Fox does Republicans more harm than good

[Walsingham]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/236309?obref=obnetwork

 

Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, notes that when Fox News first began airing, it presented itself as a counterweight to the left-leaning mainstream media, but as the mainstream media moved more to the center in recent years (CNN, for example,just hired prominent right-wing blogger Erick Erickson), Fox, to maintain its distance, moved further to the right. "I have no problem with a network that wears its politics on its sleeve," says Bartlett. "What bothers me is [Fox] pretends not to be that." With so many conservatives watching only Fox, says Bartlett, "people are wearing blinders; they hear no fact that conflicts with their world view. All day long their views are reinforced that Obama is a socialist crackpot."

[Hurlshort]

Yeah, I've been pretty shocked by the outrage and uproar over Obama's term. Their are a lot of conservative media folks who are simply crazy. I always thought the liberals were more on the batpoop crazy train, but the last year you've had folks like Limbaugh and Savage on the radio just foaming at the mouth.

[Walsingham]

This business of an extremist doing more harm to the message than good has been fascinating the **** out of me recently. Mentioning no names.

[I want teh kotor 3]

I hope you're not including me in that, Wals...

 

Anyway, Rush, etc. can be a little on the insane side...

[Walsingham]

I hope you're not including me in that, Wals...

 

No. Should I have?

[Hurlshort]

Unfortunately the radio has very little moderate presence. My choices for talk radio are either complainers who want to impeach the president or sports talk.

 

I'm not sure why anyone watches national news on TV either. I stick with my local news crews.

[Walsingham]

I think Radio talk shows are generally rubbish though. We have phone in talk on BBC Radio 5 and it's a haven for nutters as is.

[213374U]

Mentioning no names.

Heh.

 

It's funny this came up, as it's a very much real problem.

[Wrath of Dagon]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/236309?obref=obnetwork

 

Bruce Bartlett, a veteran of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, notes that when Fox News first began airing, it presented itself as a counterweight to the left-leaning mainstream media, but as the mainstream media moved more to the center in recent years (CNN, for example,just hired prominent right-wing blogger Erick Erickson), Fox, to maintain its distance, moved further to the right. "I have no problem with a network that wears its politics on its sleeve," says Bartlett. "What bothers me is [Fox] pretends not to be that." With so many conservatives watching only Fox, says Bartlett, "people are wearing blinders; they hear no fact that conflicts with their world view. All day long their views are reinforced that Obama is a socialist crackpot."

He's assuming people watching are idiots who can't figure out bias for themselves. And the only far right guy on Fox is Beck, who came from CNN btw, and he's there because he gets huge ratings, not because Fox is trying to maintain their distance. The mainstream media has not moved to the center, they're as sycophantic to Obama as ever, at least Fox provides some balance.

[Enoch]

I'm not sure why anyone watches national news on TV either. I stick with my local news crews.

The audience for cable news is weird. The lesson of Fox and MSNBC pulling ahead of CNN, ratings-wise, is that opinion journalism is both more popular and much much cheaper to produce than is solid reporting. Now, all 3 networks have some good reporters and some opinion-spouting talking heads, but CNN's investment in the reporting area (particularly in overseas bureaus) is much heavier than the other two. It's still the place to go for updates on a developing breaking-news situation for that reason. But that doesn't create much in the way of ratings-- people who watch for the news reporting generally watch for 20 minutes and then go do something else, unless there's an invasion or something going on. People who watch opinion-based journalism do so to have their worldview challenged or (more likely) validated by the opinions of an 'expert,' and many of them will watch for hours. Watching news to them is more like watching a sporting event-- they have emotional attachment to one of the "teams" and get satisfaction out of seeing that "team" score rhetorical points. This group is what puts Fox (and, for liberals, MSNBC, although the liberal audience for opinion-based journalism is a good deal smaller than the conservative one) ahead in the ratings-- people like watching competitions that their teams always win.

 

Now, during the early Bush 43 years, Fox News was pretty close to being an extra branch of the White House press office. But a key turning point was the Bush Admin's support for immigration reform. For the first couple of weeks, many of the talkingheads on Fox were supportive, as they had been for most things coming out of that White House. But then CNN's Lou Dobbs started speaking out forcefully against the proposed reform, and huge sections of the American right agreed with him. Fox found itself outflanked on the Right by CNN on a major issue, which they feared would undermine its credibility with its core demographic. So they quickly backpedaled and started denouncing the Administration's bill.

