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.
