.
And here is why.
…you’ll never have a liberal equivalent to Fox News that has anything like the same level of success. Conservatives believe that the mainstream news is fundamentally corrupt and untrustworthy. They want a fully closed information ecosystem in which every piece of data they consume is filtered through the perspective of the conservative movement. Very, very few liberals want that. They want their liberal opinion, but they also want straight news, or at the very least news that isn’t overtly propagandistic like on Fox. MSNBC has slightly right-of-center programming in the morning with Joe Scarborough, straight news throughout the day, then liberal opinion at night.
Will that work? Sherman implicitly suggests it won’t. The beauty of Fox News is that the “straight” news seamlessly meshes with the straight opinion ranters. The daytime shows endlessly pump up the Black Panther intimidation story, and then the opinion hosts flog the story more. The whole product works together.
Gabe Sherman explains how.
Fox’s secret is that viewers stay. That’s because Fox’s rightward flanking maneuver, capturing a disenfranchised part of the audience, was only part of its strategy. The news, especially political news, wasn’t something that happened. It was something that you shaped out of the raw data, brought out of the clay of zhlubby, boring politics, reborn with heroes and villains, triumphs and reverses, never-ending story lines—what TV executives call “flow.” And the beauty of it was that the viewers—the voters—were the protagonists, victims of evil Kenyan socialist overlords, or rebels, coming to take the government back. There was none of the on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand relativity crossfire that mirrors the journalism-school ideal of objectivity. All the fire went one way. The viewers, on their couches, were flattered as the most important participants, the foot soldiers in Fox’s army; some of them even voted.
There never will be a Fox equivalent on the liberal side because most liberals would never tolerate being lied to on a daily basis. For all the criticism MSNBC gets from the right claiming it is no different than Fox, they’re wrong. Olbermann is not O’Reilly and Maddow is not Hannity. Not even close. You can disagree with the liberal views of Olbermann and Maddow, but you would be hard-pressed to call them liars. And when they do error, they readily admit it.
Can the same be said of O’Reilly, Hannity, Beck and the rest of the Fox crew – all chronic and documented liars of the first order?
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Sadly, Gabe is correct. But I do believe there are ways we can rebutt some of the lies. How much stuff hits your in box (or junk mail) from right wing supporters who want you to KNOW how bad it is under Obama? If you’re inbox is like mine – there’s plenty (although I’ve responded to so much of – with a reply all – that fewer people are sending me the nonsense these days) there.
Where is all the junk mail hitting my inbox from the left? The only stuff I get are the multitudes of information from various sites I have subscribed to.
Why doesn’t the left have thousands/millions of people sending out stuff daily to spread throughout the Internet(s) with the truth to combat the lies?
Instead most of us just hit the delete button. And that may be what they do as well – but if we get through to some of them (as they do to some people), we might start to make some headway.
And I’d love to know who the people are who sit down and make all this stuff up to begin with – marketing firms hired by the RNC?
Here are two quotes regarding conservatives:
“Conservatives wouldn’t change their underwear if they didn’t have to”. — David Eddings.
“Liberals are people who believe they are right and those who disagree with them are misguided. Conservatives are people who believe they are right and those who disagree with them are wrong.”
Liberals are more interested in hearing the truth than being given a sop intended to make them feel like everything is going to be okay if only we go back a hundred years. Conservatives want to believe their leaders are perfect (they’d feel right at home with the Kim family); liberals are not afraid to hold their leaders to a standard and criticize them when they fall short.
Oh, yes – that second quote: it’s mine.
Excellent E.A.
“You can disagree with the liberal views of Olbermann and Maddow, but you would be hard-pressed to call them liars. And when they do error, they readily admit it.”
Hard pressed, huh? After they way they’ve been repeatedly lying about Rand Paul, Ron Paul, and their supporters — calling Tea Party supporters “racist” and the like — you shouldn’t even attempt to claim such a bold thing, otherwise somebody might make you out as a liar.
http://www.youtube.com/user/machosauceproduction#p/a/f/1/DaOXZuEQglg
I appreciate your post but I have to disagree. Historically speaking in the 1990s CNN was very biased towards the left. So much so it created the market for Fox news. Truthfully it probably still is. I want an independent press. I want news that criticizes each party equally. Apparently that is not possible today. Some network is always in bed with the ruling party. Fox news today is more fair than CNN was in the 90s.
Funny, though, how many conservatives read the NY Times and Fox News, but how few liberals do the same. The true bias is not in how you report the news, but in what you don’t report.
Ha… the liberal equivalent is called the Main Stream Media. Fox might have a different perspective… maybe balancing between the two views is something closer to reality.
“The left won’t tolerate being lied to”.
I suppose if anyone believes that statement, it’s proved false.
Why emulate what clearly doesn’t work? By work, I mean politically. Maybe Faux is pulling in serious advertising jack(?), and I’m sure they’re happy with that, but let’s recap for a minute.
