Posted on 10/12/2002 9:32:34 AM PDT by forest
When the national media honchos wonder why they are losing money, all they need do is look in the mirror. Clearly, they are not even close to producing the type of "news" the American people really want and need.
For instance, MSNBC needed a fix to stay solvent, so they brought the old has-been liberal Phil Donahue aboard and gave him a full prime-time hour. Then their ratings hit all time lows and they can't seem to understand why.
Even Fox News plays into that game. By being what they call "fair and balanced," they keep a stable of obnoxious liberals around and allow some just ordinary programming. They could move out well above the pack in every timeframe if they fired the liberals.
Newspapers aren't any better. The Associated Press is little more than a cheering section for far-left Democrats, but all the major papers in the nation run their stuff anyway. Newspapers claim they can barely keep their collective heads afloat because advertising is revenue down. In truth, advertising revenue is down because advertisers know readership is down.
Last week was rather indicative of how misguided some in the national media really are. Fox News Channel broadcast their number-three all-time best watched program last week. And, it was political. Conservatively political.
The contrast was correctly reported, in their tongue-in-cheek manner, by a Cincinnati publication called "The Whistleblower"(1):
"When President Bush delivered this week's Speech of the Century, the White House defied the Cincinnati boycott, so liberal TV networks (ABC-CBS-NBC) boycotted the speech."
Why? The "Cincinnati Boycott," for those not receiving news from that area of the country, is what appears to be a never-ending boycott scheduled by a few radical black ministers against anyone not agreeing with them. President Bush was speaking from Cincinnati. So, there you go.
Fox News ran Bush's speech and captured the viewers. Detroit's NBC affiliate did, too -- and also registered high viewer numbers for that hour.
Two very important gubernatorial debates were held last week in California and Michigan. Yet, there was nary a peep about them in the national news. In both states, the liberal candidates are said by the liberal media to be ahead in the polls. One reason could very well be simply because the media only have good things to say about the liberal candidates and tend to portray the Republicans in the worst possible light.
In California, Governor Gray Davis has a "pay to play" policy for businesses wanting favorable treatment from the State government. That is, they must first pony up to Democratic Party candidates before making a deal with the State. So, where is the outrage in the media? Nowhere. They reported it, but did nothing else. Instead, they lambaste Republican candidate Bill Simon for incidentals that have zero to do with public office. No bias there, eh?
Even the debates are often one sided. In Michigan, the debate between Republican Dick Posthumus and Democrat Jennifer Granholm was "hosted" by a group of liberal media people whose agenda was very evident in their line of questioning.
Republican candidate Posthumus mentioned a memo to Granholm from Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that demands Democrat candidate Granholm guarantee 20 percent of the new governor's appointments to be African Americans. The mayor also demanded that any new state office buildings be built in Detroit and that six of the major cabinet officials be Detroiters. All that must be promised, according to the memo, or the Democratic candidate for governor will not receive Detroit's block of Democratic votes for governor this year.
The media, of course, do not want that threatening memo spoken about in public. It could be construed as "raciest," after all.
Well folks, it is not raciest to say that Detroit is not the State Capital. Therefore, it should receive no State buildings. On the other hand, besides the major inconvenience of driving and parking in downtown Detroit, the element of danger involved moving about in the inner- city could bring a new-found excitement in the lives of unaccustomed Michigan residents needing to conduct State business downtown.
The fact is, most of the media informs more about sports than political issues that affect our pocketbooks and our liberty. All levels of government usually want more money. Yet, the investigative reporting describing waste, fraud and abuse of public funds is the exception rather then the rule.
The sorry fact is, most Americans know more about the politics of the Middle East than they do about 45 of our 50 states. Sure, the atrocities in and around the Middle East are newsworthy. But, here in the United States we have equivalent geographical areas where even more innocent people are killed year after year. Why is that not national news?
Right. That would not be politically correct. And there again we have another reason so many media corporations are failing.
1. http://www.thewhistleblower.net
The Associated Press is little more than a cheering section for far-left Democrats, but all the major papers in the nation run their stuff anyway.
Whistleblower"(1): "When President Bush delivered this week's Speech of the Century, the White House defied the Cincinnati boycott, so liberal TV networks (ABC-CBS-NBC) boycotted the speech."
Not reported: California and Michigan gubernatorial debates, and California Governor Gray Davis's "pay to play" policy for businesses. Even the debates are often one sided.
