While Americans continue to put global warming aka climate change at the bottom of the list of worries, it seems the electronic media outlets that most often push alarming climate stories are losing favor. This interesting juxtaposition was from my Shoptalk TVSpy business newsletter today:
CNN Fails to Stop Fall in Ratings – from The New York Times
CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.
The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.
CNN had a slightly worse quarter in the fourth quarter of 2009, but the last three months have included compelling news events, like the earthquake in Haiti and the battle over health care, and CNN, which emphasizes its hard news coverage, was apparently unable to benefit. More…
Fox News Has Best Quarter In Network History – from Mediaite
Fox News had their best year of all time in 2009. Now that we’ve finished the first quarter of 2010, it’s clear FNC is showing no signs of letting up –they just finished their best quarter ever, in total day total viewers.
It was also the second highest rated quarter ever in prime time total viewers.
While Fox News continues to see record ratings, their cable news competitors are dropping off even more year-to-year. In the A25-54 demographic during prime time, FNC was up 16%, while CNN dropped 42%, MSNBC was down 22% and HLN was down 40%. More…
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Joe romm’s book ranks a robust
Sales Rank: #749,920 in Books
Sarah Palin sold over a million books before they released the first one.
There are many topics CNN ignores. They twist some topics and people push back.
I have been following this scoreboard for quite a while. Some weeks Fox has more viewers than all the others combined. Fox is growing, they others are shedding viewers (and influence).
They are preaching to a smaller and smaller choir.
Sea change? It must be that pesky Atlantic conveyor belt after all. ;->
Paul
Here is a weekday example that shows what I mentioned above:
25-54
Total day: FNC: 419 | CNN: 153 | MSNBC: 138 | HLN: 153
Prime: FNC: 597 | CNN: 204 | MSNBC: 206 | HLN: 146
Total Viewers: (L +SD)
Total day: FNC: 1465 | CNN: 479 | MSNBC: 468 | HLN: 346
Prime: FNC: 2200 | CNN: 593 | MSNBC: 852 | HLN: 491
Fox is outdrawing CNN, MSNBC, and Headline News combined.
Resident Obama said to not watch Fox. That was a boost also. I think people have built in baloney detectors and catch on when a media style has an agenda.
Smithsonian, Nature, National Geographic NPR all add a tone of preaching and sad alarmism to simple stories.
I am realist. I sure miss the arctiic snipe. Snipe wings with buffalo xtra hot dipping sauce. Those were the days. March madness will nevah be the same.
I don’t see a direct cause and effect here, except to say those sources that are falling out of favor lean left on virtually every issue. Nothing specific to global warming involved.
A person’s concern for the environment is strongly correlated to their sense of economic well-being. (Let’s leave out college students and others who do not work for a living.) When people feel prosperous, they have more money to spending on non-essentials. When times are tough, they become more concerned about the short-term.
Conclusion: Wealth and prosperity are the answer to our problems and not the cause of them!
Environmentalism is clearly now a tool of oppression. The targets: Capitalism, America, Industrialization, humanity. Fox is not shy about offending others.
Our country is in the most terrible state of peril. It is encouraging that Americans are looking to our heritage for answers. For revealing this, and the clear, emphatic comparisons between the principles of freedom and statist tyranny, there is non like Glenn Beck. The intensity of Fox programming has put many off. It is important to look past this to the message. Once understanding the message, the reason for the passion is clear. God Bless Glenn Beck.
“…you decide.” Obviously people like to make decisions themselves rather than be fed what the media controllers wish to broadcast.
To my mind, this is a reaction to shameless way that the typical media, including CNN, are uncritical shills for various causes, including the global warming.
Either CNN and MSNBC are going down, or they are heavily subsidized by advertising that wants the global warming message pounded.
If it’s the latter, the money that is being spent is going down with the ratings.
CNN is painful to watch. There silly, fact-less stories are nothing but smears.
4 Networks with 8 business/news channels all carry the same center-left slant.
1 Network with 2 business/news channels carries a right of center slant.
The lone network pulls in more than 50% market share for several years, trending upward, yet none of the four others are willing to adjust.
They won’t even Colbert themselves and pretend to come from a different direction.
I’ve heard NPR hasn’t covered a single news story about Climategate. They obfuscate and denigrate the same as CNN and MSNBC, so it isn’t surprising nobody listens to them anymore. People don’t trust a partial (as in only part or none of the story) news source so they tune out. Simple as that.
FOX would be in serious trouble if the other networks ever wised up and shifted their focus to reporting news, and away from activism and elitism.
Next we will figure out that according ot our own government’s EIA, the USA has the largest fossil fuel reserves of any country.
And it’s quite easy to convert coal to liquid fuels. Just google up “Fischer-Tropsch” or ask the Crow Indians, who are using their reservation to get out of EPA regs and build a huge coal to diesel plant right now. Wanna know a secret, the NAZIs used this technology in WWII to supply their war machine.
An interesting media experiment would be for CNN to do a documentary in several episodes on prime time on the Rise and Fall of AGW (and its morphing GW-AGW-CAGW-CC- Cooling hiatus in CAGW) with arctic ice stuff, glaciers, pachauri, Nobel Prizes handed out, etc. and see what happens to their ratings.
I think this column and video by conservative republican Cal Thomas and liberal democrat Bob Beckel offers good insight regarding Fox and the other networks:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2010/03/column-crazy-like-a-fox.html
If “CNN” meant “Climategate News Network” maybe they’d pick up some viewers… but then they’d have to change their agenda…
In order to evaluate why CNN has declining financials one of the factors I would require is observation of actual CNN news. Since I have no intention to watch CNN, I won’t be doing an evaluation.
Why don’t I watch CNN? A long time ago I decided they did not bring objectivity to the news.
John
My better half caught her parents watching FoxNews last week. Six months ago, CNN was all they watched & Fox was just a bunch of “liars.”
Only a matter of time before they’ll admit they agree with me about global warming.
