Fox (Not-So)News

When you’re in a hospital, your choices typically become limited. Indeed, most of your options will tend to come from the mass market, generic side of things. That’s how I found myself watching Fox News again for the first time in a very long time, because that is what was being offered. I found the experience depressing. Apparently, the good people at Fox are trapped in a bubble that has them reliving 2010 all over again.

The show opened with the anchorettes pulling their skirts up another three inches and the boy anchors practicing their outraged faces... grrr... grrr! They immediately dove into the vital stories of the day:

● Why does Hollywood hate a genuine American film like American Sniper, whaled the anchor! (I guess being nominated for Best Picture is evidence of hate?). A panel was introduced and they all accused Hollywood of anti-American and anti-military bias, but provided no support for these assertions other than their supposed “hatred” for films like this... again, no support was offered. Then they finished by bizarrely telling us that “this the type of film Hollywood and its liberal base” won’t make... even though they did make the film and even nominated it for big awards.

● Like lightening, we suddenly switched to the “story” of a bright young GOP presidential candidate named Marco Rubio. The whole story entailed Charles Krauthammer stating on another Fox show that he guesses Rubio has a 30% of being the nominee. That was the whole story.

● Next, they told us the GOP has a new plan to stop ISIS, and since Obama hasn’t jumped on board this plan within the first few days, the talking heads became outraged that “Obama just won’t do anything to stop ISIS!” They then bolstered their opinions by noting that Obama promises to close Gitmo, a promise he first made a decade ago and has repeated every year since.... and never did anything about.

● Then they turn to the smugrage of the day. Apparently, some school lunch server sent a nasty note to the parent of a child over the contents of the child’s lunch. What prompted this was the massive amount of junk in the lunch. Fox, however, presented this differently. First, they noted that the parent is a doctor, as if that puts them beyond reproach rather than increasing the reproach for the horrible lunch. Then the anchor looked at the obviously obese child and he announced: “You look healthy.” Really? He then asked if she ate this every day, which she said she did, and he declared that it looked delicious. He finished by expressing his outrage that a school official would tell a parent that their fat-inducing lunch, which is unacceptable under school policies, would dare say such a thing!

● Finally, we came to Romney. A panel was called to discuss what his run could mean. They never really talked about him though. Instead, this group concluded that this represented a rare moment for conservative Republicans... yep. See, Romney, Christie and Bush will split the “powerful moderate vote” three ways, allowing a genuine conservative like Rubio to “finally” give “conservative a voice.”

Interestingly, they seemed to assume a world in which conservatives have never had a way to get moderates to listen to them... as if the Tea Party or Religious Right or Goldwater or Reagan or Newt never existed.

What really struck me watching this half hour of Fox News was how completely blind they have been to the last ten years. Their analysis basically assumes there was never a Tea Party and they recommend that conservatives band together to rise up and take over the party, as if the last election wasn’t the undoing of that very thing. And didn’t Rubio rise and then explode on the fickle shores of genuineness?

Even more, though, it struck me that Fox is trapped in the petty politics of the past. These same stories first appeared on Fox in similar forms almost ten years ago. What’s more, look at the utter lack of news value to any of these. Some lunch lady sent a nasty note. So what? How does that affect anyone other than those two people? Should we designate Rubio as the frontrunner based on the opinion of one of our anchors? Talk about fabricating stories. So the party is dominated by moderates who only lose when they split the vote three ways, yet Fox asserts that the public wants conservatism?

This is the most tired of tired scripts. I almost expected stories related to Clinton’s infidelities, White Water, and the response to the OJ verdict. This is what a worn out propagandists looks like... not a news service.

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Megyn Kelly Open Thread

I swear, I was going to put together a very nice post today involving history, economics, etc., but unfortunately, the mental concentration required is very hard to achieve when your whole digestive tract is giving you the finger. So you'll take this low-content post instead and like it. AND LIKE IT.

So if you missed the news yesterday, Fox has announced Megyn Kelly will be taking over the 9 p.m. ET slot from Sean Hannity this fall, which will cause something of a shake-up in their primetime schedule yada yada yada. Personally, I like it. Nothing against Hannity, but his shtick has gotten a bit old and it's nice to see some fresh air in this important ratings slot.

