Why Fox News Isn't News

(well according to Rachel Maddow anyway)


Update: Newsbusters agrees with me.

Constantly moving the goal posts is a go-to strategy for progressives losing arguments.  And so it is with the "Fox News Isn't News" meme.

First it was because they "lie"... but nobody could come up with anything that held water as a "lie".

Then it was because they were "biased".  But it was pointed out that every other news network is biased.

Then it wasn't the news so much as their opinion shows.  But it was pointed out that other news networks have opinion shows that are extremely biased.

Well one of those opinion show hosts on one of the other networks, the cocky Prog Queen Rachel Maddow, now has her trump card.  It's because they "advertise", with their own money, they organize and promote "anti-government" rallies.



I should first point out that the initial call for a Tea Party movement did not come from Fox News or anyone at Fox news.  In fact, (and I remember watching this) it was Rick Santelli on CNBC (about 2:13 into the following clip) last November, while Bush was still president.  The liberal press (and Democrats in general, and waaaay too many Republicans) still doesn't get it that these tea parties are not partisan.  They are about government run amok, too big, too powerful, and meddling in idiotic ways in things that have no basis in the Constitution.

But as you can see, the people around him (and he was on the CME floor before the opening bell ... these are not generally investors around him but rather infrastructure people who work there) -- it was a widely felt frustration that a lot of other Americans were feeling (such as my wife and me -- who were watching this together).

Later Glenn Beck brought it up on his radio show -- which is an opinion show -- and liked the idea (his opinion) and suggested that people do it, but made it clear that he would not be organizing it -- that that was left to people at the grass roots level, and that is where the organization has stayed.  I've met local organizers.  They're moms and grandmas and working people.

Fox talks about them before they happen like other news networks have reported on protest events coordinated by leftist groups, talking about them before they happen, reporting on when they are going to happen, having people on from the movements talking about it -- and then they report on the event when it happens, and then after it happens.  But see, that's only "promoting" when Fox News does it and the ideals are not progressive.

In short... Fox does not ignore them as the other networks would like to do, but instead have to ridicule and try to marginalize.  You know, the opposite of advocacy is advocacy for the other side.  So, in fact Ms. Maddow, these things are like the others after all.

On the whole shows the tea parties in a favorable light, as opposed to other networks who do things like this: (note ... it apears that CNN is trying to scrub YouTube of this video.  Susan has been fired because CNN was called out on this by conservatives.)

But at leftist events report things in a different way:

Note that she does not ask why he thinks the President is a fascist, but in typical leftist style dismisses the the idea out of hand on the grounds that it is "offensive".  She sees it as merely a slur, rather than a word with a meaning that might apply.

But the bottom line is, the federal government does not get to decide who is a legitimate news outlet and who is not.  At least it doesn't yet.

Fox News, as opposed to other news outlets, presents things from a center-right point of view, no doubt.  I've watched them enough to see that they are fair (they allow opponents to air their positions at least as much as on other networks).   And as far as balanced, well, I'd say that they ARE the balance that is needed, and they are the reason Fox kicks all the others combined in ratings.  If the others were balanced, there'd be no need for Fox News.

And of course, regarding balance ... keep this in mind from my last post:

"... the great advantage of cultural relativism is that it absolves you of the need to know anything. For if everything’s of equal value, why bother learning about any of the differences?" - Mark Steyn

This applies to the world of opinion as well.