In what may be a bullish sign for America's IQ, Fox News suffered the biggest ratings decline of all the cable news networks from January 2010 to January 2011.
Brought to you by...
News Corpse
The Internet's Chronicle Of Media Decay.
Hopefully this means that television viewers are getting tired of brazenly biased news coverage that foments division, spreads disinformation, and insults the intelligence of the audience.
The past year has seen some of the most blatant propagandizing by the disreputable crew at Fox. They were caught deliberately lying about global warming and health care. They were exposed for donating millions of dollars to right-wing politicos. Their role in inciting violence became a headline story itself. An academic study proved that the more you watch Fox News the stupider you get. A recent poll revealed that Fox News is the least trusted news network.
Glenn Beck was particularly hard hit. He lost 40% of his total audience and fully half of viewers in the critical 25-54 year old demo. And he is still losing advertisers as well. It is long past the point where any reputable business would have cut this loser loose. But Fox News is run by political activists, not journalists. And there may even be a fear factor involved in that Fox execs may be afraid of angering Beck's mentally unstable disciples. In any case it is clear that Rupert Murdoch is not a businessman, he's a crusader for his confederacy greed.
The legacy of ill repute had to catch up with Fox sooner or later. Granted, Fox is still the number one cable news network, but they are headed in the right direction. Time will tell if this is the start of an era of enlightened television viewers or a temporary dip into sanity. But it is a promising development that will be watched closely in the weeks and months to come.