But more importantly, I think this is a useful marketing move for Fox. Kelly's no liberal, but she gives the impression of being a journalist first and a pundit second, and she enjoys about as much personal popularity as any of the channel's hosts. It would appear, then, that Fox is hoping to reach out beyond its usual audience to people more in the center by sticking into its evening shouty-time someone who can be plausibly considered impartial, and thus weakening the claim that it is a "right-wing noise machine." Good on it.

On that note, what are some other moves you might suggest, to Fox or other conservative news outlets, to reach and win over a more mainstream audience? (FYI, "stop being so stupid and knee-jerk right-wing" is not an answer.) Otherwise, consider this an open thread of necessity. And remember, I'm not ignoring your posts, I'm just probably throwing up.

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Fox News: Left Turn For Circus Maximus

There was an interesting article yesterday by Howard Kurtz about an interview given by Roger Ailes, the Grand Pooh-Bah of Fox News. It’s interesting on several levels. First, Fox is apparently moving left in its coverage. Secondly, it really highlights why conservatives should not trust Fox.

One of the most striking things Ailes said was that Fox is undergoing a “course correction” toward the left. Apparently, Fox executives think the entire network took a hard right turn after Obama’s election and “as the Tea Party’s popularity fades” they are shifting back to the center. Oh, where to begin.

First, there was no hard right turn. The types of stories Fox covers and the slant they put on them was no different in 2009 than it was in 2006 or 2002. Sure, they hired Glenn Beck, but he didn't dictate what the network would cover. He simply provided one opinion show. By that token, MSNBC is right wing because they hired Joe Scarborough.

Secondly, the presumption that the Tea Party is fading sits exactly at the core of why conservatives should be leery of Fox. Fox only cares about drama. . . not truth, not politics. To achieve that, it tries to shoehorn every issue into an easy storyline with clear winners and losers, so it can hire attractive women to represent each side and slap it out on television. The only thing missing is the Jello.

The Tea Party is an idea, not an organization. It is twenty million Americans all doing their own thing with the same goal in mind: change our government. It has no leaders, it does not engage in political theater. In many ways, it is akin to communist cells. And that cannot be squeezed into Fox’s format. But Fox tried. Rather than reporting what was really going on and helping people understand the Tea Party, it instead appointed fake leaders, like Michelle Bachmann, Dick Armey, and Glenn Beck to make its storylines work. Not surprisingly, those people failed to catch on. So now Fox is declaring the Tea Party finished because Fox's storylines didn't work and are played out. . . without ever considering that it has completely misrepresented what the Tea Party is.

This is why you should not trust Fox, because it does not care about presenting conservatives fairly, it cares about using conservatives to sell its drama, and it will twist conservatives to fit its needs.

Third, if Fox is to be a legitimate news source (as it pretends) then it should not be setting any sort of course. It should take the news as it comes without comment and bias. Indeed, Ailes himself complains about the bias of the other networks and the AP: “the AP is so far over the hill, they’ve become left wing, antiwar. Gotta watch their copy.” That’s certainly true. But let me ask, why then does FOX do nothing more than repeat AP stories? Why doesn't it gather its own news? And if bias is bad, why does Ailes admit in the article that he's advised so many of these candidates, including Romney, Perry and others?

Moreover, listen to what happened prior to the debate. Hours before the last debate, Ailes’s team sat in the auditorium plotting how to trap the candidates. And yes, “trap” is the right word. Listen to what Chris Wallace planned to do to trap Perry to generate “fireworks”:

“[I'll ask] 'How do you feel about being criticized by some of your rivals as being too soft on illegal immigration?' Then I go to Rick Santorum: 'is Perry too soft?'”

This is inappropriate. There is nothing wrong with planning an interview question. In fact, a well-prepared journalist needs to think of things they will ask in advance. BUT, this goes beyond preparing a question. This adds the element of using Rick Santorum to sneak attack Perry. This is akin Jerry Springer bringing out a surprise guest. This is trying to make the news, not report it.

Rush rightly criticized this: “Fox wants these people to tear each other up.” And what did Ailes say in response? “Because [people] see conservative thinking on our channel and don’t see it on any other channel, they think we’re in someone’s pocket.” Well, no. Because you call yourself “news,” we figure you would act like journalists, not game show hosts. Apparently, we were mistaken.

Frankly, none of this is new.

