Think Again: Pity the Poor Folks at Fox News
Think Again: Pity the Poor Folks at Fox News
By Eric Alterman | February 7, 2013
Not a day goes by lately that Fox News does not itself make news. In the past few days, we’ve learned that
the station dropped longtime commentator and pollster Dick Morris from its team of analysts. This comes after the decisions to renew the station’s lucrative contract with analyst Karl Rove and
pass on the even more lucrative one with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin(R).
If these moves have a whiff of desperation about them, well, that’s appropriate.
The station’s primetime ratings recently reached their lowest point in 12 years among viewers ages 25 to 54—who happen to be the only ones most advertisers care to reach. January was the worst showing ever for Fox’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren,” who viewers know as a close friend and confidante of Gov. Palin. On top of that,
Fox News has hit a record low of trustworthiness among most Americans, according to a new survey by Public Policy Polling (the 2012 election’s most accurate pollsters).
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Come on now. Zurawik’s “surprise” over Rivera expressed in his first sentence is belied by the evidence he offers in his second one. Fox has never been a “news” network—to be considered a traditional “news” source, it would have to be unbiased, which is a quality that Fox clearly lacks. This became painfully evident to its viewers last election night.
If Fox were a “news” station rather than a political organization,
why would it employ almost all of the potential Republican presidential candidates before the 2012 election and allow them to raise money for other Republican candidates? Why would the station’s on-air personalities be using it to launch Republican primary campaigns? Why would it constantly invite people on its various shows to advance the fantasy that President Obama was born in Kenya or that man-made global warming is a secret scientific conspiracy? Indeed, almost everything is part of a secret conspiracy, according to Fox—from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent illness to President Obama’s affection for skeet shooting..............She goes on and on, apparently unaware that
the “job” of the people at Fox News, as defined by their bosses, is “to get” President Obama. (And if she is unaware of this, perhaps it is because, for some reason, she has not gotten the memo instructing Fox News personalities to say whatever is necessary—true or not—to try to prejudice viewers against the president.)
..........................clip--more with links >
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/media/news/2013/02/07/52148/pity-the-poor-folks-at-fox-news/
