We do documentaries about them.
We create entire websites dedicated primarily to countering them.
We worry and fret about the impact they have on public opinion, elections and public policy.
We curse them and rant about them and ask each other what we can do about them, and how so many people can buy into their BS.
And you know what?
We're wasting our time.
They just aren't that important.
"But they're the most watched cable news channel," you say!
Yes, they are. Which is rather like being the tallest midget or the smartest Palin. Let's look at the most recent day for which ratings are available at TVbythenumbers: Thursday, August 5th. The number after each show is the show's TOTAL number of viewers on August 5th.
5PM EST
Glenn Beck – 1,970,000 viewers
6PM
Special Report w/ Bret Baier – 1,893,000
7PM
The Fox Report w/ Sheppard Smith – 1,604,000
8PM
The O’Reilly Factor– 3,001,000
9PM
Hannity– 2,276,000
10PM
On the Record w/ Greta Sustern — 1,987,000
So the "NUMBER ONE SHOW IN CABLE NEWS FOR EIGHT YEARS RUNNING" draws a whopping 3 million viewers a night. And O'Reilly is far and away Fox's biggest draw in primetime, with the others all hovering around 2 million or just short - including the allegedly influential Glenn Beck.
By the same token, the allegedly in-decline network news shows average a combined 19 MILLION viewers a night. During the week of July 12th, NBC averaged 7.5 million viewers, ABC 6.6 million and poor Katie Couric averaged just over 5 million viewers.
That's right. The distant number 3 network news show had 67% more viewers than the best rated Fox show, and the three networks combined had over SIX TIMES the viewership.
So my contention is that we are much better served by ignoring Fox than by giving it any attention. They're preaching to the already converted and their audience constitutes a whopping 1 percent of the population AT BEST. By giving them so much mindshare we distract ourselves from the task at hand.....moving our progressive agenda forward.
I'm reminded of an old Monty Python sketch in which there was a show called "Prejudice." They had a contest to come up with a derogatory name to call the Belgians. The runner-up was: "I can't think of anything worse than Belgian." Which is certainly true of Fox, I think we can all agree.
The winner, though, was even more apropos:
Let's not call them anything. Let's just ignore them."
And that's just what I intend to continue doing.
Leftwingr