Watching Anderson Cooper and the rest of the CNN crew chew on the Tony Snow appointment as presidential press secretary last night reminded me of several Hollywood occasions when I’ve listened to friends gossip about an acquaintance’s Oscar nomination – envy was pouring out of their eyes like some green slime from The Exorcist. Only those occasions were usually (relatively) private. Suzanne Malveaux, etc. were on TV. ABC puts it this way:
There’s just something about Fox News.Not only does the cable giant have more than twice as many primetime viewers as the closest competition, but it’s often the network of choice for the White House administration in terms of big-name interviews.
Well, why wouldn’t it be? I’m no unremitting fan of Fox – far from it. I find Hannity & Colmes bombastic and dopey, O’Reilly a tedious narcissist (duh) and Greta… well, if I never hear the word “Aruba” again as long as I live I’ll be happy. But the Brit Hume Show is actually for grownups with serious discussion not tilted completely to the conservative side and the Neil Cavuto Show is fun if you don’t take the stock tips too seriously. What’s to watch on CNN? Not much for me. No wonder they’re jealous.
Roger,
While I agree with most of your comments on Fox, I think you are overly critical of Hannity & Colmes. At least in comparison to any alternative. .
I don’t consider Hannity to be that adult, but the show overall is far more informative than Crossfire (is that still on?) and real interesting guests actually get to present their opinions.
So while the hosts aren’t outstanding (but at least for a lefty, Colmes is polite), often the guests are – and the hosts don’t get in their way.
Furthermore, Murdoch understands the use of titillation, which I occasionally appreciate – even if the news value is zero. The Victoria’s Secret stories are tabloid, but at least the scenery is interesting. For that matter, the legal stories (including the, ugh, Aruba one) are classic tabloid fare, and Rupert knows a bit about the tabloid business. So in Fox we get a combination of good news broadcasting and analysis during the news, tabloid stuff to pull in more viewers, and other stuff (like the silly O’Reilly, both the most boringly pedantic and narcissitic and, oddly, most popular TV host).
……..
Tony Snow was another example of a good host – knowlegeable, smart and very genteel. I am sorry to see him go, but I suspect he may be the best press secretary yet for the Bush White House. If they let him be, and are willing to listen.
Roger:
The MSM can’t seem to decide how to frame the Snow story. The negative qoutes from Snow about President Bush are to juicy to pass up so they are replaying them. But at the same time they are trying to create the Snow as tool of the Bush loving Fox network meme.
T.V. News. Uniformaly bad. Fox, CNN, local news, the half hour national news, all crap. Just about the worst place to pick up information. Thirty to sixty second bullit points that try to explain situations that are too subtle to cram into such short bursts. Fox, a tabloid network that is tabloid without being ashamed( I like Hume, I’ll leave him out of the equation.). CNN and the Big Three, tabloid newes that try’s to dress itself in seriousness and pomposity. They are like a hooker who dons pinstripes and states that they are a sex therapist.
Kevin…what a great line!
The shows I watch regularly on FNC are: Special Report with Brit Hume, The Beltway Boys, and Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. It is nice to see the real Brit Hume voicing his opinions, as supposed to be in the neutral anchor chair.
Yes, the numbers don’t lie: when you pander to an audience, tell them what they want to hear, and confirm what they think they know, they will flock to you in droves. This debate is silly. Pravda had/(has?) a very large readership too. I don’t get how “Fox” is somehow separate from the MSM, they’re all of a piece. The fact is that sometimes the truth about your government hurts, and Fox viewers (and I would say many to most CNN viewers), can’t handle that.
Festus:
As I posted above I am not a particular fan of Fox or T.V. news in general. And I do think they are part of the mainstream media on the whole. But everything you said about Fox can be said about the rest of the MSM. The only difference between Fox and the rest is that they don’t follow the tradional Liberal Media line. And they pandered to their audience in the same maaner, just from a different political stance. P.S., there was no alternative to Pravda or anything to rebut it so it doesn’t make a good analogy.