Don’t think this set of facts has much to do with the climate change nonsense. Simply put, if 40% of American adults self-identify as conservatives and only 20% as liberals, and the liberal media has many outlets but the conservative only one, what would you expect? This is a “dog bites man” story… of interest, but unsurprising.
Seems to me CNN is having similar problems as canada’s CBC. Although in the case of us folks here in canada, we still have to pay for that useless content weather we watch or agree with it or not. I love how people mock and attack fox news in a time that they are actually doing so well. I think I smell fear.
CBC still has yet to publish any official coverage of climate gate or ask climate skeptics for comment. Aside from Rex Murphy’s commentary that you carried a little while ago, they remain silent on that front.
Meanwhile David Suzuki continues to shed a tear every time some snow melts away. His influence alone probably forbids any objective climate coverage.
Fox does well in capturing the anger of populist notions, as per this short essay by Oson Scott Card —
http://ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2010-03-21-1.html
It doesn’t indicate that Fox is wise or important. I’d be careful with the claim that their stand on climate change has anything to do with it; it seems that most of the Fox ratings surge is the feeding of those who are prone to tea party sympathies.
The obvious problem here is that being anti-AGW can backfire. There’s already a great deal equating the “it’s all a hoax” crowd with the same group who protests evolution. (Where do you think they learned to not debate from? Evolutionary biologists being assailed by uneducated imbeciles politically elected to school boards, that’s where.)
Quote from the NYT story on CNN.
“CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view. ”
Oh Really!!
Good bye to CNN the dinosaur of cable news. That’s what happens when you can’t or won’t adapt to changing times.
If I am not mistaken, Cartoon network gets higher ratings than CNN and MSNBC combined (there may be another news network I am leaving out).
The problem with CNN is right in that article where it says that “CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view. “… that is absurdly false and viewers know it. Nobody wants to watch a media that openly lies to it’s viewers constantly. It’s the same problem AGW is now facing. Climategate helped the world see what most of us knew or suspected. The average person isn’t going to trust any story about AGW that defends the scientists and science concerned. Newspapers, other liberal media, climate science, they just don’t get it. They continue to fail by trying the same templates that used to work before the ‘new media”/internet. Thank goodness for the “new media.”
Two things, amongst many I guess, I don’t understand:
1. Why comment an ad? chances are visitors will see different ads.
2. Does the number in “Sales Rank” mean the actual number of books sold to actual people, or simply the rank at which one’s sales’re at? To me the sales rank means the latter, but if it means the former in your version are we then talking US, or the whole planet, because I know of a person who beats both Romm and Palin in actual sold units in one country alone, but of course ’twas about loosing weight so it might not count what with all the energy spent.
As you sow so shall you reap
A big Thank You goes to Kusi, Fox news, PJTV – and of course Wuwt and all the other bloggers and websites that have kept us all informed and confronted and debunked the strange Cargo Cult Science of IPCC
Hurray for you all! – the rest of the “media” can go to hell for all I care…
I agree with David, the CBC is the worst place to watch news. I actually prefer to call it the LBC, “Liberal Broadcasting Corporation” Just last week I seen part of their latest “End of Days” scenario. (So full of dribble I had to turn it off) It seems 2025 is the new date for the end of the world.
you could argue that if the other networks are all showing the same slant, that their viewership is divided among them. Thus none will survive except the last when it will be one-on-one with Fox at something approaching 50/50 market share.
you could also argue that we live in a right-center nation and politicians and old media just don’t want to accept it. After coming out of the gate to the left and getting smacked, Clinton accepted it, and he was (and still is) a polpular president.
I don’t think you can argue that this is any way directly related to gorebull warmering. people of a certain political slant tend to believe one way or the other and watch news programming that reflects this bias.
In a world seeking verifiable facts and honest exchange of ideas and information, Fair and Balanced seems to be the increasingly prefered choice! Good On Ya, Fox!! And Good On Ya, Anthony and WUWT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Invictus Maneo!
Then FNC should be nationalized? ☺
The ratings results are not a surprise. Americans believe in freedom of choice and can not stand to feel as if they are being manipulated.
CNN et al, are have lost credibility with so many viewers because it appears that they are making the news, not reporting it. Now really, who can stand to listening to individuals who leave no choice to the listener, but instead tell them how to think.
What business can win when it approaches its customers in a condescending manner?
What FOX has capitalized on is this message: you are being manipulated by a media with an agenda.
CNN’s rating follows the main and only issue they focus on Obama’s.
Of course, this doesn’t solve problems with NASA’s data, as the newest paper admits: “Much higher resolution would be needed to check for local problems with the placement of thermometers relative to possible building obstructions,” a problem repeatedly underscored by meteorologist Anthony Watts on his SurfaceStations.org Web site. Last month, Watts told FoxNews.com that “90 percent of them don’t meet [the government’s] old, simple rule called the ‘100-foot rule’ for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we’ve got documentation.”
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/30/nasa-data-worse-than-climategate-data/
Anthony is on the first page with a picture covering the story as I type this.
James Hansen is not tending to business he is paid to take care of.
“NASA’s temperature records are in even worse shape than the besmirched Climate-gate data.”
Why won’t somebody fire Hansen? He is not doing his job.
Gone are those heady days of yore, when CNN could bring us “exclusives” from Baghdad Bob, subject of course to the propaganda filter as willed by Saddam.
Let it not be said that the “unfair and unbalanced” approach has not been tried.
But lefty media is hard to kill, like NPR and the NYT, and it is only a matter of time before cries for the return of the “fairness” doctrine grow stronger.
When they run out of Mexican oligarchs, a government subsidy in one form or another, lurks.
The death of a former media giant happening before our very eyes.
The powers that be at CNN and other media outlets should sit up and take notice…
Apparently, the New York Times has at least noticed…the big question, now, is will they do anything about their own decline?
As CNN and the NYT have become Cathedrals of Green beliefs and Green thinking.
It simply became too much to bare for their audiences and readers.
People know when their mind is screwed with and they respond by switching to another channel or cancel their subscription.
We see this process taking place all over the world.
