When Jon Stewart draws false equivalence between Fox and MSNBC, or when Sen. Jay Rockefeller does, or anybody says things like
"There’s a little bug inside of me which wants to get the F.C.C. to say to Fox and to MSNBC, ‘Out. Off. End. Goodbye.’ It would be a big favor to political discourse; to our ability to do our work here in Congress; and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future."
I urge people to not bother noting that MSNBC doesn't make shit up, or that the only progressives are on from 6-7 and 8-11 and there's a Republican on for 3 hours in the morning, and a beltway hack on at 5 and 7. The real difference is Roger Ailes.
They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.
Fox was created by right wing ideologues for right wing ideologues as a Republican propaganda machine. Rupert Murdoch is a corporate plutocrat whose politics are summe dup in one word: "greed." Roger Ailes is a Republican functionary, ideologue and communications expert dating back to Nixon. When they created Fox News they did it in a stated effort to counter the "liberal media," that well known oxymoronic myth that excuses being as conservative as possible while claiming to be fair and balanced.
GE and Phil Griffin are not progressives, they too are corporatists. MSNBC isn't a progressive station by a long shot, it does have a few hours of progressiveish programming, but even that was by accident. They fired Phil Donahue famously not to prevent having an anti-war voice on their airwaves. They hired Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough and Rita Cosby (from Fox). Giving the morning show to Scarborough (failing upwards?) after Imus' implosion just shows what they'd like to be - they actually intended to be another Fox. But predictably that didn't work.
When they hired Olbermann they thought they were going to get a "straight" news show, but the Bush administration drove him, as it drove most of us, to having to say something. That something happened to work for a large section of the country that was screaming in a void. Finally, a news show that reports the news!! We were lied into war, we are torturing, the foxes are running the regulatory henhouse, etc., etc., etc. So they then hired the brilliant Rachel Maddow, who despite being brilliant and about the most likeable broadcaster living could never have been hired anywhere else because she's an out lesbian and that even more horrible "l" word liberal.
In short MSNBC has found a niche. They're not dedicated to it any more than McDonalds is dedicated to the McRib, if it doesn't sell they'll pull it and you won't see it again for years.
And that's the difference - Fox is Republican in its DNA - 24/7 365. They hire the most popular Republcans (active, not retired) to go on their air to talk to their viewers (who are 90% Republican)and spread their wonderful gospel of corporatism, authoritarianism, racism and greed, it's what they want to hear. And they'd be there even if they lost money, as they did for a number of years before they became profitable! MSNBC has a few progressive voices that they apologetically put on the air and will be silenced in a New York minute if their ratings drop. MSNBC would probably then plan to hire O'Reilly away from Fox to fill that 8-11 block with 3 hours of bullshit that they'd be proud of.