What are the prospects for a left-wing analogue to Fox News?

Great Debates
1

This current thread – http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=292350 – got me to thinking. The liberal posters in it are, IMO, dead right on at least one point: In today’s American news media, there is a great void on the left. CNN, CBS, etc., are, despite right-wing assertions to the contrary, serious news organizations, with a lot of editors and reporters of liberal bent, but no political agenda as such. Fox News does have a definite, right-wing political agenda. And there is no analogous news network on the left side of the field. To get a really liberal or leftist perspective, you have to look to specialized political magazines like The American Prospect or The Nation. There is the new Air America radio network (http://www.airamericaradio.com/), but it’s only available in limited markets, and radio isn’t as important as TV anyway.

Here’s my idea: Suppose some left-wing billionaire like George Soros were to do what Rupert Murdoch did – found a cable news network with a political agenda? I don’t mean just a liberal network, I mean a left-of-liberal network that would present the news from the POV of progressives, socialists and Greens. What would it be like? Would it fly? How many people would watch it? How would its existence affect public discourse in America?

2

NPR and Pacifica cover what you’re craving, and could do it better with the backing ov a billionaire like Soros. Al Gore and Al Franken were trying to launch such a project, but it wound up being a low-rated half-hour show.

Few people consider “the media” to be biased in their own favor, and they all have a point.

3

I’d be all for it, mainly because I’ve just about had it with virtually every mainstream news source where I live. They’re nothing but mouthpieces for the powerful and well-connected, never even attempting a semblance of objectivity.

Maybe it wouldn’t be a full-fledged 24 hour network at first. Start by providing an alternative to Fox and its ilk, then gradually bring in all the little-known and outright marginalized left-wing groups in this country.

Bush got barely 51% of the vote, there are almost no pure blue or red states, and Michael Moore has a TON of supporters. There’s a market for this. It could work.

4

The right does fist-banging rants so much better than the left. Since fist-banging rants are cheaper than actual reporting, and pull in more viewers, Fox News will always do much better than a liberal Fox News clone.

The left does humor better than the right. The Daily Show is worth more than a whole liberal network would be.

5

Being able to go on TV and slant the news requires that you believe the ends justify the means. This is not a liberal viewpoint. Hardcore communists follow that belief, as you can see in the state media of Cuba and the former Soviet Union, but not liberals.

In contrast, even mild conservatives seem comfortable that the ends justify the means. You can see the difference between “turn the other cheek” Christians who tend to be liberal and “smiting” Christians who tend to be conservative.

6

Pacifica yes, NPR no. All Things Considered is essentially a radio version of PBS’ The News Hour – straight reporting, largely by liberals, but without a definite slant.

Not so. Try listening to Pacifica Network News, Democracy Now, Radio Nation and so on, if any radio station where you live carries them. The reporters have a definite left-wing agenda and make no attempt to hide it, but they are serious and honest journalists nonetheless. They do not believe and do not act as if they believe “the ends justify the means.” (Unlike some Fox reporters I could name.) What distinguishes Pacifica Network News from All Things Considered is not “slant” but editorial choices: PNN can be counted on to air stories ATC would ignore – e.g., they’re practically the only electronic news outlet calling attention to the election recount efforts in Ohio. What I’m envisioning would be a TV version of Pacifica.

7

Do you have more details? The only Al Gore TV project I know of is INdTV, which still seems to be on track.

8

There would be no base of viewers to make that commercially viable in large portions of the US. Center-left would probably be broad enough.

Fox has never really struck me as conservative, but more as created to draw ratings from the lowest common denominator: Celebrities, murder, sports, some more celebrities, occasionally followed by a glimmer of something that matters in the greater scheme of things. It’s infotainment, and it’s a spectacular commercial success despite (or rather because of) its sheer stupidity.

9

Lefties like thinking for themselves and hearing different opinions. Wrapping ourselves up in our own little bubbles insulated from what other people think isn’t our cup of tea.

Prospects for a leftie equivalent of Fox News: Slim to none.

10

Oh, I don’t know about that. Air America has gotten excellent ratings in the areas where it’s available. Sirius Satellite Radio also has its own liberal talk stream, TalkLeft, and produces at least three of the shows on there, one of which has also gotten excellent ratings on the local stations that have picked it up.

11

That’s alls I can stand, I can’t stands no more. I have never seen a bigger bunch of ridiculous political stereotyping…

You have got to be kidding me.

"with a lot of editors and reporters of liberal bent, but no political agenda as such."

So you can plainly see their ‘liberal bent’ but you deny that equals a political agenda?! Reminds me of Oswald’s line in JFK, “I’m not a communist, I’m a marxist-Leninist”.

Excuse me,

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Why do you think Cuba is called an ultra-leftwing government.

I could go on, but what’s the point. Fox News is a legitamite, professional, serious news organization. And their slant to the right is less than half CNN’s and the Network’s slant to the left.

But fine, go on believing that everyone who watches FNC is some dumb redneck with a pickup truck.

