From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 18:43:45 MDT
Lee Corbin wrote:
> Two things are refreshing about Fox News (and at least one or
> two newscasters on MSNBC): they're not only providing
> balance to ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, but they're quite open
> about it. What I hate is people pretending they're objective, when
> they're not.
We disagree here (I think we covered this once before). Yes FOX is blatantly
right-wing, but it advertises itself as unbiased. The FOX slogan, repeated
many times each day, is something like "News Without the Spin," but in fact
they offer more spin than any network I've ever seen in all my life.
O'Reilly bills himself as "independent" but I don't think he's ever once
entertained an opinion that serious liberals would find acceptable. He was
registered GOP until recently when a reporter on another network called him
on his dishonesty in billing himself as independent. Cavuto and Hannity are
like rabid junior Newt Gingrichs. The entire network is a joke, unless one
goes in with one's eyes wide open and with full knowledge that one is about
to get a thorough soaking in GOP politics.
There is nothing wrong with advocacy journalism but FOX should be honest
about it. In fact if I were a senior executive at FOX, I would give serious
consideration to the idea of advertising the network for exactly what it is:
a conservative republican oriented news network. The strategy would probably
increase market share as conservative news consumers are starved for
something exactly like FOX. The conservative slant is the reason FOX has
been so successful: FOX fills a unique and important market niche.
>> Cable news networks are not obliged by law to serve the public
>> interest, which is one reason we see extreme advocacy journalism on
>> cable like that which comes from FOX.
>
> Well, we know how to fix that, don't we? How about a
> "Fairness Doctrine"
Nah. I want less regulation, not more.
>> I have a theory about why the non-cable news media tends to be
>> biased to the left: the majority of American news consumers are
>> biased to the left...
>
> No, there are two basic factors: (1) journalism schools
> indoctrinate their students like nobody's
> business---conservative students are made to feel quite out
> of it and uncomfortable, and perhaps don't even make it
> through unless they're careful (2) the kind of people who go
> into journalism often do so to "change the world" with the
> kind of typical idealism so manifest among the young.
> Conservatives tend to follow other paths.
You're ignoring the fierce competition between ABC, NBC and CBS for Neilson
ratings and advertising dollars. I've worked in consumer market research and
I can tell you that if the American people did not like liberal TV
journalists then their contracts would not be renewed; they would be fired
and replaced by conservatives at the first opportunity. However the majority
of American people (not the majority of voters) have a liberal mindset, so
the non-cable news media also has a liberal mindset. The journalism
professors are just products of the market like everyone else.
A huge fraction of Americans, something like 50%, are politically apathetic
non-voters. They tend to be liberal-minded people of low socioeconomic
status. However those liberal-minded non-voters watch the evening news, and
so along with politically active liberals they represent the majority of
news consumers and so control the non-cable market for news. It's just free
enterprise at work (ironically).
-gts
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