Fox News is a joke. They rose from obscurity in the late 1990's and only gained "legitimacy" in the mid-2000's. They supposedly usurped CNN as the most watched news channel, however, I believe there are other factors leading to that calculation. Fox News is the only radical right wing television station, while there are several centrist/left leaning stations, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, etc. Therefore, to claim that you are the most watched name in news is a joke, if you are the only producer of right wing material. For example, if 33% of the population is liberal, 33% conservative, and 33% moderate (intelligent), and everyone who is conservative watches FoxNews, then FoxNews gets 33% of the viewers. The other 66% may have three or more options to watch balanced and centrist minded broadcasting, therefore, if there are three other channels, each gets 22% and Fox News wins with 33%.
Now they may be correct that more people watch them than any other news channel, however, it would be more accurate to claim that they are the most watched news channel because their marketing brand was created to attract the aforementioned 33%. To imply you are the most watched name in news, implies that your opinions are valid, your editorials on point and that your perspective reflects that of the average American. This too is a joke.
The average American knows that Fox News is a joke. Fox News and their hardcore (moronic) following are the only people who fail to realize this. When your headline icon is Glenn Beck, who failed to graduate college, which is not a bad thing in and of itself, but when you are claiming to be all knowledgeable on history, economics, foreign policy and social welfare, a college degree can be useful, you are a joke.
The real reason Fox News is a joke is because their slogan is "Fair and Balanced". This is what inspired me to write this post. Immediately after Obama signed the debt deal and every other website on earth had a picture of Obama signing the bill, Fox News had the FAA strike (what?) as the lead story. So for the 3 weeks before the bill was signed, and the 3 days since the bill was signed, Obama has been portrayed in the Fox News Headline as the problem, the divider, the failure, the tax increaser, the cause of our economic failure, etc. Yet when he actually signs the bill (a positive act), the headline is the FAA strike! What a joke. How obvious can a news organization get that it is radically right, yet still have the motto, "Fair and Balanced".
That is like the Nazi Party using its official name, the "National Socialist German Worker's Party", or China using its official name, the "People's Republic of China", or North Korea using its name, the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea." What does Fox News have in common with these dictatorships? They are trying to brand themselves as being the opposite of what they really are. Which is radical right wing, unfair, unbalanced, bigoted, hateful, ignorant, hypocritical (their worst quality) and more. I could write a well supported thesis on why Fox News is a joke, but I have a job and you, the readers, have lives.
Fox News revealed itself as the biggest joke of all when it forgot to comment on the News of the World story in England. Imagine a liberal paper was accused of hacking into phone records of dead children, soldiers and 9/11 victims. Fox News would go nuts. What happened when it was a right wing, co-owned newspaper, nothing, Fox News failed to report the story. That's right, they censored...themselves. Much like the North Korean government controls all television seen by North Koreans, Fox News actually decides what is and is not news. Why not let the people decide what is and what isn't news?
Why not? Because Fox News is a joke.
I guess I'm a Moron because I think Glenn Beck is great. Thanks Paul :)
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