Fox has a host of straw men who are supposed to argue the "liberal" side of things, and the gig seems to pay well enough both in money and fame that there is no shortage of applicants. I still think that self respecting Dems and lefties should skip Fox as a matter of principle, but I doubt doing so will have any impact on Fox's viewership. It might, however, remind the left and real journalists that left politicians actually have standards and values.

What's on Fox doesn't matter in and of itself, and we can't influence it anyway (Fox's viewers are getting what they want or they wouldn't watch it); what's on Fox that seeps into the "mainstream media" does, and is something I hope we can influence, by treating the network as what it is.

In times of peace, the wise man prepares for war. -- Horace

The blade itself incites to violence. -- Homer

J. McCutchen

Fox has a host of straw men who are supposed to argue the "liberal" side of things, and the gig seems to pay well enough both in money and fame that there is no shortage of applicants

I wouldn't call him a straw man but neither would I call my old boss Sen Johnston a liberal...I hear he gets those gigs from time to time.

Democrats have nothing to gain by showing up on FOX and everything to lose.

People who watch FOX are the Coulter fringe. They are brainwashed robots. They think we have found WMD in Iraq and Bush is the new Lincoln. These people would never vote for a Democrat.

By showing up on Democrats FOX are legitimizing it as a news organization, giving it credibility.

Democrats as a party have become like an abused wife begging "please don't hit me". This cycle of abuse must end. Cancelling the debates is a first step. They must do more. They must stop showing up on FOX.

Lou Dobbs was all over the bogus Pelosi plane story, well after he had to know the whole thing was a crock. He could also use his perch to debunk some of the endless stream of horsecrap that comes from the right, but he never does. Lou Dobbs is a showman, just like the rest of them. He has his bits of honesty -- more than most of them do, but at the end of the day the show must go on.

In times of peace, the wise man prepares for war. -- Horace

The blade itself incites to violence. -- Homer

Thanks for posting what we have been talking about for years.

Just Friday I posted this comment on KOS http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/10/21556/5045 :

[new] As I have been saying (9+ / 0-)
Recommended by:jackieca, wishingwell, mcfly, Krush, Magnifico, daeros, CenterLeft, moosely2006, spread the word IRAQ NAM
No Democrat should go on FOX ever.

No one who hates the crap that is put out by FOX should watch any of their channels or shows.

Just delete the FOX channels from your TV or remote controls. Never stop in to check what the shit is. The ads with disappear and their rating will drop, as will their revenues. Lost of revenues will force a change in management and programing.

Just kill the FOX and skin the sucker.

Demand the Truth in America

by EasyRider on Fri Mar 09, 2007 at 10:08:59 PM PST

Demand the Truth for America

Agreed. Dobbs seems to have a populist streak in him but he is a Republican, though recently he said he's a registered independent. His Republican credentials do seep through now and then as in the Pelosi case you mentioned. He also gave a platform to the brain addled ex Repub Congressman Curt Weldon and his "Able Danger" bullsh**.

I give Dobbs a plus for his populist views on wages, jobs, illegal immigration and the controversies surrounding corporate
America.

On another note; Ya gotta love Jack Cafferty, that old curmudgeon reminds me of H L Mencken. :)

If no one goes on Fox, and if no one watches Fox -- except of course the preterite [preliterate? - dk] Coulter community -- then ultimately Fox will change its slant.

True enough. And if cows and chickens stopped having babies, McDonald's would be forced to sell tunaburgers.

But as a statement of strategy, this is right up there with "what if they gave a war and nobody came?" It is impossible to organize a lasting and durable blacklist of Fox by the entire non-Coulter political community. Only some partisan Democrats would be willing to go along with the blacklist initially, and there would soon be defections from even those ranks from the non-frontrunning candidates who cannot afford to pass up national airtime.

It really and truly sucks that Rupert Murdoch controls such a major share of the media world. But he does. And demographic surveys show that Fox viewers, while predominantlty Republican, number a not insignificant proportion of Independents and Democrats in the mix. Failure to engage on the Fox playing field - no matter how unfair and uneven that playing field is - is just not an option.

This is really no different than the issue that has always faced every presidential primary and general elections candidate as they take their campaign from state to state. It is often the case that a major newspaper in that state is not "fair and balanced" but tilts heavily to one side both on their editorial pages and in the editorial policies governing their news covergage. If the paper's readership is very small and limited, there is always the option of avoiding all interviews with the paper's reporters. But generally a candidate does not have that option. The paper has a large readership, and they are going to cover the candidate anyway, with or without that candidate's participation.. The candidate has no choice but to engage, and do the best

This has to be one of the most self-indulgent and mindless blogospheric rants I have seen in a long time, and it is regrettable that it has influenced the national party to shoot itself in the foot.

