Media Matters: Fox News Is In For A Very Rough 2008

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/75359



Fox News Is in for a Very Rough 2008

By Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America. Posted January 30, 2008.

From losing the election ratings race to CNN, to watching its favored son Rudy Giuliani fizzle in the primaries, Fox News is in for a bad year.

Let's take an extended multiple choice quiz. Right now, which of the following topics is likely causing the discomfort inside Ailes' Fox News empire?

A) CNN's resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The incredible shrinking candidacy of Fox News' favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded, anti-war GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates' blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O'Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidante Dan Cooper posting chapters from his a wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. ("The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.")
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson's recent heartless attacks on actor Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his "exclusive" that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, and then refusing to correct the record.

I'd say it's

A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. (I doubt Gibson's grave-dancing or Garrett's whopper caused Ailes a moment's concern.)

Bottom line is that Fox News is in for a very rough 2008. And the umbrella reason for that is quite simple: Eight years ago the all-news cable channel went all-in on the presidency of George Bush and became a broadcast partner with the White House. Proof of that was on display Sunday night, January 27, during Fox News' prime-time, "Fighting to the Finish," an "historic documentary" on the final year of Bush's presidency. Filmed in HD and featuring "unprecedented access," according to the Fox News press release, the show was pure propaganda. (I must have missed Fox News' "Fighting to the Finish" special back in 2000, chronicling the conclusion of President Bill Clinton's second term and his "extraordinarily consequential tenure.")

The point is that Fox News years ago made an obvious decision to appeal almost exclusively to Republican viewers. The good news then for Fox News was that it succeeded. The bad news now for Fox News is that it succeeded.

Meaning, when the GOP catches a cold, everybody at Fox News gets sick. As blogger Logan Murphy put it at Crooks and Liars, "Watching FOXNews getting their comeuppance has been fun to watch. They made their bed, now they're having to lie in it and it's not too comfortable."

The most obvious signs of Fox News' downturn have been the cable ratings for the big primary and caucus votes this year, as well as the high-profile debates. With this election season generating unprecedented voter and viewer interest, Fox News' rating bumps to date have remained underwhelming, to say the least.

For instance, on the night of the big New Hampshire primary, CNN, which habitually trails behind Fox News in the prime-time race, attracted nearly 250,000 more viewers than its top competitor, marking a changing-of-the-guard of sorts.

The turnaround was striking when you consider that in 2004, even with no Republicans running against Bush, Fox News was still able to draw 200,000 more viewers than CNN on the night of the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Yet in 2008, with a very competitive GOP field, CNN was the ratings winner from New Hampshire.

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"As any netherworld republicon occultist can tell you, that shift by Pluto signals a threshold of people's tolerance for republicon homelander propganda BS crapola. Smirk."

- Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer*

.... :)

It looks like 2008 is going to be the year of the reckoning, the karmic balance, the swinging of the pendulum.

We've got Fox, the economy now all we need is Iraq.

It's stupid to feed that GOP propaganda ministry. No elected Democrat should ever appear on any Faux Noise show. With Democrats in control of Congress, and hopefully also the presidency, they would die on the vine. Can you imagine a Sunday talk show that can't get anybody to come on except a member of the Congressional minority?

"It's stupid to feed that GOP propaganda ministry. No elected Democrat should ever appear on any Faux Noise show. With Democrats in control of Congress, and hopefully also the presidency, they would die on the vine. Can you imagine a Sunday talk show that can't get anybody to come on except a member of the Congressional minority?"

I have been an advocate of this strategy all along. Let them, in the words of Newt, "die on the vine". I hope they become even more irrelevant in the near future.

... Dems should tell Fox to go fuck themselves. Even when they do appear, Fox edits and spins and does everything possible to make them look bad.

Screw Fox.

they always manage to distort the facts or just ignore them completely

don't forget an average of 28-30% of the electorate still thinks bush sits on the right hand of reagan - that's more than enough to keep faux limping along until they can blow something stupid completely out of proportion