Take MSNBC's viewing audience, add CNN's to it, and then double it. The final product still doesn't add up to Fox News Channel's election-night audience.
CNN offers some excellent programming. John King strikes me as a go-to guy on politics. His "State of the Union Panel" always overrepresents liberals, and often features Democrats' favorite Republicans, but he offers facts and analysis while his peers on competing networks offer opinions, which, as you know, everybody has. Fareed Zakaria's weekend show is intelligent. Its global focus is not something one can find on Fox or MSNBC. The personality-driven shows of Lou Dobbs, Campbell Brown, and Anderson Cooper are definitely watchable (at least I watch them occasionally--CNN currently trails sister network HLN), but their attempts at playing the outraged independent (Dobbs) or opinionless news voice (Cooper) don't work for mass audiences in this hyperpartisan age. Larry King seems a relic from a bygone age. He has been mailing it in since the 1990s. The onetime cornerstone of the network is now the stone dragging them under water. The sooner they can cut themselves free of that rope the better.
MSNBC used to be the place for politics when Chris Matthews was still a DC rat rather than Keith Olbermann's mini-me. Now they seem to be television's version of Air America. In all candor, the station was once the favored destination of my remote. Now I watch for the unintentional comedy: Andrea Mitchell covering Hillary Clinton as if she had won the presidency, Keith Olbermann delivering his corny, pretentious, longwinded, throwback editorials, and something called "The Ed Show," hosted by a careerist, incidentally named Ed, who played a conservative in an earlier broadcasting incarnation.
MSNBC management misinterprets the reason for the success of rival Fox. The formula seems to be to take as hard a Left stand as they imagine Fox taking on the Right. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but MSNBC imitates a caricature of Fox. Unlike Keith Olbermann, Ed Shultz, Rachel Maddow, or Chris Matthews, nobody has ever thought Greta Van Sustern or Shephard Smith a partisan. Even O'Reilly isn't much of a conservative--which is an observation and not an insult. One feels the hate radiating off the television set when Lawrence O'Donnell speaks or strain one's neck looking up at Keith Olbermann's condescension. That's not a pleasurable viewing experience, which is why so many Americans turn the channel or don't watch in the first place.
Part of Fox's success is that it does lean right. So do the plurality of Americans. You do the math. If PBS, the nightly network news, and the other cable networks lean left, then the network that carves out the right-leaning niche wins the ratings war. But Fox's success is so much more than that. There are the Foxes. Julie Bandaras, Juliet Huddy, and Martha MacCallum, in that order, are the three hottest women on television news. Television is a visual medium. Put good looking people in front of the camera. It's not a complicated formula. The addictive, fast-paced visuals (best exemplified by Shepard Smith's program) contribute to Fox's success. Though it broadcasts from Manhattan, Fox broadcasts to Middle America. How many people in Kansas watch the Pride of Northampton, Massachusetts, Rachel Maddow? Mike Huckabee isn't my bag, but he's somebody bag. Ditto for Glen Beck.
All three networks, and perhaps this is Fox imitation, trend toward talking-head punditry over facts-driven news reporting. Sending reporters around the world is more expensive than overpaying an inflated ego to bloviate. Also, give the people what they want, I guess. It may not be news, but neither is drumming up hysteria over missing children, shark sightings, or Jon and Kate's break up. It's cable, and if Music Television can become a reality network then cable news can become the National Enquirer.
Success breeds envy and contempt. Think of the reactions outside of New York toward the Yankees or outside of the U.S. toward America. MSNBC, and to a lesser extent, CNN, hate Fox because they want to be Fox. As a news consumer, I prefer three distinct news channels to a trend-setting Fox and two follow-the-leaders. Judging by the lopsided ratings war (What? No slaughter rule in cable news?), viewers just prefer Fox.
The election results are in: Fox won.
Awesome post.
I try to read and purchase the NYT, WSJ, various left and right magazines to stay informed to support investigative reporting. I abstain from CNN/Time, USNAWR, Newsweek, and find cable news for the most part to be a joke. I think the demise of muckraking reporting as solid investigative journalism is a signal of the impending destruction of our democratic republic. Without healthy newspapers challenging authority, we're doomed to be ruled by more Cheneys, Bushes, and Obushmas.
I really appreciate the rise of alternative forms of media like Amy Goodman's DemocracyNow!, and blogs like this one (and also Keith Hennessey's right-leaning economics, Dean Baker's left-leaning economics, Matt Taibbi's True/Slant, Glenn Greenwald, Ken Silverstein, firedoglake). Bloggers seem more accountable to their news consumers and are generally more straight-forward and less condescending and self-righteous (my version of hell would be forced attendance at an eternal panel discussion with Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, and George Will).
On an extremely loosely related note, I hope people start hitting the streets as the Tea Party movement did. There needs to be extreme structural reform, starting with abolishing the Fed. We really need to march on Washington D.C. and Wall Street and shut down those cesspools for a few days and if I lived within a 300 mile radius of either I'd have assisted already. Seriously, we need to throw these rats out for a few days, and give them a vivid, concrete reminder of whom they're serving.
How could you not give a shout out to my favs? Patti ann Brown and Alisyn Camerata. talk about HOT!
O'Reilly is an entertainer and an event salesman. I can't help but think that if there were more money and exposure in left leaning sentiments and they proved to be more popular, he would be hawking for the other side. Often times, his 'no spin' seems to be centered on pandering to high profile guests. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad he's kind of on our side. But I wouldn’t trust him not to go wherever his ego gets stroked the most.
Dan, how could you leave Kelly out of the hot list? Up until that point, this was Pulitzer material. Not now, man. sheesh! ;-)
Martha Maccallum?! Yow! Was getting jealous though, listening to her talk about that Bob guy.
Give me on-site reporter Molly Line or Democratic Strategist Kirsten Powers any day. Throw in Kimberly Guilefoyle, too.
