Opinion: Readers say let the Fox live!

The viewers make Fox number one because they are fair and balanced. They came from nowhere to one by being different from the MSM. The LA times is losing circulation as most other parts of the MSM is. Fox is growing. The arrogance of MSM to ignore us the viewers is OK with me. Keep it up and slowly go out of business.

Dear Editor, Please. Dump. Brownstein. His latest column on Fox News is vacant of facts and built solely of school-girlish conjecture. Unwilling to make an argument based on even a single piece of supportive evidence, Brownstein chooses to flap gums, or in this case, wiggle fingers across a keyboard. His columns properly belong in the Comics section or better yet, in a new section called ‘How Low Can We Go?’ Truly Embarrassed For You, J.O. Keener

The best thing about Fox News is you get more balanced reporting without that ‘hyper’ language that Soledad O’Brien uses on CNN or the pitched eyebrow of Diane Sawyer. They actually give you information that seems to escape everyone else, and in fact like Imus on MSNBC said on Tuesday of this week, every time he reads something in the NY Times or Washington Post it’s wrong! Why is this? Because most media is left and leave out information that doesn’t advance their storyline, just like Ronald Brownstein does in his piece.

If you fill your pages with meaningless blabbing like the recent piece by Ronald Brownstein (Fox Hounded 3/16/07), there is no surprise that advertisers spend less and less money on newspaper ads.

I appreciate Mr. Brownstein’s article about Fox News, although like many other media critics, he cannot help present the row over media bias as a tit-for-tat scenario, liberals condemning the slant of Fox while conservatives lament the slant of the rest of the media. This is a false parallel that validates an inherently twisted view of objectivity. As a liberal, I often enjoy listening to Democracy Now! or reading The Nation. However, I would never claim that these outlets represent unbiased news reporting, and have no desire to see all media reflect their narrow viewpoint. Fox News and its audiences, however, have by this point made it abundantly clear that their version of ‘fair and balanced’ is what Fox currently produces. As such, their pleas for media ‘objectivity’ will never be placated until the rest of the media looks and sounds like Fox News. If I were a cynic, I might think that the whole scheme is simply a way to keep those in the mainstream media anxious and accustomed to erring on the side of conservatism. Will reporters, producers, and editors continue to bend over backwards to appease a unappeasable minority, or will we finally realize that not all complaints are worth listening to?

Brownstein’s snide ranting against FOX News is based on the false assumption that mainstream media are objective. What he claims as proof of FOX’ bias is actually proof of its balance, and proof of the continuing Liberal bias of the mainstream media. Naturally, any media outlet approaching balance will appear conservative simply because one must move Right to balance a Left-leaning media. The ‘mainstream’ media have been pushing the Liberal agenda for decades, while suppressing or ridiculing the conservative view. But, now that FOX, among others, is providing some balance, Liberals are horrified at the “bias.” Irony is so ironic!

I had to laugh at Ronald Brownstein’s claim that Fox News is somehow less balanced and fair than the New York Times, which cheerfully publishes national security secrets, and blatantly lies about an immigration raid in an editorial, or the Washington Post, which suffers from the same sort of memory lapses Bill Clinton did when testifying under oath, or CNN, which got access to Saddam’s Iraq in exchange for not reporting the truth. Fox does have a more conservative bent than MSM, but it works very hard at having liberal, and even leftish guests on, which is probably why it draws a large number of viewers identifying themselves as liberals and independents. But if Democrats are too wimpy to engage in a debate merely hosted by Fox News, how do they expect to convince anyone they’ll have the guts to stand up to people with guns?

Brownstein’s take on the plight of Fox News (and the attendant reduction of the signifcance of Fox News as a legitimate broadcast entity) was on the money. However, the Congressional Black Caucas is not co-sponsoring any presidential debates with Fox. In fact, the CBC announced it was co-sponsoring a presidential debate in South Carolina with CNN.