I always get a chuckle out of the people who get all worked up and red-faced and declare “Fox News is so biased! It is beyond me how they can even consider themselves a news organization!”
Sure, Fox News is biased. It leans way to the right and is stocked with many blowhard conservative reporters/personnel. But is it anything to get mad about? Is it a threat to Democracy in the U.S.? Should the whole station be taken off the air? Of course not.
Obviously, many of the people who whine and snivel about Fox News are people who tend to lean to the left. These people are great about calling out a conservative news organization that does not take the form of a model station that reports right down the middle of the political spectrum, but they are totally blind in calling out the myriad of other stations that do the exact same thing with the only difference being of where they lean to.
They are blind to the fact that MSNBC is just as guilty of spewing out the exact same venom in support of their agenda as Fox news is of theirs. They are blind to the fact that the chief political correspondent of ABC News (George Stephanopoulos) was a senior advisor to President Clinton. They are blind to the fact that CBS had to fire their longtime Evening News Anchor (Dan Rather) because of his consistent left-leaning bias and his botched coverage on documents that were supposed to prove that President George W. Bush evaded National Guard duty. They are blind to the fact that arguably the most popular newspaper in the world, the New York Times, is notorious for its liberal slant.
To say that this country is controlled by a liberal media is an understatement. I feel that the people who are so bothered by Fox News live in a different world. They feel that their views are the God-given truth. Because of this, when these people watch/listen to/read their preferred left leaning media outlet they feel they are getting a fair and balanced take on the news. Then, when they flip over to Fox News they encounter a totally different (wrong/evil) take on the world’s events and immediately dismiss FN as a biased station.
Open your eyes people. With what is available out there, it is very difficult to get an agenda-free presentation of the news. But who am I kidding? People really don’t want that in the first place. Most of the time, we are going to go with the presentation that mostly conforms to our views. The pro-choice, college student hippie is going to watch MSNBC while the gun rights, Bush-backing hillbilly is going to watch Fox News. So be it! This outcome is fine as long as people don’t try to justify their biased news station by bashing someone else’s biased news station.
Before I end this post I want to bring up one more thing I notice from these people who have heart attacks just thinking about Fox News: Many of them develop personal vendettas against the on-air talent at the station. It seems as if they feel like Bill O’Reilly is such a bad person with misguided views that he is going to jump out of the screen and into their living room and slit their throats. Come on, get a grip. People like a Bill O’Reilly or a Sean Hannity are paid lots of money to have strong opinions. They do what they are paid to do very well. It is funny, I am convinced that the reason why Fox News is the number one rated cable news organization is because they effectively attract both the people who agree with them and the people who find what they have to say repulsive. Lots of these liberals can’t look away from Fox News! They like getting their chains pulled. I can honestly visualize O’Reilly and Hannity walking into work together and one of them boasting to the other, “I bet I can piss off more people than you today.”
Bill O’Reilly is no dummy. Sean Hannity is no dummy. Dick Morris is no dummy. These people understand that they are supposed to be controversial. When these people go home at night I doubt they take themselves as seriously as they do on the air. In fact, I bet once they step outside of the studio their whole persona changes. They did their job. They earned their paycheck and they earned their station ratings.
I doubt Fox News haters will realize that they are just feeding the beast. Don’t Blink.
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