MY TAKE:

So New York magazine and Rolling Stone recently posted two different expositions describing Roger Ailes, the mastermind behind the FOX News machine. I decided I was going to write about the two articles, but then Slate beat me to it. That’s what I get for wasting a precious day watching the NBA playoffs. Anyway I really wanted to talk about this story, so I decided to go over Mr. Jack Shafer’s analysis. There were some points that I really didn’t agree with. Here they are:

“I’ve never understood why Fox News’ shenanigans rattle liberals so. The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News’ most consistently popular show, draws an audience of about 4 million on a good night. In a nation of 311 million, that’s not a lot of viewers.

“Far from being an outlier, Roger Ailes fits snugly in an American tradition of partisan and skeezy journalism. As the owner and captain of his own media empire, William Randolph Hearst bent the news to suit his political ambitions for five decades. His vilification of President Franklin D. Roosevelt* makes Fox News’ harassment of President Obama look like patty-cake. Robert R. McCormick, owner and publisher of the Chicago Tribune, ran headlines like “Moscow Orders Reds in U.S. to Back Roosevelt.”

My friend’s point in this was that Fox does not really cover enough people to make a difference, and that what Fox is doing is nothing new. There are a few differences here that he doesn’t realize. First of all, 4 million viewers per night from one show is quite a lot. In 2008, a little over 122 million came out to vote. If someone truly believes that a significant percentage of these people were not aware of FOX or even Bill O’Reilly for that matter, they are extremely naive. 

Also the comparison he makes with old school journalism are also baseless. He’s comparing headlines from one journalist or author to a whole television network dedicated to promoting a political ideology. Some may argue what about the newspapers in history that pushed political agendas. It’s true that what Fox is doing is not new in regards to a media outlet, but when you compare its scope of coverage, it is almost brilliant. For the last ten years, they have played an innovative risky game, and played it superbly. It has now started to catch up to them after the Gabby Giffords incident and Glenn Beck’s fall from grace. Also their viewers are becoming older and older each day, so they will have to make adjustments in order to sustain the media dominance. Anyone who tries to downplay their significance in politics really does not comprehend the impact of the 24 hour news media cycle.