Bill O’Reilly and the Fox propaganda channel are flailing wildly against the progressive blogosphere. Last week, O’Reilly said the DailyKos was like the KKK or the Nazi Party. That makes at least half of the registered voters in this country fascist racists, in O’Reilly’s view, since every major Democrat will be at the website-affiliated YearlyKos conference next week in Chicago. (David and I will speak at the local blogging panel: more on that later). O’Reilly exulted when JetBlue dropped its sponsorship of the event after criticism from him.
This week, “Papa Bear” attacked Hillary Clinton — and only Clinton: another indication of who the regressives fear — for appearing at the event. Clinton aides have fought back.
At a narrow level, this is typical O’Reilly/Fox News venom. As when they pushed the Iraq war, they are trying to whip up their base to gain ratings. The broader level, however, is I think more interesting: it appears that Fox is scared of the progressive blogosphere. O’Reilly pulls about 2.5 million viewers per day, but his ratings have been flat for years. The DailyKos has about 550,000 daily viewers, but has come out of nowhere. I suspect it has suddenly occurred to top officials in the Republican Party, and their lackeys at FNC, that the progressive blogosophere may have a substantive impact in 2008.
I think we are seeing the political dynamic changing before our eyes, and the regressives don’t like it.
Here is a little video on the same general subject that might be of interest. (Hat tip: MyDD).
I liken anyone who uses the term “blogosphere” to a member of the KKK or the nazi party.
Just because all the Dem candidates are pandering to attendees at the YearlyKos event doesn’t make half of registered America progressives just as Republican candidates appearing before an NRA annual event doesn’t the other half of America “gun nuts.”
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And please, Bill O’Reilly isn’t “scared” of the “progressive blogosphere.” He’s just using it to whip up his viewership. Every politically oriented organization does this. If it weren’t for George Bush and Hillary Clinton, Democratic and Republican fund raising would be vastly reduced.
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Progressives have CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and NPR to push their views. That comprises a majority of the media-viewing American public. Why pick on Fox? You’re being unfair.
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There are plenty of blogs to go around, on both sides of the political isle. 550,000 daily viewers is commendable, but not exceptional, all things considered. On-line channels are revolutionizing politics for both parties and for all political views, not just for progressives.
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And really, I’m not that regressive. Besides, as long as you’re name-calling, better a regressive than a moonbat! So there.
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You have to get out more.
With respect, Shep, are you aware of the fact that literally billions of people around the world have shifted from a generally positive opinion about us after 9/11 to a generally negative one. A big part of that is the short-sighted policies pushed by the regressive wing of the Republican Party and their allies at Fox News. At the same time, we are more dependent on foreigners — foreign oil, foreign capital — than at any other time in our history. Put the two together and, in my opinion, there is a big problem brewing. At a minimum, we are very exposed, which is dangerous.
…preaching to the choir. I’m not exactly sure I would consider them something of a threat to much of anything.
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The problem comes when CNN–and especially their “Headline News” channel–tries to be Faux News Light and hires jackasses like Glen Beck. They’ll never survive if they want to do that. BTW, CNN International (which we get here in Germany) is actually pretty informative. Like Headline News in the US used to be.
First, the “threat” I was talking about in the above context wasn’t the Fox propaganda channel per se, it was the dependence of the U.S. on a variety of forces outside of its control. Second, to your point, I completely agree that the strategy CNN has evidently decided to pursue — Fox Lite — is extremely foolish. They would do better to follow Olbermann and CNBC and become the voice of reason.
The irony is, that GE, which owns MSNBC, instead of challenging CNN on the international market, which it could well do, has chosen to institute a rather lame cable channel (called here in Munich “Das Vierte”) that plays rather silly movies out of its old Universal archive.
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I’ve found the Columbia Journalism Review’s “Who Owns What” to be quite informative. Check it out–it’s on the Internet. You’d be surprised as to “who owns what.”
and Fox wants to attack and label that threat as some extremist group instead of what it is in reality. It brings together normal everyday people.
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A few curious items about Fox recently.
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The first is a post from Cent Uygur about giving Fox an appropriate credential at events. He proposes to give them “opinion media” credentials instead of “news media”.
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Second, from Coultergeist, where Crooks and Liars discuss her accidentally telling the truth:
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Blogs can probably be usefull for organizing and promoting (we’ve seen a lot of what are really ads for the candidates in the 5th district), but I’m not sure how useful they would actually be in a general election.
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Recall the Connecticut senatorial election last year. It is probable that blogs like FireDogLake.com helped get Lamont nominated over Lieberman in the primary. But that didn’t help him much in the general, in large part because the Dem party establishment did not want to have an insurgent elected.
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Blogs probably can be useful to candidates, but not as much as you might want to believe. Not yet, at least.
And a good observation. All I said, or all I meant to say, was that I think the political dynamic is changing. I do think that MSM pundits like O’Reilly are losing ground, relatively speaking, to the blogs, and in particular to the progressive blogosphere, which is an interesting change.
Three points:
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1. I remember reading recent polling that shows that Fox viewers are more loyally pro-Bush than self-identified Republicans or self-identified conservatives. Fox viewers really do represent the 26% core.
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2. Using terms like “extremist” is part of their attempt to push progressives outside the Overton window. Liberals have got to learn how to push conservative ideas outside the Overton window.
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3. We may have Robert Greenwald on our side and The Nation may have upped its circulation substantially, but Liberals still don’t own a major television station. Without that, it’s difficult to mount boycotts.
…but Liberals still don’t own a major television station. Without that, it’s difficult to mount boycotts.
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You don’t mount boycotts of TV or radio stations. You mount boycotts of advertisers. In an advertising-driven media market, it is the advertisers who call ths shots. That’s what got “Dr” Laura off the air on many radio stations, and that’s what got Don “I’m an ass” In The Morning off the air.
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Complain to the advertisers, not to the stations.
…that is often overlooked even by liberals. In an advertising driven media regime, the advertisers are the customers, not the listeners. The space between the advertisements is filler to try to get people to listen to (or watch) the advertisements.
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We noticed that a number of years ago, prompted by an article in, of all places the Wall Street Journal a couple of years earlier.
Yes, you boycott advertisers not stations.
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Let me spell expand my point then. I had mistakenly thought this much was obvious: For a boycott against anyone to work, you need a very loud megaphone and you need to be able to convince people that they will be part of a big movement of boycotters. If you have a perch on a major television station, or better, if you can get the whole television station behind you, then you’re in an even better position to push boycotts.