If Brendan Nyhan really intends to keep cataloguing bogus GOP tax cut talking points, he's going to be a busy man indeed. I wonder -- I really do -- from time to time why newspapers are uniformly so willing to be manipulated by these obvious deceptions. Have they not noticed that newspaper circulation is in perpetual decline? That young people don't pay for their products? Do they really not see the possibility that this is related to the way they are regularly complicit in efforts to mislead their readers? Who wants to pay for misinformation?
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The Lies! It Burns!
01 Apr 2007 11:11 am
Comments (12)
Well Fox News gets relatively huge ratings, so obviously there is a market.
"Well Fox News gets relatively huge ratings, so obviously there is a market.
Posted by: Rob on April 1, 2007 11:50 AM"
Compared to say, news on NBC, FoxNews gets low ratings. Compared to Al-Jazeera America, FoxNews gets high ratings. FoxNews ratings have thankfully been dropping for the past few years.
It will be a great day when news organizations realize their job is to provide [i]news[/i], not provide an uncritical forum for RNC press releases.
It'll also be a great day when pundits realize that they, be they conservative or liberal, have a job beyond second-guessing Democrats and progressives and putting the best possible light on Republicans.
I fear, though, that no current newsprint will do this, and for awhile the USA will devolve into a polarized British political paper system (already has, in lots of ways). Except it'll be without the Guardian.
If it include have the Guardian or equivalent, it would probably be better than the current US newspaper system.
What Reality Man said. FOX News gets the highest ratings for a cable news channel. Their ratings compared to a typical broadcast news channel like NBC or ABC are pathetic. Hell, their ratings would be bad for a broadcast RADIO station.
The thing that was shocking to me was when I looked up FOX News's ratings during the whole "Democratic Primary Debate" broughahah a while back. FOX News has about the same number of viewers nationwide as Air America Radio has listeners nationwide. This makes FOX a big player in the basic cable realm, but Air America a pathetic also-ran in the broadcast radio market.
Back on topic - a small portion of the audience for news is willing to pay to be misled if it supports their world view. If you can tap into that niche and keep it going, you have the potential to make a lot of money. If you want to have a news organization with broad appeal across the board, you need to build up a reputation for trust. Our big news organizations across the country have squandered that trust over the last 10 years.
I have written several times to Deborah Howell at the Washington Post that the gross pandering to the right wing that has become the norm on its Op-Ed and Outlook pages is not only outrageous in journalistic terms, but that as a business model it is insane. The Post is stil largely a local paper and DC itself is one of the most liberal jurisdictions in America, Bush having failed to crack 10% of the vote in both elections. The DC suburbs are also strongly Democratic and include the only majority African American suburban county in America. And yet on successive weeks, the Post featured pieces by Douglas Feith (twice), D'nesh D'Souza, and Victoria Toensing, along with the usual right wing suspects that they feature such as Krauthammer, Will and Count Novacula. I'm old fashioned enough that it is hard for me to not get a newspaper, but there are days when I think long and hard about it. And for young liberals, I would think the choice is easy. I also subscribed to TNR for 15-20 years, but dropped it in disgust a few years ago -- the cumulative travesties, such as Michael Kelly, the Bell Curve, and of course Marty, made me unable to stomach anymore. I'll never read it again.
Why can't an entrepeneurial newspaper publisher find a market by providing basic factual information without giving such prominence to the spin and bs?
Calling out bs is terribly important to the future of our republic. It would do both sides some good, but perhaps the readjustment to representing the unvarnished truth is just too difficult for the current crop of conservatives.
Sorry - but I found that Nyhan post sort of frustrating. The only supporting links were to what I guess is his book, and to a big jumble of google posts that discuss general GOP tax talking point tactics, but are all out of date since spinsanity is no longer up and running. The post before that, Nyhan catalogs all the GOPpers being on the same page in what they're saying, as does a KOS post by SusanG.
What I haven't seen anyone do is actually refute the specific numbers mentioned in the radio address though. Anyone?
Who wants to pay for misinformation?
Fox News's benefactors. Oh, you meant "who wants to pay to be misinformed?" I'll have to think about that one a little more.
I'd like to change my above answer to 'Pajamas Media advertisers.' Also, a minor dictational quibble. "Misinformation" is information which is incorrect as a result of ignorance. "Disinformation" is information which is passed on because it is incorrect. Also known as "bullshit."
Bush intentionally wrote his tax bills to expire so he could lowball the long-term deficit estimates. This is a plain, simple, irrefutable fact. The only way to get media to start calling the Bush Tax Increase "the Bush Tax Increase" is for everyone to repeat this phrase over and over until it catches on. I'm not aware of anyone who is doing this, which is why I keep mentionning it in the comments of other peoples' blogs.
Comments closed April 15, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Who wants to pay for misinformation? TNR's plunge in circulation has the same cause. It's a wonder people were willing to pay for misinformation for so long.
Posted by otto | April 1, 2007 11:31 AM