then you are being intellectually dishonest. Either you approve of both media outlets or neither, but you can't honestly pick on just one of them.

Actually that just isnt true. Intellectual honesty isnt whats in play here. Especially if we're taking about a so called news organization that makes its own news stories, organizes "events" and then covers them and calls it news, and in many cases simply lies or obscures facts.

MSNBC was certainly no friend of Bush, but it didnt ever lie about him. It presented unflattering truth from time to time.

Most news organizations follow the rules of journalism and are therefore truly objective (who what where when, etc).

What Obama and his people are saying is you dont invite someone openly opposed to you just for existing and pretend they are the same people as visitors from supporters or from objective journalists. Fox is more than just a hostile witness in any conversation about Obama....you dont invite your enemies to dinner.

Let Fox be relegated to the same life other non-traditional news sources have--let them join the National Enquirer, The PTL/700 Club, and the KKK News. It has about as much objective integrity.

MSNBC was certainly no friend of Bush, but it didnt ever lie about him. It presented unflattering truth from time to time.

Keep telling yourself that....

Jesus, yoyu have swallowed the lib koolaid. Libs never make anything up? How bout your old buddy Dan Rather and the total crap concerning Bush's war record. Cindy Sheehan and nine nut cases show up at Bush's ranch and you would have thought 80,000 anti war protester's showed up. Sheehan goes to Martha' Vineyard to protest Obama's stance on the war and there is nary a peep.

What is pissing you libs off is that there are now alternatives to the mainstream media. Instead of listening to Couric and Brian Williams ball wash Obama, those of us on the right require a little more critical view.

And by critical review you of course mean word-by-word recitation of Republican press releases.

"Instead of listening to Couric and Brian Williams ball wash Obama, those of us on the right require a little more critical view."

In other words you want to watch your right wing morons ball wash Limbaugh and bash Obama.

That is actually the rest of the media's attitude with respect to the Democrats and Obama. Just repackage their press releases and presto, you have your story.

Hogie:

What is pissing you libs off is that there are now alternatives to the mainstream media.

So FOX News is the most watched primetime news station (as right-wingers like to point out so often) yet is not part of the mainstream media? That is some truly impressive cognitive dissonance.

Your point was a Daily Show bit last week.

If the contention is that FNC is merely a fictitious pushback against the MSM truth (the author's point), then there's no cognitive dissonance to claim it's not part of the MSM. Either they're all selling different truths, in which case they're all MSM (which allows that FNC might be "true-er than others, on occasion), or there is only the non-FNC MSM, where MSM is objective and true and Fox is subjective and false.

Then, if they're all selling their own version of objective news, they're all MSM (not what you likely believe). If they're either MSM or Fox News, then Fox News is not circumscribed by MSM, most watched in prime time or otherwise. There is no cognitive dissonance.

I wont debate cognitize dissonance and its definition but I will say that if you told a Fox News celebrity or a right wing nutjob that Fox is MSM they will disagree with you quite vocally and make great claims about the MSM being a complete sellout the the left.

Now personally I think when you try and tell everyone you got the truth and no one else does, its time to look behind the curtain.....I think Fox got away with it for a while and then people started counting the cost of the Bush presidency with Fox "truth" proving to be lies or at least proving to be wrong enough times that the credibility was seriously damaged.

From an objective standpoint, Fox is part of the "media" but lets face it--advertisers love it when you can so easily define an audience. Fox is perfect for advertisers....anyone looking to sell to a stereotypical conservative has a defined market for just that audience. A real main stream media station lacks that kind of clarity about its audience for the simple reason you couldnt so easily define it (traditional media relies more on named programming and its audience than a network based definition.)

So Fox has a good situation economically--it is a successful business.

But anyone looking for objective reporting knows what Fox is and Fox is having a hard time shedding that identity. What few efforts they have made to appear centrist or even represent the left on their programming has been a miseralble failure. Its audience doesnt care what a left opinion is and few would know what it is as the opinion on the left according to Fox is generally being defined by the right (like asking a Ford salesman to sell you a Chevy...you wont get a positive sales pitch).

MSNBC surely has some left wing voices, but it would be hard to call them the anti fox.

And John Stewart and Stephan Colbert are on the Comedy Channel (to say that is the liberal network would be to say the cons cant be funny....hmmmmmm)

But seriously, only someone outside the political spectrum could call Fox part of the MSM and even then it would be hard to not place a big ass asterix on them...

It's not the news channel but the Simpsons comments on politics in the show. When Bush was reelected, there was the episode of the big Fox semi pulling up with other little news media trucks for some news event. The side of the trailer was painted "Bush/Cheney" and they were playing Queen's "We Are the Champions." Last night's rerun before the new episode was the October 2008 Treehouse of Horror episode. Homer wants to vote Obama but the machine keeps giving him McCain. "The horror!"

They just go with the flow. They had to write that episode before the election so it seems clear to me they're predicting/hoping Obama will win. FNC was falling all over itself to cover Obama against Hillary (though another Frayster said they thought only FNC was fair to Hillary) in the primary. Then, he was sworn in. Obama has been great for FNC business. They have to have something to fill time for advertisers.

All you douche bags have proven my initial point. Partisan liars all of you.

I thought the Family Guy Blue Harvest episode was the best piece of Fox bashing itself. The Star Destroyer chasing the rebel ship had a McCain-Palin bumper sticker.

Even when it tries to be self-depricating Fox has to be political. They cannot turn it off.

And Phil here has drunk so much kool aid from Fox he honestly believes the rest of the media is liberal and only Fox stands without a political agenda.......sad really anyone could be so brainwiped.

They are the same. I mean they have the same business model. They attract the attention of different audiences, sure, but they sell that attention, packaged as viewer-minutes, to the same advertisers.

Anyone who finds himself disappointed by the bait they use to attract that attention just doesn't understand the business they are in.

IowaCity:

It's not the news channel but the Simpsons comments on politics in the show. When Bush was reelected, there was the episode of the big Fox semi pulling up with other little news media trucks for some news event. The side of the trailer was painted "Bush/Cheney" and they were playing Queen's "We Are the Champions." Last night's rerun before the new episode was the October 2008 Treehouse of Horror episode. Homer wants to vote Obama but the machine keeps giving him McCain. "The horror!"

They just go with the flow. They had to write that episode before the election so it seems clear to me they're predicting/hoping Obama will win. FNC was falling all over itself to cover Obama against Hillary (though another Frayster said they thought only FNC was fair to Hillary) in the primary. Then, he was sworn in. Obama has been great for FNC business. They have to have something to fill time for advertisers.

Honestly, during the Democratic primary, I saw more balanced coverage on Fox of the primary than I did on any other network. While the coverage was for the most part negative, of course, between Obama and Clinton it was much more 'balanced' than what was going on against Clinton in the so called liberal press.

Aside from that, I posted before that Fox isn't really so much biased as it is marketed to a specific demographic. If Murdoch thought he could make money with another 'liberal' news network he would have started one. FNC is about not much more than being targeted to a specific consumer demographic, one that arguably was being underserved before. But that's because the larger general market is a lot more moderate, and bigger, thus we have one single conservative news organization compared to everyone else.

The best thing about Fox to me is their market is just about saturated. They really don't have that much room to grow. Anyone that is tund to that kind of slant is already watching it.