We’ve all heard it — the screech of the Fox News haters who feel perfectly free to share their low opinion of the cable-news channel with everyone within ear shot. Normally, well-bred and well-mannered people don’t feel compelled to challenge someone’s private choice of viewing and reading material — in fact, they’re usually the first to scream about “the right to privacy” and the sanctity of the First Amendment. But when it comes to Fox News, otherwise rational people — and even some who were irrational to begin with, such as your average progressive — suddenly become deranged and start foaming at the mouth.
Now comes this piece about Fox News chief Roger Ailes in The New York Times on Saturday — the day where interesting news goes to die and get buried — that will make them even crazier:
At a time when the broadcast networks are struggling with diminishing audiences and profits in news, he has built Fox News into the profit engine of the News Corporation. Fox News is believed to make more money than CNN, MSNBC and the evening newscasts of NBC, ABC and CBS combined. The division is on track to achieve $700 million in operating profit this year, according to analyst estimates that Mr. Ailes does not dispute.
This outsize success has placed Mr. Ailes, an aggressive former Republican political strategist, at the pinnacle of power in three corridors of American life: business, media and politics. In addition to being the best-paid person in the News Corporation last year, he is the most successful news executive of the last 10 years, and his network exerts a strong influence on the fractured conservative movement.
Leaving aside for the moment the obligatory Times cheap shot at the “fractured conservative movement’ — except in terms of the political horse race, which is the only thing most political reporters understand, there’s nothing at all “fractured” about the ideals and beliefs of the conservative movement, only a discussion about tactics — let’s ponder that for a moment: Satan’s News Network is making more money that all its rivals combined.
So why do you think that is?
Can it be that Fox has the best newsgathering organization on the air? Can it be that the Fox foxes are the best-looking women on television?
Can it be that the Fox lineup of Beck, O’Reilly and Hannity (the guys who really make the Left twitch at the very thought of their existence) puts strong opinions on the air, pungently expressed, in a way that the other nets do not? Can it be that given a choice to be trapped in a room with Greta van Susteren or Chris Matthews, the question answers itself? (At least you could have a conversation with Greta.)
Or is it simply that a sizable portion of the American viewing audience has had it with the bien-pensant, group-think herd mentality of the Manhattan-Beltway cocktail party set, and is voting with its remote controls, hoping to find a place where its intelligence is not insulted and its core beliefs are respected?
What do you think?
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