Jeff Lewis
This week the A.C. Nielsen Company announced the latest audience ratings1 for cable television. The clear leader in the clubhouse among the news outlets was Fox News by a substantial margin. According to Nielsen, Fox’s average weekly prime time audience is more than double its two nearest competitors; CNN and MSNBC. Average weekly ratings in millions of viewers in the time period were–Fox 2.73, MSNBC 1.16, and CNN 1.14. This ratings cycle was the first time CNN trailed MSNBC in that time slot.
One would surmise that folks at Fox and their decidedly conservative audience would be pleased with such news. However, they are not. Conservatives and most Republicans continue to rail against the “liberal bias” in “the Media”.
To understand the roots of this antipathy of Republican/Conservative disdain for “the Media,” one has to go back in time to the legendary news conference of Richard Nixon in November of 1962 following his stunning defeat for Governor of California by Pat Brown, whose victory margin exceeded a quarter of a million votes. Nixon lost the Presidency to John Kennedy by about half that margin two years earlier. In his post election news conference Nixon uttered the immortal words directed to members of the assembled media, “Well, you won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore” and proceeded to claim that it was his last news conference.
Fast forward to 1968 when Nixon emerged, totally repackaged with the well thought out slogan,”Nixon’s the One.” One of the masterminds of the repositioning of Nixon was a young ad whiz named Roger Ailes. Following the squeaker of Nixon’s election over Vice President Hubert Humphry, Joe McGinnis wrote the best -seller, “The Selling of the President” in 1969. In the book McGinnis featured Aisles as he chronicled the steps the Nixon campaign strategists used to accomplish what is generally recognized as the greatest political transformation in U.S history. Roger Ailes, for those people who are not contemporary media insiders, is the founder of Fox News.
News reporting underwent a radical change during the Civil Rights movement and Viet Nam War in the 60’s and 70’s culminating with the tumult of the Watergate Hearings which brought Nixon to his knees, causing him to resign the Presidency in August of 1974. Modern media coverage no longer turned a blind eye to political dealings previously deemed not in the public interest that characterized many behind the scenes events in the administrations of FDR, HST, DDE, and JFK.
Conservative/Republican frustrations with traditional news reporting continued to grow throughout the 70’s and into he 80’s. When President Reagan came under fire for developments surrounding the Iran/Contra controversy, conservatives rallied around their champion and blamed the media and Congressional Democrats for blowing things out of proportion. Reagan took to the airwaves and announced in solemn words, “This was no arms for hostages deal.” However, Congressional hearings featuring the testimony of U.S. Marine colonel, Ollie North, indicated otherwise.
As FM became the dominate radio band in the U.S. over AM stations during the 70’s and 80’s, conservative radio programs began to surface on AM call letters and developed niche audiences among targeted listeners that felt conventional news outlets, prime time TV network news programs, primarily, were slanting their reports with a liberal bias. Out of this milieu rose a sharp-tongued voice from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, named Rush Limbaugh. Today, AM radio has become dominated by a host of talk personalities from the political right. They spew out their political invective against the perceived liberal media daily or 24/7 in popular vernacular.
With this crescendo of prominence in American news reporting from Conservatives/Republicans, one might feel that the days of slanted news reporting was being balanced in our culture. But, as the late John Belushi of Saturday Night Live was famous for saying, “But, NOOOOO!”
For the point of illustration, let’s review some well publicized recent positions of Republicans/Conservatives: In a major speech before Alaskan Republicans on Wednesday, March 25, 2009, Former Vice Presidential nominee and current Governor, Sarah Palin, stated unequivocally, that she was the victim of media reporting abuse during the recent presidential campaign. She exhorted her fellow Republicans saying,” We have to stick closer together more than ever before.” This past week, in the U.S. House chambers, Congresswoman Bachmann(R-MN) claimed that a revolution was necessary to prevent the further dissolution of the America as we know it, citing none other than Thomas Jefferson to buttress her position. On Thursday, House Republican leaders Representatives John Boehner(R-OH) and Mike Pence (R-IN) announced a counter budget proposal to President Obama. The only numbers published in their proposal called for a tax cut for the wealthiest from 34% to 25%. Everyone remembers McCain’s utterance in September of ‘08, “The fundamentals of the economy are sound.” In addition, this past week, Republican National Chairman Steele announced that the reported flap between him and Rush Limbaugh was a part of his overall plan. Gag me.
In the 1992 Presidential election, James Carville of the Clinton campaign succinctly summed up the main issue as, “It’s the Economy, stupid!” For all their political histrionics over recent elections as they decry their political news coverage, it is time for Conservatives/Republicans to heed the words, “It’s the Message, stupid!” However, the current political philosophy of Republicans/Conservatives is very profitable if you are on AM radio or Fox Television news and begs the question, “Why Change?” I believe their political fortunes will improve only when they offer substantive policy initiatives for American voters to consider. Just because you despise something is not enough reason anymore for a voter to support you, particularly now that everyone can choose to listen to you, watch you, or ignore you if you bore him or her. Nevertheless, these Right Wingers and Conservative Republicans have demonstrated an extreme distaste for any criticism from almost any quarter at any time. It always turns out that their problems are not their fault, but somebody else’s creation.
For Republicans/Conservatives, it is time to get off their dead horses, heed the words that “Newtie” uttered at the recent CPAC gathering that, the “Reagan era is over”, find their way out of the wilderness and catch up to 21st century dynamics.
Source(s): 1Associated Press “CNN in third place in prime time for first time” Published March 27th, 2009 • 2 “Sounds of Change: A History of FM Broadcasting in America” by Christopher H. Sterling, University of North Carolina Press (July 15, 2008)
