"What do they hope to gain?"
"Why do they feel the need to "Punch Down"?"
"Don't they realize Fox has unlimited Time to Fight Back?"
"Don't they know it's going to Back Fire?"
Well here's the thing - It's Not! What they've done is shine big bright spotlight on Fox, and now the Cockroaches are starting to scramble for cover.
It's doesn't matter that their is NO REAL DIFFERENCE between Fox's Opinion Commentators and the So-Called "News" reporters as Media Matters has thoroughly documented.
The question we should be considering is how many decades did the Right Wing Decry "Media Bias"? How long did they make it the Mantra? When did it ever "Back-fire" on them?
We've even had studies of so-called Media Bias from UCLA that conclude that the Media has an inherent Left-Wing Bias.
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.
These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.
"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."
"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.
Of course any report that says the Drudge Report Leans Left has to be seriously questioned, but the point isn't whether such charges are true - it's that they've become so common they are often assumed to be true and therefore those with a right-ward persuasion are justified in feeling aggrieved and disenfranchised.
Then comes Fox News.
They claim to be "Fair" in that they won't dismiss Right-Wing Ideas so hair-brained that the Mainstream Media wouldn't touch it while wearing a Level 5 Hazmat suit. They claim to be "Balanced" in that they hire multiple sets of Conservative Republicans like Former Congressman John Kascich (who led the Gingrich Budget Fight Against Bill Clinton in the 90's) and Former Governor Mike Huckabee to Host their own shows, but have yet to do the same for a single solitary Former Democratic Politician?
"Fair"? I think not.
They even gave convicted congressional liar Oliver North his own show!
Shouldn't we be expecting the William Jefferson/Blaggo Variety Hour from them next?
MSNBC is supposedly "Biased" to the left but the largest block of programming they have everyday is hosted by Former Gingrich-Era Republican Congressman Joe (Oops, I just found a dead intern in my office) Scarborough. And each and everyday - sometimes multiple times a day - we get pithy commentary on MSNBC by former Nixon henchman and devout Right-wing Nutball/Neo-Racist Pat Buchannan! If anything MSNBC is pretty darn "Balanced" when *those two* are what you have to cantilever against for contrast.
The point is that no media outlet is perfectly balanced - and it's easy to admit that if you look at the things with as skewed a world-view as Sarah (Death Panel) Palin, Michelle (Anti-American Test) Bachmann, James (Global Warming is a Hoax) Inhofe or John (JUST NUKE 'EM) Bolton of course you think CNN or the New York Times is "Biased" when they refuse to agree with and validate some of your Fracking Crazy, Wacked-Out Ideas - however some of them on their actual News pages, if not their opinion sections, are at least Trying to do their reporting accurately and responsibly. Conversely Fox News not only isn't trying to be balanced on their News Coverage, their deliberately spinning it like a top as was shown when direct orders from Fox VP John Moody were given to his NEWS people to try and look for the "Happy Insurgents"....
The point is that bashing the so-called "Liberal Media" really didn't hurt the Conservatives - they RAN WITH IT like a runaway horse whose tail was on fire. So pointing out the FOX NEWS IS BIASED doesn't really have a downside, what are they going to do Make up even Bigger Lies about Obama?
Besides delegitimizing Fox as a reliable source for News and Facts - this tactic has the additional benefit of actually being true, and ultimately Truth is an Absolute Defense.
Vyan
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