http://www.nationalreview.com/article/439520/fox-news-hurts-conservative-movement The Drive to Become ‘Fox News Famous’ Hurts the Right I’ll never forget the first time I was on Fox News. Bill O’Reilly had taken an interest in one of my cases and brought me and my client on to his show. Truly, he was interested only in her perspective, but since litigation was looming, we were a package deal. So I drove to a studio in Nashville, sat in front of the fake city-skyline background, took a deep breath, and dove in. I bombed miserably. O’Reilly didn’t like my answers, and I struggled to explain myself when he pressed me for more details. I didn’t look good and I didn’t sound good. I had all the charisma of a wet dishrag. The first phone call after the show was from my best friend from college. He was laughing at me. “Dude, you were terrible.” And yet, in the long run, that first appearance may well have been the best career move I’d made since getting a law degree. From that moment forward, I could claim the most important résumé bullet point in the conservative movement: “David French has appeared on Fox News.” It’s hard to overstate the power of Fox News for those seeking a career in the conservative movement. I’ve seen the most accomplished of lawyers suddenly become “somebody” only after they regularly appear on Fox. I’ve seen young activists leave senators or representatives languishing alone in rooms as they flood over to Fox personalities, seeking selfies. Fox has become the prime gatekeeper of conservative fame, the source of conservative book deals, and the ticket into the true pantheon of conservative influence. It’s killing the conservative movement. As Matthew Sheffield laid out brilliantly in a piece earlier this month, at any given moment Fox may have the biggest audience in cable news, but its overall cultural and political influence pales in comparison with that of its leading network and Internet competitors. Fox has constructed a big, beautiful, and lucrative gated community — a comfortable conservative cocoon. The result is clear: Conservatives gain fame, power, and influence mainly by talking to each other. They persuade each other of the rightness of their ideas and write Fox-fueled best-selling books making arguments that Fox viewers love. The sheer size of the audience lulls minor political celebrities into believing that they’re making a cultural and political difference. But they never get a chance to preach to the unconverted. RELATED: The Conservative Media Echo Chamber Is Making the Right Intellectually Deaf The problem goes well beyond this cocoon effect, into the very moral and intellectual heart of the conservative movement. Like any human enterprise, Fox is filled with a wide variety of people — some good, some bad. But it is, at heart, a commercial endeavor, rather than an intellectual or spiritual one. Its fundamental priority is to make money, not to advance a particular set of ideas or values in public life.... More at the link. Well, what do you think? Well meaning liberals and independents have been trying to warn conservatives for 2 decades now, but they wouldn't listen. Fox News has driven the conservative movement off a cliff of their own choosing.
Yep, they and their viewers don't at all get that there is a whole lot more to the United States than their echo chamber. And the more they isolate from the majority, the more frustration they will encounter.
Oh, like Breitbart is a place one goes for rational discussions from a conservative perspective. If anything, Breitbart is an amplification of the stuff Fox has been spewing. Same with Free Republic.
Yes, but to a lesser extent than talk radio and the right wing blogosphere. The end of the fairness doctrone was the end of sanity in the GOP. They were consumed by the idiots they created.
They have driven a segment of the GOP crazy but the GOP is made up of many diverse factions that are incompatible which were one day destined to split apart.
The problem isn't Fox News alone. It's that there is an entire segment of the population that lives in an echo chamber. Wake up to Fox and Friends in the morning, listen to Right Wing Radio on the commute in, surf Drudge/Red State/Brietbart/DailyCaller at work, listen to Right Wing Radio on the ride home, watch Fox News in the evening. This bubble creates folks so out of touch with reality it's almost painful to watch. Remember all the idiots who thought the polls were skewed and Romney would win? Or that the Republicans were going to win the government shutdown? These idiots are the Republican base. And while they are a minority of the general population, they make up enough of the Republican Party that some really really REALLY stupid shit has to fed them in order to get the Republican nomination. Which then comes and bites the Republican candidate in the general when they have to compete for votes from those outside the Right Wing Bubble.
