Watching Fox News Channel is highly entertaining. After having watched quite a lot of it recently, I can’t say that it’s as biased as I once thought, though it still clearly does have a leaning toward the conservative side of politics. But, that’s probably okay since some of the other channels have a clear leaning toward “progressive” side of politics. However, I’m fascinated by the weight Fox News Channel gives to some stories.
For the past weeks, the intrigue surrounding the death of Anna Nicole Smith has been given an extraordinary amount of air-time. I can see why: it’s highly interesting stuff. Who’s the father of her baby (there are at least three possibilities, though another one surfaced in the last day or so)? How did she die? Was it murder, and if so, whodunnit?
Competing for air-time are the annual Spring Break and the Democrat bill to pull the troops out of Iraq by the end of August 2008. Among the questions being asked by Bill O’Reilly and co are why are young women doing all sorts of lewd things these days for what seems like barely any compensation? In particular, they ask why women will do pretty much anything for the Girls Gone Wild film crew in return for a t-shirt. Probably alcohol (and other stuff) has a bit to do with it, but it surely can’t be the sole explanation for the phenomenon. Again, an interesting story, but hardly worth the major air-time it’s getting. I wonder how it’s affecting Fox’s ratings?
The story about the House Democrats Bill is both interesting and fairly covered by Fox in my opinion. There’ve been numerous guests on a number of different shows debating the merits of the Bill. Personally, I’m not sure whether politicians in the House of Representatives ought to trying to dictate military strategy. Furthermore, while I’ve never really followed the progress of previous US Bills so closely, the level of pork barrelling that was required to get this Bill passed by the House seemed unbelievable to me. Democrat representatives have inserted subsidies for everything from shellfish to shrimp to peanuts and spinach, to the tune of $21 billion. How a Bill called “U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act” can have anything to do with any of that stuff is beyond me. Even some of the Democrat sympathisers on Fox News were understandably struggling to justify these inclusions.
While I haven’t seen an actual news story on the incredible events at the Cricket World Cup on Fox News, the ticker at the bottom of the screen does show breaking news related to the murder of Bob Woolmer. So Fox News in the US is not completely oblivious to the world of cricket. Anyway, I can’t believe what’s going on in the Windies. Cricket, it seems, still has major, major problems to solve.
3 replies on “Fox News Channel”
Again, an interesting story, but hardly worth the major air-time it’s getting. I wonder how it’s affecting Fox’s ratings?
Ricky, Ricky, Ricky, I think you might be over estimating the the intelligence and interest of the average… well the average person any where really. It would be unfair just to classify the americans in this category. This is the way it works. When sitting around a coffee table or just chatting over gtalk it is much, much, much easier to talk about the psychology of women who are willing to do the things the girl on girls gone wild do then it is to discuss weighter issues. That’s pretty much the crux of it. People who watch broadcast medias such as Fox are probably just there to pick up tit-bits of information they can pass on and discuss with their friends. So Fox’s rating are probably better for devoting so much air time to Anna Nicole Smith and Girls Gone Wild. That’s my take on it anyway.
Tinni’s right. It’s easier, and more entertaining, to talk about Girls Gone Wild than it is to discuss other things. And Fox does discuss all sorts of other things, but it’s the stories like the Anna Nicole Smith one that shows such as On the Record focus on. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that.
[…] Scoble had posted an article about Fox News and the Anna Nicole Smith saga at around the same time as I had. It turns out that he actually scooped me by 15 minutes, and here I was thinking I was original! […]