OAN and Newsmax are plotting to end Fox with a strategy that can be called Going Full Goebbels.
Yeah, what Moby said, the wingnuts are leaving Fox News for OAN and Newsmax.
Fox news is bad enough beaming into the homes of those in yearning for toxic nostalgia, but what is even worse is how many business establishments have it on.
I have no clue as to a solution.
Yes, it was my daughter, but she is extremely online so probably picked it up somewhere on the intertubes.
Anyway, the most obvious limitation on Fox is that you can't make much money selling ads about breakfast cereal to people seeking a civil war.
I'm not convinced that OAN and Newsmax will actually make a dent in the Fox viewership.
6: you can if you're convincing them to stock their bunker.
7: I don't think so either. But it could dent the audience of some shows.
Presumably, it at least serves as a reminder of the hidden downside of cultivating a sense of grievance in the privileged and violent.
Disagree. A big part of Fox's strength is bottom-up - Limbaugh's strength certainly didn't come from his platform, and he definitely helped make Newt Gingrich powerful. I don't know that Fox especially pushes antivax, and that's a widespread poison.
The optimist in me feels that there's symbiosis between DJT, who is good at and interested in both television and television personalities (to the point of having Hannity influence policy), and the evening presenters on Fox. My hope is that the five minutes hate wouldn't work as well with Cruz or Cotton, so smaller audience.
But my kid consistently mocks me for my faith in the possibility of good outcomes in this educated specialized country apparently sitting on top of a collosal trailer park/ boat show. I didn't think Trump could win in 2016, and I thought 2020 would be an election of turnout rather than of persuasion. I mean, turnout mattered very much, but Trumpies turned out in numbers as well.
My depressing conclusion is that Democrats need to run TV celebrities themselves. Too bad Martha Stewart's not interested. Start with statehouses I guess. Fetterman 2024 maybe, is he good on TV? He's effective on Twitter.
I'm assuming Fetterman will run for governor in 2022.
Disagree. A big part of Fox's strength is bottom-up - Limbaugh's strength certainly didn't come from his platform, and he definitely helped make Newt Gingrich powerful.
There's a good guest post on MY's new blog today, talking about persuasion.
The Wall Street Journal conducted a deep dive into the change of heart those Texans on the border experienced over the past four years. I broke down their explanations on this twitter thread (useful for those without a WSJ subscription), but one common theme is that activists convinced their friends/family.After Mr Trump was elected, Mr Saenz started Facebook pages spreading pro-Trump messaging to his friends. He helped organize a Rio Grande Valley "Trump Train" of vehicles, and papered a downtown boulevard in Trump signs. He recruited family members. His elderly parents said they were persuaded to vote for Mr. Trump when Mr. Saenz showed them videos of social justice protests in northern cities turning violent."
This hits at the core of relational persuasion. The basic theory of change is that a member of a less politically-engaged‡ community gets excited about a candidate. They start a social media group--using whatever app their network already uses, usually Facebook or WhatsApp--and start spreading the gospel to their friends and family. This drip, drip, drip exposure to (in this case) pro-Trump propaganda, plus the occasional one-on-one hard sell, can lead to many converted votes.
The Clinton-Trump voters in the WSJ story gave many reasons they voted for Trump this year: his views on the oil industry, abortion, and guns. But Democratic presidential nominees have held liberal positions on those issues going back decades. The reason for the flip this year was that well-connected locals hopped on the Trump bandwagon early and proselytized to their friends and family continuously over the past four years.
Democrats used to leverage the small-network approach via two methods: party-run machines and unions. . . .
13 is not intended to imply that Fox News isn't a problem, and a powerful institutional actor. I just appreciated the description of how politics reaches people.
This piece discusses Obama's efforts against Fox, which were real and which failed. A key reason for that failure is that the media lined up behind Fox (as that linked piece basically seems to, framing it as a free press issue).
Quote:
Obama may never have called Fox News "enemies of the people," but he did say that its "point of view" was "ultimately destructive" to the U.S.
Of course back then, Fox wasn't the sensible moderate voice that it is today. The Overton Window has moved ...
Yeah, I can't imagine ameliorative governmental actions having any impact on Fox News as constituted.
Maybe if the corporate world turns its back? I don't know if they could survive in current form on the likes of Alex Jones's vitamin advertisers. But so far boycott campaigns have only targeted individual shows.
It's basically crack. It may be that in the long run, demographics changes the demand side. And it might not be all that long: corporate America understands that the country now isn't made up only of Fox News geezers, and is responding appropriately. Advertiser boycotts might start to sting sooner than later.
