Fox News: Welcome To The MSM, Guys
Over the years, the network's anchors regularly have sounded that snarky refrain. It's become even more insistent since the Republicans lost control of all three branches of government in the 2008 elections. Of course, there's special irony when employees employed by a multi-billion dollar conglomerate pretend that they're not part of the big, bad establishment. Especially when you consider that that corporate parent owns two of New York City's four major dailies, but that's another story for another time.
Still, it's effective marketing, no matter how inaccurate or self-serving.
With Barack Obama's arrival at the White House, Fox has emerged as the voice of conservatism in exile. Fox touts itself as the one media outfit brave enough to hold the new administration accountable. Everybody else is "in the tank." That message finds an audience. During the second quarter of 2009, Fox's prime time ratings soared 34%, according to Nielsen Media Research. Compare Fox's average 1.2 million viewers with CNN's 598,000 and MSNBC's average audience of 392,000. The success is largely due to the network's programming guru Roger Ailes. Few are more adept at reading the pulse of the people than this former media consultant for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
So it is that he has created a formidable commentariat, where the show hosts Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly have very bully pulpits with which to push a political agenda. Their hysterics are part of the shtick but they've repeated forced the Democrats back on their heels. More broadly, can you think of another media institution that's had more impact on the nation's political debate this year? I can't. Starting in the spring, when its on-air talent fully got behind the organizers of the April "tea parties," to the town hall meetings in August and culminating in last weekend's anti-Obama demonstration in Washington, Fox has been must-watch TV. Can the same be said about CNN or MSNBC?
And when it comes to taking down its targets, Fox already has a couple of scalps.
• The network devoted major airtime to videos of Van Jones that embarrassed the former Obama green jobs advisor into resigning. Beck, in particular, waged his own jihad, arguing that the White House was employing a communist. (PolitFact.com found that while Jones once was a party member, it said there was "ample evidence that he now believes capitalism is the best force for the social change he is seeking.") Unfortunately for Jones, that was too little, too late. When a 2004 petition Jones signed alleging government complicity in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 turned up, he handed in his resignation soon after. For fuller context, note that Jones helped co-found Color of Change four years ago. Jones is no longer associated with the activist group, which launched a campaign to get Beck's advertisers to drop their sponsorship of his television program after he called President Obama a racist who "hates" white people.
• The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, as it's more widely known, has been an especial bête noire for Fox. All during the presidential campaign, the network hammered away at the liberal group with allegations of voter fraud. Meanwhile, there was no shortage of Republican operatives willing to go on air to raise questions about the group's association with Democrats with tut-tutting anchors serving up one softball question after another. (It later turned out that about one-third of the 1.3 million new voters registered by Acorn. were rejected,and some were deemed to be fraudulent.) But last week, Fox aired videos that showed the group's employees giving advice on how to evade the law. The videos were recorded surreptitiously by conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles and first were published on BigGovernment.com. They became major talking points both for Fox news shows as well as the network's evening bloviation-fests. It was also another instance where Fox's rivals were slow to realize a story in the making and had to scramble to catch up. On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to block the Department of Housing and Urban Development from awarding the organization any more federal housing financing. The Census Bureau has also dropped Acorn as one of the groups involved in promoting the 2010 census. (For more, see: Acorn Sting Lands Housing Group In Conservative Crosshairs.)
Were these instances of the "MSM" ignoring a story because of political bias or bad news judgment? I've reported; you decide.
Something else to ponder is Fox's demonstration of power. As current events demonstrate, sound bites can trump context. Democrats have reason for concern that millions tune into Fox and tune out everything else. Jones never got a fair hearing to defend himself against his critics. Not even his backers in the administration were willing to go to the mattresses. Who might be next?) Around the time of the Jones brouhaha, Beck went on Twitter to urge his followers to help "find everything you can" on three other Obama appointees. Whether he gets his man - or woman - depends on what Beck's minions help turn up.
So, in the interest of being fair and balanced, let's dispense with this dated fiction about a scrappy upstart and all, and acknowledge the reality: For better or for worse, Fox is undeniably a player in the world of big television media. Welcome to the MSM, guys.