Let’s see if we can take a few minutes here to explain the success of Fox News.
For one thing, to give the Devil its due, Fox revolutionized (for better or worse) the delivery of TV news in the same way that USA Today changed newspapers forever. Flashy colors. Loud noises. Short sentences. Easy to understand, sound bite concepts. They broke it all down into good vs. evil, and they got to define which was which.
But more than that... the reason they are so successful?
Their viewers WANT to be lied to!
During the Bush administration, Fox viewers wanted to think the Iraq war was a worthwhile adventure. They wanted to believe that Saddam was tied into 9/11, that he met with al Qaeda. They WANTED to believe that he not only WAS developing WMDs, he was damn close to HAVING a workable nuke that he could give to terrorists who could slip into our unprotected nation and blow up Manhattan. They WANTED to believe that standing against the president in a time of war was TREASON, (as opposed to standing against THIS president in a time of war, which is PATRIOTIC.)
Fox News viewers WANTED a news delivery system that not only sympathized with their paranoid world view — they wanted a news delivery system that would falsely CONFIRM it.
So, Fox gives its viewers what they want. And on the rare occasion than an MSNBC happens to prove a Fox News lie — well, that’s just "yer lib’rul media" all JEALOUS and stuff about the success Fox News has had.
When the talking heads on Fox News get it wrong, and it gets pointed out by TPM or Kos, or Media Matters (like progressive bloggers called our attention to Bill O’Reilly’s fuzzy math when he said "of COURSE Canada’s life expectancy is higher than ours... we have 10 percent more PEOPLE than they do...") Where you or I will scratch our heads in amazement over such lunacy, the Fox News viewer will nod his greying white head in agreement. Because O’Reilly said it, not some "egghead" like Keith Olbermann who thinks he’s better than they are because he’s all SMART and junk... After all, smart guys like Olbermann and Obama, they’re just wise guys who think they know stuff, not REAL folks like Joe the "Plumber" or Sarah Palin or George Bush, who you’d like to chug down a brewski with.
When Glenn Beck says — almost in the same breath — that President Obama "hates white people" and then, "I never said he doesn’t LIKE white people," and your head does NOT explode, it’s because — as a Fox News viewer — you AGREE with this unresolvable dichotomy. If you DON’T agree with it, it’s because you’re brainwashed by the liberal MSM and can’t think for yourself — like Limbaugh tells them THEY can.
The ultra-right Pajamas Media website recently ran a column by Frank J. Fleming — ostensibly a humorist — criticizing "smart people" for saying Obama is a great president. If satire was intended, it was missed by the readership — in the comments you will see Obama referred to as a narcissist, a megalomanic who "thinks he smart", and — as "the One!" See, it’s because we believe Obama and we like the idea of "hope and change" that we should be mocked for giving our faith to a false god... a false AMERICAN like Obama! (They never say what’s WRONG with the concepts of "hope" or "change." They just mock.)
When the ultra-right Michelle Malkin organ, Hot Air.com, runs stories criticizing the "birther" idiots, the readers unload their invective — not just on Obama, but on the guy who wrote the column, because THEY KNOW that Obama is actually an Indo-Kenyan Canadian Mooslim with Dual British Citizenship. And if YOU don’t know that, it’s because you’ve been watching the Clinton News Network or have been watching that Rachel Maddow who is an admitted gay and therefore can not be trusted on ANYTHING.
Fox News knows they don’t have to get as far into the gutter as their viewers would like them to go. They run down the "birthers" while lauding the racist-but-otherwise-inconsequential "teabagger" movement. They will tell the truth when they can (and it doesn’t hurt them to do it), but they WILL "innocently" misidentify a Republican as a Democrat if he does something bad, or stupid, or illegal.
They can out and out LIE, and then claim it’s a typo!
Now, they put folks on the air to lie about Obamacare. They lie about the stimulus. They lie about EVERYTHING. And the core viewer — the ones Fox WANTS to watch — pour it on their mashed potatoes like gravy.
So, think what you want about Fox News. They are clearly NOT in the news business. They are in the "conservative misinformation" business. They are giving their viewers what they want. And they do it very, very well.
UPDATE: Thanks for the rec list love!
UPDATE x2: When I was much younger and still in the news business, I lived in a town that did not have a building safety code. The voters consistently rejected it because it meant "gubbermint interference" in their lives. A late friend of mine on the city council, in an unguarded moment, leaned over toward me and said, "if only stupid people could realize that it's better to be smart." I responded, "if only stupidity were PAINFUL..."