Posted on 10/24/2014 6:42:43 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Some years ago now, when the conservative media group Newsmax put in a bid to buy the limping, failing Newsweek, I wrote a post arguing that trying to reinvent one of the newsweeklies as a (moderately) right-of-center publication was as good a bet as any. Here was the nub of my argument:
If [Jon Meacham, the previous editor] had wanted to play to what seems like Newsweek’s business strength — its large audience outside the Acela corridor — he would have tried to tilt the magazine toward the center-right rather than the center-left, in the hopes of becoming the go-to outlet for the millions of Americans who think that the elite media is too liberal but find Rush Limbaugh too conservative. He would have staffed up with right-leaning columnists, reporters and cultural critics whose work could translate to a broad, not-that-ideological audience … And he would have embraced Newsweek’s brand advantage in the heartland, and tried to turn that to his magazine’s advantage, instead of convincing himself that he could compete with The New Yorker for the eyeballs and dollars of the liberal intelligentsia.
I thought back to that piece when I read this week’s big Pew report on media and political polarization. The report includes lots of fun tidbits (conservatives have more friends who share their views, but liberals are more likely to break off a friendship over politics), but like a lot of people I was most struck by this chart, showing where, roughly, on the ideological spectrum different publications and channels find their audiences. You’ll see that the overwhelming majority of the media properties surveyed had audiences clustered somewhere on the left-of-center, with Yahoo! News and the Wall Street Journal claiming audiences closest to the political middle....
(Excerpt) Read more at douthat.blogs.nytimes.com ...
pong
Well, what exactly is right-of-center depends on who is doing the defining. Personally I find the labels all too easy to manipulate according to one’s pet issues. Liberals who claim left-of-center position are whacked out extremists to me. Anyone pro-life and/or pro-normal family structure, pro-XX being called XX and XY being called XY, restrooms staying “men’s” and “women’s” is a right-wing extremist to the NYTimes.
So considering the source, yes we need more conservative publications.
Shocked this comes from the spikes but he is exactly correct. For profits target the largest audience at stake and that is correctly right of center. Newsmax chose otherwise and if that is the case I hope they go down in flames like every other liberal rag.
Slimes not spikes...I hate autocorrect...severely
That's an old video game.
ping and air hockey to you too.
Tried watching it for a couple of days, but all they talked about was legslizing marijuana
I contend that Fox’s limitations are self-imposed, and are caused more by the shout-it-out format than by the conservative content. In other words, if Hannity et al presented a less contentious format, without all the shouting and interrupting, a lot more people would tune in and listen to and agree with the conservative views that are being presented. Fox is too “hot,” and middle-of-the-road people shrink away from that and tune in to the more “moderate” network news broadcasts.
The William F. Buckley Paradigm.
I agree with you. Frankly when there is a breaking story and I want to learn facts about what is happening at x location, I turn to CNN.
Yes, I know they are liberal as heck, but their pure reporters generally have far more news content about things that are actually transpiring when there is a breaking story.
I really grow weary of guys like Hannity (who I personally love) not letting his guests actually talk and offer new information to the audience they might not know.
I don’t watch CNN but just this week they were removed from Dish Network.
So the moderation you are talking about is in tone and not so much in political position?
I think Fox erred in allowing political opinion and hard news programming to co-mingle, yet the network has thrived. But it may have reached the limit of growth with that model, and in order to attract new viewers, programs like Hannity will have to go. O’Reilly, Greta, and Kelly give the impression of objectivity and allow their guests to provide arguments on both sides of controversial stories. That is the approach with greatest appeal to independent thinkers and voters.
If someone wants to start up a right-wing channel to counter MSNBC, fine. I doubt it will be financially viable, but it’s still (partially) a free country. I wouldn’t watch it much because I have a brain and can assimilate diverse information to form my own opinions; the last thing I want is an echo-chamber on either side.
My tag says it all: advertisers want liberal fools watching their ads.
Media works for the advertisers.
New York Slimes is a rabid communist media apparatus and until they acknowledge that, they remain a joke paper.
Steve, haven't you noticed that the problem is liberal spokespersons who won't shut up...and will keep talking and talking, with the intention of running out the clock. Non-stop babble is their defense mechanism and it's impossible to have a conversation with them.
Anyone who thinks Rush Limbaugh is “too conservative” is not right-of-center.
They’re liberal. They just won’t admit it.
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