How Fox News Opened America (Hammer)

The following is excerpted from Charles Krauthammer's remarks upon receiving the 2009 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, named for The Post's late edit orial-page editor, yesterday in Washing ton. AT a time when awards in the humanities are a near-monopoly of the left -- Nobel peace prizes awarded to those, from Yasir Arafat to Jimmy Carter, who give the most succor to the forces of terror and tyranny; Pulitzers given to whichever newspaper can expose the more damaging national-security secrets -- it is important for there to be an award to recognize and encourage journalism and, more generally, political thinking of a different kind. In that respect, there should be a special award for Fox News. Fox has done a great service to the American polity -- single-handedly breaking up the intellectual and ideological monopoly that for decades exerted hegemony (to use a favorite lefty cliché) over the broadcast media. I said some years ago that the genius of Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes was to have discovered a niche market in American broadcasting -- half the American people.

Krauthammer: "The reason Fox News has thrived and grown is because it offers a vibrant and honest alternative to those who could not abide yet another day of the news delivered to them beneath layer after layer of often undisguised liberalism. What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality."

What they did was tap into a market segment, alienated from the liberal MSM, by reflecting the livelier, upbeat, more spirited, popular communication styles of the American people. O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck, and Fox&Friends tap into the savvier, lively, colloquial conversational styles of the Mid-Atlantic, combining humor and news analysis. The way people talk around their dinner table. This distinguishes them from the smug, liberal, condescending, pole-up-the-ass style of the big three network news conglomerates which "talk down" to the American people which is insulting (violation of the fundamental principles of salesmanship). People don't like to be insulted or talked down to. They don't like to have their values and culture ridiculed. Particularly not by smarmy liberal stuffed-shirts who think they are smarter and better than most Americans.

Network news began losing the American people around the time Cronkite began opposing the Vietnam War. It went south from there in the era of Rather and Jennings. They still haven't figured out a strategy to make themselves more marketable and engaged with the American people and normal American culture.

Would most people be comfortable chatting with Catie Couric, Brian Williams, and Keith around their dinner table? No. You can picture Beck at that table passing the mashed potatoes. That's a BIG difference in communications! And Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, et al. When there is an immediate connection on the affective level in communications, that makes a difference. They don't have that in the liberal MSM.

Also, people like to laugh. They would rather be laughing with you than being laughed at and mocked. It is basic communications theory and salesmanship. There is no logical reason that news or news analysis have to come through radical liberal ideology and elite condescension.

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