They couldn’t keep a relatively unknown black guy with a Muslim sounding name from winning the White House. Even after all the years of black and Muslim bashing they served up continually. Faux got so far in bed with Bush that they will never shake it. They can try to FAKE IT, but they’ve become a parody of a parody. The term “jumped the shark” comes to mind. You know, at one time when I was a kid, pet rocks were popular. Now, not so much.
The entire rightwing cabal exists today for ONE purpose and ONE purpose only!!! To make Americans think that their re-ascendancy to the throne is INEVITABLE. The other lies must take back seat to this BIG LIE for the next month or so. Americans voting these idiots out of office next month might finally bring some life to the dessicated carcass that is moderate Republicanism these days.
I’d vote for the Democrats even if they weren’t the best choice among evils, just to finally see the resulting peak wingnut cognitive dissonance effect. Hell, I’d pay for a ticket to see that.
Enjoy.
Fox is comfort news. As Don Draper said on MAD MEN, “Advertising isn’t about selling products, it’s about making people feel better about themselves.” Fox sells “news” to people who like to be fooled. It’s the news equivalent of a horoscopes, and also made up.
But really, we’ve seen a splintering of very medium. When radio first started, music was generic pop music. Then radio stations split into Oldies, Urban, Country, Talk, and so on. Now television has caught up: you can get specialty “news” that reinforces your worldview. Whether it’s true or not is meaningless. It’s entertainment.
FoxNews is like Radio Berlin of 1933 with video added.
Pure propaganda….repeated over and over again.
What about the “worst person” honor that Overbite gives out? Pretty douchy, kinda like you thinking that just because you said it…its now fact.
Oh DrSatch, the worst person thing is obviously Olbermann’s take on the actions, which are demonstrably true, of douche bags in our world. He would never pull the ACORN farce that FN did.
Even Fox didn’t show all of the Socialist, Marxist, and Communist groups at the recent 10/02 rally. At least they gave you Marxist’s a break. But, Katie Couric did an in-depth profile of the America-hating, National mall trashing, bused in miscreants that were there. Amirite?
You guys are funny…..
All i have to say is that meadow is the worst journalist ever.
Liberals love to be lied to! They love to be told that Social Security will not go bankrupt. They love to be told that Medicare and Medicaid are find services that have plenty of money to run on. They love to be told that we can increase the national debt forever. They love to be told that there is no harm to a fiat currency. They love to be told that there are no unintended consequences for government intervention in markets. They love to be told that the wealthy will continue to invest their money in America even when they’re taxed at a 93% tax rate (…which they have been).
Liberals won’t stand for being lied to??? 100% bullshit.
I agree with jann, this is hilarious! It’s gone from twist and shout to sputter and flutter. There’s got to be a song in that . . .
Anyone who supports either party can’t be very bright.
Don’t be silly.
CNN has been a left sided new channel since the Clinton administration.
The way people portray the right is always an exaggerated example of someone like Glenn Beck, I myself am conservative but don’t scream out silly thing and make loud noises to get my point across. Most conservatives simply believe in keeping our government within our control and less controlled by politicians and their silly ideas of spending more money to fix our economy. Sadly Fox news has given conservatives a bad name.
Allen – You said:
You are misinformed or simply misunderstand -
We know SS will go bankrupt if the GOP takes charge again – they want that to happen so they will have their needed excuse to privatize it – we remember they tried that once before. We also know that SS is solvent until 2037 – and would be able to continue providing 100% of its promised payouts with some minor tweaks of the system – such as lifting the cap so that those making more than $102K continue paying into the system. There are other options, but increasing the age limit to 70 is NOT acceptable. For one thing – where are these people going to work until their 70? And if they do, what about the younger people who are waiting in line for those jobs?
Medicare/Medicare have bigger problems, but when the Dems tried to do things to fix them, they were unable to do so because too many GOPers stood in the way — along with some right leaning Dems. Hence we got health INSURANCE reform, not health CARE reform – and the insurance reform isn’t as good as it could have been.
If you want these things to be available for the elderly and the poor then we must take steps to keep them solvent and make them more efficient – complaining about them and doing nothing to help fix the problem doesn’t solve much does it?
It was Karl Rove who said “deficits don’t matter.” — I know of NO Democrat who has said this. Can you name one? 5 – 6 trillion of our debt was added during the Bush administration. My numbers may be a bit off without looking it up – but I believe Bush DOUBLE the national debt while he was in office.
So you prefer the gold standard? Are you planning on turning in your gold, if we return to that system? Can you explain how we’re going to force all the other major countries in the world to return to the gold standard? You do realize we would all need to be on the gold standard for it to work?
Do you also realize that government NON-INTERVENTION in markets also has unintended consequences? As we can clearly see from the casino capitalism that has been perpetrated on the tax payers of this country by a bunch of greedy bankers who are, according to them, doing “God’s work” and believe we should just get used to the idea that they deserve the right to screw us.