 

Bartlett, who is quoted in the article Wals linked, is more of an "old guard" pragmatic Republican. It's natural for people like him to be uncomfortable with how extreme his party has become-- moderate positions and advocates of compromise get shouted down. Of course, every "big-tent" political party is constantly dealing with the internal struggle between its extremists and its more moderate supporters. And there is certainly risk in going too far to the ideological extreme that you lose the middle (see: McGovern, George). But sometimes going far to one extreme moves where the middle is at (I'd argue that the Reagan admin did this on a number of issues), so it can be helpful in furthering the a group's long-term ideological goals.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I think your history is a bit selective. For example Fred Barnes when he was on Fox always supported immigration reform, and I'd be very surprised if O'Reilly ever did.

 

Edit: And the assertion that opposition to immigration reform started with Lou Dobbs is just silly.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Wrath of Dagon

[I want teh kotor 3]

I hope you're not including me in that, Wals...

 

No. Should I have?

 

No, but some people think I'm an extremist. I don't personally, but that's just me...

[Deadly_Nightshade]

And the only far right guy on Fox is Beck...

 

That's just not true.

[Enoch]

Edit: And the assertion that opposition to immigration reform started with Lou Dobbs is just silly.

I never meant to imply that he started it. (Indeed, the tradition of nativism in America is centuries old.) But he was surely the name most prominently associated with it at the time. It was the pet issue that he emphasized in nearly every show when that particular debate was going on. My search-fu is weak, and I can't seem to find where I've read about Fox's reaction to Dobbs and CNN staking out the anti-immigration position, but they were clearly troubled by it, and it pushed the bulk of their commetary in opposition to the Bush WH for pretty much the first time.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Lou Dobbs just seemed the most unhinged on that issue and on many others. The outrage over illegal immigration and the governments feckless and hypocritical response to it has been endemic to the Republican party and many independents as well for a long, long time. One also has to remember the bill of goods we were sold about the last amnesty er immigration reform. We were promised in return for amnesty, the government would get serious about enforcing the law. Sure enough, the amnesty happened but the enforcement only got more lax if that's even possible. Now we're being promised the same thing as before, talk about trying to fool all the people all the time.

[Monte Carlo]

The core issue here has been missed. Why do right-of-centre news channels have the hottest newsreaders?

[Oblarg]

I hope you're not including me in that, Wals...

 

No. Should I have?

 

No, but some people think I'm an extremist. I don't personally, but that's just me...

 

I don't think you're an extremist. I just think you're tragically misinformed about a great many things.

 

I would quote your global warming post, but I don't feel like finding it.

[Enoch]

The core issue here has been missed. Why do right-of-centre news channels have the hottest newsreaders?

Heavily male viewership? Although I may be confusing cause with effect here...

[Wrath of Dagon]

Same reason Rupert Murdoch's tabloids have topless chicks.

[Aram]

He's assuming people watching are idiots who can't figure out bias for themselves.

It's a pretty safe assumption.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

He's assuming people watching are idiots who can't figure out bias for themselves.

It's a pretty safe assumption.

 

Sadly, you're correct.

[Gorth]

The core issue here has been missed. Why do right-of-centre news channels have the hottest newsreaders?

According to Berlusconi because the left has uglier women

[Walsingham]

Evil megacorporations have more money.

 

However, I'd like to point out that if we learned anything from the 1960s and 70s it's that Left wing women, while unshaven, are far more likely to do the Free Love fandango.

 

*ahem*

 

Anyway, back to the point. If you think Fox has only ONE right wing figure then it just reinforces how right wing we've been saying you are, WoD. The Zulus have a saying: If three men say you are sick, see a doctor. There's a quite a broad array of nations, ages, and experience on here who'd say Fox was pronouncedly Right wing. Not to mention all the folks in the article.

[I want teh kotor 3]

I hope you're not including me in that, Wals...

 

No. Should I have?

 

No, but some people think I'm an extremist. I don't personally, but that's just me...

 

I don't think you're an extremist. I just think you're tragically misinformed about a great many things.

 

I would quote your global warming post, but I don't feel like finding it.

 

I wasn't referring to you or LoF.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Anyway, back to the point. If you think Fox has only ONE right wing figure then it just reinforces how right wing we've been saying you are, WoD. The Zulus have a saying: If three men say you are sick, see a doctor. There's a quite a broad array of nations, ages, and experience on here who'd say Fox was pronouncedly Right wing. Not to mention all the folks in the article.

I said far right, not right wing. There's a difference.