Thread: Now back for the war on Christmas

While I am definitely not a fan of Fox News, am glad they are around. Mixed in with the manure are some news stories that other news orgs refuse to report. I watch/listen to all news with a big-ass grain of salt. What people also seem to forget is the difference between "hard" news and "opinion" hosts. She has moved into that later arena now. She's akin to Rachel, Ed Schulz, Piers, and yes Sean (#%$# I lost my timeslot to that b%$ch) Hannity. That's where the ratings are.

MSNBC and CNN are, ABC, CBS and NBC are more about getting the most viewers from whatever position (lib, con, wacko, etc.).

Fox's democrats are only there to "pretend" they offer both sides, they usually get either kooks or rarely let them talk (or a mix of both). Akin to MSNBC bringing on Republicans (though, imo, I think they tend to be pretty sane, and sometimes not ganged up on/silenced).

Originally Posted by Red_Lizard2

MSNBC and CNN are, ABC, CBS and NBC are more about getting the most viewers from whatever position (lib, con, wacko, etc.).

Fox's democrats are only there to "pretend" they offer both sides, they usually get either kooks or rarely let them talk (or a mix of both). Akin to MSNBC bringing on Republicans (though, imo, I think they tend to be pretty sane, and sometimes not ganged up on/silenced).

I think you are absolutely, positively wrong in your assessment. The liberal view is regularly represented on Fox and depending on the show, they get their time. It is television after all and someone's time will always be cut short unfortunately.

Fox routinely features James Carville, Joe Trippe, Alan Combs, and a whole slew of Democratic strategists who actively participate in the Obama administration both currently and in the past. They get their time in more than most. It's the conflict that creates ratings.

And while I admit ABC, CBS and NBC (the major networks) tend to try and stay in the middle, they avoid topics that embarrass the Democratic Party and administration. That's not journalism. You can tell when they jump on the band wagon of media like MSNBC. Remember, MSNBC is the "editorial" arm of the NBC conglomerate. They do the dirty work so NBC proper can appear above it all.

Our democracy works because the media is supposed to expose and publicly hold officials accountable. The only news organization that does that right now is Fox. And despite what you may think of Fox, they really do a good of job of exposing all those things about this administration that no one else wants to touch. They only appear extreme because the "line" of what is moderate has been moved by the liberal media to the left for decades now. When in reality, they haven't moved very much at all. If this were a Republican President in office, and scandals like leaving soldiers to die, or using government departments to target Americans politically opposed to the President, not to mention a complete and total failure of a signature healthcare policy, would be covered by the other networks ad nauseam.

And yes, when Bush was in office, they hammered Bush on the Scooter Libby thing, and the WMD stuff. Unlike the other networks, they don't appear to hide in their hole for 4-8 years when a Republican President is in office. I can't say the same about MSNBC whose sole programming schedule is to attack House Republicans or Fox News ignoring all this idiot President does.

Yes, the espouse conservative values more than moderate ones. Yes, their anchors, most notably Kelly, Van Susteren, O'Reilly, and especially Hannity, are very conservatively opinionated. But O'Reilly isn't Republican, he identifies as independent. The other anchors like Bret Baier and Shepard Smith are very reasonable in how they handle the news. Stossel is a libertarian, and Cavuto does the economic side.

This is opposed to the absolute shit that comes out of the mouths of Chris Matthews, Bashir (not anymore), Maddow, Sharpton and Melissa Harris-Perry who now thinks that Obamacare is a racist word now. Ridiculous. If MSNBC isn't creating a race issue, they have nothing to report anymore. Everything is racist to them. Global warming is because of racism now. Solar Flares are the white mans way of burning the black man and keeping him down, blah, blah, blah...

Originally Posted by -Lazarus-

I think you are absolutely, positively wrong in your assessment. The liberal view is regularly represented on Fox and depending on the show, they get their time. It is television after all and someone's time will always be cut short unfortunately.

They definitely get their time, Their time to say Hi, I'm a Liberal and that's it.

Disagree about Maddow, possibly Harris-Perry. Matthews is a blowhard who'd fit perfectly on Fox if he were a Republican. Sharpton comes across as annoying and an idiot. Bashir was okay, then said something really fucking stupid and (rightly) got canned.

ABC, NBC, CBS avoid stories that could at all be negative towards either party imo. Again disagree they don't report on "bad" stories. They've reported on most stories that could be "bad." What are these stories Fox reports that ABC, NBC, CBS haven't?

Originally Posted by Ranger10

Well, the reason Fox News does so well is that they are the only major news organization that has a conservative narrative. When 50%ish of the country votes conservative in an election but they only have one News channel that covers stories that express their view, then they will naturally dominate the ratings.

ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NBC and CNN are all fighting for a piece of the other 50%.

The other thing that Fox does in it's editorial news casts is allow democrats to present their viewpoint. Where they get their ratings is from the conflict of continually presenting both sides. Some news organizations do the same thing, but I find, especially in the case of MSNBC, they are more interested in telling their viewers "what the news is", as opposed to letting people here two opinions on the matter.

The other major networks are making Fox stronger because they refuse to give a conservative point of view. So conservatives stop watching them. More ratings, equals more money, equals more power. It means the Fox message is reaching at least 50% of the viewing public. That's huge. The way to compete with Fox is to offer conservatives another viewing choice. None of the other networks are willing to do that. So Fox dominates.

Besides MSNBC, none of the other networks provide either a liberal or conservative point of view. In my opinion, a news network should be providing the truth, not pandering for either political party. That isn't to say that the other networks are doing a good job, but they're hardly left-wing counterparts to Fox.

This fallacy gets brought up every time Fox News's obvious right-wing agenda is made public on these forums. It's never supported with any examples or data.