The wealthy haven’t invested in this country since they got their tax breaks (…so “continue to invest” is an invalid statement to start with). Furthermore, the proposed tax rate is NOT 93%, but 39.6% – and this is a “marginal” tax rate, not the “effective” tax rate. — If you don’t know the difference, look it up. Anyone paying a marginal tax rate needs to hire a new accountant because they obviously aren’t taking the deductions they could. The historical tax rates can be found here: http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
When I look at that list, it seems to me that our greatest growth in this country came during a good many of those years.
Years, when we weren’t giving tax breaks to companies to send our jobs overseas, or to pharmaceutical companies to subsidize their charging LOWER prices overseas while we in America continue to pay the highest costs in the world: http://books.google.com/books?id=vLg4iJR0J9kC&pg=PA17664&lpg=PA17664&dq=pharmaceutical+companies+get+a+tax+subsidy&source=bl&ots=-ImBEXcgL7&sig=xb99fuRlMZp7tfk_UqCvzmj3GyA&hl=en&ei=T1VsTLGsJIS4sAPupPGTBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=pharmaceutical%20companies%20get%20a%20tax%20subsidy&f=true
Page 17664
I guess that’s an “unintended consequence,” rather than an “intended one?” And people wonder why our health care costs are so high?
Or try this one on Why We Don’t Enforce the Bayh-Dole Act – http://www.cptech.org/ip/health/bd/arnodavis012001.pdf. Where our public dollars pay for research and we GAVE U.S. universities, small businesses and non-profits intellectual property control of their inventions and other intellectual property that resulted from public funding with the right of “march in” to set prices, but we don’t.
This law passed in 1980 under Reagan – who also “mandated” that all public hospitals provide services to everyone – regardless of their legal status or their ability to pay. Guess Reagan would be thrown out of the GOP today!
This county is screwed up because people in both parties have given the giant corporations damned near everything they want at our expense.
If you want another example go to http://www.sti.nasa.gov/spinoff/database and check the NASA spinoff database to see all the technology we’ve paid for that the private sector is making billions off of. — Do you own a GPS? Your tax dollars paid for the research (and the satellites that made it happen). Who’s making money off it – Tom Tom, etc.
While liberals look for solutions to problems, conservatives cry “bullshit,” because it’s easier to name call and denigrate gays, immigrants, liberals, etc. rather than find REAL solutions to our problems. It’s just so much easier to blame it on someone else than use science, math, technology, and, yes, even history, to find answers.
And Caleb – neither John King or Wolf Blitzer are liberal. I’ve seen them in action with liberal guests – they cut them off or have them outnumbered with conservative guests 2 to 1 liberal.
Haha this article is soooo liberal media – that I refute what is says in its entirety. I know to do that because Fox tells me “liberal media, liberal media, liberal media” every chance they get in order to lump every other news station into the opposite of fox.
Sortof like when totally charismatic people tell their followers, “the entire outside world is corrupt, and full of lies. You cannot trust them, I am the only one you can trust. They will no doubt tell you lies about me and everything we are doing, but you have to remain vigilant and know that we are the only ones being fair and balanced with you.”
Whoa…. I just realized…I am part of a cult. I get all my information from one source, who says that every other source is lying and untrustworthy. It is a “fully closed information ecosystem.”
Or as Brian says,”Ha… the liberal equivalent is called the Main Stream Media.”
Gosh.
My momma always used to tell me that if you’ve got a problem with everyone, that you are the problem. And i didn’t get it until now. Fox has a problem with everyone who isn’t fox. By golly, fox is the problem.
Newflash – the origins of the “liberal media” was not that the media (your local news) for instance is bias towards liberal politically and therefore untrustworthy. It is meant to say that the very idea of media be it books, tv, radio, newspaper, airplane banners is liberal because it fosters the dissemination and distribution of information and knowledge. It is the same measure by which book burning is conservative; cities are liberal, & the pockets burried in the most sparce areas of the mountains are conservative.
Truth be told this article is poorly (and hardly) written. It does make useless statements like, “most liberals would never tolerate being lied to on a daily basis” which have no real legs on which to stand. But the premise of fox as a closed information system fostering among its congregation a need to distrust any other ideas – including internal objections – is interesting. (Have you seen the way opinions change, Karl Roves on Christine Odonnell for instance, to fall in line with message.)
The same appeal doesn’t work because liberals want dissent. We want sharing of ideas, multiple sources of information, with civil and intectual debate. Oberman and Maddow, get no where the same following as say Beck, because A) we don’t want to drink OUR koolaid, B) we want to tune in and see what’s being mixed into YOURS.
Yours apparently has some cyanide in it for the Faux rapture, just before the police breaks into the compound.
Good luck with that.