Does the Success of FNC Pose a Threat to the Left?

Me | 2/21/03 | Turbodog

[Turbodog]

The surprising popularity and success the Fox News Channel is experiencing today is causing panic with great consternation among the left in this country, as they contemplate the future impact the innovative news network will have on the news industry.

What makes FNC so popular and so successful is you get "both sides" of the story; they report, you decide; fair and balanced. The time was ripe for someone to come along and break the monopoly of liberalism that had a strangle hold on the industry.

The left counters that FNC is ultra-conservative and radical right wing reporting, but it is not, of course, FNC presents both sides of the story. That's why you get Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, John Gibson, and Geraldo Rivera.

The greatest fear of the left, is that FNC's success will force the big 3, CNN, and the other left leaning news media outlets to move toward the "center," and that's why since their dismal failure in the fall elections, the left has mounted a new high stakes political campaign to paint FNC and other similar independent news outlets as having a radical right-wing conservative perspective.

The stakes are high, because it threatens the future success of their politically impotent left-wing liberal agendas, as more and more people continue to demand "fair and balanced" news reporting. Already, CNN and MSNBC are scrambling like mad to reinvent their news reporting, as they continue to bleed viewers profusely to FNC. CNBC is too far-gone and is headed for the dead pan of news reporting, and the big 3 continue the long but steady decline as FNC attracts more and more new viewers.

To counter this threat, the left is now proposing the creation of left-wing liberal news networks, but this charade will end up like most of their illegitimate left-wing political initiatives through the years have ended up – in the great trash heap of miserable failures. Because FNC and other similar independent news outlets do not present a radical right-wing conservative perspective of the news, but rather a "fair and balanced" one, the left's failure to recognize and acknowledge this reality, preordains any attempts at creation of left-wing liberal networks to failure in a market already overly saturated by left-wing liberal media news reporting. The left would be better off if they created a right-wing conservative network to serve this wholly untapped market.

So, let me give kudos to Bill O'Reilly for his outstanding job of exposing terrorist cells right here in the country. This would have been impossible, of course, if the big 3 media outlets and CNN still had a strangle hold monopoly on the industry. It's time for FNC to make a challenge to CNN throughout the rest of their worldwide markets, and to put even more pressure on the big 3 by beginning to broadcast the news on their entertainment network.

Alas, it will be both amusing and interesting to watch the left-wing liberal decay that will certainly occur as the FNC "fair and balance" approach will continue to push the news reporting business in this country to the center.

[Turbodog]

The surprising popularity and success the Fox News Channel is experiencing today is causing panic with great consternation among the left in this country, as they contemplate the future impact the innovative news network will have on the news industry. What makes FNC so popular and so successful is you get "both sides" of the story; they report, you decide; fair and balanced. The time was ripe for someone to come along and break the monopoly of liberalism that had a strangle hold on the industry. The left counters that FNC is ultra-conservative and radical right wing reporting, but ....

[Steven W.]

this won't be a problem for the left if they continue to have ADD prone rapid-fire "FOX News Alerts" and overkill with non-news events (like fires) and repeated coverage of the inane (like Michael Jackson)

[SunStar]

The left counters that FNC is ultra-conservative and radical right wing reporting, but it is not, of course, FNC presents both sides of the story. That's why you get Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, John Gibson, and Geraldo Rivera.

Also, Shephard Smith, Juan Williams, Mara Liason, and even Mort Kondracke are hardly conservatives.

[N. Theknow]

Any "success" is a threat to the left.

[pghkevin]

The truth hurts sometimes.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Oh, hell, yes it threatens them. BIG TIME, as Dick Cheney would say.

Of course the constant attacks they fire at FNC don't help their cause: it makes the interested citizen want to watch MORE.

Their only hope, and it is a dim one, is to compete with Fox by playing the same "Fair & Balanced" Game. But to do that, the leftwingnut media would have to "defacto" admit they are currently tilted so far to the left, Vladimir Lenin would look like a member of the John Birch Society.

So they'll never do that. So they'll continue to lose market share.

[sheik yerbouty]

The truth is a threat to the left.

[Jim Noble]

The truth to the left is like the cross to a vampire.

[CollegeRepublican]

Check out this letter to the editor of my local Annapolis Newspaper. I smell panic in the air.