That at least is what marketplace economics would dictate.

This presumes that Fox is primarily driven by pursuit of profits. I really don't think that is its mission. There are plenty of ideologically-driven publications that exist solely to pass on talking points, and which are quite content to lose money. The people that finance them view them as "loss leaders", since the politics pushed forward by this kind of media results in much greater benefits.

This has to be one of the most self-indulgent and mindless blogospheric rants I have seen in a long time.

Your reply is about five times as long as the original post.

Who is self-indulgent and mindless here? Who is ranting?

I'm not particularly interested in changing Fox News -- if that's the product they want to make and people want to watch it, fine with me -- but it is nice to see that Democrats are finally willing to say, "Well, no, I'm not going to go on your biased forum any more than President Bush is going to give a sitdown chat to 'The Nation' magazine." It's nice to see that people realize that they don't have to go on it just because it's on television.

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

On the October 18 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Fox News host Sean Hannity encouraged Democratic voters to "stay home on Election Day," adding that, "your vote doesn't matter anyway." He added that Democrats should not turn out to vote "for the sake of the nation" because Democrats' votes "won't change who occupies the White House" and Democratic "candidates have absolutely no idea how to win the war on terrorism." Hannity also appeared to predict he would be criticized for his remarks, stating: "This is how the press is going to report this: 'Hannity says Democrats should stay home on Election Day.' " He did not explain how that would be a mischaracterization of his comments.

Also during the program, Hannity misrepresented the Democratic Party platform, stating: "I don't think abandoning our troops on the battlefield or closing your eyes to enemy communications or listening to enemy communications in our country, or killing the economy, or supporting illegal immigration, I don't think that's something to run on."

via mydd

I really don't see the point. Yes, there are some Ind's and D's, but how will Democrats be portrayed in front of these viewers on Fox?

If they are if they are civic-minded people, they will watch the debate on another channel.

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Conservative columnist, Cal Thomas, opened a column with the following:

"Politically liberal and religiously secular people are having too good a time beating up on the Roman Catholic Church." Thomas made no case for the apparent hordes he infers, but that isn't always needed for conservatives in the media, for they know there are a large number of Americans who not only thrive on bad news, but who also need an enemy to make their lives more complete.

Many conservative talk show hosts, people like Rush Limbaugh, Ollie North, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly of FOX, and columnists like Thomas, and many at The Washington Times, etc. have a gift for exploiting lower-middle class resentment, envy, and bigotry for their own political purposes. Knowing how easily led some are, they offer their readers and listeners overly simplistic, mindless banalities in a complicated world.

Class warfare? Of course there's class warfare, it has been present in every society that ever existed, its a part of evolution of civilizations, and class warfare is what brought upon every revolution since the beginning of time as more and more of a society's wealth and power were accumulated in the hands of a select few. Sound familiar? But of course "class warfare" is presented to the public by conservatives as some nefarious liberal plot to make life harder on most, and sadly, too many people, needing an enemy, are quick to believe.

Stale bread? Clinton did it! Gasoline prices up? Environmentalists! Dick Cheney, when arguing for the Bush Energy Plan, told stories of environmental laws keeping refineries from being built, yet on C-SPAN the heads of five of the largest oil companies testifying before a Senate committe answered "No" when asked directly if lack of refinery capacity was a problem. All but one, the head of Marathon, said they got out of the refining business because the return on investment wasn't high enough. But don't expect to hear this on the Limbaugh Show.

Why if it weren't for the liberals we would all be neurosurgeons. Have you ever wondered
why conservative media types never present as the enemy, American corporations that set up dummy companies off shore in order to avoid paying taxes (think Enron etc.) but continue to tell you that 'you' pay too much? The Stanely Tool Corp. in CT.
attempted to do just that in a paper move to the Bahamas. No need to actually 'do' anything there except register as a corporation and have a mail drop. I guess this is what conservatives mean by "free markets".