There's a legitimate case to be made for conservative social values, limited government, tough foreign policy, and all of the other things that the GOP stands for. The problem with Fox is their style of reporting that suggests everything is a conspiracy. There's always a new boogeyman coming to get you, and forces of government (save the military and police, their sacred cows) range only from inept to corrupt, and have nothing positive to offer society. Fox, more than any other force on the Right, has contributed to the atmosphere where facts simply don't matter, where experts are dismissed on grounds of relativism, and where science has no meaning. It's this atmosphere that keeps the otherwise legitimate right ring of the US living in a perpetual fantasy world.
This. Conservative talk radio may have started the ball rolling, but FoxNews is the avalanche based on simple numbers. More people watched television than listened to radio 20 years ago (as well as today) so more were exposed to the message. I watched them off and on for the first couple of years just because it was so new and different from what came before, but I quickly tired of their shtick. Plus, professionally speaking, their work is just plain bad and hard to watch.
They do have some rather attractive women in their studios. Turns out they were all being harassed, but yeah, they make for good eye candy.
Depends what you call "FoxNews". From what I've seen their actual factual reporting of the "news" as in events is quite good. I think their analysts like Sean Hannity are deeply flawed though. Hannity was far, far better when he was paired with liberal commentator Alan Colmes. In that format, Colmes questioned the conservative guests while Hannity questioned the liberal guests.
I agree it was better when Alan Colmes was on the show, but he was nowhere near as aggressive in his questioning as Hannity, so it still lacked balance. Thinking about this question more, I'd say Fox News is definitely bad for the country, but maybe isn't entirely bad for the GOP. They are pretty effective at getting out the vote, and it shows in the state and local races. The problem is that the GOP succeeds to the extent it courts such voters, but doing so moves the GOP to a position where it cannot/won't cooperate with the Democrats or even the idea of actually governing. Hence, good for the party, bad for the country.
Several of FoxNews people cheerleading for Donald Trump like Sean Hannity, Eric Bolding, and to a lesser extent Bill O'Reilly has certainly not helped and in fact has hurt the GOP. Of course the Republican congressional "leadership" is in large part to blame because they failed to make their case for resistance to President Obama and why that resistance has often been so ineffective (Harry Reid and Senate Democrats "blocking" for Obama to prevent him from having to veto popular legislation).
Sure you can. They could've hired a more aggressive/assertive liberal counterpart to Hannity but they hired Colmes instead. I doubt that was by accident.
I remember talking with a liberal coworker about it in the late 90s and he hated how wimpy Colmes was in comparison to Hannity. "Colmes is a fuckin' pussy! "
It's not quite as simple as that. How aggressively you question is connected in many ways to the quality of the person being interviewed. Something I've noticed about Fox News is a tendency to book what I would term weaker representatives of a liberal position, and stronger representatives of a conservative position. I don't think Colmes was dealt the same hand as Hannity.
People also forget that notable FoxNews personalities even considered "conservative" have some political positions generally considered "liberal". Bill O'Reilly for example I'm pretty certain opposes the death penalty. Personally I liked it when John Kasich was a regular host on FoxNews.
Being a capitalist society and all, the left could produce their own share of radio shows (since they already have several TV news shows and online sites) but for some reason they all failed. Could be only old conservative whites listen to the radio much. Maybe the left could improve their marketing and get their own echo chamber improved upon. I think at one time some of them were pulling a "fairness" game saying they should be given (the key word being "given" versus earned) equal radio air time. Personally I feel that the Republicans are just throwing in the towel yet again. I know a lot of conservatives that aren't even voting this year - it's just too much of a sick joke to enable the process. You know fuck it - we as a nation need to ditch this two party system toot sweet. It might not be pretty for a while but it sure isn't pretty now so what have we got to lose?
I don't think we need more echo chambers. I'd rather we learned to be comfortable with ideas that we don't agree with.
He was hired to be a pussy and his job depended upon remaining a pussy. Tge few times he manned up and grabbed his balls resulted in him getting fired for not sticking to the wimpy liberal script.
