Was Fox News a news bubble for angry white men?
By louisehartmann
Is Jon Stewart single-handedly bringing down Fox News? According to the recent Neilson ratings – the Daily Show averaged 2.3 million viewers – a 19% increase in the month of May alone – and a number that beats every single show on Fox except O’Reilly. But O’Reilly’s hold on the top may not last long either. His viewership dropped 9% last month – along with most of the other shows on Fox – especially Glenn Beck’s show that saw its ratings plummet 17%. Overall – Fox viewership is down 10%.
Fox had a Faux news bubble for angry white guys with their rants on guns, gays, and the war on Christmas. But now - those same angry white viewers are thinking about economic issues as they lose their jobs and homes - and Faux news' only solution is tax cuts for billionaires like Murdock.
So even though the Daily Show is primarily a comedy show – as Jon Stewart himself often admits – more people are getting their news from Comedy Central than from Fox so-called News. It's a sad commentary on the state of American media when the battle for news dominance is between a right-wing propaganda outlet and a comedy channel.
Comments
#2
"When the Legend becomes fact, print the legend"
Robert Wuhl: Assume the Position 101
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcThr-lSXLM
This is a brilliant, educational lecture about our distorted history.
In 2006, Robert Wuhl produced Assume the Position with Mr. Wuhl, where he taught a history class to show how history is created and propagated in a similar fashion to pop culture. A second chapter entitled Assume the Position 201 with Mr. Wuhl aired on HBO in July 2007. Wuhl is currently developing a stage adaptation of "Assume the Position" at Ars Nova in New York City.
#3
Robert Wuhl talks about about Israel Bissell and how he is the real Paul Revere. Amoung other misnomers in history.
#4
The Republican corporatocracy is now cannibalizing its base. Lots of unemployed and underwater angry white males out there.
Of topic - Thom you blew it this morning with your guest who was discussing the Social Security "lock box." There is a vast difference between a "lock box" holding marketable securities like Treasuries, and a "lock box" holding IOU's that cannot be traded and that is subject to the vagaries of the politcal process.
You need cash, so you can either:
A.) sell US treasuries that you hold on the secondary market for cash to pay the SS beneficiaries, or
B.) implore Congress to issue more debt, cut spending or raise taxes, thereby converting your IOU's into cash.
A.) is the better option as you hold securities that have a market, whose price and value is known, and that are liquid. The IOU's offer none of this and are subject to political infighting and external events in order to be redeemed for cash. As there is some risk that the IOU's can be converted to cash when needed, the risk is much higher than US Treasuries, and therefore, the price in an apples to apples comparison that much less.
This is what your guest was trying to explain but it seemed as if you were either baiting her, or, blind to the facts for ideological reasons.
#5
GOP / Fox are one trick ponies Same old tune since Reaganomics deregulation in 1981 - Bush crash TARP 2008. More and more corp / billionaire tax cuts, loopholes ,OIL subsides for poor old Exxon & Shell.while the GOP keeps Cutting our kids education, Pell grants, our safety nets, even disabled & menally ill. Yes thats right Thats on GOP chopping block too. GOP GOV Scott in Fla CUT that and more ! How low can they go ? There is NO limit ! Folks speak out now
www.congress.gov www.senate.gov www.whitehouse.gov WE must get out of Libya. asap 'Reform' Medicare fairly . Throw out the Ryan hatchet bill. and throw out Boehner, Cantor & McConnnell as well.
#6
I get your point But I think main issue is They robbed the Medicare trust fund just as they did the pensions funds. Medicare can be reformed but GOP / Ryan bill takes a hatchet to it and is just an excuse to give more tax cuts to corps. / elites / OIL co's / Robber Barons.
#7
Blurtman - you've got it exactly right. I've posted this several times:
Lets conduct a thought experiment concerning the trust funds.
Case 1 - Today. There’s $2.5 trillion (approx.) of a special type of treasury note in the trust funds, some of which will have to start being redeemed as the Social Security receipts drop below outgo. The government will have to do one of 5 things in order to redeem them:
1. Raise taxes
2. Reduce benefits explicitly by some means - raising the retirement age, explicit reduction (not likely) or something else
3. Reduce benefits by printing money which will sooner or later cause inflation, implicitly reducing benefits.
4. Borrowing from the bond market.
5. Some combination of the above.
Case 2: No trust fund but Social Security receipts are still going to drop below outgo. The government will have the exact same 5 choices as above.
Conclusion: The trust funds make no difference, therefor they aren’t real. The fact that the US government has never defaulted on its obligations is not the issue. The fact that the government is both the issuer and holder of the bonds is. It is sheer sophistry to claim that the trust funds are NOT part of the government. Lets make this personal - write yourself an IOU for $1 million and deposit that in your retirement accounts. How much money is in them?