Talk about living in your own little bubble… :rolleyes:

12

I think you’re misreading that line. I read it as saying “CNN, CBS, etc.” may employ editors and reporters who happen to be liberal, but the organizations as a whole have no political agenda - i.e. their reporting is free from political bias. Which is mostly accurate, from what I’ve seen.

13

Say that to Rush.

14

That still makes no sense to me. A news network is the sum of its parts. It is not any vast left or right wing conspiracy, its simply people who think alike working well together.

You can’t say “happen to be liberal” the same way as “happen to be wearing blue”. They don’t work in a bakery or a bank or drive a truck (jobs where your politics aren’t going to influence your on-the-job behavior very much). They are broadcast journalists. Nearly every aspect of their job will be affected by their political beliefs.

15

I enjoy talk shows and humor with an obvious liberal POV, but I don’t want it disguised as news which is what Fox and Sinclair do. I want my news as straight and unbiased as I can get it – and that’s not always easy to find.

By adding their on slant to news stories, Fox is actually breaking one of the Ten Commandments. I like my news broadcasts without adulterants added.

Just the facts, m’am.

16

Not necessarily. There is such a thing as objective reporting, and you can objectively decide whether or not a story is worth reporting, how much time to give it, what to include in the story, and so on.

17

This isn’t so. Not everyone is an ideologue.

If your ideology takes precedence over the facts, to the point where you need to either ignore, distort, or suppress those facts, you are an ideologue.

An ideologue is not qualified to be a news journo.

18

This thread is just an example of a Leftist only seeing what he/she wants to see.

Is Fox News, as an organization biased? Yes, of course. Every group, every person, is biased. The only time it’s really widely considered to be inappropriate for a media outlet to be biased is when we are talking about the reporting of factual events to the public.

In the case of reporting of that nature it is typically considered highly important by most journalistic standards that “above all else, the truth is preserved.” And believe it or not, Fox News’ really isn’t that bad when it comes to reporting.

I get tired of the countless remarks like “The only really unbiased news source is The Economist, or the Christian Science Monitor, or PBS et al.” The fact is that is bullshit, firstly all those sources I mentioned are full of bias in a lot of ways, secondly almost all serious and “real” news channels report the news factually.

Let’s say a group of Iraqi insurgents kills 25 U.S. soldiers in an RPG attack on a convoy. You could see this story on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS et cetera and the fact is the real facts of the story “25 U.S. soldiers were killed today in Iraq by a rocket propelled grenade” would be preserved and represented on every single one of the news outlets I mentioned. The fact is most news channels/magazines whatever tend to maintain the concept of factual reporting.

The only things that really vary are usage of words like terrorists et cetera, but these small biases are extremely minor and present in all the news sources, and a lot of the nitpicking about word-usage is just semantics anyways. You can call someone a terrorist, insurgent, a rebel, freedom fighter et cetera and each and every word could have negative and positive connotations to any given person on any given day.

So now that we’ve established all of the major outlets factually report the news lets examine exactly what the bias is. Well, firstly it is obvious that a Conservative outlet or a Liberal outlet will have opinion-shows or opinion-oriented shows that favor the respective world view. It’s just like the editorial page of a Democratic newspaper will be heavily pro-Democrat and the same for a Republican paper.

As far as opinion groups CNN really is pretty damn liberal at times, I wouldn’t say Fox News is more “away from the middle” than CNN is. Maybe a given Fox News show is farther off than a lot of given CNN shows but in general CNN’s “cable editorial” shows are pretty biased and it’s pretty obvious that it is.

The other type of bias is bias in what stories get reported. But I don’t really see a problem with this.

You may say that the Wall Street Journal has a strong bias in its reporting because they report primarily on financial matters and don’t cover more “liberal” topics like theatre, art et cetera. Well the WSJ is a focused paper on a specific aspect of the world so you basically get what you expect there.

Just like with Fox News you get news designed to appeal to Conservative interests. So perhaps during the Iraq war you would get more stories about Saddam’s human right’s violations because Conservatives are a lot more interested in that aspect of things leading up to the Iraq war. And for a liberal news outlet you would get more stories about the U.N. not approving the matter and Hans Blix saying the inspections should have continued.

I really don’t see the problem in all this.

19

Ideologues are almost always certain that everyone else must be an ideologue too (in more extreme cases, it can become paranoia)…

Just curious: What is the “positive” connotation of terrorist?

So you wouldn’t have a problem with hard news being suppressed? Here’s an example from another media thread (thanks to 2sense:

So not knowing/ignoring the facts serves Conservative interests?

From the OP:

Well, leftists can be ideologues too. Do 2 ideologues make a right?

20

Yes, in the sense that they can provide informative triangulation. Suppose Soros founded a “Pacifica TV Network” or a “Revolution News Network.” Then you the news-consumer could watch Fox News on Mondays, CNN on Tuesdays, Revolution News on Wednesdays, etc., and with all that, maybe you could get a more or less complete picture of what’s really going on in the world.