The investigative reporting describing waste, fraud and abuse of public funds is the exception rather then the rule.
Ellen Ratner, the "short" in the Long & the Short of It counterpoint with Jim Pinkerton, has to be the stupidest, most knee-jerk, emotions-over-analysis barf-inducing liberal in all TV.
Come to think of it, that's how I like my liberals on TV!
Newscasters deal with news just like the sportscasters deal with sports. Name a sportscaster who wants less sports and fewer players. The reason sportscasters are all pro sports, is they are all sports fans.
The reason newscasters are all pro government is they are all governemnt fans. News coverage and Sports coverage are the same and have nearly equal amounts of bias. People think the sports coverage is OK, because most people are sports fans. If your opinions on sports were the same as your opinions of Goverment,you would say sportcasters are the most biased people in the world.
Can you imagine some one saying, I don't care for sports much. I think it wastes time and takes away from productive activity and wastes our resources.. Therefore I intend to spend my life reporting on sports.
Can you imagine some one saying, I don't care for government much. I think it wastes time and takes away from productive activity and wastes our resources.. Therefore I intend to spend my life reporting on government.
Why do you think that Roger Ailes of FOX puts her on TV? Why do you think that lefist running CNN puts Novak on TV?
That is so true! C-Span is essentially the only objective reporting when it comes to news. Virtually every other news outlet has an agenda, and instead of news reporting it is usually commentary.
And all the news channels spin ....even O'Reilly spins (and as much as i enjoy his show I have to say i cannot think of any other show that spins more than O'Reilly! I have actually seen O'Reilly change spots in that one week he was attacking a topic he had been supporting the week before ....just because the guy on the channel had taken the side and he was forced to take the opposite side to make the show 'interesting.' However i understand why ...ratings .....and i do enjoy the show so i never complain. But i always chuckle whenever he says with a straight face that 'you are now entering a no spin zone.' That causes automatic chuckling that lasts for at least a couple of seconds).
However all news channels spin, and all have an agenda. The only one that does not (or at least comes the closest to not spinning) is C-Span which just delivers news and let the viewer decide for himself/herself. Other channels deliver news, issue a commentary, and implicitly tell a viewer what to think (and i mean all channels). The drawback is C-Span is not as 'interesting' as the others marques, but if you want complete and total coverage that does not include someone giving a commentary as if your higher brain functions were atrophied then C-Span is the way to go. The other news channels are basically for when i want some 'informative entertainment' (plus a chuckle every now and then ...or laughter! And while i enjoy O'reilly and the chuckling he causes is not derisive there is a certain Fox commentator who makes me outrightly LAUGH and laugh derisively! He is Gueraldo Riveira and since the Afghanistan Faux pas he made i do not even consider him a journalist! When he was in a 'battle' that was miles away he was either lying, inept or delusional ....and neither is an attribute of a good journalist. I also consider him the only achilles heel in Fox, and without that interloper Fox would even be better than it is right now).
Instead of giving up, say, "I will change it!" Good Americans find good ways. You did post a good reply.
You do?
I can't imagine why. ;^)
(~thanks Angel!!)
This Fidore (sp?) fella sure does an excellent job synopsizing the horrible state of affairs in the Liberal-Socialist Lamestream media, today.
Definitely a problem of world-wide proportions too, with a good deal more serious implications than many people are giving it credit for.
An excellent read, so again thank you (!!) for your heads-up, H1.
...you *know* how much I just love the *smell* of truth in the morning. :^)
C-Span sends its bills to the big Cable TV companies. Can you say AOL/Time Warner, Cox, and Adelphia? YES CNN, TIME Magazine, and the Atlanta Constituion pick up the big tab for C-SPAN. There is no free lunch. The big cable companies pay for C-SPAN. Brian Lamb presents his budget every year, and it they don't like what he has done they make him change or the big Cable Boys won't write the check.
These cable companies use money you pay the cable company to fund leftist political coverage that is only a little less obvious what the main channels do. They think it will fool people and it does. Since the uneducated don't watch C-Span they have to make it so it can fool brighter people. Where did you think C-Span got its money? It does not do fund raisers. It would have to answer to its veiwers if it did that. So it answers to rich Cable companies. And they call the shots.