I haven’t bothered to do the research but I suspect that CNN’s ratings decreasing while FOX News’ ratings increasing is more due to the rants against the status quo. When Bush and Republicans had the White House, liberals flocked to CNN to get their daily bashing; I imagine now conservatives get off watching FOX bash Obama and Dems in power. To cast CNN in their liberal bias, and rightly so, but at the same time hold up FOX News as some oracle of unbiased news, well…you’re just fooling yourself. Both sides, politically and newswise, play largely by the same rules – twisting and spinning to their advantage. Politics now is now more than ever a football game, neither side really caring what’s best for Americans but rather just wanting to WIN.
That’s why I latched onto the skeptics’ arguement against AGW – it was largely free of political bent. The information coming forth was simply borne out of inquiring minds and painstaking review of so-called facts and in the process of gathering data that generated the facts. The excitement for me in the arguement against AGW is the relatively politically free exchange of ideas. Yes, it appears the AGW movement has worked in-step with liberal political thought, but I don’t think it wise to hold up people like Palin and organizations like FOX News as beacons for scientific and political truth. They are the mirror images of Gore and the IPCC as far as credibility goes. Who or what is the indicator for truth, or at least that something closest to truth? Right now, I don’t know but it’s somewhere in the middle and you can only find it by examing both sides and being open to the exchange of ideas and inquiry – exactly what we wish of the AGW crowd.
Henry chance (10:57:07) :
Obama’s ‘Do not watch Fox’ gaffe made me start reading and watching Fox News.
@John Galt,
You hit the nail on the head. If you care about the environment, you want as much growth as possible. The richer a country is, the cleaner and healthier it is and the more folks care about the environment and the more they are willing to do for it.
This is well established in the economic literature.
M
We in NZ have a better explanation for such things, Ordinary peoples Bull-Shit detectors are being activated.
Fox News currently is leading with a global warming story featuring the same map we saw on WUWT a few days ago (somebody at Fox may be monitoring this site!) The caption under the map reads:
“Maps from NASA’s GISS reveal temperatures where no data exist, thanks to mathematical extrapolation of data.”
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/30/nasa-data-worse-than-climategate-data/
You’d never see a story like that on channels rooting for Obama.
Speaking of FoxNews: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/03/30/nasa-data-worse-than-climategate-data/ .
A little late in airing this, but they got NASA admitting their data sucks.
CNN et al will soon be screaming for the Fairness Doctrine
WOW!!! SUPERB!! Beautiful!!! One of the most BEAUTIFUL news that I have seen in my whole life!!! For milleniums Big Academia, Big Media and Big Bureaucracy have fed us one lie after another, one falsehood after another, one fallacy after another. These lies usually are used to allege for more oppresive power for politicians and bureaucrats; not only having political opressive power is the oldest passion but achieving exorbitant wealth trough political opressive power is the oldest way to riches, so it is not surprising that Big Media, Big Academia and Big Bureaucracy are permanently pushing for increasing the politicians and bureaucrats oppresive power.
But sites like wattsupwiththat.com (WUWT) are writing the book on how to defeat those liars!!!! A small site like WUWT has around 100.000 views per day, compare that to Larry King 770.000 views that NYT alleges!!! WUWT is already HUGE!!!
People are FED UP about being told that we must be bureaucrats and politicians slaves and that their power should be increased and that we will reach paradise if we give them total control and power over our lives, but internet sites like WUWT are demasking with integrity, with honesty, the lies, the fallacies, the falsehoods of Big Media, Big Academia and Big Bureaucracy. People cannot de hoaxed anymore thanks to wonderful marvelous sites like WUWT. WUWT is the David that ALREADY defeated the GOLIATH!!!
Broadcasters that do not push so much the increasing opressive power agenda -like FoxNews- are going up up up. And the main outlets promoting opressive power like CNN, NYT and others are going down down!!! WONDERFUL!!!!.
So beautiful! Keep your SUPERB work at WUWT!!! You are making history! Probably, more than any other entity, you are showing how to defeat megalomaniacal bureaucracies like United Nations! You already defeated United Nations, one of the most dangerous bureaucracies that ever existed since they seek WORLDWIDE oppresive power, a power that you cannot escape because it would be WORLDWIDE and if achieved and there would be no country left to flee to!
I’m not too surprised that this has happened in the US. Here in England. the BBC News is having the same problem of bias, as is much of the rest of the MSM.
People are starting to realise that these news outlets are just the mouth-piece of the controlling elite and their gang of self effacing, hand-picked, money grabbing politicians. The Internet gives access to the facts about many issues should you wish to take the time to find out what’s really going on in the world, and the lies dished up by most of the MSM are blatant and biased.
I don’t think they will survive in the long-term as better information is available, often real-time, on the web.
Fox has done a much better job of acquiring talent. The best new moderator on TV, bar none, is Chris Wallace. Look at MSNBC’s lineup in Prime Time. The dregs.
All the media outlets are in the same wink-wink-nod-nod club– you say this and then we will say that and the viewers will think we are actually giving them two different stories –ha-ha to those gullibles that can’t get out of our media created reality. FOX getting it right on global warming is just part of the script.
The reason many honest liberal people are fed up with Obama is he is not acting like what they perceive to be liberal rather he is acting like a conservative.
“In health care, as in war and peace, as in the environment and education, as in the rights of women and immigrants, the First Black President’s historic role is clear. His job is to smile and speechify and neutralize the left on every front, while taking the country further to the right than his white Republican predecessor would ever have been able.” (Dixon, op. cit.)
There is no competition between any TV media sources; they just want you to think so. Just like the political parties do. Think out of their box. (Be not left or right wing – be truth wing as one internet commentator put it!)
One last comment: Where do these rating numbers come from? The media? Are you sure this data is any better than NASA’s or other AGW hoaxers? As a former news hound I now rarely watch the news as I realize I am being manipulated when I do. CNN is a propaganda site (but really, when did all those ex-generals become liberals??????) and so is FOX and all others in the club. I trust sites like this far more.
I think we can all agree there is a difference between the news coverage on Fox News and the commentary — something many critics disingenuously pretend are the same thing.
