The above link is a short essay posted on Mother Jones, a left-wing political website.
The blog posted here is from a guy named Kevin Drum, who invites viewers to watch Fox News for an extended period to fully understand how the network has helped redefine the American political conservative movement.
Drum writes: “Over the years, the more that I’ve thought about the evolution of conservative politics over the past few decades, the more I become convinced that Fox News is really at the center of it. Sure, it all started with a base of Reagan and the Christian Right and talk radio and the Republican takeover of the South. But Newt Gingrich was the game changer. He’s the one who brought conservative politics to a truly new, truly unprecedented level of toxic rancor.”
I don’t watch Fox News much any longer. I used to tune in to a few news shows. Then I, too, became disinterested in the Fox bias, which of course ran counter to my own bias — which I admit to freely and without apology.
This notion of watching a media outlet with which one disagrees takes me back to a time, back in Beaumont, when I did the same thing.
I was talking at the time to the then-mayor of Beaumont, Maury Meyers, a fine gentleman with whom I had a nice relationship. I complained to Meyers about Rush Limbaugh’s TV show, which aired briefly in the early 1990s. Maury invited me to watch more than a single episode before passing judgment on Limbaugh’s show.
I did as Meyers suggested — and concluded after a week of watching Rush’s rants that he was worse than I imagined.
I wrote in a column, after subjecting myself to the ordeal, that Limbaugh was to political commentary what Willard Scott was to weather forecasting. Neither man really knew anything about the subjects with which they dealt. “Willard Scott makes me laugh,” I wrote at the time, “Rush Limbaugh makes me sick.”
Fox News is a major player these days in the on-going American political drama. Drum concludes:
“Yes, the tea party has won. But it won because of support from Fox News. In reality, it’s Fox News that won. And for all that Fox gets a lot of attention, I still wonder how many non-conservatives really watch it. Not just the occasional clip on Jon Stewart or Media Matters that’s good for a laugh or an eye roll. How many really sit down occasionally and take in a full evening? Or a whole day? Because that’s the only way you’ll really understand.”
Yep. I do understand.