Fox has been a fraud since its inception. The way Fox works is simple. They buy stories off the wire from the Associated Press and ask their anchors to spin those stories to the right. That's all they do. To add excitement, they hire telegenic guests to slug it out. That’s not journalism. . . it’s a game show.

And it's not conservative either. Fox's conservatism is the conservatism of big, crony corporate socialists. It is the voice of K Street. And now it wants to turn our primary into reality television. Enough!


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As an aside, according to a Zogby poll, Herman Cain is now the leader at 28% with Republican voters.

Cain: 28%
Perry: 18%
Romney: 17%
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The Death Of Fox News??

Never let a crisis go to waste, especially somebody else’s crisis. That seems to be the motto of this administration. The latest example involves the implosion of News Corp.’s News of the World. Indeed, the Democrats are pulling out all the stops to use this to remove Rupert Murdoch from the helm of News Corp. and thereby, they hope, get FOX News under liberal control. Here’s what you need to know.

The scandal began when it was revealed that reporters at the 168 year old British tabloid News of the World had been hacking into phone accounts of famous celebrities and politicians to find dirt. This violates multiple British laws.

Things recently hit fever pitch when it was learned that the News of the World had bribed police for information AND had hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims and into the phone of a murdered British teenager (Milly Dowler). The outrage that followed forced the paper to close and led to the resignation of the latest editor, Rebekah Brooks, and of Les Hinton, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, who was an editor of the News of the World during part of the period in question -- there is no evidence of wrongdoing at the Journal. This weekend, Brooks was arrested and London's police chief resigned.

The scandal reaches Rupert Murdoch because Murdoch acquired the News of the World in 1969 and made it part of his News Corp. empire. That empire includes the New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among others. These are largely conservative organizations and, thus, the Democrats hate them with the passion of a 1,000 low-carbon suns. And with this scandal, the Democrats see a chance to attack their favorite bogeymen. Indeed, they are hoping to parlay the News of the World scandal into an attack on Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and Murdoch himself, who they hope to dislodge from the ownership of these organizations.

To that end, Eric Holder has announced that the Obama-controlled Department of Justice intends to investigate whether the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post were engaged in similar hacking. Can you say... fishing expedition? He also claims he will investigate whether 9/11 victims’ phones were hacked. Keep in mind, by the way, this is the same Justice Department that routinely turns a blind eye to any and all crimes committed by leftist groups or this administration.

Other Democrats are jumping in as well. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has launched an online petition to demand that “Murdoch come clear.” A group of leftist “journalists” has launched a similar effort. John Podesta, the president of the Centre for American Progress, a leftist crackhouse, claims: “This is not one rogue editor. This is an empire that was built on a set of journalistic ethics that’s beginning to explode and unravel. They were routinely bribing public officials.” Of course, he has no evidence. But then, if anyone should know about bribery and a lack of ethics it would be Podesta, who helped Obama transition to the White House.

This is standard liberal crappola, and mainly it’s just liberals playing with themselves. But there is reason for concern.

The SEC (also under Obama’s control) could attack News Corp. for its subsidiary engaging in bribery of the British police, which would violate foreign bribery laws, specifically the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. A violation of the FCPA might require Murdoch to resign or even give up his ownership.

Also, under federal law, holders of television and radio licenses have to undergo character tests to show that they are fit to be media owners. If the SEC (or the Justice Department) finds a violation of the FCPA, the FCC (also under Obama’s control) could deny Murdoch his television and radio licenses, which would again result in him surrendering control.

At this point there is no evidence that Murdoch did anything wrong and he is doing all the right things. They closed the paper that had clearly spun out of control. The editors directly responsible, whether they had knowledge or not, have resigned. And his papers have issued a public apology. The committee that monitors The Wall Street Journal has already said they have no evidence of wrongdoing at the Journal or at Dow Jones, the Journal’s parent company (which is owned by News Corp.). And it’s unlikely Fox was involved because, frankly, they’ve never reported anything that didn’t come over the wire.

But doing the right thing does not insulate you from an aggressively partisan government. So expect Team Obama to pull out all the stops to use the power of government to shut down the one part of the MSM that isn’t in the tank for them.

This could get interesting.

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Fox News: A Healthy Dose of Skepticism

One of the most critical traits required of any journalist, lawyer, investigator, scientist, or anyone else whose job is to examine evidence, listen to conflicting stories, and make sense of what they find is a little thing called “skepticism.” Skepticism is what causes you to question the things that just don’t seem right, and to check the things that seem too good to be true. But journalists have abandoned skepticism, as shown by their reaction to a recent Fox New directive.