I gave up premium
cabalcable a long time ago, so I haven’t watched CNN since the last airport I walked through (and there I usually prefer listening to my iPod). I will never knowingly pay for CNN, MSNBC, HLN, Spike, MTV, Court TV, … I’d rather invest in a robust internet connection. Someday, if a la carte cable ever comes to fruition, I may invest in a cable or satellite service once again, but my feeling is that cable will go the way of the horse and buggy (or the video rental store!) once internet bandwidth expands sufficiently.What I don’t understand is why Fox News continues to be skeptical on the AGW issue when just a few years back it was widely reported that Rupert Murdoch had become convinced that climate change was the biggest threat facing mankind. Did he at some point become a skeptic again? Or is Murdoch simply being a good businessman and giving his audience what they want instead of using the news to further his own agenda ala Ted Fonda-Turner?
The last time I visited the CNN web site (before today) was a few years ago when they had a section called something like “Science News”. I clicked on the main page to get a list of the “science” stories and every single one had something to do with global warming — species extinction due to global warming, rising sea levels from global warming, hurricanes, droughts, famines, floods, you name it. It was absolutely sickening. They could have at least been honest and called it “Global Warming Propaganda” because it sure as heck wasn’t science or news.
Anyway, I just revisited the CNN site and noticed that the “Science News” section was no longer there. Gone. Obliterated. After some googling I discovered the reason why: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science-coverage-imploding-at-cnn-beyond/
What a pleasant surprise! Unfortunately CNN has already so completely alienated me that I have no interest in ever viewing their site or their news channels ever again. Besides, I’ve already grown to like Neil Cavuto on the Fox Business Network. He’s smart, honest, and comes off as very genuine. I can’t imagine CNN ever producing anything like Cavuto or Happy Hour which is another show I watch.
The Clinton News Network should just change its name to the All Obama, Always Right All the Time network.
Or the “We shill for Al Gore” Network.
Tenuc (12:48:11) wrote: “I’m not too surprised that this has happened in the US. Here in England. the BBC News is having the same problem of bias, as is much of the rest of the MSM.”
That is putting it very mildly! They have been non-stop AGW propagandists until recently. Now they say little – and of course barely mention Climategate.
They have always been propagandists but since Tony Bliar it has got so bad now that I call them – with all due respect to their accents – Monty Python’s Ministry of Truth.
I think the news media is biased, as is a lot of the information people get online. The person giving the news always has a way of interjecting their opinion, be that in tone or actual words. It seems to be human nature to try to make people think the way we want them to think, to agree with our beliefs as if it somehow validates what we believe.
Us old guys like to watch Fox News because of the beautiful, leggy women. OTH, I really hate to watch O’Reilly or Hannity. They do OK, but, I get the feeling that I am hearing the same old stuff everyday, and that’s tiresome.
“CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view.”
I laughed out loud when I read this quote from the NYT – a perfect example (if we needed another) of the bias in the MSM.
I continue to be amazed that one of the major networks (NBC, CBS or ABC) hasn’t mad a break from the liberal mindset and moved to the center. Can you imagine the money they would make from the increased viewership? Old habits die hard, I guess…
FOX news came into prominence during the Bush Administration so I’m not to sure with the argument that because Obama’s in office people are flocking to the contrarian view. I would agree that as a network it leans right but it will always give the most complete and accurate presentations of the news.
Try this out. Watch how FOX and MSNBC or CNN cover the same story. See which one will provide the sound clips with the relavent background, and which one will play a sound bite to lead you believe a story is one way or the other.
One that pops in my head was the coverage of a teach party protest last summer. MSNBC showed a clip of a man with a rifle on his back and proceeded to call the protests racists against Obama. On FOX, same clip except the camera pans up and low and behold that protester is a black man. It didn’t fit the MSNBC narrative so it wasn’t shown.
westcoasttiger said “Both sides, politically and newswise, play largely by the same rules – twisting and spinning to their advantage. Politics now is now more than ever a football game, neither side really caring what’s best for Americans but rather just wanting to WIN.”.
That is simply NOT TRUE. Stalin URSS was an utter murderous regime where we were told that our DUTY was to satisfy the politicians and bureaucrats perverted depraved insatiable lust for power, money and blood by letting them steal all our property, rob our children, take OUR LIVES and our LOVED ONES lives´s and be sadistically punished to death when there was no crime. We were told too that we should let politicians and bureaucrats take TOTAL control of our lives and that we should let them have ABSOLUTE power over us. That was our DUTY, to satisfy their depraved lust by letting us be killed, robed, maimed, tortured sadistically to death and be controlled zombies from craddle to grave.
Stalin URSS was a total nightmare and the USA a decent place but stalinnists often talked about a “symmetry” between URSS and USA as you do know. But that symmetry clearly did not existed and was used to make murderous URSS look as a “decent” regime like USA always was. The URSS collapsed while the USA stands as the world superpower, that shows that the alleged “symmetry” was another lie to justify one of the most infamous and murderous regimes ever, 61 million unarmed people were murdered in the URSS.
And Big Media like New York Times (NYT) whitewashed the Stalin murders. People like Glenn Beck have been denouncing those Stalin crimes and too denouncing the lies by IPCC, CRU and others in the AGW SCAM while NYT has been pushing the usual lies in search of more opressive power for politicians.
If CNN, NYT and others promoters of more opressive power for politicians and bureaucrats are collapsing it is mainly beacause websites like wattsupwiththat.com (WUWT) are showing people the HUGE amount of lies, fallacies and falsehoods that big Media, Big Academia and Big Bureaucracy have been feeding us for milleniums. A few years ago very few WONDERFUL sites like WUWT existed, now they are more and more of them and they are increasingly the main source of news: People cannot be hoaxed anymore into believing the lies promoting opressive power that Big Media, Big Academia and Big Bureaucracy permanently feeds us.
I do not allege that Fox and Republicans are a bunch of saints, but it is pretty clear that one group want to be left alone -republicans- while the other group -democrats- are always pushing for ways for controlling our lives, for getting our belongings, for giving even more opressive power to politicians and bureaucrats, for inventing crimes where there is no crime.
