Cable News Viewership

[scoutingagain 20]

"My question was concerning knowledge about FNC shows, not knowledge in general. Some posters here really despise Hannity and O'Reilly."

 

Oh....Well I can honestly say I don't despise either one. I just don't regard them as news sources anymore than I do Stewart.

 

BTW, O'Reilly & Stewart have been guests on each other's shows I believe. Not that I believe either one really likes the other even has a strong opinion abouth the other, they both know it's good ratings.

 

I heard something about Saddam on NPR today.

 

 

SA

 

[BrentAllen 10]

Dan,

Kind of like when I watch Media Research Center and NewsBusters to see how ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and NPR twist the news to favor the left.

 

Tell me one thing - please point out one instance where O'Reilly did anything half as bad as using forged documents to try to influence a national election. Or anything half as bad as falsly accusing the US of using nerve gas on American defectors in Laos. Can you point out anything O'Reilly has done that even comes close to falling in those neighborhoods?

 

I never knew how much O'Reilly's success stung the left.

[acco40 95]

I don't like confrontational "news." I attribute much of this to the popularity of Rush Limbaugh who may not have started it all (anyone remember father Charles Coughlin) but seems to have spread the tactic.

 

We seem to have enough talent for about five or six television channels and hundreds of channels to choose from. I don't subscribe to cable TV. My familiarity with O'Reilly, Limbaugh and others is from radio. One channel I do enjoy watching very much is CBC. I like their take on what is happening in the USA.

 

Driving off a bridge with a young lady doesn't make liberal policies wrong. Abusing prescription drugs doesn't make conservative policies wrong. "Liberal" and "conservative" should not be used as pejorative adjectives. I wish all of these "news" shows would debate and inform - that would be good entertainment in my book.

[Zahnada 11]

Brent,

 

You keep comparing the Fox News anchors to Rather. But nobody here has said ANYTHING in defense of what Rather did. Actually, I don't see any endorsement or support of the main stream media in general. So, really, I don't know who you're arguing with or what point you're arguing for.

 

Mostly, people here are saying that the news is dominated by economics. And Fox News has found an economic strategy that works really well for them. I feel most posters are saying not to trust broadcast or cable news in general because:

 

1. The media (whether Fox, CNN, NBC, etc) is driven by economics

2. The ideology of any anchor or producer will influence the coverage

3. More and more anchors these days are "entertainers" as much as they are "journalists."

 

I think the above speaks true for Fox as well as any other major news source. I'm not defending anyone, or even criticizing Fox for that matter. I'm saying the system on the whole is not the most reliable way to get complete coverage of anything.

[CalicoPenn 729]

Actually, Crossfire did very well for quite a long time - then CNN decided to change up the format and the time slot of the show - it failed not long afterwards.

 

CNN had originally tried to emulate network news - offering network news style reporting for most of their viewing day - but they found it was more difficult than they expected, in no small part because network news is about 18 minutes per night with multiple producers having most of the day to put together 1 or 2 minute news pieces. CNN began to get repetitive and came very close to becoming an "ambulance/fire chaser" network. For a brief time, it wasn't unusual to see CNN reporting live from an apartment complex or house fire in Atlanta. CNN's heyday was during the first Gulf War - mainly because they had guys reporting "on the ground" (I'd consider the floor of a hotel room to be ground) from the moment the first bombs were dropped - and no one else did. They could take advantage of being on the air for 24 hours to report continuously from Iraq - networks couldn't (you know people would really pitch a fit if the networks pre-empted ALF or Major Dad for the war).

 

Fox's strength was that it recognized that it couldn't be all news all day (CNN did have a couple of shows that weren't all news - Crossfire was one of them) so tweaked the cable news formula so it offered more of a Sunday morning "news show" feel - lots of opinion and news analysis shows. Of Fox's 24 hour broadcast day, only 7 hours (by my count) are true news shows - the rest of the day is devoted to analysis and opinion shows (with a couple of hours for a netowrk like morning show. They've succeeded well, though, in convincing some people that all of their programming is news.

 

CNN tried, and is still trying, to emulate Fox News - which is unfortunate since they once had a strong news focus - that emulation eventually destroyed Crossfire.