Maybe Biden should have an envoy whose sole job is interacting the Fox ownership, trying to improve programming for the addicts. Methadone, to switch metaphors a bit.
15: Yes, I recall Jake tapper in particular defending Fox and rhetorically asking how they were different than any of the other mainstream news outlets. He would get defensive about it whenever it came up years later. I actually had a short engagement with him on Twitter at some point (forget why he saw my tweet, probably I got in an early response to some blue check on the issue).
According to Cook Political (Wasserman's outfit ,their map slightly ahead of NYTimes map) Biden just went over 80M votes. Leads by 6.15M votes.
A lot of new York has been very slow to count this year. Still a fair number left apparently. Also why Brindisi/Tenney not called yet.
Somebody really should look into why New York can't fucking count.
As far as I know, the Brindisi/Tenney count is within 100. Last I knew, Tenney was winning. They need to count all of the absentee ballots, I guess.
It may be that in the long run, demographics changes the demand side. And it might not be all that long: corporate America understands that the country now isn't made up only of Fox News geezers, and is responding appropriately.
This is one of those perennial things, along with Texas turning purple, that is surely always about to happen. But I'm starting to feel rather Charlie Brown/football/Lucy about it.
I think the most (which is not to say very) plausible routes to reining in Fox are advertisers losing heart and the younger generation of Murdochs deciding on a different strategic direction.
Also, great job heebie on the post title.
But I'm starting to feel rather Charlie Brown/football/Lucy about it.
It may be part of the story, but any idea of inevitability is blunted by how it only seems to apply in some regions and not others.
Looking at the Democratic presidential margin (of two-party share only) in key states, 2012 to 2020, we may see it here at differing speeds:
GA: -8%, -5%, +0.3%
AZ: -9%, -4%, +0.3%
TX: -16%, -9%, -6%
But not here:
OH: +3%, -9%, -8%
PA: +5%, -1%, +1%
NC: -2%, -4%, -1%
WI: +7%, -1%, +1%
At least we don't need to listen to anymore "As Ohio goes, so goes the nation."
27: That's true, but usually the story goes that now that Texas is minority-majority, any day now that's going to work in favor of the Democrats. And I think it's much more about growing the cities and less about Latino voters being secure blue votes.
Apparently Tarrant County went faintly blue this year. The idea that Tarrant County could be left of (parts of) the RGV is just truly upending everything.
I'm not saying anything about Latino voters that everyone here doesn't already know, of course. But still. Tarrant county?!
26: thanks!! It'd be better if it still contained every letter.
29: As suburbs are getting mature they're themselves diverging in income, demographics, and politics - no longer the uniform "cities, brown people, ew" orientation.
Obama may never have called Fox News "enemies of the people," but he did say that its "point of view" was "ultimately destructive" to the U.S.
He also gave Helen Thomas' front-row seat in the White House briefing room to Fox News. He should not have done that.
They should have just left her there and put Fox next to her.
Seconding the praise for the post title.
Gawker went away because it got sued by an angry billionaire. I guess Fox News is too big for that.
I'd also like to register my appreciation for this post's title.
I'm a total font geek, so heebie's riff on the "quick brown fox" pangram made me laugh out loud. However, when I think about the problem of Fox News, I'm not so much inclined to laughter...
Back when I lived in Tarrant County, we sent Jim Wright to Congress.
Appreciate this post muchly b/c I think about this often and never come up with any solution beyond "maybe some legally-smart-people will come up with a way to reinterpret the first amendment" which never happens and I can't imagine what it would look like anyway. But I do tend to think of Fox (and the whole right-wing mediasphere) as The Real Problem.
Periodically I howl into the twitter-wind about it and only get unhelpful suggestions like "the people must march on corporate headquarters."
I wonder if Fox's power will die with the format -- simpleminded political-themed entertainment, presented in a superficially newscast style -- which in turn will die with the people for whom the style was once associated with actual news? Do young people watch teevee news at all any more; like does the news-reader/ talking head-at-a-desk form even signify a supposedly truthful report of current events to people below, eh, whatever age? I grew up in the real-news-on-tv era but abandoned it as soon as the internets came along because it had already become such stultifying noise; surely this trend has only increased.
I think of this as another version of the same problem with the 2nd amendment; an idea that worked well enough with the technology of the time in which it was written, but has turned the constitution into a suicide pact given the technology of today.