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The Left’s Obsession with Fox News
For me, Twitter is less a social-media service than a six-year-long political argument with no sign of ending. In myriad (and meaningless) keyboard battles, I’ve tangled with progressives on economic policy, foreign affairs, elections, pop culture, social issues, education reform and countless other topics.
Obviously, I waste too much time on Twitter. But whatever the subject, my liberal enablers always drop the same line; one they believe will end the debate for good. About every other day since 2008, I’ve been on the receiving end of this withering coup de grâce, always delivered with a supercilious tone of finality.
“Maybe you should stop watching Fox News!” The more clever interlocutors misspell it “Faux News,” adding wonky jargon such as “dum winger” or “tea-tard.”
The fact is, I don’t watch Fox News. Okay, I DVR “Red Eye” (which isn’t really news) and watch the occasional yell-fest when a friend’s on the panel. But cable news in general doesn’t do much for me or most other people I know.
I recently visited two older relatives who watch Fox News non-stop and at high volume to cope with hearing issues. After 12 hours of dire headlines, testy commentators, and panicked “breaking news” alerts covering days-old developments, I wanted to lock myself in a soundproofed room with the Good Book and a fifth of Jack. It was exhausting.
Obviously Fox tops the rankings of TV news, but are most conservatives wedded to the channel? I appreciate it for providing an all-too-rare perspective on world events, but I’d rather be catching up on the game or watching sweaty chefs make a dessert out of cuttlefish, sidewalk chalk and Jolly Ranchers.
When I chat with liberals, I never assume they watch MSNBC because, well, who watches MSNBC? And every time I flip by CNN, they’re playing Anthony Bourdain reruns, most of which I’ve seen four times.
Since Ricochet is made up of highly literate conservatives and libertarians, I had to ask: What do you say when you’re accused of getting all your ideas from Faux News? Do you watch it all the time, a little or not at all? And why does Murdoch’s plucky little network take up so much space in the liberal imagination?
Published in General
I watch hardly any TV, including Fox News. That, of course, doesn’t mean the “Fox view of the world” (is that an actual new corporeal substance?) doesn’t get to me via other routes.
I’d like to say I go to other sources for my news, such as the esteemed Drudge Report. Also NR, Claremont, TWS, New Criterion, and the like. Also an item that the left seems now to completely ignore: books.
Frankly, I’ve imbibed more interesting ideas and news angles from my friends here at Ricochet, and that includes some that I don’t agree with all that much.
When I was in the States I’d catch RedEye every now and again on DVR but I mostly only see clips of stuff from FoxNews on the internet, it’s never a whole show. If there’s something big going down and I needed a live channel to watch I’d choose it over the others.
I think I may have only heard the “you listen to too much Fox News” accusation a couple times in my life. Although I was previously a regular watcher of the channel, particularly Special Report or Fox News Sunday, I rarely see either. In the mornings when I sit down to my desk I’ll momentarily bring up FoxNews.com to see what the headlines are for the day, but otherwise I have very little input from Fox News. The little bit of any news I watch on the television is mostly limited to the first 20 minutes or so of my local ABC station and half the time I don’t pay it much attention until the weather predictions.
I watch maybe 40 minutes of Fox and Friends every morning. That’s enough to give me the flavor of what they are reporting on. After that I find it tiresome. I will switch to the Today Show around 7:15 a.m. By then they are usually finished with their biased news reporting and on to softer material. It’s a better product, and I like the people more (although I do enjoy Brian on Fox). I generally watch the second half hour of Special Report every night. Bret Baier is great, and I need my Krauthammer fix.
That’s it. I don’t watch any other national news, network or otherwise. I read the WSJ online and check various reputable blogs.
I read ricochet, real clear politics, markets, etc. NRO, patheos evangelical. I do not watch TV. My family watches Duck Dynasty, Say Yes to the Dress, and various Cooking – Home Improvement — Real Estate & Pawnshop Shows.
If I am on the road, I may watch FOX, but they tend to the boring and shallow.
I value Special Report, and enjoy guest shots by Bernie Goldberg, Dennis Miller, Krauthammer and Hume on the Factor, but Fox News is far from perfect.
Hear George Will on immigration? Why did we? Who is Megyn Kelly to scold Dick Cheney? How about Chris Wallace recycling conventional wisdom? Hello again, indeed. And why have Washington wonks pontificate about economics when Fox Business experts are available?
Ask this about Fox News: what have they left on the table? Isn’t there room for another highly profitable center-right news organization? Roger Ailes is brilliant, but is there no one else capable of adapting his template?
Take CNN. Please. Murdoch may. But he’s promised to sell it. Question is, to whom? The gutsy move would be to sell it to center-right billionaires who would like, someday, to own a major broadcast network, too.
Every year the Left seems to colonize a new outlet. HuffPo. Have you seen Yahoo News lately? Way left now.
What have we got? Sorry, Newsmax TV is amateurish. Live.wsj.com is promising for quicky newsroom clips, Drudge with analysis, but that’s Murdoch again. It’s time for someone else to step up.
One more thing. Best show on Fox News is Journal Editorial Report.
True, if they were any deeper in the tank on immigration, Rick Perry would have to dive in with life preservers for the whole lot. But usually, almost always, it’s balanced and a very smart show.
Paul Gigot, Jason Riley, Collin Levy (my personal favorite) — I’d watch every week to see any one of them!
Many thanks to all the conservatives who tweet. I do not Twitter, but I can see that it is essential for a few intrepid conservatives to participate actively in that arena. You are doing good work, however thankless a task it may seem.
I occasionally watch Special Report. Not nearly as much as when Brit Hume was the host, but I catch it when I remember it’s on, or when a guest I particularly want to see is on the panel (Jonah or The Hammer, generally).
I think the last time I watched O’Reilly was during Rathergate, when he was assuring viewers that a professional organization like CBS News would never, ever push a fake story trying to move the needle in an election. Turned him off and never went back. I never watch Hannity or Van Whatsherface, very rarely watch the channel during the day.
Oh, to answer Jon’s last question: Fox drives libs crazy because it is beyond their control, and run by people who don’t give a damn what the New York Times says about anything. Control is what the Left is all about; any media/organization/individual they can’t infiltrate or bully into submission drives them to distraction, regardless of actual content.
Which makes Fox quite wonderful, whether I watch it much myself or not…
I usually try to catch the last half of Special Report, but there’s nothing else on Fox News that I watch regularly. I will occasionally watch a little MSNBC (Hardball and whatever Al Sharpton’s show is called) just to see what the other side is thinking. I used to like O’Reilly but have grown tired of him thinking he is smarter than 100% of his guests. He’s second only to Chris Mathews in shouting over the top of his guests when he disagrees with them.
Since adding Fox Business News to our cable package, I record every episode of The Independents and Stossel. It’s a treat to see a couple shows that come from a libertarian perspective. And Mollie Hemingway was a guest on The Independents once! I also record and watch The Wonderful World of Stu on Blaze TV. The show is half silly and half serious, and he makes some very good points when he provides data and analyzes assumptions that everyone believes but that are incorrect.
That happens to me on Facebook also. I just tell them I don’t own a television.
Years ago, I made CNN.com my place to go just to see what was in the news. Now I go to FoxNews.com first. I don’t mind bias in a news source. I assume bias in everything. However, CNN just doesn’t cover Democratic scandals (IRS, Benghazi, etc.). I could live with them reporting in a way slanted toward Democrats, but they don’t even do that. They just don’t cover them at all.
Wow. After I commented on this post, this very thing happened to me again on Facebook. In this case I was told to avoid “fox spews.” Nice.
Oh, this is an old post. Didn’t realize that.