Liberals, It's Time To Transition out of Our Fox "News" Fixation ---By Frank Rich

[kpete]

Stop Beating a Dead Fox
The conservative news channel’s only real power is in riling up liberals, who by this point should know better.

By Frank Rich Published Jan 26, 2014


................

The most interesting news about Fox News is that for some years now it has been damaging the right far more than the left. As a pair of political analysts wrote at Reuters last year, “When the mainstream media reigned supreme, between 1952 and 1988, Republicans won seven out of the ten presidential elections,” but since 1992, when “conservative media began to flourish” (first with Rush Limbaugh’s ascendancy, then with Fox), Democrats have won the popular vote five out of six times. You’d think they’d be well advised to leave Fox News to its own devices so that it can continue to shoot its own party in the foot.

...............

The notion that Fox News has been defeated would seem absurd if you judge solely by the numbers. The year just ended was the network’s twelfth in a row as the most-watched cable-news network. Its number of total viewers surpasses CNN and MSNBC combined. As the longtime Rupert Murdoch–Fox News watcher Michael Wolff wrote of the cumulative 2013 ratings, “Nobody has come close to competing” with Ailes. “He gets larger, everybody else gets lesser.” But as Wolff also observed, “The cable audience, for all the attention heaped on it for its theoretical political sway, is not that large.” To put it mildly. As the overwhelming leader in its field, Fox draws just over a million viewers in prime time—a ­pittance and a niche next to even the ever-declining network newscasts, of which the lowest rated (CBS Evening News) still can attract a nightly audience as large as 8 million

...........

More than in any political credo, Ailes believes most of all in the power of television, the medium he grew up in and mastered as a political tool well before many of his competitors. But as his viewers were gobsmacked by the reelection of Obama, so he has been blindsided by the fading of television as the dominant news medium. About new media Ailes knows very little and has never wanted to learn much. When MSNBC emerged in 1996, he mocked it not because of its political identity (it hadn’t chosen one yet) but because of its connection to Microsoft; he wisecracked that Fox News was not in business to “tell people to turn off their television set and go to their computer to get more information.” He failed to invest in new technology in the years that followed, and by his own account he doesn’t “do a lot of web at Fox News.” As the McCain and Romney campaigns were successively confounded by the Obama forces’ technological prowess, so Ailes has been repeatedly ambushed and frustrated by new media, from Gawker, which tortured him with gossipy revelations from a “Fox Mole,” to Google, which earned his ire by refusing to accede to his demand that it rejigger its search algorithms to smite an anti-Ailes blog. Even the success of a one-man website challenging the local newspaper Ailes owns near his home in Putnam County has taken him by surprise and brought him to apoplectic fury. He doesn’t have a clue that his great cable-news innovation at Fox, The Crawl, is aging as fast in the day of Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr as ticker tape did with the advent of computer terminals. He is so tech-phobic that when Glenn Beck left Fox to start his own empire online, he pronounced him “crazy” because “no one walks away from television.”

......

Without Ailes and his Fox News to kick around anymore, the left may feel a bit disoriented—much as the right most certainly will once its unifying bête noire (literal and figurative), Obama, is gone from the White House. But while the right remains obsessed with fighting its unending war against a nearly lame-duck president, it behooves liberals to move on and start transitioning out of their Fox fixation. Paradoxically enough, the most powerful right-wing movement in the country, the insurgency in the Republican grassroots, loathes the Boehner-Christie-Rove-centric Fox News nearly as much as the left does. The more liberals keep fighting the last war against the more and more irrelevant Ailes, the less prepared they’ll be for the political war to come.



THE REST:
http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/fox-news-2014-2/index3.html

[democrank]

1. Stay away from Fox News and

help take away their power.

[leftyohiolib]

2. yea obama will leave and another clinton will be back in (maybe)

[Warpy]

3. Good points, all

Don't give their sponsors any warm bodies to sell to. Ignore them completely. Act both astonished and amused when someone boasts of getting their information there.

They were so 90s, after all.

[SummerSnow]

8. I remember an incident...

At a friends housewarming and someone there said in a conversation with me and a few others that they watch Fox news and someone replied "interesting". Then the fox news watcher said "what is that supposed to mean".Then the person replied " oh just kinda shocked you watch them, I use to give you more credit than that". The Fix news watcher left. lol

[RobertEarl]

11. Quite a few times...

...I have made this remark when talking to a con: You've been watching too much Fox news.

