1 Boring Old Man

I did something this evening I’ve never done before. I went to the Fox News website and watched some video of their news coverage, and a bit of Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. It was all worse than I might have imagined. I didn’t see a story that didn’t carry some kind of spin or talking point – some Republican, Christian, or Conservative Mojo. The abrasive, sarcastic, degrading background tone  surprised me. I’d heard it in the  few Rush Limbaugh interviews I’d listened to, and, of course, the pugilism of Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin, but I didn’t realize that it was so pervasive on a National News Network. Then I looked up the ratings:

The Scoreboard: Thursday, Sept. 27 25-54 demographic: (LS) Total day: FNC: 221 | CNN: 154 | MSNBC: 109 | HLN: 104 | CNBC: 71 Prime: FNC: 361 | CNN: 212 | MSNBC: 181 | HLN: 179 | CNBC: 81
	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	BigStory:	Hume:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	H&C:	Greta:	O’Reilly:
	244	282	333	522	276	285	360
CNN	Blitzer:	Dobbs:	Blitzer:	OutOpen:	King:	Cooper:	Cooper:
	195	210	178	179	241	215	132
MSNBC	Hardball:	Tucker:	Hardball:	Countdo.:	Abrams:	Special:	Special:
	96	79	119	247	150	147	128
HLN	Prime:	Prime:	Beck:	Grace:	Beck:	Grace:	Showbiz:
	65	93	136	618	176	142	136

I was sort of numb after looking at them. Then I compared Fox to the other three Cable News Networks combined:

The Scoreboard: Thursday, Sept. 27
	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	BigStory:	Hume:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	H&C:	Greta:	O’Reilly:
	244	282	333	522	276	285	360
ALL	356	382	433	1044	567	504	396

Then I expressed it as a Fox Watcher percentage:

The Scoreboard: Thursday, Sept. 27
	5p:	6p:	7p:	8p:	9p:	10p:	11p:
FNC	BigStory:	Hume:	Shep:	O’Reilly:	H&C:	Greta:	O’Reilly:
	41%	42%	43%	33%	33%	36%	48%

I don’t even know what to say about this. I’ve flipped by Grace a couple of times. Speaking of abrasive! It’s hard to imagine she beats anyone. I suppose it’s like the tabloids at the grocery store [two headed alien babies, etc.]. But I found all of this really depressing. I wonder what it means. It reminds me of how I feel when I pass through Pro Wrestling while channel surfing. I always wonder who watches such things? Who does watch Pro Wrestling, or reads the tabloids, or watches Fox? Are they all the same people?