Fox News Is Going Down The Tubes

[Hope And Change]

Fox on the Run


Thursday, Mar. 27, 2008

By JAMES PONIEWOZIK

On super Tuesday, Bush's former brain, Karl Rove, debuted on Fox News Channel as a political analyst. Genteel, wry and armed with terabytes of political minutiae, he won critical raves. ("One of the best things in television news right now," said the New York Times, the equivalent of a Westminster Dog Show hopeful getting endorsed by Cat Fancy.) But there was something poignantly valedictory about the old warrior playing referee: the lion, if not in winter, then in a petting zoo.

You could say the same thing lately for Fox News Channel itself. Fox hasn't gone soft, but from watching its coverage lately, I get a sense that the haven for conservative hosts, and viewers alienated by liberal news, needs to figure out its next act. Fox News is not simply a mouthpiece for the Bush White House: it rose with Bush after 2000 and 9/11, was played on TVs in his White House and reflected the same surety and flag-lapel-pin confidence in its tone and star-spangled look. It was not just a hit; it was the network of the moment.

Now, with two Democrats locked in what seems like a general-election campaign and lame-duck Bush fading from the headlines, it has to figure out how not to seem like yesterday's news. At times recently, the network has appeared uncertain about its focus. Its primary-night coverage has felt staid and listless. Sometimes it has gone tabloid with celebrity-news, true-crime and scandal stories (WEBSITES POSTING SEXY PICS LIFTED FROM FACEBOOK). At other times it has retreated into a kind of war-on-terrorism news-talgia, playing up threatening chatter and new missives from al-Qaeda leaders while its rivals are doing the election 24/7; flipping to Fox can feel like time-traveling to 2002.

more...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725955,00.html

[FSogol]

1. I disagree. They made themsevles both the mouthpiece for the Bush White House

and the failing Conservative movement in America. That movement is on their way out and Fox News will have to adapt to survive. I doubt they can do it without a wholesale removal of their propaganda departments. I think the relevant saying is: "You made you bed, now you have to lie in it."

[rurallib]

2. I believe they share W's approval rating.

If I am in a public area that has Fux on the TV I ask them to change. If they don't I leave.

[anamandujano]

3. They started in the gutter; there is no such thing as down.

[Cant trust em]

4. This post makes it sound like going down the tubes is happening now

when we all know that it has already long gone down the tubes. Past tense, baby!

[roguevalley]

5. they lost me in this article when they ladled it on about Rove, the

chicken shit asshole.