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FoxNews, the home team

23 comments on FoxNews, the home team

FoxNews, the home team

: It’s utterly unsurprising to me that FoxNews beat the big three networks with this coverage of the Republican convention. Conservatives watching a conservative event want to see it with fellow conservatives.

Don’t start whining about an “echo chamber.” This is perfectly predictable, understandable, normal social behavior: When you’re watching a Yankees game, do you go to a Red Sox (or should I say Indians’?) bar? Of course, not. Did the Democrats rush to watch FoxNews’ coverage of their convention? No.

And don’t start wailing about “fragmentation.” Fragmentation is good; it means that people are finding what they want to find; it means the end of one-size-fits-all news reporting … and media … and politics … and marketing. The grand “shared experience” of media was an accident of having just three networks emerge and, at the same time, kill competitive newspapers.

The shared experience of unfragmented one-size-fits-all media lasted just a few decades in this country. Before that, conservatives read conservative papers, liberals liberal papers. And democracy survived. In fact, I’d argue that it prospered because there were more viewpoints, not fewer being heard.

Media execs should pay attention to this and change not just products but even business plans as a result.

23 responses to “FoxNews, the home team”

  1. g-lex Avatar
    g-lex

    Useful historical perspective! It is always a kick to go back to the late 19th century papers to read partisan panther piss. One question: will Zell Miller’s southern hillbilly rant remind people in the upper midwest of the unlamented Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus? Some northerners still remember the civil rights era.
    As a former Bay Area and Berkeley guy, I would like to say you do us proud by putting out such a fine blog.

  2. Undertoad Avatar
    Undertoad

    ABC’s lead-in: back-to-back “Drew Carey” episodes
    NBC’s lead-in: Dateline NBC… with a hard news item about Jane Pauley’s autobiography
    CBS’s lead-in: The Latin Grammy Awards
    Fox News’s lead-in: None, they had been covering the convention for the previous 4 hours.

  3. DRW Avatar
    DRW

    I saw the Aaron Brown – Howie Kurtz segment last night that probably inspired this posting. I nearly gagged when Kurtz posited CNN as striving to be balanced in contrast with Fox. Is Aaron Brown being disingenuous or does he think his viewers are too stupid to notice the left/democrat bent to all his world-weary, eye-brow raised editorializing? There is nothing wrong with Brown having a point of view and I generally enjoy his program – especially when the alternative is Greta. But really, do he and Kurtz really think we’re morons? I can only conclude that in his media social circles, a moderate left guy like Brown might feel that he truly is a reasonable centrist. This fits in with my Alterman theory: to the Altermans of the world, anybody to the right of Howard Dean is a reactionary so of course there is no left media bias.

  4. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    MSNBC has gone heavily Democrat. CNN is wallowing in the some of this is Democrat-some of this is Republican bouliabase. Pick the anchor and you get your party. Fox is bringing in more Democrats.
    Problem with all approaches is Democrats are not that interesting. They stay on the talking points and repeat themselves endlessly. Expand, discuss, imagine, take a chance.
    Many blogs are reporting Al Jazzera is carrying 13 hours of RNC live coverage. That is more than ABC-CBS-NBC combined.
    The question for MSM is can the elephant dance?
    Can they be enteretaining, relevant, and worthwile for the younger viewer? You can identify their demographics by the commercials. They skew heavily towards Geezers.

  5. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    I agree–the Leftist Pravda gets really hard to swallow. I like to think for myself–not have the media tell me what I should think. The more they spout the leftist junk, the farther right I pull.
    Internet is a real blow to people like Peter Jennings, Chris Matthews et al. Even Kuwaiti press is more palatable than Leftist pablum….that’s food for idiots.
    http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD77504

  6. Franky Avatar
    Franky

    “I like to think for myself–not have the media tell me what I should think”
    and just know that when that day comes we’ll be right there to support you, Kat.

  7. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Franky, I’ll never be an ISM tool and an enabler of terrorists–that’s your job. That day will never come so don’t hold your breath. You may choke on the pablum. Your support would mean I’d become a fifth columner as yourself—I have too much pride to sell my country to those wanting its demise–I’m not an anarchist–I’m a loyal citizen. I don’t consider my country as the terrorist and the 911 terrorists as militants with a cause. What about you, Franky?

  8. Dishman Avatar
    Dishman

    Sorry, Kat, you won’t be thinking for yourself until you fall in line with Franky. Disagreement is prima facie evidence of your being a mindless drone.
    Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
    (for the record, I don’t even agree with myself)

  9. Dave Schuler Avatar
    Dave Schuler

    Jeff, I agree with your conclusion completely but I have a little trouble with your premise. FoxNews, while clearly more conservative than other major news outlets, isn’t quite conservative. Take a look at the Slant-O-Meter. IMO the important conclusion to be drawn is that none of the news outlets are pro-Bush (or pro-Kerry for that matter). So FoxNews is about as anti-Kerry as ABC is anti-Bush.
    A recent Yale study (which I can’t put my hands on right now or I’d link it) came to the conclusion that FoxNews had a slight center-right bias. And the New York Times and CBS had a significant left bias.
    What’s left or right or conservative or liberal depends on where the center is. And it ain’t the New York Times.

  10. h0mi Avatar
    h0mi

    One question: will Zell Miller’s southern hillbilly rant remind people in the upper midwest of the unlamented Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus? Some northerners still remember the civil rights era.

    Them northerners might be suffering from selective memory if they can remember Maddox and Faubus but not Fullbright.