When they had the odds equal on who could call in to C-Span (lots of lines and first come first served) they got lots of calls from the right. That reflected the makeup of the viewership. C-SPAN is so unbaised they had to structure the call-ins so they don't relfect the people who are watching. The left line, right line, and center line crap. That is a typical Democrat definition of fair. When the left is losing the vote they always want to give each side an equal number of votes. They know the Left will cheat by calling in on the Right line...and the Right will not cheat by calling in on the Left line. C-Span was well aware this would happen. Why do you think they did it?
The leftist most members of the big media conglomerates pick up the tab for C-Span. C-Span will do little that might help the right at all. They will do all they can to help the left.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/758695/posts
...there's a good deal more to this than meets the eye.
Bush is very very, very, smart and the media is much against him. Getting the major networks to cover a speech is not a Bush goal. The opposite is the goal. Let me explain.
Bush did not ask for media coverage. Rowe gave them reasons so they could refuse him coverage with no problems. When people ask the networks why didn't you cover bush, they say he did not ask for coverage... and he did not.
If the major networks had covered Bush's speech live they would have taken the air 10 mintues before he spoke. During that 10 minutes the media would have put on seveal political and media talking heads to trash what Bush was going to say. Then after his speech the anchors and democrats would trash his speech again. Following that the Democratic Response would be aired for 20 minutes. During that 20 minutes a Democratic leader would trash Bush's speech. Finally the talking heads would praise the Democratic response and trash bush for 10 minutes. The standard network deal is they put bush on for 20 minutes and trash him for 40... That is not a good deal for bush. The Democrats love it. Bush and Rowe wanted to stop that and they did.
What Bush wanted was the major media to let everyone know he was going to speak, but not cover it. With over 90 percent of the homes getting Cable TV, almost everyone who wanted to watch the speech could do so by tuning in a cable channel. Tons of people did. The cable channel ratings were very good. They were amoung the best ever.
However, the cable channels put Bush on and then went back to their regular programs when he finished. There was no Democratic response and no pre and post trashing of Bush by the cable anchors. The next day the networks did not have Democrat sound bytes from a 20 minute response to play. They had excerpts from the Bush speech. They were reduced to playing the worst Bush clip they had and then a reporters biased response. That is as good as it gets for a Republican. It blows their mind that Bush can win in this situaion. But he has and does.
The result was that the Democrats folded shortly thereafter. If the Networks had carried the speech complete with all the Democrat and Anchor trashing we would not have had the house and senate resolutions passed this quick. We might not have gotten a senate resolution at all.
Rowe even leaked that Bush has personally eliminated lines in his speech that would draw big applause. Rowe said Bush did not want the public to see it as a campaign speech. That statement alone guaranteed the three major networks would refuse to carry it. I can hear Rather stating to his staff, "If he is trying to keep us from figuring out it is a campaign speech, it is a campaign speech. CBS will not carry it." It was a brilliant strategy. Rather didn't stop to think that if he didn't carry 20 minutes of Bush, he would not have 40 minutes of national air time to trash him.
Each time the networks give bush 20 minutes they give his opponents 40 minutes. Rowe understands that zero minutes Bush and zero minutes Democrats beats 10 minutes Democrats, 20 minutes Bush followed by twenty minutes Democrats folows by 10 minuts of Democrats. Twenty minutes of Bush on cable with no democrat respoinse and no major network coverate just fine. Rowe will take that every time.
Bush did what it took to keep the major networks out of the game, and got two big votes to go his way in the house and senate.
Reality is reality.
People on the right are not attracted to being newscasters.
Geting right wing people wanting to be newscasters has about as much chance of success as geting Peta members to work in slaughter houses.
It will not happen. Human nature does not change. Right wing news people almost always slide sideways into the news business. Rush got into news talk when the Disk Jockey business died. You will also find that many so called right wing media people, just play a one on TV. Novak is an example. His job is to play a right wing jouralist... and play it badly. Novak is very good at doing the right wing thing poorly. Ask Al Hunt how good Novak is at doing badly.
What are you smokin'? Does the name Brit Hume ring a bell. Or Tony Snow. On Alan Keyes show, was he not discussing current events aka news.
What about John Stossel on ABC? Peggy Noonan started at CBS. And slowly but surely, people who were only able to comment in print on the editorial page are more and more on TV as pundits, Coulter, Malkin, Krauthammer, Barnes, Sammon...
Lack of opportunity is not the same as lack of desire, as any sailor can tell you.
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