If I let you alone I am not IMPOSING anything on your life. I let you have your life and belongings under your free will. But if you come to me and you impose me taxes, regulations, you forbid me to use co2, you force me to pay social security to wasteful arrogant government you are doing a VERY DCIFFERENT act: YOU ARE MESSING UP MY LIFE, you are controlling my life, you are messing up with me. That is what Obama and the democrats do: They MESS up our lives, they force you to do things you do not want to do, they invent crimes and duties whose goal is to increase the politicians control over our lives. In order to allege that paradise is reached when your life is in total control by politicians and bureaucrats you have to lie and lie and lie and build gigantic SCAMS like Mainly Man Made Global Warming: They must lie in order to allege that we should surrender our freedom, our possesions and even our lives to them.
There is no symettry and that is why FOX -who has people like Glenn Beck- is going up while CNN, NYT are collapsing. People are FED UP with being told that we must be slaves. Now, thanks to the internet, the TRUTH is known and those pushers of more opressive power -CNN, NYT, etc- should CHANGE or perish!
NYT: CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view. ”
Yeah, sure…
IMHO CNN’s biggest problem is in the news they don’t report. There are so many examples over the years, like “climategate,” etc., etc., where the internet is abuzz with talk and debate on a news event and CNN and the other MSM outlets are simply mute. And, I must say, this self censorship is INVARIABLY, without question, ALWAYS to protect or benefit causes or politicians dear to the left leaning in our society. Why is that? Censorship, especially self imposed, reveals deep partisanship. FOX, by contrast, does not seem to suffer the same selective muteness of the MSM. Some people may not like their reporting but, at least they’re reporting.
I’m with westcoasttiger entirely. The UK’s (soon to be former-) mainstream media sucks atrociously but it does at least have a legal responsibility to present balance – even if it hides behind the IPCC AR4 to excuse its AGW biases. In the US, the legal obligations are – as far as I can tell – completely absent, and its news reporting is free to be as perversely partisan and twisted as it wishes. Fox constantly presents opinion as fact, just as the other channels do.
I wouldn’t presuppose the reason for Fox’s gains in popularity, but I’d wager that at least a statistically significant number tune in with morbid curiosity to hear Palin’s malaprops or to see whether the insane Glenn Beck will finally succumb to the nervous breakdown that is quite clearly pending.
I visit/watch media outlets for a variety of reasons as I suspect do many of you. WUWT is visited for rational contrarian views on human AGW and the good discount coupons for beer. CNN lost my conservative patronage not for their liberal/green point of view but for Anderson Cooper’s vile characterization of outraged citizens as perverted tea baggers. I may be civil but I can carry a grudge for an awfully long time.
What about the Search engines, Yahoo and Google, is “Al Baby” behind both?
I thought it was funny that The New York Times is reporting on the lack of viewers at CNN……..Isn’t the New York Times about to be kicked down the stairs also?
Last I checked, NYT has fired most of their staff and is having a hard time paying the electric bill………..even with the Obama subsidies. They don’t have much room to talk.
Vote this moron out of office:
This is how a real moron looks like:
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20100330/BUSINESS/303300011/1011/NEWS03/Lindsey-Graham-vows-legislation-on-carbon-emissions
Forgetting the religious aspect of the story (re.: the following link) you can see how CNN operates – pick a star with the correct point-of-view and let them talk their foolish heads off. Is anyone surprised why CNN is about to go under?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bozell/2010/03/30/using-sinead-oconnor-attack-catholic-church-despicable
The best explanation I ever heard about the success of Fox News was that Rupert Murdoch “discovered a niche market in American broadcasting — half the American people.”
With a predominantly center-right population, you can’t keep broadcasting center-left content without eventually going out of business. Either CNN will become very small, or its going to have to become more balanced in its offerings.
tj (12:53:51) :
The reason many honest liberal people are fed up with Obama is he is not acting like what they perceive to be liberal rather he is acting like a conservative>>
Say WHAT?
NASA sure has fallen a long way over the past few years. Times are so tough they are opening an auto repair shop. I guess they intend to staff it with climate scientists since they have so much tuning experience.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/NASA-Obama-NAS-NRC-Accelerator,news-6313.html
It’s a whitewash
As predicted the Science and Technology committee has come out with the expected whitewash.
Scientists at a leading British climate research centre had a culture of withholding information from global warming sceptics but did not deliberately manipulate data to support their case, politicians said today.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0330/breaking78.html
Some here disparage Glenn Beck but I suggest looking past the “theatrics” (although they’re pretty effective) and listen to the MESSAGE. At his suggestion, I’m even ordering a few books on the background of the constitution that they never bothered to teach or even mention when I attended school. Why, for example, did lawyers turn their study to case law after the 1920’s instead of looking at what the founding fathers wrote to justify the LAW!
Now the heading to the Fox News web site shouts “CLIMATEGATE II”. At least one news organization gets it.
The appeal of FOX? It’s not so much that it supposedly is right of center; it’s more that at FOX, there are no sacred cows. And yes, there’re plenty of opinion segments and most people have the brains to figure out which is opinion and which is fact; the nation is not a nation of knuckle-draggers, despite the presumtive arrogance of the elite self-appoointed opinion molders at the other news outlets.
It has nothing to do with content. Fox has the best looking women broadcasters.
As many have pointed out the key to the MSM ratings decline is an unwillingness to change. Even a blind man can see the programmatic propaganda machine grinding against fewer and fewer viewers. But to change course and allow the floodgates of balance to open, means the “system” admits complicity. They are now stuck with Hobson’s Choice. To admit they have suppressed skeptics is an admission of guilt. Admitting guilt torments pride – which is alarmists greatest liability. They wish to be seen as infallible, but the world knows better.
What we find sad is how this stubborn pride has damaged the well-intentioned sustainable energy and conservation movements. Energy independence makes sense for most people on Earth. AGW grabbed this ball and wrapped it in marxist agitprop hoping to slip the whole package past an unsuspecting public.