At one point, journalists realized that skepticism was a necessary part of their jobs. Indeed, this principle was summed up perfectly in a statement attributed to the City News Service of Chicago: “If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.” But modern journalists no long respect this axiom.

Mike Vick is reformed! Sure, his apologies were not apologies and his mea culpa was more of a mea accusa everyone elsa, but the NFL says he’s reformed. Lindsey Lohan’s publicist says she’s sober. Sure, she ends up in rehab more often than most people go to the bathroom and she’s constantly photographed coming out of clubs drunk, but her publicist sounded very sure.

What do you mean the Democrats aren’t the party of the working class? They say they are. Sure, they get their money from rich lawyers and Wall Street, and they do favors for banks, but they say they don’t really like those people. What do you mean Obama isn’t the ideal leader? Sure, he has no educational or professional record and his first book reads like someone else wrote it, but he looks nice and he reads well. . . and all the Democrats say he’s a genius.

You get my point? The media has reached a point where skepticism is no longer considered part of the job. They will report any assertion as true if the assertion comes from the right people, even when it’s patently obvious the asserted facts could not be true. And they will uncritically parrot any conclusion, no matter how unsupported or how illogical, so long as it comes from the right people.

Indeed, the closest they come to skepticism is cynicism, but that’s not the same thing. What separates cynicism from skepticism, is that skepticism involves a thorough process of starting from a default position of doubting all that you are told, and then vigorously trying to prove or disprove the assertions. . . letting the facts fall where they may. It has no bias.

But cynicism, on the other hand, is just an opinion and it is pure bias. Cynicism takes from skepticism the idea that simple assertions cannot be trusted, but rather than seeking to prove or disprove those assertions, it stops at disbelief. Thus, if you do not trust the source, then you cast doubt on the source’s data, their motives and intentions, their capabilities, and their seriousness. And that is exactly how modern journalists behave, not with skepticism, but with cynicism. Indeed, they no longer seem capable of true skepticism, just cynicism directed at the people they don’t trust, i.e. Republicans, and blind faith in the people they do trust, i.e. Democrats and other leftists.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise how leftist journalists have responded to the news that on December 8, 2009, Fox News Washington Bureau Chief Bill Sammon issued a memo to his reporting staff telling them to be skeptical about assertions of global warming. Here’s what he said:

“Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data, we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies.”

Their response should be, “excellent! We, as journalists, must be skeptical of all things and this fits perfectly with our credo.” But that’s not how they responded. Instead, they called this directive “conservative spin” and they ranted furiously that Fox would not bow at the global warming alter. The horror, the horror that journalists would treat disputed facts as disputed!

How sad is it that the same profession that refused to believe that Presidents never sanction breakings and enterings, that the Pentagon never lied, that corporations never committed crimes, that scientists never faked data to get contracts, that colleges never paid their athletes. . . would suddenly be outraged that other journalists have dared question disputed “science” that has been exposed as the domain of liars, cheats and data-fakers.

The fact that these “journalists” react this way should tell you all you need to know about your ability to trust their reporting and their analysis. It is yet another black mark in the eye of modern journalism.

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Media Campaign Contributions

You may have heard the big liberal brouhaha about Fox News’ parent corporation giving one million dollars to the Republican Governors Association. Total outrage, right? Proof of right-wing bias at Fox, right? But then the outrage suddenly disappeared. In fact, the story vanished. Any guesses why? How about this. . .

When word hit the street that News Corp. had donated one million dollars to the RGA, everyone pounced. All the networks ran with the story, as did liberal bastions like the New York Times and every other liberal slag heap with journalistic pretensions. The Democrats pounced on this as well. Nathan Daschle, the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, even called on Fox News to put a disclaimer on its coverage of gubernatorial campaigns.

Daschle, by the way, is the son of rich lobbyist and former Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who couldn’t get into the Obama Administration because he hadn’t paid his taxes and because he earned five million dollars from lobbying for health care groups. Despite this, Daschle eventually ended up being hired for behind the scenes work for the Democrats on the health care issue. And now his son is in the business. . . I guess the rotten apple doesn't roll far from the barrel.

