From the “I-have-seen-the-devil; and-it-is-the-Fox-News-Channel” Department
Independent Sources is reporting an apology for being so late with the following LA Times News:
Some recent ratings news no doubt gladdened the hearts of Fox News Channel haters.
First, Nielsen Media Research reported that Fox News’ overall prime-time lineup dropped 17% last month compared with a year ago
Seventeen Percent? Is the nation suddenly wisening up and retreating from the Most-Watched-Cabel News Network? It has to be. The LA Times says so!
Seventeen Percent? That can kill a network! Is Fox News on its way out the door?
No, I don’t think so either. What is not in the LA Times Headline: “A ratings downer for Fox News” is the following, which appears later in the article:
(MSNBC grew 16% during the same period, while CNN plummeted by 38%).
Thirty-Eight Percent???
17% is the Headline, and 38% is not even in the bi-line???
Come on! I’ve had enough of this garbage!
First, this is a limp article. Think about what happened at this time last year.
There were a few news making items, but you may recall something truely newsworthy:
Pope John Paul II died
And the Vatican was working day and night to elect a new Pope. People were glued to their TVs waiting for the news of the highest office in the Catholic Church.
Compared to today? That is hardly fair on a year over year comparison.
Second, this article was aimed only at Fox News, even though CNN suffered twice as bad as the the #1 Network (A network which has a 2:1 Ratings Lead over CNN, at #2)
Here is a statistic you wont hear. The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News’ Prime Time Opinion Magazine, is 4 times as popular as the Olberman Report (The MSNBC alternative). So popular that the 3rd showing (Broadcasts at 1:00 AM EST) still exceeds the Prime Time showing of Countdown with Keith Olberman.)
Okay, I think my point is made. America watches the Fox News Channel. So why is it painted in such a bad light by the rest of the Television and Print Media?
In my opinion, the MSM is slanted to the left. There is no doubt about that. Every independent Media poll out there agrees with me. And I’m pretty sure that anyone who says that the Major News Media is fair and balanced is just lying to themselves.
(For example, at CNN, Robert Novak was the only known conservative on staff there. He left, and went to Fox News, now no one can find one.) [Which begs the question, did Novak leave because he wanted to go to a Conservative Network, or did he just want to escape a Liberal Network?]
So here we have Fox News. Fox News is the Standout. Some say they lean to the right, but I don’t think they actually watch the channel, cause I don’t think so. In my opinion it is in the center. (I laugh at people who think they are the right wing, because they are not right enough!)
But regardless of what I think, the ratings speak for themselves.
Fox has the top market share.
CNN is half that of Fox.
MSNBC, CNBC, and the rest of the Cable News spinoffs are fractions of CNN.
Somehow, Fox News has mastered the Cable News Market. And its opponents are the most venomous of the lot.
So, is Fox News a right wing propaganda machine of the Republicans? Or the popular Fair and Balanced alternative the the left-wing Propaganda of CNN, MSNBC, and the rest?
May 10, 2006 at 7:07 AM |
I don’t watch any of them enough to tell you if they are right or left or not. Frankly they’re all annoying and all manage to stretch nothing into 24 hours of TV. I think real news programming is almost non-existent now. It’s all sensationalized for ratings now. It’s all about “killer storms” and runaway brides and parroting of talking points now.
Ok, got that off my chest. I don’t know if the Times has a lefty chip on it’s shoulder against the righty Fox news… but to me that sounds too complicated. Too conspiratorial. Maybe I’m too optimistic, but that sounds jaded.
Fox is loud and obnoxious. That is what they do. They did that before they ever had news. They were the upstart network that brought us Married with Children and the Simpons and changed the face of television for the coarser. From what I’ve seen their pundits and “news” shows are just as loud and obnoxious as the rest of their programming. And what is a better story (especially in LA) than the downfall (real or illusory) of a loud and obnoxious television star?
May 10, 2006 at 7:48 AM |
So is that the reason there is so much venom towards Fox News? They are obnoxious?
We have East Coast reporters complaining that the White House staff only watches Fox News.
We have compaints from the White House Press Corps that the default channel the Air Force One’s TVs are turned to is Fox News (and though no one actually asked for the channel to be changed) they complained it was favoritism. (Scroll to the bottom)
We have complaints that when Traveling Dick Cheney requires that Fox News be available where he is staying.
If this was the same talk about CNN, it would not be news.
May 10, 2006 at 10:33 AM |
My question is: Since FOX is clearly the favored new channel, why is it that Comcast has chosen to give me CNN and Headline news, but not FNC? I think it is a conspiracy to taunt me.
May 10, 2006 at 12:15 PM |
Well Comcast and Time/Warner (CNN) are in bed together, so I would guess that’s the nature of that.
I’m not saying that Fox is right-wing generally (it probably is) or that much of the press isn’t left wing generally (it probably is), but how do you think it got that way? I don’t for a second believe that Fox is just a stooge network for the Republican party or that the White House press corp is funded by the DNC. You people should be watching X-files with your foil hats on! It’s all business!
My theory: Lately at least, the right tends to be a little more secretive than the left and much more unified. Secrecy and Unity combined with power make people suspicious. And so the business of news swarms to the possiblity of scandal to the point of creating it if needed to get the ratings. Backlash against that by the right creates a market for right-leaning news. In steps Fox to fill the void. And more and more they all cater to thier markets and nurture or create controversy in order to boost their ratings.
Of course I say that and as I’m about to post I run across this story from fox regarding a positive plan by center/left organization with plans to make the democrats respectable again. Way to shoot a hole in my crackpot theory FOX!! You see waht I mean about them? Obnxoious!