Kevin, my reference to Pravda is not an analogy, Pravda is the logical endpoint to Roger’s inane posts (see below inanity about kos v. instapundit) about audience size and what it indicates. Any sane person would say that the miniscule difference between reynolds and markos’s poor sales indicates nothing, as does the aggregate viewership numbers of CNN, FOX, MTV or whatever-the-hell. FOX and CNN are mass infotainment news centers, pandering to their particular demographic shares. Their aggregate viewership tells us nothing about the audience as a portion of Americans as a whole. (And, particularly, the idea that Britt Hume appeals to a more intellectually “grown-up” audience is laughable.) The fact that CSI is more popular than Law and Order right now is meaningless, as is the fact that Adam Sandler movies do better than Martin Scorcese’s.
All this brouhaha about a little cable station which on a good day can pull in about 2 million viewers, IIRC. Really good extraordinary day – 5 to 10 million.
And ABC is priceless – George Stephanopolis.
Hannity & Colmes for all their fault sometimes have very good segments on. The thing that they do right is divide the show into 4 segments so you can switch around until your segment of interest comes on. Hannity & Colmes is/was a hell of a lot better then Crossfire. Greta van Sustern? Well if I never hear of Scott Peterson, Natalee Holloway, etc. it will be too soon. O’Reilly is a bloviator who is a lot of the times interesting though to tune in on. What is the alternative, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC??? Britt Hume on Special Report is terrific and Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes on “The Beltway Boys” are great. Also as a conservative, I enjoy the morning show Fox & Friends. I really liked Tony Snow and often wished he had O’Reilly’s time slot.
By the way there are more liberals on Fox then there are conservatives on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, the NY Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post – combined!
festus:
If you argue, as I do, that 98% of T.V. News is crap and mindless then you and I have no problem with each other.As far as Britt Hume goes he is no more intellectually inferior then any other T.V. news choices. The problem I have with the cable and non-cable outlets is the notion that the news sections of Fox are so inferior to the other choices, NBC, ABC, CBS, ect. The only difference is the political slant. O’Reilly, Hannity and Colmes are the T.V. version of opinion pages. I don’t watch them and they are boring.But Hume, Wallace compares with Gregory, Katie, or any of the other T.V. news readers. Fox is still tiny compared to the big three and they are tabloid. But while Keith Ob on MSNBC, Matthews, and all the other “serious T.V. News personalities” cover the Duke rape trial, the Aruba stories and all the rest of the infotainment news stories just as hard as Fox does they pretend that they are above ratings and they are being for forced against their will to cover the same stories that Fox does and in much the same manner. Both sides dive into the muck. Fox is tabloid and makes no bones about it. The rest are tabs trying to pretend they intellectually superior. Take a look at the last three years of Presidential News conferences. They are inane. They spent one trying the first 30 minutes trying to see if they could get President Bush to apologize. That’s not news gathering or even speaking truth to power. That’s sound bite journalism. You get some tougher and more informative questions at some of the Town Hall meetings. Polls and horse race coverage of elections instead of news and issues. Throw away Fox and what were the biggest stories during the last election covered by the serious journalist’s who are insulted by the quality at Fox. The Dean Scream, TANG,poll’s and Swiftboat. You bet, this is serious intellectual stuff.
Festus:
Notice how quickly the unproffesional, amatuer, and journalistacly challenged blogger Simon handles his mistake and apologized hours after commiting his mistake. Compare that with the paragon of journalistic ethics Dan Rather handled his.
I watched my first TV program in 1948. I don’t watch much anymore. Phoenix Suns basketball, Brit Hume and Chris Wallace. I sure hope FOX give Alan Colmes a show of his own. I’d watch Hannity if Colmes had more time.
You wrote, “envy was pouring out of their eyes like some green slime from The Exorcist.”
I hate to be anal retentive, but I believe it was pea soup.