I give Rupert Murdoch enormous credit for recognizing a market opportunity to appeal to conservatives who have long felt that the traditional media had a strong liberal bias. And in the era from the 1950s to the 1980s I think the conservatives were right. The mainstream media did have a liberal bias, although it was never as strong as they thought.
Right. No harm in having a conservatively biased media outlet. If you don't like it, don't watch it. One thing I have noticed about FOX, though, is that where we see a lot of spin on MSNBC, we see outright lying on FOX. Both are obnoxious in their own way but FOX seems to have people on who simply tell lies where MSNBC tells half truths. Rachel Maddow, for example, will leave out facts which some might say is lying. But Sean Hannity will say that President Obama's nuclear treaty gives the Russians the keys to Europe. There is a difference between the two statements although I don't expect Cult members to understand this.
The problem is that since the 1990s the mainstream media has shifted to the right. I think the old liberal bias is completely gone and every major media outlet is pretty well positioned in the center of the political spectrum today. Liberals recognize this even if conservatives don't.
Yep. The Cult will whine until the end of time...blaming the "liberal media" for all of their problems in what is hilariously the very thing they supposedly bemoan: playing the victim. It is yet another example of how conservatives of today are like liberals of yesterday...idealists to a fault with no practical application in reality.
I just wish Fox would stop pretending that it isn't a mouthpiece for the Republican Party and come out of the closet so to speak. The real problem is that the left and the Democratic Party have no comparable outlet and I think they should have one. While MSNBC tends to be slightly to the left it is not nearly as far to the left of center as Fox is to the right, nor does partisanship and ideology permeate its entire schedule as it does at Fox.
Unfortunately, I don't think MSNBC is capable of positioning itself as the left/Democratic alternative to Fox as long as it remains part of the NBC News operation. It's forced to operate too much like a mainstream media outlet. Comcast, which now owns NBC, should spin it off and give it the freedom to become the anti-Fox. I think it would be much more successful than it is now.
So, before my usual commenters begin their predictable spasms, fits and howls of derision, I'll add this fact in what I hope will cause an extra few spasms of cognitive dissonance: MSNBC has a Republican (Joe Scarborough) who hosts his own three hour show that is quite popular. Does FOX have a Democratic equivalent? No.
MSNBC does lean liberal but it is not the all out Left Fest it could be with the likes of Pat Buchanan on the air all the time. And Morning Joe is, in all honesty, my favorite news show. I have to admit that I love the guy and Mika Brzezinski is hot:) If you ever get the chance, check out their show. It's a very unbiased show that looks at all the angles of the days news. It's on pretty early (5am-8am CST) but worth checking out as you get ready for your day.
So how is it with guys like Joe on the air that MSNBC is a Marxist outlet for information? Only the Cult knows....
7 comments:
There is a major flaw with the idea of news on TV. People watch TV to be entertained. Thus, almost all the news programs on TV are entertainment first, and news second.
As someone who is slightly left of center, I'm just not entertained by blowhards bitching and moaning for hours on end. I'm more interested in knowing what's really going on rather than having my preconceptions constantly reinforced.
Sure, it's fun to watch the right be lampooned by Jon Stewart. But two hours a week is plenty. I tried watching Olbermann, but it's just as tedious to me as watching the political pornography of Limbaugh and Beck.
So it's not really clear that liberals even want their own version of Fox. I don't like outright propaganda even if it agrees with my own views.
I'd rather listen to NPR or watch PBS. I also read the New York Times or the Washington Post, where the editorializing is pretty much left on the opinion page -- and these papers include plenty of conservatives on their opinion pages.
The right pretends that these are "liberal media," and insist they are horribly biased. But it's just not so. These organizations make a good faith effort to be objective, though the Times has been coopted by the right more than once (remember the whole Judith Miller/Scooter Libby/Valerie Plame debacle, and the simpering acceptance nearly all the "liberal" media had of the Bush administration's bogus justifications for the invasion of Iraq?).
NPR and PBS are part of the liberal indoctrination machine. That's right, I'm back!
All hail the sarge.
The media is not liberal and never really was that liberal. It's owned and run by corporations that want to make a profit. This is seen plainly in the film "Orwell Rolls in His Grave." Information is very tightly controlled in our society and yet we are supposed to be free.
classic blk
Thus, almost all the news programs on TV are entertainment first, and news second.
Yep.
I don't like outright propaganda even if it agrees with my own views.
I'd rather listen to NPR or watch PBS.
Nope (i.e. the contradiction in those two sentences is more than slightly amusing).
Rachel Maddow, for example, will leave out facts which some might say is lying. But Sean Hannity will say that President Obama's nuclear treaty gives the Russians the keys to Europe. There is a difference between the two statements although I don't expect Cult members to understand this.
There are several differences between them. Not the least of which is that Sean Hannity is not hired to report the news, is not billed as reporting the news, and so far as I know, never has in his time working for Fox. I could be wrong, as I don't watch Fox News. "President Obama's nuclear treaty gives the Russians the keys to Europe" is what's known in the trade as an opinion, although I don't expect you to understand the distinction. Of course, you would understand it if I were to make the identical comparison between a conservative reporter and, say, Keith Olbermann, wouldn't you?
Wasn't Contessa Brewer allegedly "reporting the news" when they ran that video of an armed black man (carefully framed so as not to show that he was in fact black) at a town hall meeting behind a "news" story about "armed white people" at a town hall meeting?
And in Marky World, that's less of a "lie" than a commentator daring to have an opinion that you disagree with, is it?
Maddow and Olberman, like Hannity and Beck are entertainers and panty-waist provocateurs.
That you righteously rile yourself up about one half of them indicates how insecure and insignificant your own beliefs are.
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