That they deliberately manipulated data contravening the scientific method, only damaged their case further. Once exposed, the church of global warming engaged in coverup – deny, defend and delay tactics. Like any great scandal, it is the coverup that sinks the guilty. Hiding your errors guarantees eventual exposure, and punishment.
The idea of building a world (virtual or material) based on scientific fabrication, in order to impose a political agenda – then forcing people to live in it – is pure egomania. And self-destructive.
Refusal to admit one’s mistakes, and then PAY for those mistakes – has brought the downfall of mainstream media. The same scenario animates the Roman Church today. It will be the unjust coverup of officials’ pedophilia that sinks the Church. Pride is not restricted to alarmists… or human beings.
“Bob Koss (14:23:30) :
NASA sure has fallen a long way over the past few years. Times are so tough they are opening an auto repair shop.”
The article says they will be investigating the “mysterious acceleration”. Hey, they’re still looking for advanced propulsion concepts!
The British Establishment is really good at whitewashes.
No one ever wants to rock the boat, i.e. disturb the status quo.
So expect mild ‘wrist slaps’ and plenty of mealy mouthed promises and commitments that “it will never happen again”.
Heaven forbid anyone gets fired or even severely disciplined Fraud is a ‘white collar’ crime and in the UK nobody deemed ‘sound’ by the Establishment ever gets punished for such a minor misdemeanor.
So the ghist of it is when CNN loses 3 viewers and MSNBC loses 1 viewer they are down 42% and 22 % respectively?
What turns some of us off from CNN, MSNBC, etc. is that they don’t ADMIT their liberal leanings. FoxNews knows it’s conservative in its commentary and doesn’t hide it. If CNN would come right out and just say that when they do commentary they were liberal and proud of it, then I believe their ratings would at least stabilize. As it is, they try to live the lie of “impartiality” when everyone that sees just a few minutes of their broadcasts knows better.
But why do they still show CNN at airports (or do I fly to the wrong ones)?
[snip]
Murdoch, Branson and many of these over-rich, over influential characters blow with the prevailing political wind. The Sun (A Murdoch paper) has switched sides a number of times, and is presently swinging to the right, as Labour might lose power. Watch Branson do the same.
The Internet and sites such as WUWT are rapidly changing the face of news, and the MSM can not keep up. Part of the reason TV is so vile in the UK is that the channels chase the ‘yoof’ audience, forgetting that the majority of the population is both older and more conservative in their views. As people educate themselves elsewhere, ie via the Internet, they know when the MSM is misleading them, and stations such as Fox are the beneficiaries. The power of the Internet is extraordinary, that is why countries such as China fear it and censor it so much. Imagine what would happen if 1.3 billion people finally discovered the truth?
Finally, my thanks to all who contribute here. I am constantly amazed by the level of knowledge that is displayed, and I am grateful for the free education!
I lost my innocence about journalistic standards many years ago when the Sun slanted just about every single story in the paper along the lines ‘Neil Kinnock is to blame’ and/or ‘the sainted Margaret Thatcher blah, blah, blah….” I gave up on all tabloids when another paper decided to ignore reporting the actual cricket matches and instead devoted pages and pages to Ian Botham’s love life.
I have reached such tipping points a number of times. A few years ago I got fed up that the Independent decided to run the same story every single day: Iraq War, Lies, No WMD, blah, blah, blah… I don’t think there is a single newspaper whose reporting is not strictly controlled by a particular party line and it pervades the whole paper. Simple reporting of facts has long since died a death, if ever it was really there.
I followed a lot of the US elections via US sites on my satellite TV. I am generally unappologeticly liberal and have long been used to derisive put downs of Fox on all sorts of web sites. But I was appalled by the one eyed reporting everywhere except, astonishingly on Fox. They have biases all right but at least they reported the facts and it was the only balanced view of the Clinton/Obama struggle.
Now we have Climategate and the whole thing is laid even more bare. If news is unwelcome it is not news in many papers and on many networks. It isn’t just a question of slant, it simply does not exist if it conflicts with the party line. We see this on the BBC in the UK as well.
Today people don’t simply turn on the TV and watch everything until it is time for bed. There is a lot of choice and once somebody has passed a tipping point they are likely to stay away forever. I expect a lot of people today never even look at a TV news broadcast. I rarely watch a BBC news bulletin today unless I have a particular reason to tune in. Years ago I would pretty well automatically catch the 9 O’clock news.
Fox actually had a drop in the later years of the Bush Presidency and CNN ratings jumped. Obama is doing for Fox what Bush did for CNN, folks know they can not trust CNN when it comes to a Democratic President/Congress anymore than they can trust Fox when it comes to reporting on a Republican President/Congress .
Both CNN and Fox are echo chambers, anyone relying on either for their news may be consider themselves the victim of a psyop operation, otherwise known as brainwashed. So people who do not know any better or have any alternatives hop back and forth depending on who is in charge. As Mark Twain said, those who do not read newspapers are uninformed, those who do are misinformed, same with cable news.
The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Democrats and Republicans both have their own rehtoric, and special interests, but in the end, both rank doing what’s best for the country and it’s citizens low on the totem pole, and so nothing improves, and it’s always the other parties fault, and things will get better when the other party takes over, and it doesn’t. Wash, rinse, repeat.
But I guess when people having a collective IQ of 100 are allowed to vote for President and the Senators, something our founding fathers would have been horrified to even consider, this is what you get. This is no longer a representative government of the people, by the people and for the people, its government of the multinational corporations (MNC), by the MNC and for the MNC. In Iran the supreme leader chooses who can run for President, in the US it is the MNC’s. A phony democracy, with phony news that pretends otherwise.
Politics has become like a religion or football game. Folks choose their party and ideology and cheer for their team. At least it’s entertaining (the fans of this sport most of all).
pft
maybe in your world.
But, the times they are a changing.
The internet has set us free from the shoddy media. It’s easy to read news from over the world, and to actually read scientific papers that dispute prevailing scams which are numerous in the U.S., including AGW. Thanks, WUWT and other truth-seeking websites free of political/financial taint. How fortunate we are, as our ancestors were extremely limited in finding facts.
