December 14, 2010 6:46 AM

No, MSNBC and Fox Noise Channel are NOT mirror images

(thanks to David Flanders for planting this idea in my brain….)

I generally try to ignore Fox Noise Channel as much as I possibly can. Why dignify a “news” organization that openly functions as the propaganda arm of the GOP? Why waste any energy or column inches on a “journalistic” entity that wouldn’t know “fair and balanced” if it showed up with the Swedish Bikini Team…sans bikinis?

While my idea of Hell would be endless reruns of Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, I can get through my days without devoting an ounce of thought to them…except for the people who traffic in the false equivalence that Fox Noise Channel and MSNBC are mirror images of one another. Sure, FNC leans far to the Right and MSNBC trends to the Left, but to accept that as a convincing argument proving (false) equivalence that they do the same thing, just on different sides of the ideological divide, is as absurd as it is intellectually dishonest.

FNC is all too often given a free pass because they have the largest viewership- if that many people watch them, they MUST be doing something right, no? Except that when you watch FNC, an intellectually honest observer will quickly realize that what FNC does exceedingly well is pander. Wrapped around their hard news stories are emotional appeals, Right-wing opinions, and faux outrage designed to confirm and affirm the prejudices of those Conservative White Americans who make up their audience. Watch Gretchen Carlson or Megyn Kelly for more than a few minutes, and this strategy fairly leaps right off the television screen. FNC is appealing to the fears, ignorance and prejudices of White America. Facts are employed only insofar as they can be used to drive the propaganda. “Fair and balanced” is neither, because FNC is preaching to the choir, feeding the fear and anger of White America in order to drive up viewership and increase their advertising rates…which, ultimately is what this is really all about.

MSNBC has its own issues, but a devotion to facts generally is not one of them. You may not like MSNBC or the channel’s generally left-of-center orientation, but no one can credibly claim that personalities like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, or Lawrence O’Donnell aren’t devoted to getting their facts straight. Conservatives really can’t hope to beat Olbermann, Maddow, O’Donnell, or Chris Mattews on the facts; what they’re left with is name-calling and character assassination. This hardly changes the reality MSNBC personalities work hard to support their arguments. In far too many cases, FNC personalities simply shout louder in the belief that anger and outrage trumps (and in some cases create) fact.

Sadly, we live in a world in which personalities take precedence over the news. Like many thinking Americans, I detest this reality, but here we are. Just don’t be arguing that everyone is doing it, and so therefore everyone is equally evil. Facts are still facts, truth is still truth…but no one has erased the lines between propaganda and reality in the way that Fox Noise Channel has, no matter what you might choose to believe

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 14, 2010 6:46 AM.

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