Indeed the OMB agrees with that conclusion. OMB noted back in 2000 ( http://blog.heritage.org/2010/08/05/once-again-the-social-security-trust...) :
“These [Trust Fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other trust fund expenditures-but only in a bookkeeping sense. These funds are not set up to be pension funds, like the funds of private pension plans. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury, that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large trust fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, make it easier for the government to pay benefits.”
#8
Something else will happen to anger conservative white men - someone will diss Sarah Palin, or a liberal candidate in their area will forget to wear their flag lapel pin, or whatever - and they'll be back to opening their Pabst Blue Ribbon on the couch in front of Fox News. I'm afraid it's not going anywhere.
#9
Laughter is great combined with learning, as is happiness, music, dancing, and on. So, as far as Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert on Comedy Central Channel go, the teaching is in the satire, sarcasm and blatant course language. Now, if a conservative listens to these comedians, they may at first think wow, they think just like I do. But the seed is planted, you see. They will assuredly watch it again and thinking will again be seeded and so it progresses to rational thought through comedy. So, I do not think it is a sad state at all that Jon Stewart is considered high on the charts for viewership. Not at all. Thinking is one of the major losses we have suffered in the last 60 years or so. Let it return! I like to remember that some of the worst times politically and financially (which coincided) have had some of the best comedians we've known. The Smothers Brothers come to mind. So does Saturday Night Live. Same goes for the "Rolling Stone" magazine - a music mag - which has the best articles to be read on progressive thinking.
#10
We hear that the Catholic Church’s views on Purgatory were made known in the early Twelfth Century. Confessions were first practiced in the Fourteenth Century. The Sacraments give us graces to hold strong in our faith. The Chaplet of Divine Mercy was made to us in the 1930s. The church through the centuries is finding ways to have mankind enter into the kingdom of God.
I will continue to stick by comment on Purgatory.
There was a saying that two experiences are certain – death and taxes. We know now that the American rich and American transnational corporations who are persons do not pay taxes. That leaves death. Death is the equalizer for every human being on this planet. Even in death there must be equality. This equality comes from God, the Father. Each soul must be pure. The purification takes place through the purging of our sins in Purgatory. The American rich will not escape this purification experience; no human being will escape it. Each soul entering heaven must be pure. PURE SOULS ARE THE EQUALIZER!!!!! Believe it or not!!!!!
#11
Speaking of the angry guys who are losing their jobs, here's a story that wasn't covered by Fox News - or anyone else, for that matter.
The forces behind our current state of persistent high unemployment are among the most poorly understood factors in America today. Some of the truth, stated concisely:
1) Incredibly, corporations continue, even in the midst of the Great Recession, to be incentivized to offshore outsource American jobs by means of tax breaks. It isn’t like the incentives were offered a long time ago and have become more or less forgotten: In mid-2010 Nancy Peolsi introduced a bill to put an end to these tax breaks. The bill made it through the House, narrowly, but it went down to defeat in the Senate along party lines. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/its-recess----do-you-know-where-your-wedge-issue-is.php and https://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/09/gop-blocks-bill-to-close-offsh.html
2) But here’s a question that was never even raised, let alone answered: how, why, and by whom was this unanimous resistance coordinated? Did all of those Republican senators just wake up one morning and say to themselves: “Gosh, I think we ought to continue to incentivize the offshoring of American jobs in the midst of a deeply worrying recession and persistent high unemployment?” Did Mitch McConnell (Senate minority leader) have some sort of epiphany? Surely not, at least not an epiphany of the honest sort (see below). But, if not, exactly what did happen? As the Wall Street Journal has noted, the primary group that opposes the termination of the offshore outsourcing of jobs is the Business Roundtable. What else is high on the Business Roundtable agenda? As it happens, keeping CEO compensation in the stratosphere. This looks suspiciously like class warfare in its purest, most naked form: drive labor costs down as low as possible, in order to fatten the bottom line as much as possible, in order to keep CEO compensation as sky high as possible. For a less forthright take on the issue, that does at least provide some background concerning the issue, see: http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/nov2008/ca2008114_493532.htm
3) But this answer raises, in turn, a second question: why did all of those Republican misrepresentatives feel confident enough about opposing this bill, even amidst enormous public concern about unemployment, that they took the plunge anyway? Could it be because they were confident that the corporate media would have their back? Here’s some research concerning interlocking board memberships between the most interlocked of US-based corporations and corporate media: http://progressiveliving.org/mass_media_and_politics.htm
4) As it turns out, Mitch McConnell gets major campaign contributions from the Business Roundtable. See the article following this posting for the details.
(Please see article below for the details concerning McConnell’s corruption.)
