Fox News’ Ratings Take a Nosedive
Somewhere, Keith Olbermann is sticking pins in a Bill O’Reilly voodoo doll: Fox News’ ratings, TVNewser reports, are down since August of last year. Like, way down. Like down 28 percent in primetime among all viewers, and down 7 percent in daytime viewership overall.
As is always the case, sooner or later almost everyone starts to get it. It happened with Vietnam and Watergate. Sometimes it takes longer than we’d like, but by and by most people start to figure things out on their own. Seeing the Bush team deal with Katrina live and in real time opened a lot of eyes, I’m sure.
Fox News is a joke. It’s non-news for stupid people. I changed dentists because I didn’t appreciate paying for the privilege of being forced to listen to Fox News at top volume while having my teeth cleaned.
But the design of Fox News is far from funny. I don’t watch it voluntarily, but I’ve seen it enough in public places to recognize some of the structural elements. Ever notice how they manage to find whacked-out, space-case “Liberals” to serve as straw men to be blown down by the mighty intellect of Bill O’Reilly? Of course, the New York Times may be doing the same thing in reverse with David Brooks.
And then, there’s Bill O’Reilly himself. Columnist Matt Taibbi used a phrase to refer to a former congressman from Texas that works for Mr. Bill, too. And I still wonder how he managed to quelch that sexual harassment issue he was embroiled in.
What amazes me is how Fox News and other organs of the idiot-authoritarian right have been able to harness class-envy — which used to be the province of Marxists and militant organized labor — and redirect it back at intellectuals, artists, and people who support a progressive, liberal agenda. I remember reading somewhere about Bill O’Reilly getting into a snit because he was snubbed by another journalist, a journalist O’Reilly described as liberal and upper-middle class. O’Reilly described himself in the same article as ‘working-class’.
In reality, O’Reilly’s Dad was an accountant, and O’Reilly grew up in Levittown, or someplace like that. So it does make sense, if you think about it. A cheap-suit, low-ball accountant would have reason to envy both his betters at the office and the highly-paid union men down the street. The union men probably made as much or more money, yet had fewer demeaning political hoops to jump through than the delta dog in some office park pack.
The other Fox News personalities, none of whom I can name, also seem like a mixed-bag of loons. And many of them are downright strange-looking. I’m thinking of the guy whose eyes are too close together, and another guy whose forehead is unusually and strangely low — his hairline starts about 1.5 inches above his eyebrows. I guess these dudes were recruited because they were easy for the Fox viewer to identify with.
Who hasn’t envied someone more gracious, refined, attractive and intelligent than themselves? I know I’m not immune from this kind of thing. Fox News has taken this envy and given it a voice. And a debate strategy. Even office water-cooler political discussions seem to be getting nastier. Minions of the authoritarian right — the small-fry, me-too ditto-heads — have learned the same strategy that Hitler used with regular Army Generals, and that Lee Atwater recommended for liberals — just yell at ‘em.
So now, if the Fox viewer is confronted with someone smarter, better-looking, or more gracious than themselves, they don’t have to answer any of those tough, nauseating questions that they might come up with about themselves. All they have to do is yell at ‘em and tell them they don’t love America.