Tuesday, July 1, 2008

As Times Change, Fox News Finds Fewer Viewers While CNN, MSNBC Have Gains

After years of cable news dominance, Fox News losing its ratings edge.

Increasingly, viewers have had enough of the network's "fair and balanced" treatment of current events—code for a reactionary opinion that is too often fact-free.

The ratings numbers show that CNN and MSNBC are adding viewers at a healthy rate, while Fox viewers are switching channels or tuning out. One of the stars of MSNBC is Keith Olbermann, whose "Countdown" program has been responsible for much of the growth at MSNBC.

Writing in the New York Times, Jacques Steinberg noted that CNN and MSNBC have copied the Fox style, emphasizing "sharp opinions, glitzy graphics and big personalities…."

Meanwhile Fox has fallen victim to its own rhetorical excesses. Steinberg documented three recent "inappropriate references" to Barack Obama, including the idiotic comment by Fox's E.D. Hill that the "fist bump" between Michelle and Barack Obama was "a terrorist fist jab." (We are not making this up.)

Fox News: Giving viewers the party line, whether it's true or not.

3 comments:

Savage Baptist said...

Not that it matters all that much to me, for I haven't had cable in years and years and therefore don't watch any cable news, but I distinctly recall the time when CNN was referred to as "the Clinton News Network."

Anonymous said...

Today, CNN is more like "Fox Lite."

Unknown said...

<---Tulsan
Today CNN is more like "Fox Lite."


Thats hilarious...
:-)