Readers views: February 20 letters
By THE CAPITAL'S READERS

Fox News

Using emotional rhetoric rather than facts to stir up trouble is yellow journalism.

I was watching a network that constantly repeats that its pseudo-reporting is fair and balanced. This is an out-and-out lie. One would have to be a fool to believe otherwise.

We all know the network I am talking about: the one that is merely an extension of the Rush Limbaugh show.

The faces of this network are macho women, empty-headed blonds or pompous and condescending snobs who - like their hero, George W. Bush - have never had to get their hands dirty and have no experience at real life.

These people try to deceive viewers by calling themselves journalists, yet they are so afraid of truth that they don't even report news. Like the other wacko-conservative shows, they pick out a couple of news items, misrepresent the facts and then lambaste Democrats for the rest of the show.

In fact, why not just call it GOP-TV?

Their simpleminded and right-wing-biased presentation of the news can appeal only to a like-minded audience. Although they all probably went to college, one could think they had to cheat their way through, as it is clear that honesty and intelligence is not the basis of their show.

Still, you can't buy brains. Just ask George W. Bush.

As the other side is not fairly represented, there is no one to question their baseless, sarcastic and condescending jabs. People who watch their network as a news source are fun to argue with. They are so ill-informed you can play them like a fiddle.

Are you tough enough to buy this pickup truck, or are you stupid enough to fall for the advertisement?

If so, you obviously watch Fox News.

JOHN OSBORNE
Tracys Landing

[Turbodog]

Thanks for posting evidence indicating the left it beginning to crack!

[CollegeRepublican]

For more on John Osborne see http://www.bayweekly.com/year99/issue7_22/lead7_22.html

[MEGoody]

"Still, you can't buy brains. Just ask George W. Bush."

Has anyone else read Ann Coulter's book "Slander"? In the book, she talks about the effort of the left to paint every conservative as 'stupid' without every citing any facts to support their assertions. Here's another one who has learned the party line well.

Wouldn't it be nice if these left-leaners would learn to read something besides one line sound bites from their propaganda machine? If they did, they'd learn that Bush got his degree from Yale and has an MBA from Harvard. They'd learn that Bush scored higher on his SAT's than many of those the left has branded as 'intellectuals'. They'd discover that intellectual 'giant' Al Gore had lower grades than Bush at college and, in fact, flunked out.

But the left doesn't want to be confused by the facts. So they stick with reading the one liners from the machine.

[Britton J Wingfield]

Fox took out an ad on the back page of The Nation, and fifty people instantly cancelled their subscriptions. National Review should do the same thing. Heads would explode.

[cricket]

"But the left doesn't want to be confused by the facts."

. . .and they never let 'truth' stand in their way.

This Lib, does it all. . .the personal attacks without merit or substance; the 'stupid' assault; the biased projections.

All here, neat and tidy; he probably patted himself on the back after stringing all these sentences together which in toto - offer not ONE statement of truth.

Just the same Dem propaganda modus operandi and cheap-shot mentality.

What total, abject, intellectual losers these folks are.

[Turbodog]

The quality of his plants bring customers back, but the business side is not always his strength.

That explains the letter! Business and especially economics has always been a little hard for those on the left to grasp.

[caisson71]

The truth is always right, never left.

[John H K]

There's an increasing number of FR posters, who are all pretty clearly rock-ribbed conservatives, who are realizing the "Emperor Has No Clothes" at FNC.

They have a SEVERE incompetence problem and it's getting worse. Fumbling coverage of breaking events (most striking example was their horrid coverage of of the USSC decision in the Florida recount), being even more obsessed with inane irrelevant stories like Laci Peterson and Michael Jackson than other news channels, obsession with hype.

They have to do something to address this. It won't matter that they don't have the left bias of PMSNBC and CNN if they're continually a bunch of bumbling fools. I'm certainly not going to watch it no matter how Conservative they are if they continue to make mistake after mistake.

[captnorb]

Imagine if FNC could get on all the cable channels....Then you would really see panic...

[YourAdHere]

After reading that, I'd say ole John has been smoking some of those plants he grows.

[stuartcr]

No, but it does pose a threat to the other networks....it's business. If it made money to say the president was from Mars, it would be on tv.