Posted on 10/29/2006 8:20:15 AM PST by Chi-townChief
These days cable news is more about views than news. Keith Olbermann calls George Bush a sort of terrorist. Fox News pundits call CNN unpatriotic. Lou Dobbs calls for a crackdown on illegal immigration. Who took the news out of the news? Everyone but Wolf Blitzer, apparently.
I've been monitoring cable news networks for dozens of hours a week ever since the Mark Foley scandal broke. I was hoping to provide a thorough reasoning of how the networks -- CNN, MSNBC and Fox News -- have been covering the midterm elections. But there's one basic thing going on. More than ever, cable news shows succumb to partisan hackery, the never-ending boxing match, round 1 million and counting.
Here's the score:
MSNBC MSNBC does the best job of separating America into the three camps of left, center and right. And it offers the only new star of cable news, Keith Olbermann. His "Countdown" (7 p.m. weeknights) is also cable news' only progressive talk show. Olbermann has called Bush a terrorist of sorts for trying to scare Americans into cowering 'fraidy cats, and made a case for Bush's impeachment.
His hourlong show is more substantial than bumper stickers, though. His most entertaining segments rival the jokes of "The Daily Show," if not delivered as well, as Olbermann isn't a comedian. His ratings among younger viewers have rivaled Bill O'Reilly's at times. His intellectually argued "special comments" are among the biggest hits on YouTube.com.
And now that America is returning politically left and center, Olbermann is, by default and by skills, TV's de facto big voice for progressives and lefts-of-center.
From the middle comes "Hardball with Chris Matthews" (4 p.m. weekdays). Earlier this year, I mistakenly called Matthews a conservative, because he was doing off-putting things like telling out-of-her-mind Ann Coulter he loved her. Last week, he said he likes Rush Limbaugh while also criticizing him for mocking Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's disease.
Under constant scrutiny, Matthews seems less a label than a political scientist constantly trying to figure out what works politically, and what doesn't. He studies the process. No other cable news host asks follow-up questions as well. He often digs in like a journalist's journalist, even if he rarely digs deep into the wonk of governance.
And from the right, on "Scarborough Country" (8 p.m. weeknights), former Gingrich Revolutionary Joe Scarborough does not blindly follow Republican talking points as do the talking heads on Fox News. He is an independent whose guests from the right, center and left tend to be free thinkers. If any right-winger on cable news behaves in manners fair and balanced, attempting to be decorous, it is Scarborough.
CNN The standout here is Wolf Blitzer's "Situation Room" at 3-5 p.m. and 6-7 p.m. weekdays. More than anyone else in cable news, Blitzer keeps his opinions to himself and asks relevant, on-point questions of all politicians and pundits, just like they teach us to do in journalism school. If you think CNN is the network of Democrats, you've watched too much Fox. When a news network presents more than one side of political discourse, it's not a Democratic news station. It's a news station attempting to be objective, fair and balanced. It handled the Foley flare-up remarkably well.
The wild ride is "Lou Dobbs Tonight" (5 p.m. weeknights, CNN). Some people paint Dobbs as just some anti-immigration guy. But on the whole, his positions make him the first throwback populist with a TV show since -- when? Forever?
Check it out: He's against the war (but for the troops). He's pro labor; that's a big part of his complaint about illegal immigration. He bully pulpits for the working classes over the wealthy and the crony corporations. If that doesn't remind history buffs of American populists of the first part of the 20th century, then I have totally forgotten everything I learned in college.
Fox News If you watch Fox because you're a Republican and you want to hear contemporary events talked about in Republican terms, more power to you. But Fox "News" adheres to journalistic standards of objectivity about as much as Mark Foley adheres to grown women. Weirdly, Fox tries to paint CNNers as unpatriotic for showing negative sides of the war, as if unworthy of the First Amendment, which is Fox's First Amendment right to say, but this is a dumb case to make. CNN is not patriotic. Neither is Fox. You know why? The news is not supposed to be rah-rah anything. It is supposed to be the news. If Fox people don't get that, then they are self-hating journalistic masochists playing a game.
In between all the conservative commentary, occasionally there is news. Last weekend, a news break presented four consecutive stories where the reporters and anchors positively presented sides of 1) the Montana Republican Senate candidate; 2) Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling him "Arnold"; 3) Hillary Clinton's Republican opponent, and 4) Tennessee's Republican Senate candidate. Where was the Democratic balance?
If Fox were doing such bidding for Democrats, it would be no less of a one-sided commentary. But since Fox is run by CEO Roger Ailes, who served as media consultant and aide to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, it smells like Republican propaganda. Opinion is not news.
mailto:delfman@suntimes.com
No mention of Glenn Beck - the best.
I stopped reading here..
BOR is cable news #1. KO is down in the count. Pun intended.
He had to dig deep into the stats just to get O'Reilly and Olberwoman into the same sentence.
Matthews is "middle of the road"? He worked for that little twinkle toed little Communist Carter!
Beck's show is actually the only show we still watch.
This is the ONLY accurate statement made in this article.
I no longer watch Joe (OR KASICH) as they are both tilting left and more often than not are seen as mouthpieces (and worse, APOLOGISTS) for the DHIMICRATS!!!
Hah! For such a "history buff," he seems to have forgotten WWII. I guess it's that college "education."
Or, perhaps watching all that cable "news."
Plus he confuses 'Commentary' with 'Hard News' like say Shep Smith (who I do NOT think is 'that way').
Yeah, this guy (as well as MANY other "Journalists" seem to have forgotten their Vertical Alignment:
1. God (If they even believe in one)
2. Family
3. Country
4. Business (Job or Career)
If they were to follow this model, then they would be more patriotic, putting their country abvove their need to be "objective" in all cases.
"and now that america is returning politically left and center"
baaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrfffffffff!!! baaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrfffffffff!!! baaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrffffffffffffff!!!
they never fail to make me sick to my stomache. (will they ever go away and move to cuba?)
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