  11. John Avatar
    John

    The interesting thing is that while Fox outdrew all three of the major networks during the opening night of the RNC convention, during the DNC convention they still outdrew both CNN and MSNBC combined. I’d assume that meant that there were a lot of Republicans in late July who wanted to stay with Fox, which they felt comfortable with, as they watched their opponents’ convention, while Democrats who tuned in to their own convention felt comfortable watching the major networks and didn’t feel a need to tune over to “their” cable channel.
    What that says about two parties’ viewers and/or the views offered up by the three major networks you can speculate on your own.

  12. Harry in Atlanta Avatar
    Harry in Atlanta

    “Useful historical perspective! It is always a kick to go back to the late 19th century papers to read partisan panther piss. One question: will Zell Miller’s southern hillbilly rant remind people in the upper midwest of the unlamented Lester Maddox and Orval Faubus? Some northerners still remember the civil rights era.”
    Hmmm don’t forget Fulbright or George Wallace they were Democrats too. I think the key word in this statement is “remember” denoting something past.
    All I have to say to such nitwittery is that was then this is now. Or as that Bush hatin’ band Jethro Tull says, “There’s no living in the past.”
    Shoot, you alls a bigit.

  13. Karl Avatar
    Karl

    Cant’t imagine why Democrats were happy with network coverage of their convention:
    http://www.mrc.org/realitycheck/2004/fax20040826.asp

  14. bulkwrap Avatar
    bulkwrap

    OK, I won’t “start wailing”…but do you ever get tired of telling readers what to do and how to think concerning various issues? Just wondering.

  15. ed Avatar
    ed

    Great, fragmentation is “in” now and here I am trying desperately to find some way to relate to as many Americans as possible. I still think we need some touchstones that the entire culture can associate with. If not in the media, where should we find these?

  16. Jeff Jarvis Avatar
    Jeff Jarvis

    Bulkie: What the hell do you think a blog is?

  17. Dishman Avatar
    Dishman

    I saw the Brown/Kurtz thing last night as well.
    It brings to mind a piece by den Beste (warning, it’s one of his longer pieces): http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/12/Superhumanintelligence.shtml
    As the scope of the conversations narrow, their depth and numbers (particularly numbers) are greatly increasing. Following the broader trend of specialization, now our political discussions are becoming specialized as well.
    This would be a problem if our politics had a single liberal-conservative dimension, but that is not the case. There are simply too many variations and issues for that. It’s possible for people to agree on a course of action for very different (or even opposing) reasons, or starting from essentially the same worldview to arrive at opposing courses of action (ie. Libertarians and the WoT).
    I believe that the net result is that as we fragment, we will also coalesce into a great number of conversations (or blogs, nodes, poles, etc), each of which has some overlap with others. Not all others, but perhaps like “Six Degrees”. Ideas travel can propogate through the blogosphere very rapidly.

  18. Insufficiently Sensitive Avatar
    Insufficiently Sensitive

    “The shared experience of unfragmented one-size-fits-all media lasted just a few decades” TOO LONG.
    The harm done to the country by the NYT-driven media elitists should have been reversed long ago, but not until the blogs uncorked a free market of ideas did those elitists see their press and microphone monopoly begin to yield. Now that they’ve lost the ability to suppress the publication of some real diversity of ideas, all they can think of is to sneer at the bloggists, and assert in loud voices that those diverse ideas ‘have been proven wrong’ or other equally brilliant arguments.
    Those media execs should indeed change business plans. They can begin by firing 50% of their groupthinking ‘reporters’, and hiring some folks whose political filters are disagreeable to the surviving half of the newsroom.

  19. Anna Avatar
    Anna

    The truth is out there, and blogs will uncover it. Unfortunately _finding_ the truth in the blogosphere might be difficult, because blogs will also be uncovering vast quantities of un-truth. Interesting piece from the Squirrel Cage on parallels between U.S. now and France at time of the Dreyfus affair, at http://squirrelcage.blogspot.com/2004_08_29_squirrelcage_archive.html#109384024933828280
    “… I give you, in [Barbara] Tuchman’s words, the polarization of a nation: …Variegated, virulent, turbulent, literary, inventive, personal, conscienceless and often vicious, the daily newspapers of Paris were the liveliest and most important element in public life….”
    (found via Brad DeLong)

  20. rivlax Avatar
    rivlax

    Simple truth: Fox has never been any more conservative than the nets and CNN have been liberal. The Wash Times has never been any more conservative than the WaPo or the NYT have been liberal. Why so much angst about them? Same reason a registered Republican in a newsroom is simply unacceptable while unrepentant Marxists on the edit page are go completely unremarked.

  21. AndrewBB Avatar
    AndrewBB

    But what happens when, as a newspaper man, I don’t want to work at a newspaper that is defined by its politics?
    I am. And I don’t.

  22. rivlax Avatar
    rivlax

    They’re all defined by politics. They just won’t admit it. On election night 2000 the reporters in my newsroom cheered when Hillary was declared the winner in NY. No one batted any eye. Imagine if a cheer had erupted from the two conservatives in our newsroom when Bush was given Fla. by the ‘nets. We’d have been before an ethics committee.

  23. Robert Fulton Avatar
    Robert Fulton

    Impressive comments today. I have had to give up Andrew Sullivan because of his entry into the left liberal cocoon over his holiday. Now Jarvis is drinking the Kool Aid and I am about to lose him too. There is still Josh Marshall, but I know where his center is and it is only a matter of time until he too goes off the deep end. Someone please suggest a left liberal site that has not lost its perspective entirely?