May 15, 2006 at 10:21 AM |
I always find it interesting when the Fox News good/evil debate comes up is that the debaters for ‘Evil’ tend to base their arguments on what I consider ‘editorial’ or op/ed programs; “Hannity & Colmes”, “O-Reilly”, etc..
These are not what is generally considered ‘news’ programs.
Certainly, these info-tainment programs have a right bias, it’s indisputable. But for the news programs themselves, Fox does tend to have a more middle of the road approach than the rest of what is thought of as mainstream media.
There was a study a while back that I have been trying to find in my notes, (and I hate posting things like this without a link) that did a study of major news sources. As I recall they were ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC and some newspapers such as Wash Post, Wash Times, NY Times and LA Times.
They were scored for their liberal/conservative leanings within news stories (not op/ed or entertainment, etc..) and given a rating from 0 to 100. 0 was completely conservative and 100 was completely liberal. Again, they were looking only at real NEWS stories.
Most of the network news shows (ABC,CBS,NBS,PBS) were given scores ranging from 70-85. The WPost, NYTimes, LATimes were given scores 68-75. Fox News was given a score of 38 and the Wash Times was given a ~40.
Based on their (unscientific at best, but hopefully somewhat unbiased) rankings, the conservative outlets tended to be ‘closer’ to an ideal of unbiased reporting. If I find a link to this, I will be sure to post it. Who knows what bias was built into the reviewers, but it was interesting none the less.
In Santa Fe, NM I tend to have to talk to quite a few proud liberals (I can only talk to my cat so much.) They crow about the movie “Outfoxed” and how Fox News is the evil empire. I have not seen the film, but the parts that get recited to me are about O’Reilly and other personalities on the op/ed shows. When I say that those are not news programs, I get an argument that they are.
To begin to even suggest that the NEWS part of Fox News IS relatively fair tends to raise the decibel level out of the range of a casual conversation and gets me scrambling for a way out of the furor that is building.
I have begun to collect instances of ‘fairness’ from the AP, network news, etc.. One of the more ‘entertaining’ examples was a recent AP story about Al Gore. The first paragraph ended with (almost exactly) “Al Gore, who lost the presidential election in 2000 only after the intervention of the US Supreme Court ..”
I was amazed when I read this. This was in a ‘hard news’ story from the Associate Press, in paragraph 1 no less. Maybe I was sleeping, but I had thought that the initial count, the recounts, the trials and the post-official recounts (including the Miami Herald, hardly a Fox News friend) all concluded that GW Bush won Florida. (As I recall the only recount that had Al Gore closing on Bush was one done in a method that the Bush team had proposed.)
We could go round and round about 2000, regardless who you voted for, but to say that Gore lost, “only because of the Supreme Court” is more than stating a matter of fact. The bias of the reporter is blatant. And this was a AP article on the wire, picked up by Yahoo News, Reuters, USA Today and many other aggregators.
Here I go rambling again. I really need to learn to be more concise, but my point is that it is very difficult to report any event without some form of emotional attachment. The best reporters try very hard to do so and do a fair job. But the great unwashed also need to see that there is a difference between real news and editorial programs.
Chan, get DirecTV or XM Satellite Radio. Obviously, DirecTV has Fox News (Mr Murdoch has a littlel influence there) and XM has Fox News and Fox Talk, as well as several Fox properties on other channels. I am all for giving the public a choice and letting the market decide what succeeds. The pendulum is always moving (except at the extremes, but then only for a very short time) and most of it’s time is spent closer to the middle than at the ends. ANd the pendulum is moving fastest when it’s at the middle. It’s impossible for it to stop there. As long as there is a choice and diversity, there is hope. I can’t trust anyone that gets their information from only one source.
May 15, 2006 at 10:30 AM |
One other point, I have to agree with Brad. There is entirely too much emphasis on the runaway bride, missing party girls and ‘killer’ storms.
I am very irritated in the selection of the flavor of the week for murdered or missing women. We get Jon Benet, Natalie Holloway, Lacy Peterson and other ‘beautiful’ people that meet with unfortunate ends.
Yet, there are virtually thousands of less appealing stories that go un(der)reported. Here in Santa Fe, we have had a child disappearance case for 5 years; Robbie Romero went to play with a friend 5 years ago and never returned. There are at least a dozen such cases in New Mexico, yet we get 24 hour coverage of Jon Benet. I guess little Robbie wasn’t whored out by his family enough before his disappearance to matter.
The tittilation factor has got to end. I want news that is real news. Things that affect me. Now that there are indictments, this whole Duke lacrosse trial means another year of Greta VanSustren covering that. STOP IT!
May 15, 2006 at 10:32 AM |
You’re absolutely right Chuck. 90% of the criticism of Fox is really about O’Reily. And frankly O’Reily is as much news as Jon Stewart is.
I feel the same way about NPR. If you ignore their sappy personal interest stories, their news is probably the most informative and straight shooting that I’ve heard on the radio (I don’t have XM, Sirius, etc)
May 15, 2006 at 1:33 PM |
Great Points all around, especially on News vs. Commentary:
I can make the distinction, but why can’t the critics (who scream that FoxNews is Ultra-Right?)
And I can’t classify O’Reilly. My best label for him is “Populist”
May 15, 2006 at 2:23 PM |
O’Reilly is easy to classify, entertainer.
May 15, 2006 at 7:03 PM |
Totally true. I hadn’t thought much about it, but it does seem that nearly all the criticism about FNC is based on their opinion shows, not their news shows.
And, I’ll have to look into satelite radio. At some point I’ll make the leap to the big cable package and get FNC. For now, I’ll have to live vicariously through the web.