 

Network News, though, still has a commanding presence. Viewership of ABC/NBC/CBS evening news stands at about 21 million per night (though that number has dropped quite a lot over the past few years). Viewership of CNN/Fox/MSNBC when the network's evening news is on stands at about 3-4 million people. Minute for minute, during that half hour, more people are tuned into the network news than into cable news. During the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and aftermath, more people tuned into ABC, NBC and CBS news than in to cable - people felt a connection to Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather that they just didn't (and still don't) have to the cable folks. A big part of that is their journalistic credentials - we remember Jennings, Brokaw and Rather reporting from war zones, disaster zones, sites of significant news events. Another is that they tried dealing with facts, not speculation - they never felt the need to try to fill air time with speculation about things, unlike cable news. Like or hate Rather, he was a comfort to many Americans in times of crisis. It takes a great deal of integrity to take the fall for the sloppy reporting work of others - many love to forget that Rather did not personally gather the information for the news piece that brought him down, but he took the heat because he was the person who disseminated the information - when O'Reilly and Hannity show that same kind of integrity, then they'll earn true respect.

 

CalicoPenn

[BrentAllen 10]

Calico,

I think your analysis of the evolution of cable news is pretty accurate. Any of us who saw/heard Bernard Shaw reporting from that hotel room will probably never forget that.

 

Z-,

The reason I keep comparing O'Reilly to Rather or Arnett is because he keeps getting slammed as if he was the worst thing to happen to television. For instance, Dan writes "Bill O'Reilly certainly seems to be the worst offender on the misinformation without correction, retraction, or apology hit parade." There have been plenty of slams in other threads.

 

My point is to those who think O'Reilly is the "worst offender", he doesn't hold a candle to a couple of real "worst offenders" who are considered "real", "serious" or "respected" reporters.

 

 

[SR540Beaver 116]

O'Reilly isn't the worst, he is just the most full of himself. The worst would go to Sean Hannity.

 

Crossfire. What a great show in it's heydey. There was hardly anything like it at the time. I used to watch it every night years ago when it was Tom Braden and Pat Buchanan. It had a 30 minute format with two 15 minute topics each night. Each topic usually had a single guest sitting between them in the Crossfire. Yeah, it got heated at times, but it was always above board, respectful and fair and balanced. There was some real analysis of national and world issues in those days instead of gotcha politics and scoring one for the team. Hannity and Colmes came along and kicked it up a notch on the partisan rhetoric and Crossfire started losing ratings. Crossfire tried to emulate the slugfest style and ended up losing in the end. Again, it was the carnival style that attracted the most viewers and won the ratings.

[Hunt 11]

I don't like O'Reilly because of his mean streak--I've watched him enough to see it, and I don't need to see it any more. For whatever reason, the kind of mean commentary engaged in by Rush Limbaugh and others has been much more successful for commentators on the right than those on the left--Al Franken has struggled to get an audience for is similar, but liberal approach. I think many liberals are listening to NPR and not watching TV news at all. NPR ratings have gone up while most radio listenership has gone down.

[DanKroh 11]

Brent:

"Kind of like when I watch Media Research Center and NewsBusters to see how ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and NPR twist the news to favor the left."

 

Actually, the nice thing about Media Matters and Crooks and Liars is that they report on inaccuracies by ALL media outlets, not just FNC. But there certainly seems to be on overabundance of stories about FNC compared to the other outlets.

 

"Tell me one thing - please point out one instance where O'Reilly did anything half as bad as using forged documents to try to influence a national election. Or anything half as bad as falsly accusing the US of using nerve gas on American defectors in Laos. Can you point out anything O'Reilly has done that even comes close to falling in those neighborhoods?"

 

As someone else pointed out, have I said anywhere that what Rather did was right? (And as someone else pointed out, Rather WAS FIRED for what he did.) Actually, I don't tend to watch any of the network news shows either. I watch CNN Headline News, and if there is a story that catches my attention, I look that story up in print. I tend to read most of my news in print, and I often read from several different sources to try to get multiple viewpoints.

 

But if you want some examples of O'Reilly's awful behavior, how about his insistence that American soldiers in WWII slaughtered a group of German prisoners, when in fact, it was the other way around? How about O'Reilly continually making comments about various leaders/people he doesn't like that suggest that it would be a good thing for them to come to harm? Just the continual name-calling while denying that he makes personal attacks is digusting. And the almost constant stream of misinformation about things that would be verified with a quick fact check on his part I just find way too annoying. But what really kicks it for me with FNC is the love affair they seem to have with Ann Coulter, who I consider to be a hate-monger of the highest degree.