A story in our County Newspaper, the Courier Times, told of how with Pennsylvania's "most stringent standards for egg farms, Salmonella cases dropped by about half during the 90s", while in Indiana, a more conservative state, "which relies on industry-run programs, saw its cases actually rise slightly in the first seven years......" I'm sure you won't hear this on FOX News or The O'Reilly Factor, both of which have an aversion to "government regulations." I'm sure too, the good people of Indiana are happy with their conservative but possibly Salmonella laced eggs.

Maybe I'm the only one who sees the irony of consevative radio, TV, or print personalities ranting about the "liberal media."

So, Mr. and Mrs. America, the next time you tune in to the conservative media,
and Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Thomas or George Will, etc. offer you your daily dose of bad news as they're rounding up the usual suspects; liberals, senior citizens, women, minorities, environmentalists, the lame, and the poor, as the 'enemy of the day', you can stand there like a ghost pointing an empty sleeve and smirking, or build the gallows the Roger Ailes types will use to hang you.....or maybe you can remember the words of Pogo:

"We has met the enemy and they is us."

I wasn't talking about Reed's minimalist contribution to the debate. I was talking about the hysterical response to the Ailes's comment that has been raging across the lefty blogosphere, and is frozen in a sort of "I hate Fox News more than you hate Fox News" one-upmanship. I regard much of that discussion as self-indulgent in that I see it as based on a totally unrealistic view of the US political amd media environment, and rooted in a petulant and self-destructive urge for purity.

And I see it as peculiarly connected with the blogosphere. The blogosphere tends to encourage an attitude like this: "if only I confine myself to a few prescious islands of discussions with my true friends, then none of the bad people can and hurt me." And there is a tendency to project that advice onto the Democratic field of candidates. But again, I am confident that none of the major Democratic candidates really think this way, and so I'm certain some realism will set in and this little uproar of blogospheric foot-stomping and breath-holding will blow over.

If Fox News presents its viewers with some pack up misleading insinuations about his past, Obama is going to go on Fox News to rebut them directly. And if Obama is getting free airtime on Fox, you know Clinton is going to want it. And if Clinton and Obama are there, all of the other Democratic candidates are going to want their shot as well. And then we'll just be back at square one.

There is much Democrats can do about Fox, the chief of which is getting elected.

Democrats can use their intelligence to figure out how to use their brief allotments of Fox airtime to subvert Fox's framing just a tiny bit, and get their message out to the 10% - 20% of occasional Fox viewers of whose minds are not made up and who are not doctrinaire Fox News zombies, but whose votes are still winable. In the fall of 2008 those are the votes that will matter most.

I don't think our candidates are as afraid of Fox and its unfair and unbalanced framing as is the blogosphere. I imagine these candidates, who are highly competitive individulas, are eager to march right into enemy territory and mix it up. Do you think Hillary Clinton is afraid of going toe-to-toe with that triple chinned, bellowing phone-sexer, Bill O'Reilly? Do you think Barack Obama is afraid of Roger Ailes? Why not give Obama the chance to use the Fox airwaves against themseselves and take a few shots at Roger Ailes in the process?

Over the long run, Fox will change somewhat in response to changes in the political culture, as they are forced to compete for market share in an evolving business. But those changes in the culture will be a long time in coming. One of the keys to changing that culture is to get Democrats elected. And as one of the major news networks in this country, Fox will have to be a part of that strategy.

There are plenty of ideologically-driven publications that exist solely to pass on talking points, and which are quite content to lose money.

FOX "news" lost money for years. NY Post loses around $25 million a year. Weekly Standard is a money losing publication.

Rupert Murdoch has a different cost benefit analysis. He sees his media organs as tools. He can use them to get a better deal from the govt and beat up on his enemies. At the end with the various deals he gets from politicians he supports it adds up to profit.

"Dobbs seems to have a populist streak in him but he is a Republican,"

Dobbs might be a republican but he is not a robot. He does not reflexively support anything and everything GOP does. When they pursue politicies he doesn't like he criticizes them. He has some principles.

FOX "news" is a GOP mouthpiece. They have no principles beyond power for the GOP. They shill for the GOP like robots.

"And so many wanted me to be shorter and funnier." Nice. Thanks for taking criticism in perspective. I appreciate it.

http://www.haberarts.com/

Agreed.

This has to be one of the most self-indulgent and mindless blogospheric rants I have seen in a long time, and it is regrettable that it has influenced the national party to shoot itself in the foot.

Your post was a good read until you added the above.

Yuh shudda quit wile yuh wuz ahed :)

Thank you, DanK, for saying the sensible thing, though it could indeed have been shorter, to wit: Fox is the top-rated news network. Boycotting them hurts YOU, not them. It's really that simple. And it's another example of the Democratic tactic, which has worked so well over the last 25 years, of only talking to people already on your side.

