It has always been my contention that FoxNews is not a conversative news station, but simply the least liberal news station. Often, the same stories are reported and/or emphasized on all the stations. FoxNews merely tends to give pundits of multiple perspectives airtime, whereas the other stations do not. Rarely is there a concrete example of this difference between the two stations. Today offers such an example.
A few minutes ago Bill Kristol (not to be confused with the City Slickers actor Billy Crystal) broke the story that Colin Powell will endorse Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention. While this news is mildly surprising (a Bush cabinet member crossed party lines), upon a moment's thought it makes complete sense (consider what Obama and Powell have in common). Still, you have to wonder why FoxNews received the "exclusive" on this story. The "Bush cabinet member crosses" angle is certainly tantalizing enough for the media to push, so why haven't they?
Simply put, the media wanted to hide this story until closer to the Democratic Convention so they could run it into the ground and thus embed it into our psyches. Why would they approach breaking the story in such a manner? Three days later is the Republican National Convention, where Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman will speak. If the Powell story were broken and then repeated so closely to the Republican Convention, the tale of a Republican crossing party lines to endorse Obama would surely be remembered more strongly than the story of a Democrat (and former VP candidate) crossing party lines to endorse McCain. The only problem is, Bill Kristol and FoxNews blew the media's chance at the creating that storyline by doing their job of reporting the news when they uncover it, in other words, when it's new.
Why does the left hate FoxNews? Because it broke up their media monopoly by no longer playing by their rules. The old media playground clique can no longer control the flow of information and thus the national agenda in the same manner. Although, their influence on the national conversation can still not be understated. I can almost guarantee you that the buzz surrounding these endorsements will be that Powell is more right wing than Lieberman is left wing, so his crossing means more. Afterall, Lieberman has always been a moderate and so has McCain, right? It's just too bad no one will call Powell out on the real reason he's endorsing Obama....
(You know what? I think I will.)
....racism.
We're All Left Behind
12 years ago
1 comment:
Wait, Colin Powell is black?
Oh, wait, I remember how. He is black but he's just a slave to his white master. I nearly forgot.
I mean, it was "so long" ago that the left was calling him "Uncle Tom," "Oreo," and other fun names for having the audacity (of honest[?] hope) to be a black man in the Republican party.
Now almost six years later, it's the same left that will celebrate Powell's return to the fold, that will praise him for seeing the light, that will embrace him as one of their own.
"Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3
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