They are getting the message. Problem is, when Fox goes down what replaces it may be worse. I never considered ignoring a problem to be the best way to combat the problem.

[House of Roberts]

4. Rich condemns his argument in one sentence.

The most interesting news about Fox News is that for some years now it has been damaging the right far more than the left.

If Fox damaging the Right more than the Left is the status quo, and maintaining that requires we liberals stay riled up, I want to stay as riled up as possible, as long as it takes, until Fox's audience withers with age, as they undeniably shall.

[truebluegreen]

5. Unless the damage is the result of living inside the Fox News bubble,

like KKKarl Rove and the rest of them with their "unskewed" polls. Fox News has passed its sell-by date and ridicule is called for, more than outrage. A suggested bumpersticker is: Is that true? Or did you hear it on Fox News?

[Skittles]

6. I have been saying this a long time

stop watching them and stop appearing on their shows as if they are a legitimate news organization - THEY ARE NOT

[IL Lib]

12. Agree 100%

I wish MSNBC would stop giving fox and limbaugh daily airtime. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm a viewer by way of watching MSNBC.

[Eleanors38]

20. Don't think anyone 'round here is appearing on Faux.

[Bluenorthwest]

22. You are not correct about that at all.

nt

[Eleanors38]

23. Interesting. Who is appearing on Fix?

[JHB]

40. Link here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017168518

[Eleanors38]

41. Ah, yes. Now I remember. Thanks.

[DemocraticWing]

7. Most people don't watch cable news or care about it.

The sooner we figure that out, it'll be easier to reach them where they are. And where they are is not in front of the TV for Hannity.

[frazzled]

9. I've never once seen Fox News and have been arguing for years

that we should end the left's "fixation" on it. It's why I stopped watching Keith Olberman when he was on MSNBC (doesn't that seem like a thousand years ago?). All he did was fixate on Fox News and Bill O'Reilly ... which was absolutely 100% counterproductive to any progressive agenda. All it did was make Fox News and Bill O'Reilly seem important.

There are so many things to focus on ... policy, news, domestic and foreign affairs. Focusing on these things could actually do some good. There's no reason to be paying attention to teh crazy.

[callous taoboy]

38. Agree 100%. I have seen maybe 10 minutes of Faux

and each time I happen upon it it is striking how glaringly fake it is. Everything about it suggests hucksterism. I don't know what Glenn Beck sounds like, have heard Hannity's voice for perhaps 5 minutes before deciding he was a pugnacious asshole that I will never listen to again. I don't know how some DUers can wade into the Faux.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

42. Same here. I grew weary of the Olbermann v. O'Reilly *war* and tuned out.

Many on DU focus way too much on personalities, whether "Big Ed," Scarborough, MHP, the latest FUX newsbunny, etc., and ignore substance.

[Cha]

10. Good on Frank Rich pointing this out.

I watched fox "news" in 1999 for about two weeks and saw what they were doing and haven't been back. Course they've only gotten worse as I see on DU.

Let MediaMatters take care of fox.. turn off the channel.

Ignore them. Oh, Roger would hate that.

[Initech]

13. The sooner we learn to ignore them, the sooner they go away!

They are attention trolls, nothing more!

[El_Johns]

14. DU seems to amplify their message by treating it as if its important.

[reddread]

36. while not talking about real things that matter

to such a degree its hard to believe its any kind of accident.
its their most successful aspect.
And it doesnt stop with Fox, or CNN or Disney or C-SPAN.
Paying for Cable is paying for conservative political propaganda.
Watching them "outrage" you and complaining about it is like
sticking a needle in your arm, injecting heroin
and saying "woe is me"

[Iggo]

15. If I didn't read about Fox News on DU, I'd only ever hear about it on The Daily Show.

[nightscanner59]

43. Fox does provide some of the funniest, most ironic comedy fodder for Jon and crew.

Jon does a better job covering the craziness they vomit up, framing them for ridicule than any serious reporter I seem to catch anywhere. Calling their show "fake news" seems a disservice to themselves. Even despite venturing into the sublimely asinine beyond the main stories Jon monologues about, that show's writers really know how to cut to the chase!
I'd love to see Bill Maher jump onto their team with his "new rules" segments in a new, slightly more "serious" format.