Manufacturing Lobbyist John Engler will head the Business Roundtable
Submitted by Chad Outler on Tuesday, Dec 21st, 2010
Dec. 21, 2010 -- Peter Schroeder, writing for the Hill, reports that on January 15 of next year John Engler, CEO of influential lobbying group the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), will become the new president of the Business Roundtable, an even more influential lobbying group. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the Business Roundtable's total expenditures for all lobbying activity in 2010 tops $5 million.
A contribution search at MAPLight.org reveals that since the 2002 election cycle, the National Association of Manufacturers has contributed $37,503 to congressional campaign committees. Engler's new organization, the Business Roundtable, is a significantly higher contributor, having contributed more than $60,000 since the 2002 cycle. John Engler himself made four personal contributions during the same period, totaling $5,500.
The table below includes the top recipients of campaign contributions from the 2002 - 2010 election cycles made by Engler, NAM and the Business Roundtable. Of note: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tops the lists of both interest groups' donations and one name, Rep. Robert Portman, appears on all three lists. Portman served 12 years in the US House of Representatives and will be returning to Congress in the 112th session as a Senator. Between serving as a Representative and a Senator, Portman was appointed U.S. Trade Representative and then Director of the Office of Management and Budget by President George W. Bush.
Only three Democrats appear on the table. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska is chairman of the Legislative Branch subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Departing Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut is the current chair of the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana serves as chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
#12
A new study shows most taxpayers work 3 1/2 hours each day for the government. That's an 1 1/2 hours more than the average government worker works.
#13
First off, John Stewart's show isn't really comedy. Well, ok, it is, but only in the sense that Lenny Bruce and Mark Twain were comedians. In other words, John Stewart doesn't offer "Look at me falling down the stairs" laughs, but rather laughter based on the unbelievably bizarre, anti-human views of the unfortunate fools who follow and obey fascists like the Koch brothers and Ruffie Murdoch.
Did you know that when Mark Twain was asked about his fiance, he would only say, "I assure you, she is a highly-respectable white woman." That was during the time when very, very few southern white people had the courage to speak up about race relations. Mark Twain started his journalistic career by making up news stories, such as when he reported that the bake sale being held at a church by a white women's group was to make money that would be used to encourage inter-racial marriage, and of course when the Christians read that Mark Twain had said that, they realized that they should murder him so Jesus wouldn't have to come back and do it Himself. But anyway, Twain soon realized there was no need for him to make up phony news stories, because reporting the news exactly as it happened was often quite hilarious. Which brings us back to John Stewart.
As far as what will happen to the republicans, I think that in maybe ten or fifteen years, parents will take their children to zoos to see the animals. They will see giraffes, tigers, lions, and bears. And they will also get to see the most vicious, untrainable, and dangerous animal of all: the republican. The more adventurous of the children will poke the republicans with sticks to get them to grunt and howl, secure in the knowledge that the murderous beasts will never get loose and infect humanity again. And the republicans will respond as they have always responded to everything: by hurling their feces.
#14
Reply to #13
Government workers pay taxes too, so this means by your math they work a negative 1 1/2 hours each day! Due to layoffs the Govt. workers I know are so terrorized they are each doing the work it would take three people to do in the private sector, so stop being jealous.
#15
Gerald I just got a chance to read Saturdays continuing dialogue, I had to get off the computer, my wife is taking grad. courses even with 30 years of teaching, I guess it's her hobby....continuing ed. that is! Mowing and road races kill me this time of the year also, no offense intended. Thanks for the input, Mike
#16
I think many listeners of Faux News have caught on that the programming is a lot of bull, but the lingering effects of brainwashing are so entrenched that if a Democrat told these same listeners the American flag was red, white, and blue, they would stand there with a look of disbelief on their faces.
Murdoch and Ailes in their blind pursuit of money and power, like spoiled children, have broken their own toy and our Democracy with it. Maybe the Chinese can fix it for them!
#17
Who cares what happens to Fox? I hope they go belly-up!
#18
It's a joke! I heard it on the Jon Stewart Show
#19
I just accidentally clicked "flag as offensive". Sorry because I laud your comment and enjoyed reading it. The last sentence is great! Thanks.
#20
The "Rolling Stone" article on Roger Ales is VERY enlighting.We all need to be aware of Rupert Murdock's success at losing initially w/Fox.Roger Ales has assembled a group of "lackies" to continuously say "untruths" over and over again;over the airwaves.As most Republician speakers follow this same practice,eventually the "low information" public accepts this propaganda as true.People talk about the loss of viewership at free T.V. but,it is still the most effective means to simple messaging.The quick sound bite; war on terrorism,hit them over there instead of over here,I'm from the government and I'm here to help,I don't remember,we know where they're at...
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