its traditional left leaning biases. Anderson Cooper and John King are especially good. MSNBC and FOX are totally predictable. Tune into MSNBC at any time of night and you will see a rant against the Republicans, with zero effort at balance. Tune into FOX and you will see a similar thing from the right, but with some occasional effort at presenting an opposite viewpoint ( e.g. Juan Williams and Alan Colmes).
MSNBC spends a lot of its airtime attacking FOX.
So it must have come as a great shock to those at MSNBC to hear Democrat Jay Rockefeller tell a Senate Committee that cable news has been "dumbing down America" and that he would like to see the FCC to tell FOX and MSNBC, "Out, off,end, goodbye". That is, get them both off the air. (They do that in other countries after all).
Maybe those at MSNBC and the left who want to marginalize and ultimately silence FOX will now wake up and smell the coffee. For as the old saying goes: "First they came for FOX".
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sorry, Professor Klar: I don't see the equivalence.
ReplyDeleteMSNBC is center-left only by the standards of a politics (and media, and judiciary) that has veered hard to the right in the last twenty years.
FOX is n-u-t-s. Regardless of your political persuasion, it's hard for me to imagine anyone watching it and not thinking, "Have these people gone off their medication?" Glenn Beck is a paranoid lunatic. What reasonable view does he present? He's insane! Have you seen his diagrams? YIKES. Not that it's unexpected: this is a network that devotes considerable time to stories proving heaven exists!.
Hard not to be depressed by the state of US media, anyway. It's a lazy, sensationalizing joke that doesn't critically assess anything. I blame the White House press corps. All they care about is process. No substance. Like this arms control treaty: I don't really have a dog in the fight one way or another, but why are we reporting it as a battle between the GOP and the President, rather than looking at the actual POLICY? What do we think about the usefulness of nuclear weapons in an age of different threats than the Cold War? Nope, let's talk some more about the lame-duck Congress.
Hi Scott:
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think Beck is a lunatic.
Second, I do not watch a lot of FOX. But I do note that O'Reilly has seemed to try to consolidate his total dominance of cable TV by including more liberal commentators and viewpoints on his show. As I noted Allan Colmes is on frequently. Juan Williams is a regular. They have another NPR regular (do not remember her name now). They have a lot of good reporters. To say categorically that FOX is nuts, as if FOX is Glen Beck or Hannity alone, is too sweeping.
Third, Olbermann is as ridiculous as Beck. Did you hear his unfounded rant against Scott Brown? (he called him a racist, sexist, homophobe, who believes in violence against women and politicians etc.)
Fourth, many sensible media folk (like "Reliable Sources" on CNN), thought that MSNBC's election "analysis" was completely and unprofessionally unbalanced - they had only left wing commentators who spent the night ridiculing the Republicans).
Fifth, the "equivalence" argument was being made by a Democratic senator. It is also made by others, even President Obama in an indirect way when he condemns the cable channel talking heads as a group of people who should be avoided.
Sixth, how about the main point of my post? Do you agree with Senator Rockefeller that the FCC should get these stations off the air?
Looking forward to your return. I miss our discussions.