Posted on 09/03/2004 7:01:24 AM PDT by truthandlife
Fox News killed everyone in the ratings game for the RNC convention but how was their coverage? (Good, Fair or Bad)
I think FOX needs to liven up their program a little more and I think they were too cautious about being too pro-Republican. Their coverage was not long enough at the end of the night and the feel of the graphics and set were not as good as MSNBC.
I think competition is good and if MSNBC keeps improving then I believe FOX will have to improve in order to not lose viewers. I hope FOX doesn't think they have conservatives in their hand and start saying we need to expand our audience by targeting moderates and independents. They will lose their audience to programs like Scarborough & Company as well as people just turning them off and going to the internet.
Last night when I saw that Fox chose NOT to air the speech by Tommy Franks- I switched to C-Span and watched the rest of the convention there.
Something has changed at FOX- guess the left wing's ridiculous charges of FOX bias have partially neutered them. The only show I try to catch now is the news with Brit Hume.
I think Matthews did our side a big service with his antics. He is like the protestors in that he puts a face on the opposition support that is not to pretty.
I was surprised to see that it seemed CNN had more commentary from our side. Maybe it was just timing in whenI surfed over.
At least one could enjoy watching Fox. I turned the others on a few times for a few minutes until I got ticked off with their inanity and negativity -- wound up about 99% on Fox.
For the most part, I thought their coverage was very good. My one gripe is that they (like too many in the MSM) spent way too much time focusing on the idiot protesters.
Brit was great, his panel always is interesting. I'm less than impressed with the caliber of Dem guests Fox & Friends has on in the morning (that Julie person always looks as though she's passing a kidney stone), but by and large, they seemed to get the "good" guests on both sides and mostly made them stay on issue.
The exception, of course, is the inexplicable free rein Terry McA always seems to get. Why does anyone bother to invite him on any show? (/rhetorical question)
I only caught some of MSNBC's coverage, mostly Scarborough Country and his and Ron Reagan Jr.'s panel discussions. They were okay, but seemed a little less professional than the guys at Fox to me.
O'Reilly is unwatchable in any season, setting or style.
Fox and most others had too much talking heads. I watched most of it on CSPAN and switched back to Fox after the main speeches.
I was also dissapointed that Fox didn't show more of Mike Steele, Lynn Swann and Tommy Franks.
I watched C-Span for nearly the whole convention.
Too much chatting on Fox. I wanted to hear the speeches and not the wornout pundits.
Fox needs some new blood but it would probably be liberal blood if they did update.
I was SCREAMING at Hannity to SHUT UP while Michael W. Smith was singing that phenomenal song, "She Stands." GOD, these people just never quit talking! I switched over to C-SPAN.
I watched Bush's speech on MSNBC. I don't know who the commentators were but afterwards they were positively gushing over his performance. Then they switched back to Brokaw, who was unruffled, and Russert, who looked like he had just swallowed sour milk.
Fox may have killed everyone else in ratings, but for those of us who like to watch without talking heads, it's CSpan.
Scarborough was good but Reagan Jr. was a nightmare. Not just because of his views but he came off terrible when he was talking. MSNBC needs to ditch him because he is unwathable.
I thought Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC was great for our side. She showed that she is clueless. She is good at news reading and that is it. She can't even clearly communicate the Democrat talking points.
Greta's show was awful. She had a lot of Democrat hacks on and it was just a boring show.
I thought FOX did a fairly good job with the commentary, however, when I wanted to watch the convention I tuned to CSPAN. All of the major media outlets had too many people talking instead of listening, IMO, and a lot was missed by tuning to them. Again, JMO.
Fox has drifted left....
So what if Fox was "at" the convention! Most of the time, they ran with the ususal format with the convention on the background video behind the talking heads. When I wanted to watch the convention, I actually changed channels.
I switched between PBS and FOX....PBS has Brooks and Shields. PBS was actually good as far as watching speeches and coverage, they even had a great interview with Karl Rove on Wednesday night. Shields is a Democrat shill...typical old media. Brooks has no balls whatsoever and lets Shields get away with falsehoods and lies. Fox was good, good analsyts--Mort, kristol, etc.....Fox is the only good news channel.
Have to admit, normally a convention is soo boring, but this one was sooo exciting I wanted to see it ALL...I wanted to enjoy the music too. I was watching Fox and my brother called to ask if I was watching Franks. Fox wasn't covering it so I switched to C-span. Fox should have shut up and let us enjoy the convention. They could have added little comments in between good stuff and it didn't take a brain surgeon to know what the good stuff was.
I switched to C-SPAN last night and wish I would have watched the convention on C-SPAN the whole time.
That said, I was thrilled by Dubya's speech, which I had to watch on CNN.
Speeches like that make the thought of moving down to your fair nation more and more alluring.
I was furious that Fox didn't carry Tommy Franks. Instead, they aired what I think was a rerun of an interview of O'Reilly and Bill Maher. I couldn't believe it.
They get paid to talk, so unfortunately, they don't understand when to be quiet.
My feeling is that they don't intend to be jerks and cover up the speech. It is that they are taught to fill air, ad lib etc. when somebody is not talking. It is in their training to keep yapping, so I think it is excruciating for them to just have to let the speech talk for itself. In my mind, I think for a television personality, dead air is like silence during a date.....just excruciatingly horrible to suffer through for them. Thus, they feel compelled to say something, anything, to get through it.
It is how they are trained, unfortunately.
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