Thursday, December 29, 2005

What I like and Dont Like About FOXNEWS

FoxNews is a great source of anxiety for Liberals, and the “Main Stream Media” causes Conservatives heartburn. I started watching FoxNews about four years ago simply to see what all the fuss was about. At first my reaction was the same as most Liberals in that it seemed pretty aggressive in its coverage. To my surprise when I switched back to CNN or ABC I missed the Fox programs. Not all the programs of course, but certainly a large number of them. Here are the ones I hardly ever watch: The Fox Report with Shepard Smith, The Bill O’Reilly show, who I consider to be a complete idiot for the way he handles his interviews, Hannity and Colmes, both of whom are dopes in my opinion Hannity because he is just like Bill O’Reilly and Alan Colmes because he toes the wacky left line even when its clear he doesn’t really want to. The morning show Fox and Friends can be quite good, that is until E.D. Hill weighs in and reveals that her lobotomy was successful. Brian Kilmeade should stick to sports as I think he has the missing half of E.D.’s brain. Steve Doocy is the only one with any sense on that show and I have nearly abandoned my patronage of the program.

The best thing about FOX is that you do get two sides to every story, the worst thing is the interviewers ask the questions and either answer them or talk over the answers. Some of the guests and the questions are really interesting but often it’s impossible to hear their responses. Of course most of the political guests don’t try to answer but rather they almost always try to give a speech. The most annoying thing about FOX is related to the previous point, no matter how riveting the guest or event nothing, absolutely nothing gets in the way of a commercial. This would be fine if they would come back to the person but seldom does that happen.

FOX and CNN should fire all their producers if that can’t train them better. CNN is so obvious in its left wing nut position that they make FOX the voice of reason by comparison. The trouble comes from the 24-hour format that reduces news coverage to trivia. The audience feels that they can tune in anytime and find out immediately what’s going on, this certainly limits the networks ability to make any kind of extensive coverage. That type of coverage is reserved for car chases, airplanes that are circling the airport for hours, or a camera focused on the only tree left after a tornado, hurricane, or earthquake. The crazy way images are handled is disturbing and usually results in a channel switch to the Biography Channel for me.

I do like FOXNEWS if only for the newscrawler which they introduced and is now on every channel. The disingenuous posture of the network newsrooms has driven me away and I am getting most of my news fix from Brit Hume, The Beltway Boys, and Fox News Watch, these are three of the most rational programs on television. The other programs like Neal Cavuto; The Big Story (obnoxious by itself) with John Gibson can often be tolerated. But sometimes it seems that they drink an entire bottle of I Know It All Juice before airtime and go off the deep end. Let me know what you think, not you MoveON.org your position is clear, I would like to hear from someone in the United States.

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