Posted on 09/07/2004 5:49:11 AM PDT by OESY
Roger Ailes is one lucky dude. Even when his Fox News Channel routs his bigger television competitors in the ratings, media elites still bury their heads in their own rationalizations.
Fox achieved another milestone last week when its coverage of the Republican National Convention won more viewers than those of the major broadcast networks. For President Bush's speech on Thursday, some 7.3 million viewers tuned into Fox, compared with the 5.9 million who watched second-place NBC. On Wednesday, Fox's 5.9 million viewers matched the number who watched ABC and CBS combined.
This is remarkable for a cable channel that reaches 25 million fewer homes than do the broadcast networks. Fox didn't do nearly as well in the ratings during the Democratic convention in Boston, but that should hardly console the bigger networks that were once the sole arbiter of TV political coverage.
The elite reaction to Fox's success has moved from denial, to vituperation, to (most recently) blaming the viewers. We heard Howard Kurtz, the CNN-Washington Post media critic, opining last week that the Fox ratings reflected the desire of "partisans" to tune into media where they will only hear what they want to hear. To be fair to Mr. Kurtz, he is only one of many who are suddenly lamenting that this media "polarization" is bad for democracy....
It's always possible that Americans, especially Republicans and conservatives, are flocking to Fox because they don't believe what they hear on the other networks. And, just to posit another alternative theory, maybe it's also better for democracy if these viewers tune into Fox rather than tune out politics altogether.... In any other American industry, a business that was losing market share as fast as the TV networks are losing it wouldn't be blaming the customers.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The lamestreamers just can't stand that we do get a fair shake at all.
Assuming that's true for the sake of argument, what does that say about:
I flipped between all of them to see what they were doing. My observation was that the big 3 anchors all felt they were the show, talking over the speeches, giving their opinions on what they heard, and summarizing for their viewers what was said or actually what they wanted the viewers to remember. CBS talked over the first 5 minutes of Zell Miller's speech going to THREE different reporters after the speech had started. They had plenty of time to pick it up but felt their input to be more vital. Having had a copy of the speech beforehand its easy to understand why they did this.
I still love Hume & Cavuto, but I use closed-captioning a lot and that added to their big bottom banner eats up half the screen. I watched Reagan's memorials and the RNC on C-Span.
New media is overtaking the old media!
Hard to see what the left is so stresed about.
It's about those few minutes a day that Brit speaks the truth.
I prefer watching C-SPAN. I've never understood why I should need a reporter telling me what I'm seeing or hearing.
Me, too. I wonder how many other political junkies do the same, and what that says about the actaul ratings of Fox and CNN?
Why isn't Fox doing special editions about the Swift Boat Vets or showing the viewers the list of Kerry Votes, when he was present. All they need to do is show the opposite bias.
We need to email Fox and let them know. If they continue in hiring these CNN rejects, they soon will lose market share.
I think Roger needs to hear from all of us.
Because they aren't, in fact, all that right wing. Their editorial programs slant right (thought I can't say I'm impressed by many of them), but their news is pretty neutral, I think.
Now, neutral is a big improvement, for sure. But I'm amazed that the rest of the media treats them like a non-stop right wing propaganda mill. I wish!
Fox News meticulously provides spokespersons on each (every) relevant side of the issues.
I'll bet they can statistically prove far more balance than the MSM based on the party affiliation of their various guests.
H&C and OReilly and Hume, et al, may rancor sometimes, but you can bet that they'll have decent spokespersons on from both Dem and Repub camps and from other non-political debates.
On ABC, if it were a stem-cell issue, you'd get a long, long sound bite from a leading scientist on behalf of infant stem-cell research; and on the other side you'd get all the expertise of a religiosity-challenged, Appalachian snake-handling pentecostal opponent. A pure set up.
On Fox, you'd get 2 scientists: one from each camp. Fair and balanced.
This has the socialist/liberal left in a tizzy, because their ideas, in general, cannot hold their own when facts come into play.
If we can base the election results on who watched which convention, and on which channel--I think the ratings numbers might be more accurate than the polls.
If Kurtz is a "media critic", I'm a ham sandwich.
I wonder which one will abandon this losing marketing strategy first?
Just get someone who can fairly analyze a situatin or topic and stop giving me hate speech and disagreements.
The spin is neither informative or entertaining.
Hey! That's good thinking...That never crossed my mind.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.