In any event, this story didn’t last. Why? Because something went wrong on the way to Outrage Avenue. Indeed, the parade took a wrong turn and found itself on Hypocrite Street instead. See, it turns out that 88% of the contributions of the employees of ABC, CBS and NBC were made to the Democratic Party. Indeed 1,160 network employees -- executives, on-air personalities, producers, reporters, editors, etc. -- gave a total of $1,020,816 to Democratic campaigns in the 2008 election cycle. By comparison, only 193 of their employees gave to Republicans ($142,863)

Hypocritical Democratic journalists? Wow, I never saw that one coming!

Also, it turns out that News Corp. gives to both parties.

So there's no story after all? Actually, there is, but it's not one they want to talk about. The real scandal here is that ANY journalist would donate to either political party. They call themselves the Fourth Estate and they claim a nearly official role as the watchdog of our government. They even have special protections under the law to allow them to perform that role, i.e. protections against slander and liable laws and the right to protect their sources. Yet, if they truly are to hold such a role, then they should be non-partisan. That means no political contributions. . . no journalists married to politicians or campaign directors for politicians (and recusals if you are). . . and no more revolving door where journalists move back and forth between the profession and Democratic campaigns and administrations.

The real story here is the scandal of the entire profession having interwoven itself with the political establishment.

And if they won’t unweave themselves, then maybe Daschle actually has a good idea (a first for his family). Maybe journalists should be required to put up a disclaimer that identifies how much money they, their producer, their writers, their editors, and anyone else who worked on the story gave to each side any time they do a political story. Journalists pushed to get such rules forced on corporations, and corporations don’t even claim to be unbiased. So if this is good for corporations, then I would say it’s more than good for journalist. In fact, I would call it necessary.

And that’s the way it is this August 30, 2010.

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Journalism Is Dead

With Glenn Beck, not the mainstream media, exposing Van Jones for the rest of us, it might be the appropriate time for a little rant against the state of modern journalism. How to put this: “Journalism Is Dead.” Yep, that about sums it up. And I have particular anger for Fox News.

Modern journalism is in a bad state. Though, to be fair, most of what ails modern journalism has ailed it since journalism first began:

• Modern journalists are biased. True enough, and when I get the chance, I will put together an article showing you just how biased. But journalistic bias is nothing new. Indeed, at one time, journalists were openly biased. When you pick up the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, for example, you’re looking at a paper that was founded as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party.

So even though the New York Times is a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, that’s nothing new -- they’re just less honest about it. Same thing with the Associate Press announcing just prior to the election that they would no longer present all views “uncritically,” but will instead put their own spin “on the news”. And while this may represent a change of official policy, it certainly won’t change the practice, which has involved spinning for as long as I can remember.

• Charges of being co-opted are nothing new either. The Founders called for a free press. But other countries have not been so noble. Pravda means “truth” in Russian, but you would have been hard pressed to find much truth coming from Pravda during the cold war. The Pentagon periodically gets caught paying journalists to present favorable opinions on its behalf. And while corporations now dominate journalists, this is not so different than the days when Randolph Hearst ran his newspaper empire with an iron fist.

Modern journalists are also an easily co-opted group. The Washington Post tried to use its connections to sell “off the record” private meetings between the rich and powerful and those with too much money. White Houses have learned to manipulate the press corp as well by granting special access. . . hello ABC. The NFL, a master at manipulating journalists, dispenses tickets, interviews, and access to keep its journalists in line -- when they don’t outright hire them. Corporations have gotten very good at using journalists for their purposes as well. Maria Bartiromo of CNBC got in trouble when it was revealed that she accepted favors (like flights on private jets) from the same people she reported on. And CNBC has started pimping for sponsors, unless you want to believe their repeated “spontaneous” sales pitches for Gap jeans are actually news.

At this point, modern journalists are little more than press agents for the people they cover.

• Charges of sensationalism are not new either. Sure modern journalists try to create crises and false urgency to sell their work and they often trade in salacious details rather than relevant fact, but that’s all been done before. The phrase “yellow press journalism,” which fanned the flames or populist resentment to begin the Spanish American war, was hardly meant as a compliment.