Yes, this is important V. I am entirely in favor of consumers voting with their remote controls and dollars and refusing to patronize Fox. And it is important to continue to put out the message that Fox is biased in its coverage, and let other voters and consumers know about this (if they haven't figured it out already). And when candidates appear on Fox they should be sure to mention in some way during their time that they believe Fox's coverage is biased.

My only objection is to candidate boycotts. So long as significant pools of persuadable voters are still watching Fox, candidates should go there to win them. And there still are significant numbers of "moderate" and "unaffiliated" voters watching Fox. Fox is still a major player in the media scene, and candidates cannot as yet afford to ignore it.

Forgetting for the moment the parts of my previous post that you didn't answer, where in that article doesn it say that those Democrats and Independents are persuadable, and furthermore, where's the evidence that a significant percentage of those viewers were persuaded to vote for Democrats by Democratic appearances on Fox News? Rupert Murdoch is a lot of things, but one thing I'd never accuse him of is stupidity. If inviting Democrats on Fox News helps them win elections, Rupert wouldn't be inviting Democrats on Fox News.

Additionally, why do you think attacking Fox News' frames on their turf is a better strategy than attacking their ratings and credibility? Attacking their ratings will reduce the number of people they reach directly; attacking their credibility will reduce the influence that seeps into the rest of the media (as Luigi Vampa pointed out). It's not apparent to me, nor do I believe a case has been made yet, that trying to refute right wing frames on the right wing's propaganda outfit is the best way to reduce Fox News' influence, let alone Democrats' best use of time and energy in order to win elections.

We were supposed to understand your antecedent to "this" referred to something not on this page?

Ordinarly, when a commenter says "This is a rant" in response to a post, the word "this" is understood to refer to the post in question.

I suggest you think about your usage of propositions without antecedents.

As I understand it, Air America is not on the air in Boston. Somehow, all of those major stations in the area owned by Clear Channel have not seen fit to tap into the liberal talk radio market.

Liberals are way behind in newtorking propaganda.

I was about to answer your question with the same post Rick did...

But, I think the answer is also that opinion matters in our politics. News is of course important, but op/ed helps people make sense of all the news. As you say, it helps set the agenda. The problem, of course, is the punditry at Fox get their basic facts wrong all the time, or simply smear Democrats. That's the problem with them.

Most Fox viewers believed Iraq had WMD long after we knew they didn't. A problem for a democracy, if people don't have very basic facts straight.  

Dissent Protects Democracy.

Your argument presumes that this is the only way to reach these voters, and that going via Fox will somehow give a Democrat a chance to present his arguments in a good light.

Of course I don't think it is the only way to reach these voters. But it is one important way. Fox is still a major player, and reaches millions of voters. Candidates can't really afford to ignore it, and I'm confident once this little Ailes joke episode blows over they will once again mix Fox appearances in with their other appearances.

You don't have to play along with any charades of any kind. Candidates should simply not pass up opportunities for free media, and need to get themselves out there before voters by whatever means possible. They go to VFW halls, chambers of commerce, garden parties, local news stations and local papers. Fox is just part of the mix.

You don't only go places where there are no enemies. In some venues, you may hope to win 50 out of every 100 people present. In others, you hope to win 1 out of 100. Also, sometimes you have to go into an unfriendly venue just to play defense. Your choice may be between (i) being portrayed in an unfavorable light in front of millions of viewers with nobody there to defend you and (ii) being portrayed in an unfavorable light in front of millions of viewers with a few seconds at least to minimize the damage.

During the upcoming New Hampshire primary, candidates will be humping their butts to spend an hour or two at a single house party in front of 30 or 40 voters. I can't imagine that they will then turn down five minutes of air time on either Fox, CNN or MSNBC - whoever's offering - where they will reach a few thousand New Hampshire voters in a much shoter span. The percentage of Democrats and unaffiliated voters who watch Fox is smaller than the percentages who watch those other two, but they are not insignificant.

Another factor in the case of Fox is network competition. Every time a Democratic candidate goes on O'Reilly and is treated badly, you can count on Keith Olbermann to pick up on the appearance and go after O'Reilly, with whom he has a running rivalry - and in the process present the Democratic candidate in a favorable light. I suspect we will see Democratic candidates appearing frequently on shows like O'Reilly to compete for the crown of "Top O'Reilly Ball Buster". This might especially be the case with candidates lower down the list who need to generate some notoriety. Fox loves to make itself part of the story, and that can be expoloited.