[MattSh]

16. Please note the link does not take you to the first page of the article.

It's here...

http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/fox-news-2014-2/

[Jim Lane]

17. He's right about the Tea Party's attitude toward Faux.

I lurk on Free Republic and I've been surprised at how often the Freepers criticize Faux.

[pampango]

18. While Fox, Rush, et al. have contributed to republicans losing elections, they have also helped

drive the overall conversation to the right. So while they have republicans win elections, as 'losing' strategies go, it has not been a total disaster for them.

[Eleanors38]

19. Good point. With MSM in decline, everyone is searching for legitimacy and

community. So far, it is not within the Innertubes.

[Bluenorthwest]

21. Dear DU, you won't listen to me about FoxNews, please listen to Frank.

They have a wee, niche audience, dwindling, literally dying off. They are of no consequence to anything.

[socialist_n_TN]

24. I would argue that the REASON they've been marginalized.......

is because they've been called out by truth tellers on the liberal and left side of the political spectrum.

Look at it this way. The heyday of Faux Noise was during the 90s BEFORE people started calling them out. When left/liberals started really smacking them around RE: their credibility, THAT was when they started to lose influence with the general population. Now this guy wants us to go back to ignoring them? That would be guaranteed to bring them BACK to influence.

[callous taoboy]

39. Point very well taken. n/t

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

44. I agree. And, even when focusing on how Faux News gets it wrong, other sources can

still talk about how we can get it right.

[IDemo]

25. While we're at it..

How about ignoring the likes of Bryan Fischer and Pat Robertson, who get every insanely bizarre utterance posted at Raw Story and elsewhere?

[warrior1]

26. Amen

[SummerSnow]

27. First, stop " fixating " on my vagina GOP and we have a deal

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. I agree with Frank. I don't tune in to progressive radio & teevee, just to be...

bludgeoned with a barrage of clips from Fox News & Rush Limbaugh. On-air progressives seem to think they don't have a right to take command of the issues, and drive the narrative. My hope is that they'll ignore them completely, and get on with the business of the masses.

[Fumesucker]

29. I've never forgotten that Donahue was fired for having the highest rated show on MSNBC

On-air talent does what it is told or it gets the hose again.

[Tarheel_Dem]

30. Then you should only watch PBS. If a host can't attract sponsors, then...

viewers are irrelevant.

[Fumesucker]

31. Nice dodge

[Tarheel_Dem]

33. And right back atcha!

[Fumesucker]

35. I don't understand where you are coming from

You asked a question...

On-air progressives seem to think they don't have a right to take command of the issues, and drive the narrative. My hope is that they'll ignore them completely, and get on with the business of the masses.

I provided an answer from Business 101 as well as direct observation: The help does what they are told or they are sanctioned even unto firing.

Then rather than admit I am correct you bring up something it's impossible to know one way or another, Donahue's program was the most popular one on MSNBC that is something we do know.

Telling also is that you did the dodge without actually making a positive claim, just a deflection.

[reddread]

37. are you trying to make sense? n/t

[adirondacker]

32. I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiment. I rarely comment on any threads related to fox

Rush, or any of the plethora of right wing douche nozzles in the media limelight, since it only brings about their feeling of relevance. It's much more effective to just move to ignore and focus on issues and solutions.

[Tarheel_Dem]

34. I couldn't agree more. Unless MSNBC feels that their plight is closely tied to the...

plight of Fox News, I don't get it. I'm sure MSNBC is on a much tighter shoestring than Fox News, but they don't seem to do any investigation. It's like MSNBC has one producer for all the shows, who sits all day collecting soundbites from rightwing world. Where is the challenge in that?

If I wanted to listen to Rush, or gave a crap about what Fox News thought about ANYTHING, I'd tune in, but since I don't give a crap, I avoid those outlets like the plague. The two exceptions to MSNBC's garden variety Fox News-fest seem to be Rachel Maddow & Melissa Harris-Perry. They seem to actually care about informing viewers, over having lunchroom foodfights with Fox News.