For example, during the IPCC meeting, the newspaper in Brazil had a completely different version of the final meeting from what appeared in the U.S. press. According to that paper, the U.S. president was NOT invited, and actually ‘crashed’ the meeting which was held by Brazil, India, China and So Africa to protect the developing world from the U.S. and Europe’s efforts to stymie their growth.
I don’t watch TV news(except for the local weather forecast); the only time I turned on CNN was during the Katrina storm, which the commentators blamed on the then-president and failed to mention that the people in its path had 2 days of warnings about the dangers, yet did not evacuate. Since I live in a coastal state, I had watched the storm approaching New Orleans, and it was expected to hit on the western edge, which would have totally overrun the city with tides. Then at the last minute the storm passed to the east. I assumed everyone had fled because it is common knowledge that N.O. is below sea level and dependent on pumps to keep it dry. NOT ONE COMMENTATOR ASKED THE LOCALS WHY THEY STAYED. My common-sense nature has prevented me ever watching such nonsensical ‘news’. I guess it hasn’t improved, judging by their ratings.
“CNN executives have steadfastly said that they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view.”
Perhaps the problem is that they (and the NY Times) truly believe that their hosts aren’t partisan.
You can’t find anything more indicative of the lefty-echo chamber that is the MSM than this.
How are things a changing, Steve? By going running back to the other party that works for billionaires and hoping for that trickle down? How well has that ever worked?
Since that famous trip to open up trade with China that Nixon made, while Kissinger was teaching the Saudis how to get more money for their oil, we’ve been set up to fall hard and we just Walton’d right into it like mongoloids.
I hope it changes, but I’m not going to waste a moment watching Glenn Beck and believing it will.
Our CBC is CNN lite, but will not survive with out their govt funding. The constantly biased corp, is staggeringly silent on the collapse of the climate consensus fraud.Up here its save a billion a year, close CBC.Their basic premise appears to be, that we citizens are too stupid to be told the truth. Of course many canadians think CBC staff are too stupid, to know truth, honesty or integrety in any form. Fox is like fresh air in a stuffy room, compared to the manufactured drivel CBC presents.
@Ed Murphy (19:32:01)
There is another technical term for “trickle-down economics”.
That technical term is “Economics”.
(a/k/a Remedial Economics .001)
There is also a technical term for folks who persist in the belief that when the rich get poorer the poor get richer. (And that technical term is “ignoramus”.)
What we are seeing now is the narrowing of the gap between rich and poor. There is a technical/historical term for that, too: “Bad Times”.
Increase your IQ by 23.7%.
Just kill your TV.
When did the gap between rich and poor widen? Well, the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Age, and the Information Age.
When did the gap between rich and poor narrow? Well, the sack of Rome, the Dark Ages, the Black Death, the Mongol Hordes, the 100-Years’ (& 30-years’) War, the Crisis of 1837, the Panic of 1891 (etc.), World War I, the post WWI recession, and the Great Depression.
During which of the above periods did the poor make out worse? Having been desperately poor myself (very recently and for a long time), I think I can answer that. Do you honestly think that you are better off if all your friends go bust? Think again.
FOX alone seems to be the network that has gotten its head around that. (It’s not a matter of liberal vs. conservative, it’s a matter of idiotic vs. patently obvious/repeatedly demonstrated.)
Viewless: Apparently the addiction to the media non-reality is overwhelming — even some high IQ posters can’t break the habit. Folks, get out of the box they have created for you. Think like —hmmmmm — scientists.
Lose the TV — find reality. Use other sites (like this) on various subjects. You will be amazed at the distortion you have been fed.
MSNBC was down 22% what does that make their ratings, one? I don’t mean one rating point I mean one person.
JRR Canada (19:35:17) :
Our CBC is CNN lite>>
Now that’s not fair. CNN doesn’t put on hour long documentaries where they speak to their audience like they were nine year olds.
I think CNN’s problem is that they have become politicaly correct to the point where they can’t report the news at all. Their quest for “even handed” reporting means theyhave to get both sides of every issue, even if one side is a bunch of qucking ducks. Fox just calls them quacking ducks.
quacking not qucking. Str8 typo on my part. Unless it was subliminal…
It’ll be interesting to see how this is (not) covered by the MSM…
1) a new IARC-JAXA sea-ice extent max for 2010, 14,405,781 on the 30th, beating out 14,375,000 on the 8th. This is the latest annual max on record (only June 2002 to present in the IARC JAXA data).
2) even the NSIDC graph at http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png is edging up to normal.
Most likely, we’ll see some spin about how it’s all a thin mono-molecular layer of rotten ice.
Keep in mind that GE owns MSNBC and NBC and it appears that the CEO of GE is patently supporting every thing Obama wants to do in order to get a payback from Obama.
GE is heavy into “green” energy and they want to get special help from a President who knows how the manage patronage and bribes better than anyone. They will never be objective on Global warming, Healthcare, Cap and Trtrade, Card check, immigration reform, etc. For GE it is good business, whil it is bad for the country when a large corporation joins forces with the President.
The NBC News dept has become the outlet for propaganda just as the Russians used it’s news outlet
Maybe CNN is losing viewers because they share a progressive-liberal bias with several other media giants and because all these stations get their news from two main wire sources that are also progressive-liberal sites. When you consider that the number of people who openly designated themselves as progressive-liberals is about 30%, their audience is split between all the sources with only Fox News as an independent balanced alternative. As the political climate surrounding the Obama administration and the progressive-liberal majority in a democratic supermajority became revealed, people began to realize that the mainstream media and cable news sources were not defending their freedom but these stations were advocating governmental control of their lives. If you are a political moderate or a conservative, why would you watch them?
This is a refreshing piece of news to those of us that have become sick of MSM outlets like the BBC or CNN just parroting any nonsense as long as it was alarmist. There are 3 basic reasons for this :
1) I believe the public (like all of us) like to read things which reinforce our paradigm. Althought this doesn’t tell us much about truth, it does support the data that many more of us have becomesceptical.
