Our Frenzied Focus on Fox

For several years, I've received e-mails urging me not to sit in as a lonely progressive voice on the Fox News network. My usual response is that Roger Ailes, the brains behind Fox, doesn't care whether I show up or not. My empty chair would not change a single element of Fox's business plan.

Fox angers progressives because other than their slogan of "Fair and Balanced," there are no disguises. Unlike ABC, CBS, and NBC, they don't hide who they are. We become angry because we believe Ailes is breaking some illusory rules about objectivity. But there are no rules. Romanticizing about the days of Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite moves us far away from the realities of political TV in 2009.

Think about this: Is it probable that Ailes doesn't recognize that his big draw, Glenn Beck, is only one conspiracy story away from Thorazine and a padded cell? Of course not. Ailes understands what other TV executives miss. He remembers that P.T. Barnum built his business around high-wire acts and circus freaks. Secondly, he understands that the bent crazy wheel is bound to get most of the grease. Like it or not, Ailes understands the cable vision business. One explanation I have heard about his Fox formula is that he built a network for people who read at least one newspaper daily but still might believe that WWF wrestling matches are unstaged and that the blood splattered in a cage match is real.

It is a formula that has enabled Ailes to body slam competitors because there is only room for one cable channel to develop that strategy. He got there first. Ailes morphed news into weird entertainment. Progressives focus their anger on Ailes while the fraud taking place with the national networks is overwhelming. Taxpayers don't own Ailes' cable infrastructure, but they do own the public airways that put billions into the banks for ABC, NBC, and CBS.

Here's cause for progressive anger. ABC allows Mark Halpern to coordinate national news broadcasts on ABC's taxpayer-owned airways. Halpern for decades has been the Goebbels go-to boy for America's fringe conservative right. On publicly owned airways, he has launched far more reactionary babble than crazy boy Beck. ABC just travels under the radar. Media watchdog Media Matters has shown that for years wildly conservative voices at places like CBS, NBC, and ABC Sunday talk shows consistently overwhelm progressive voices. To put that in perspective, those networks average 20 million daily viewers to Fox's 3 million. So who does the most damage?

We should also consider this fact before we waste too much anger on Ailes' business plan. ABC syndicates Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, and almost every other right wing trash talker on the airways. Again, unlike Ailes' cable infrastructure, those are taxpayer-owned airways.

The key to being a progressive talking head on Fox is to understand that you probably won't change a single viewer's political opinion. So don't take it too seriously. Just jump in the cage. Try to splatter more of their blood than your own and recognize that the damage done to political dialogue at Fox is dwarfed by the right bent babble of the news departments of the national networks.

 

 

Follow Mike Papantonio on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RingofFireRadio

Comments

[ReedYoung]

It's a good point about the public ownership of the networks, but it doesn't make Fox "News" a worthwhile medium. I have nothing else to say about this that user "NewsCorpse" hasn't already said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-papantonio/our-frenzied-focus-on-fox_b_303403.html?show_comment_id=31874055#comment_31874055

[like-mind]

Exactly - Cable can do what they want but the Public Airwaves have been hijacked by savvy partisans. This has to change.

[lapdogs]

You actually go on that network Mike?

I have yet to see you. Never will, either.

[KingCujo]

Fox doesn't welcome true progressives, and when they've had any in the past, their words are edited (or in the case of Bill O the falafalman) are shouted down.

[Larry Knight]

Dandelion28, you have vocalized my exact sentiments...way to go!!!! I wholeheartedly agree!

[Degringolade]

How about a Progressive talking head on Fox who can argue their way out of a wet paper bag?

[KingCujo]

Dandelion28, you rock!

[KingCujo]

Hmmmm? So Fox wasn't biased toward the right before Obama??? Hahahaha!

[Lorixd]

It;s really an interesting study on ALL the biased in ALL news media. TryToBe Flexible says"Everyone knows Fox is way biased to the right, but alot of people think the networks are presenting a fair picture of reality. ?? I suppose you really believe the main stream media isn't totally biased to the left? They've all become BO's personal megaphone. It's like you libs truly don't get it. Why do you think FOX is so far right? errrrr hmmmm, maybe it's because they know the megaphone media is never going to criticize BO! Mike says..Is it probable that Ailes doesn't recognize that his big draw, Glenn Beck, is only one conspiracy story away from Thorazine and a padded cell? Conspiracy story...wasn't it proven Acorn was dishonest? Why did Van Jones step down? Do you really think we would have heard all this on BO's Megaphone media...never. Now the libs favorite description of the right is.."Crazies" because they can't stand it that FOX is telling us everything and revealing things about this Administration that the main stream media would ignore...

[MajorKong]

Yes I'm sure NBC, which is owned by the conservative defense contractor General Electric, is a veritable font of liberalism.

I can't wait to see their hard-hitting exposes on the defense and nuclear power industries.

[Dandelion28]

Lorixd, the mainstream media isn't totally biased to the left, despite what you've been told. Mainstream media opinions shows, for instance, have more conservative panelists than liberals. It's documented. Mainstream networks air stories criticizing Obama ALL THE TIME, so I don't know where you're getting the megaphone reference ... unless you heard it on Fox. Can you cite some examples of positive coverage Fox has given Obama? And can you cite examples of the so-called "total bias" of mainstream media? I've asked that question of Foxophiles before and the only thing they can come up with, in lockstep, is Dan Rather.

I'm sorry, but one incident of overreaching is hardly equivalent to 24 hours of Obama bashing. Not just criticism of his teleprompter, his Dijon mustard and all the other silly slights, but the reckless pursuit and repetition of stories proven false. We heard on Fox about madrasas, terrorist fist bumps, death panels, Kenyan birth certificates, FEMA camps, indoctrination, comparisons to Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin; claims of socialism, Marxism, Fascism and communism. And that was just last week. (OK, I'm kidding on that last one.)

But seriously, if you can show me mainstream media equivalents of all those examples I cited, then maybe I'll believe that both sides are biased.

[ReedYoung]

"I suppose you really believe the main stream media isn't totally biased to the left? They've all become BO's personal megaphone."

What the President does is supposed to get a lot of news coverage. It's unpatriotic of Fox News to make up a secret agenda for everything he does, and it's unpatriotic of you to continue to believe them after they have been disproved so many times. See Dandelion28's comment above for a very long, if not complete, list of disproved lies about President Obama that Fox "News" has reported as fact.

[prettyinpink]

Not sure if you caught this on Fox versus NYT:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=507377

[NewsCorpse]

OK, you are absolutely right about the damage done by the conventional broadcast networks, and that needs to be addressed. But hat doesn't absolve the damage done by Fox. Sure, Fox has much fewer average viewers, but they are on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, as compared to the half hour daily news broadcasts at the big 3. And stories initiated on Fox find their way to other media platforms.

Your appearances on Fox are demonstrably harmful because they permit Fox to persist in claiming that they are fair and balanced. Plus, they produce the conflict that upon which Fox thrives - the spattered blood you spoke of. Without the adversarial presence of Democrats and other progressives, Fox would have to rely on their stable of right-winger like Dick Morris, Monica Crowley, and Frank Luntz. Eventually that would bore their WWF-addicted audience and their ratings would suffer. Bringing down their ratings would also serve to bring down any lingering credibility they cling to.

This is why you and other progressives MUST stay off of Fox. As you said, you will not change anyone's mind, but you will help them to achieve their goals, and that is unforgivable. Stay off of Fox and direct your energies to fixing the other networks that you correctly criticize.

[TryToBeFlexible]

Totally agree. Everyone knows Fox is way biased to the right, but alot of people think the networks are presenting a fair picture of reality.