The Real Problem Is Journalistic Laziness

So what is different today? Frankly, journalists have gotten lazy. How else do you explain the media, with its vast resources and supposed training and drive for the truth, being scooped repeatedly by bloggers? How else do you explain allowing plagiarized work to appear in a paper like the NYT day after day for so long without any editor noticing? How do you explain journalists who don’t know what they are talking about and don’t take the time to inform themselves?

You do know that you really can’t trust anything they tell you, right? As anyone who has ever been involved in an incident that ended up getting press coverage can attest, the journalist is often the least knowledgeable person in the room, both when they arrive on scene and when they leave. And few facts survive the journey through the journalist’s mind to reach the work itself, if they ever made it into the mind in the first place. Indeed, in my experiences with journalists, I have been shocked to see how poorly the journalists understood the events about which they reported and opined, and how little they cared.

And frankly, modern journalists are a strangely uninquisitive lot. They don’t know and they don’t want to know. Why? Maybe because the more you know about something, the more you realize just how much more you don’t know. Perhaps, it’s easier to remain ignorant of our ignorance. After all, ignorance is bliss.

So how does this manifest itself? It manifests itself in many ways. Stories are shallow and often wrong on fundamental levels. Journalists do little work to cultivate contacts, which used to be the lifeblood of journalism. Instead, they read the AP wire or scan the net. Place a quick mid-night phone call that won’t be returned in two rings, and bamo, you have a story and a failure to deny the story: good to go! Journalists no longer even wait to confirm their stories with a second source, which used to be the fundamental rule of journalism. Instead, they just add the magic words “is being reported” to let you know that this news is really only rumor. And when was the last time you heard of real investigate journalism?

When I look at modern journalism, the writing is poor, the research is worse or non-existent, and the reasoning is laughable. Not a week goes by that I can’t find some article that contains such obvious logical inconsistencies that the journalist should have realized their “facts” were impossible. Even when I read a “reputable” magazine like the Economist, I marvel at how easily I can rip up article after article without even researching a single fact. Your names are wrong, your dates are wrong, your numbers don’t add up. You just claimed an average rate that exceeds the population size. You claim that no one raised and objection, right before quoting someone who objected. Think people.

My Problem With Fox “News”

So what bothers me about Fox News? Fox News had a unique opportunity and they blew it. When Fox burst onto the scene, conservatives flocked to Fox in drove because they were sick of hearing their views ridiculed on each of the other channels. At that point, Fox had a chance to re-define journalism.

Fox could have changed the face of modern journalism. Fox could have forced journalists everywhere to start dusting off their sense of journalistic integrity and to stop being so damn lazy. But they didn’t.

Fox could have teamed up with a good reporting unit like the Washington Times and started to give us hard hitting news. They could have easily drawn in people like John Stossel and asked him to perform the kind of investigative journalism that he has done so well throughout the years -- hard facts, gathered through traditional means and verified, fairly presented, with logic and reasoning and without political bias. But they didn’t.

Did you wonder what life was really like on the streets of Baghdad when all that CNN would show you was Marines being killed? How about an investigation into what caused the banking crisis? Who was responsible? What is China doing in Africa (future article coming up on that one)? Did you even know they were in Africa? How about the Saudis? Does ethanol make sense?

Well, Fox didn't investigate (though their anchors happily gave you their opinions). Fox does not produce its own news, it just reads wire service reports. You can get those on-line a lot quicker and a lot more accurately (Fox shortens the reports to keep them simple). Fox does not do investigative journalism -- other than puff pieces. They will never uncover a government fraud or expose a defective missile system, because they just don’t do that kind of work. And they barely know other countries exist.

Fox doesn’t bring in experts to enlighten you, it brings in combatants to snipe at each other for thirty seconds before the segment ends. Fox News is news for those with attention deficit disorder. It is for people who want to hear someone argue for their side, it is not for people who are looking to learn the truth. It is talk radio, done on television by well-endowed anchors and anchorettes. And we conservatives accept this because there is no alternative.

Now, I'm not saying that the other networks are better, they're not. But that doesn't change the fact that Fox is offering very shallow product to us. It also doesn’t change the fact that Fox is squandering a golden opportunity here. If they tried harder, they could redefine news and give the words "journalistic integrity" some meaning again. They could give us the free press that a democracy needs. They could enlighten us about the world around us, about our politics, about each other. They could tell us the things we need to know to make good decisions. And most importantly, they could give us a source of news that we could trust. But that would be hard.

* end of rant *

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