A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

On Quora, James H. Jenkins asks: Shep Smith is gone from Fox News. Does this mean the network is only thinking about ratings generated from the opinion shows? Was he an ethical journalist? My answer: Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel was  never  intended to be a newsgathering organization, despite its name and the inclusion of broadcast journalists such as Sheppard Smith and Chris Wallace in its stable of talent. FNC has always been, first and foremost, a propaganda machine designed to help the Republican Party and the conservative movement by promoting right-wing viewpoints and attacking the opposition, whether it’s the Democratic Party and its members or liberals in general. Fox News  needs  a token handful of real journalists on the staff, mostly behind-the-scenes but also in front of the camera, to keep up the fiction that it is merely a conservative counterweight to the allegedly “dominated-by-evil-liberals” mainstream media and compete with  Th...

NBCUniversal's new logo. © 2017 NBCUniversal, a Comcast company On Quora, Rich Madhok asks Can NBC News buy the Fox News Channel? No. NBC News  cannot  buy the Fox News Channel. Here’s why: NBC News is not now, and never was, an independent entity capable of purchasing any of its competitors. It started out as the news division of the National Broadcasting Company back in the days of radio. (Fun fact: Until 1943, NBC had two networks: NBC Blue and NBC Red. In 1943, RCA spun-off NBC Blue and sold it to Edward J. Noble’s American Broadcasting Service. which renamed the Blue Network as the American Broadcasting Company.) The National Broadcasting Company itself is not an independent company; it’s now part of NBCUniversal, which in turn is owned by Comcast. Comcast is not interested in acquiring another news channel; it already owns NBC News (over the air), MSNBC, and CNBC. It does not need Fox News Channel, nor does it desire to acquire Fox News Channel in order ...

Above: A typical rant from Laura Ingraham. Should Fox News suspend Laura Ingraham for her constant false, petty, partisan attacks on Democratic candidates who criticize Trump's racial rhetoric? No. First of all, Fox News Channel is not a true newsgathering organization free from bias. On the contrary; with the exception of some news breaks and coverage of “breaking news,” Fox News devotes much of its prime time programming to opinions-based content. (So do CNN and MSNBC, because opinionated presenters generate higher ratings than traditional news reports. This has been true since the early 2000s, and since ad revenue is the driving force of every free-to-air or cable/satellite channel, as long as Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, and Anderson Cooper get eyeballs and $$$ on their 8–11 PM programming, it’s not going to change any time soon.) In the case of Fox, which is Rupert Murdoch’s version of a propaganda network for the post-1994 Republican Party, Laura Ingraham is do...

Fox News logo. © 2019 FNC and New Fox Why does Fox News constantly lie or state false information? Founded in 1996 by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch and led for much of its existence by the late Roger Ailes, Fox News Channel is  not  primarily a genuine journalistic organization. It has the name “Fox News Channel,” yes, but that’s partly to differentiate itself from its elder sibling, the Fox broadcast television network, which was also a brainchild of Mr. Murdoch and became America’s Fourth Network (after ABC, CBS, and NBC) in 1987. Mostly, though, “Fox News Channel” is essentially a propaganda outlet for the post-Reagan/Goldwater Republican Party. Its mission, per the concepts laid down by Messrs. Ailes and Murdoch, is to provide viewers with conservative opinion and some news content with a conservative slant (or, if you will, a bias). That’s why much of the cable channel’s programming in prime time (8–11 PM) features Sean Hannity, Laur...

Why does Fox News constantly lie or state false information? Founded in 1996 by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch and led for much of its existence by the late Roger Ailes, Fox News Channel is  not  primarily a genuine journalistic organization. It has the name “Fox News Channel,” yes, but that’s partly to differentiate itself from its elder sibling, the Fox broadcast television network, which was also a brainchild of Mr. Murdoch and became America’s Fourth Network (after ABC, CBS, and NBC) in 1987. Mostly, though, “Fox News Channel” is essentially a propaganda outlet for the post-Reagan/Goldwater Republican Party. Its mission, per the concepts laid down by Messrs. Ailes and Murdoch, is to provide viewers with conservative opinion and some news content with a conservative slant (or, if you will, a bias). That’s why much of the cable channel’s programming in prime time (8–11 PM) features Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and other well-known right-wing pundits and al...