Moving to the Right of Everyone
The Washington Post has an interesting article on the alarming nature of Glenn Beck–something the Post claims is even dividing those within Fox. The article, however, like most mainstream reports on Fox News, is far too timid:
By calling President Obama a racist and branding progressivism a “cancer,” Beck has achieved a lightning-rod status that is unusual even for the network owned by Rupert Murdoch. And that, in turn, has complicated the channel’s efforts to neutralize White House criticism that Fox is not really a news organization.
Really? Is the idea of Fox News being an actual “news” organization even really a question anymore? I think it’s pretty damned clear that Fox jumped the shark quite some time ago. That anyone still makes this a question is rather indicative of how weak-kneed analysts tend to be about challenging Fox’s status. A good example of this from the article:
Television analyst Andrew Tyndall calls Beck an “activist” and “comedian” whose incendiary style has created “a real crossroads for Fox News.”
“They’re right on the cusp of losing their image as a news organization,” he declares. “Do they want to be the go-to place for conservative populist ideas on television, or do they want to be a news organization? Ailes has done a good job of doing both.”
“A good job of being a news organization”? “Right on the cusp”? Please. Well, maybe if you look at it from the perspective of a right-winger who agrees with so much of the commentary that he sees “Obama is a communist” as news rather than opinion, perhaps. Maybe that’s what they’re referring to–that even the politically biased cheerleaders of Fox are beginning to think the network is going too far. And when the cheerleaders stop the chant and start saying, “hey, too far, man,” you know that’s too far. It’s as if Fox is convinced of its own invincibility and has just left a brick on the accelerator pedal while they climbed atop the media car with a bottle of Tequila in their hand, shouting like a banshee without any pants.
The thing that really spurred the questioning was Beck’s call for listeners to start leaving any church that advocated “social justice,” which he called “code words” for communism and Nazism. Even right-wingers started to blanch at that one. It may have been Beck’s “I’m more popular than Jesus” moment, and certainly allowed for a more mainstream boycott of Beck and his show. Already more than 200 advertisers have joined the boycott, including Apple, which, I am proud to say, has abandoned the Fox News network altogether–not an uncontroversial move considering Fox’s market share. But then, Apple is more popular than Fox.
It is curious how far around the bend the right wing will go.
Lefties like me are rather underwhelmed with the insurance reform; it’s basically a warmed-over Republican plan, like what they proposed in 1993 and what RomneyCare turned out to be.
It should be, as it was written by WellPoint.
Yet the opposition has been whipping themselves into a fury that the new industry regulations and subsidies are the second coming of Eugene Debs or the NSDAP.
Of course, Fox never started out as a news organization, it was a Republican front from day 1.
PT Barnum said it best, as did Abraham Lincoln. I trust your historical knowledge not to have to google the quotes : )
Oops, I meant HL Mencken, not PT Barnum I guess.
Nothing happens without money behind it.
I recently read somewhere that 10% of those people leading organizations are psychopaths, or more plainly put, people uncapable of empathy. Yes, now I remember, it was on Bishops in the Catholic church, who are basically much like executives of corporations. It turns out that being uncapable of empathy is not a negative trait when climbing an organizational latter.
All of these people turn out to be the upper echelons of Republican party.
They hate ordinary people.
Beck is the guy they put in as the vanguard of ideas that they want to be normalized. The stuff he’s saying would have had him thrown in an asylum 30 years ago. But its where the upper echelons of the Republican party want society to go.
They don’t want social justice. They don’t even want Religion. They want corporations running everything.
RHOP.
Fair and Balanced isn’t the issue. In fact, balanced and fair is essentially the same thing.
What is missing is “responsible”.
The old Fairness doctrine required more than just ‘fairness’ in reporting. It also required ‘responsible’ reporting.
Here is where Fox chokes on it.
If MSNBC or CNN or any other News organization ran on “Fair and Responsible” reporting, Fox News would fall apart. They can’t respond to that. Because almost ALL of their reporting is patently, even intentionally, irresponsible.
If I was head of one of those competing News organizations I would be all over this. Fox can either be Fox or it can be responsible. It can’t be both. Establish the premise that they are basically irresponsible journalist, and pretty soon people would be ignoring them, and even those that did pay still watch them would know that it’s purely for entertainment. The up shot of it, is things like Tea Party, that they like to promote, wouldn’t far less traction because the promotion of that is part of Fox acting irresponsibly.
^ you’re forgetting that FOX is giving millions of people the news they WANT to hear.