Do Liberals Think Americans are that Dumb?

What Liberals fear most?

Once again, ratings for cable news shows are out and, as usual, Fox News comes out on top according to this, posted on The Drudge Report:

CABLE NEWS RACE
THU., MARCH 26, 2009

FOXNEWS O’REILLY 3,420,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,987,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,374,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,160,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,940,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,888,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,322,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,300,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,208,000
CNN KING 1,144,000
CNN COOPER 1,118,000

It is interesting to see, now that we have a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress how Fox News’ ratings keep rising higher and higher.  Liberals like to call it “Faux News” as if the people that run that network make up stories and report lies.  Their response to why the ratings are higher usually runs something like this:

Fox News viewers are brainwashed sheeple who don’t care about reality.

The ironic thing is that it is generally thought that it is the Republicans who are non-inclusive while Democrats are supposed to “celebrate diversity.”  Reality, at least for Democrats, is that diverse thought is great as long as it all agrees with their beliefs.  One funny example of this is the feud between MSNBC and CNBC, both owned by the same parent company, General Electric:

A TVNewser tipster tells us MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon StewartRobert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn’t sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. “I enjoyed it thoroughly,” the Press Secretary said. interview into their shows today. In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary.

Kind of odd that Crammer’s appearance on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show was reported virtually everywhere.  As anyone who has ever watched MSNBC and CNBC knows, the former is a very Liberal station while the latter is a more conservative one (probably because they speak mostly towards business people).  You’d think that the Liberals at MSNBC would adopt the “big tent” mentality and use the interaction as a storyline.  But, strangely, there was no mention of it, kind of like Pravda during the Soviet Union.  Wonder why?

But getting back to the issue at hand… Fox News, with such high ratings, is largely ignored by the other networks even though they are all getting clobbered by them.  Obviously Fox News has a massive audience and with television advertising on the decline you would think CNN and MSNBC would attempt to capture some of this market.

In responding to slurs by Liberals that Fox News is so slanted, a recent study by Harvard University (it was good enough for Obama) found the opposite:

Fox News Channel’s coverage was more balanced toward both parties than the broadcast networks were.  On FOX, evaluations of all Democratic candidates combined were split almost evenly – 51% positive vs. 49% negative, as were all evaluations of GOP candidates – 49% positive vs. 51% negative, producing a perfectly balanced 50-50 split for all candidates of both parties.  On the three broadcast networks, opinion on Democratic candidates split 47% positive vs. 53% negative, while evaluations of Republicans were more negative – 40% positive vs. 60% negative.  For both parties combined, network evaluations were almost 3 to 2 negative in tone, i.e. 41% positive vs. 59% negative.

On the three broadcast networks, opinion on Democratic candidates split 47% positive vs. 53% negative, while evaluations of Republicans were more negative – 40% positive vs. 60% negative.  For both parties combined, network evaluations were almost 3 to 2 negative in tone, i.e. 41% positive vs. 59% negative.

It is also unbelievable to me that all of the Democratic presidential candidates canceled their appearances for a scheduled Fox News debate because the Liberals in their party were upset that they would lend “credibility” to a network that beats all the other cable news shows combined!  How could these Democrats stand up to dictators if they couldn’t stand up to Fox News?  Of what were they afraid?

The possible reasons why Liberals dislike Fox News  are numerous but, in my opinion, it is that they dislike the tough line Fox News takes with their guests, the tough questions they ask them, and the subjects they raise.  Again, rocking the boat and asking challenging questions that require out-of-the-box thinking do not fit into their “celebrate diversity” mentality because somebody might come to a different conclusion than what they were intended to believe.

In the end, it shows Liberal disdane for how, at least on cable TV, a majority of viewers feel.  The only conclusion that can be taken from this is that Liberals, in the face of evidence to the contrary, must think Americans are dumb and that they, Liberals, know better.

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ACORN and Media Bias
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