My advice certainly does extend to Obama. Not that he needs it, since I have no doubt that Obama will make frequent appearances on Fox to respond directly himself to whatever Fox commentators say about him. he will relish such opportunities, and he will win more often than he loses.

 Right Wing Media Network

Then there is the conservative media machine, which operated at full power to get George W. Bush re-elected in 2004. Conservatives and their allies were able to magnify their message through a network of right-leaning TV and radio channels, including Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel, which provided Bush and Co. with a 24/7 campaign infomercial - for free. Here was a news network with more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined, constantly repeating, often verbatim, the messages out of the White house and the Bush campaign.

More help for Bush came from the far-less known religious broadcasters. "Under the radar screen, the Christian Church community has created a formidable electronic media infrastructure and now plays a major role influencing public opinion," says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. The religious media are producing and distributing "news," commentary and cultural guides, and their reach and influence are undeniable.

    Bush's electoral victory proved that the conservatives have achieved dominance over the flow of information to the American people - so much so that even a well-run Democratic campaign stands virtually no chance for national success without major changes in the media system. "The outcome of Election 2004 highlights perhaps the greatest failure of the Democratic/liberal side in American politics: a refusal to invest in the development of a comparable system for distributing information that can counter the Right's potent media infrastructure," according to Parry. "Democrats and liberals have refused to learn from the lessons of the Republican/conservative success."   

As veteran

Every so often someone writes a paragraph which I envy and think "I wish I wrote that". This is one of those occasions.

Mike, thank you for the kind words.

DanK,I agree with your outlook, but in practice I think it is essential that the Fox commentary that succeeds the debate not be Hannity-Colmes in its imbalance; if Fox gives half commentary to liberal/progressives then you are entirely right. If it prefers to use its usual Republican propagandists to slam the candidates, we probably benefit more from exposing Fox than we lose by not having the debate on Fox. I do not know the precise cost/benefits analysis; I think the recent controversy about the Nevada debate helped the liberal/progressive side significantly. What is your evaluation?

Luigi, I agree it is a very good thing to talk about Fox and how to approach it, and to that extent the controversy has helped the Democratic side. I can't say whether the controversy has helped with the broader public or not.

I don't think we can really control how Fox spins the Democratic race, whether they are broadcasting debates or not. If there is a debate anywhere, Fox broadcasters are going to be there afterward spinning it in Fox's favored direction. This will happen one way or another. I think it is more imporant to focus on the hour or so when the candidates themselves will get to speak. I'd rather have have Fox viewers watching one hour of Democratic debate followed by another hour of hostile Fox spin than watching an hour of swift-boating followed by the same hostile spin.

You can never have 100% control over your message. The cost of getting the message out is to cede some control over to those who deliver it. Sometimes the deliverer's main motive for delivering the message is to trash you afterwards. But at least some of the message got out before the trashing came - and they are going to trash you one way or another.

I have no trouble with Democrats appearing on FOX as long as they don't allow the FOX host to speak over them, constantly interrupt them, keep them from misinterpreting what the Democrat says, and maybe most importantly; NOT vacillating.

It's foolish to think that's what would happen during a debate.

But in any case, what happens when a candidate is insulated from dissenting views, hecklers, etc.? They sure don't become a better candidate. If I were running (ha!) I'd be on there every week, getting road tested and battle ready by having to defend my ideas against the opposition.

Even if I was subjected to blatant abuses like having my posts rated as trolls and spams-- oh wait, that's TPMCafe, not Fox.

.> It's foolish to think that's what
> would happen during a debate.

Since that is (a) exactly what happened in the last Democrat (sic) Party debate that Fox sponsored (b) the president of Fox News essentially said that was what they planned to do this time too

why is thinking it will happen again "foolish"?

sPh

In your purely binary world, perhaps.

I think Fox's respective field can best be demonstrated

By This 

aMike

Generalizing, not being "blinded." It's just numbers. I don't think there are enough of the voters you describe. I'm won't deny they're watching. 

Do you think that's a substantial part of the Fox audience? Swing voters?

Dissent Protects Democracy.

You are baaaaad!

Jan Knaus

I know...

Fun, though.  :-)  It took me quite a while to find the perfect cow flop.  Tough job, but someone had to do it.

aMike