 

"I never knew how much O'Reilly's success stung the left."

I've found that pigeonholing people into the categories of "left" and "right", particularly by painting them with a broad brush over issues that really cross ideologic lines (how many other "righties" are critical of FNC here?), often completely shuts down meaningful dialog.(This message has been edited by DanKroh)

[BrentAllen 10]

Dan writes, "I've found that pigeonholing people into the categories of "left" and "right", particularly by painting them with a broad brush over issues that really cross ideologic lines (how many other "righties" are critical of FNC here?), often completely shuts down meaningful dialog."

 

Sorry, but this has never been an issue with me. I am a conservative, Republican, red state right-winger. I have no problem with those terms, because they truthfully describe me.

 

I have never heard anyone on the right complain about being labeled with any of those terms. In fact, we have RINO's who like to be called Republicans, but really aren't.

On the other hand, I have seen plenty of people on the left who complain about being called leftists, lefties, liberals, blue state left-wingers. Why is that?

[DanKroh 11]

Maybe it has more to do with how the term is used. When flung at me as an epithath, I have a problem with it. Perhaps because in the past, "left" or "leftie" has usually been preceeded or followed by "commie pinko". Also, I have more of a problem when the term is used to pigeonhole an entire group (i.e. "O'Reilly's success stings the left"), versus when it is used to describe individual people or ideological positions.

 

When it is used to describe my ideology, it is only semi-accurate, since I have many positions that could be considered paleo-conservative (as opposed to neo-conservative). I have no problem with being called a liberal, athough that is also not completely accurate. When viewed overall, yes, my ideology is on the left, and also liberal, and yes, I am rather proud of that.

[packsaddle 753]

The name thing is a problem because regardless of any discomfort someone might feel, or not, such terms often dismiss what might otherwise be thoughtful or informative interactions.

For one person to use a term or a name to characterize a second person's opinion or understanding of complex issues is often to say that the second person's view is unimportant. It may be a statement of arrogance and prejudice by the first toward the second. I think we've all seen this at different times in our lives. In my view it denotes a person who is reluctant to subject their own complete thoughts to open and honest critical examination. And dishonest persons sometimes employ the tactic to avoid detection. I guess this is why I am so drawn to science. Even when fallable persons engage in it, science as a process will eventually bring correction to thinking errors.

 

When someone refers to me as 'pinko', 'liberal', 'fascist', 'chauvinist pig', or 'meanspirited', etc., the names don't bother me personally because I have a thick skin. My wife, for example, often refers to me as a humorless, WASP with thin Nazi lips. To which I reply, "I do too have a sense of humor!"

At the same time, I am sorry for those individuals whose reluctance to explore ideas causes them to dismiss by means of pejoratives, those persons who carry the ideas. Sad. Everyone's loss.

[Trevorum 24]

Labels are excellent things for file folders. Not so great for human beings.

 

I like to believe that each of us is more complex than a few adjectives could summarize.

 

 

[SR540Beaver 116]

"On the other hand, I have seen plenty of people on the left who complain about being called leftists, lefties, liberals, blue state left-wingers. Why is that?"

 

Perhaps because of the way the folks using them spit the words out of their mouth and equate them to treason, loving terrorists, hating America, being Godless, etc. I wouldn't like someone taking a word that describes me and using it negatively, so I can see why liberals would dislike the way the words have been co-opted by the talking heads to mean something bad. Let's look at a few popular book titles from the past few years. Michael Savage - Liberalism is a Mental Disorder and The Enemy Within (Saving America from the Liberal Assault on our Schools, Faith and Military), Sean Hannity - Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism and Ann Coulter - Godless: The Church of Liberalism, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism and Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. Thes popular media people's job revolves around the popular sport they like to refer to as "lib smashing" more than it does advancing the debate or discussion of current events. I'd be unhappy to if I had a mult-million dollar cottage industry making outrageous claims against me.

[packsaddle 753]

Beav, I agree but in our socio-economic system we fuel these things with our viewership and dollars. For better or worse, the success of a political shock jock is an expression of our desire for them to provide the product we buy. In many ways we have hitched our future to the proposition that the market of ideas follows exactly the same rules as any commodity.

I worry that education is a factor that is less important for decisions regarding purchase of potatoes than for critical examination of ideas. I worry about the potential outcome of an uninformed populace in a democracy. But whatever the outcome, we collectively make the decisions.