2) I believe the public has a more discerning view of ‘news’ than they are given credit for. The real news is not that we are all going to fry in 100 years. The real new is that we have been told a load of porkies about it.
3) I believe each of us has a primitive loathing for ‘authority’. And we find it fascinating when a form of this authority os shown up as flawed or even flat out wrong.
Thats why Fox network is so appealing and CNN and the BBC so outdated.
No surprise. People are sick and tired of the sins of omission and commission by MSM outlets. And, the blatant sycophancy that makes them little more than a PR wing for left leaning ideas. If they showed some basic objectivity, their ratings would rise again. But today’s “journalists” would rather ride the ship down than commit real journalism.
I always thought that CNN stood for Continuous No News:-)
The guy who owns the Fox Network tried to buy public support for the War against Iraqis, with this blood-for-oil quid pro quo:
“The greatest thing to come out of this [war in Iraq] for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil. That’s bigger than any tax cut in any country.”
-Rupert Murdoch, The Bulletin, Feb 11, 2003
That’s just one reason why I can’t celebrate an increase in Fox News ratings.
I watch Fox all the time.I don’t find it biased.Geraldo is no conservative.Beck is over the top and repeats a lot,so a little bit goes a long way with him,his history lessons are good,and no he doesn’t just give his opinion.I like the O’Reilly factor,although he does tend to cut people off,a pet hate of mine.My favourite is Hannity,he has a variety of guests with different opinions,and the good natured left wing guy,I think his name is Bob.He and Hannity have totally opposing ideas,but they are still good friends,they get a bit heated,but the liking they have for each other comes through.That’s what I like about the show.
Mark Wagner (11:58:52) :
“….you could also argue that we live in a right-center nation and politicians and old media just don’t want to accept it. After coming out of the gate to the left and getting smacked, Clinton accepted it, and he was (and still is) a polpular president….”
Clinton is still popular because the man has charisma and because the media has lead the nation to believe Bush was responsible for the mess Clinton made.
Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which had prevented the coupling of investment banking and lending by signing into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. It allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. Economist Robert Kuttner said the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act contributed to the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis. The Community Reinvestment Act, enacted in 1977 under Jimmy Carter, forced banks to downgrade the quality of their mortgage portfolios by making mortgage initiators lower credit standards to less qualified borrowers in poorer communities. The act was expanded further during Bill Clinton’s presidency, creating a higher percentage and a larger pool of subprime mortgages.
The second major mess by Clinton was signing the World Trade Organization Act. Now the WTO writes many of our laws under the guise of “harmonization” with the threat of trade sanctions if we do not comply. It encouraged the export of US jobs overseas while opening our borders to substandard and dangerous food, medicine and other products.
The birds Clinton let loose are now coming home to roost. Clinton was President from 1993 to 2001. Statistics showed in 1990, before WTO was ratified by Clinton, Foreign ownership of U.S. assets amounted to 33% of U.S. GDP. By 2002, just after he left office this had increased to over 70% of U.S. GDP. source: http://www.fame.org/HTM/greg%20Pickup%201%2010%2003%20report.htm
Given those statistics one could state that Clinton sold the USA to foreigners….
Note: I am not defending Bush… “no man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.” — Judge Gideon J. Tucker, Final Accounting in the Estate of A.B. (1866)
CNN = Cable Not News.
BBC = Biased Broadcasting Network.
Note: I am not defending Bush…
You can leave that one to me. As a liberation liberal, I defend Bush vehemently.
So far as he is concerned, he’s the winner of the US Presidential Bummest Rap Award. But in this forum (except for the occasional political thread) I generally stick to the weather.
I realized a long time ago that orgs like CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and NBC were created to push an agenda, while FOX was created to make money. As a result, FOX is winning simply because people want NEWS, not propaganda, and the more people watch, the more money FOX makes.
As someone who works for a well known media research company (not allowed to say who but the most widely known) and who does data entry from hand written reports of TV viewing provided by a wide variety of individuals across the Country, I can say that households with low/no income in rural areas tend to watch CNN, NBC and MSNBC. These people also tend to have the most trouble following the instructions of how to fill out the daily viewing forms. The least problematic forms are submitted by those who tend to watch FOX and CBS news shows. These households also tend to have the two main people living there fully employed. No explanation offered by me, just what I observe.
There’s a rumor that will flood the airways and print media in about 72 hours (ok, let’s play it safe, 72 days): “CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, and all their local stations, will no longer broadcast the news, weather, and sports in English”.
Anyone who thinks these people are not making a bundle of money, need only look at the owners’ tax returns and offshore bank accounts. Also remember, there is an illegal for every legal in this country and after the 2010 census is published and the seats in congress are reapportioned we’re all going to be picking grapes, apples, tomatoes, and lint out of our tummy buttons, and living in shanty towns.
I’m beginning to get anxious about Fox being the only good news source too; that’s putting too much in the hands of one outfit, and as soon as old ‘what’s his name’ kicks the bucket, Soros&Co. will probably “buy” it and make them speak French.
I’ve realised that climategate did not change public opinion, instead public opinion had already recognised the climate scam and was ready for a scandal like climategate.
That’s where I think CNN is getting it wrong. They think they control the news agenda, whereas in truth the public control the agenda and will seek the best news outlets that provide them the news that interests them.
And with the internet the ability of the public to switch news provider has been made all the easier, because a growing proportion of our news can come from micro-media outlets bypassing the monolithic mainstream media.
Rarely if ever look to broadcast or cable for news. Too slow and can’t prioritize it to my liking. The Drudge Report is where it’s at. I glance at it several times a day for about a minute each time right clicking to “open in new tab” any headlines that look interesting. Then one at a time I click through the tabs that were opened on the stories to see if there’s more of interest. The exception to the rule is when there’s a big breaking story with cameras on scene. For local news I use google news section set to my zipcode. For weather I use Weather Underground.
Fox News has enough sacred cows to digust me. Just fewer of them any of the other MSM outlets. I’m still waiting for Fox to get serious about digging up all of Obama’s hidden records, or putting pressure on “Mr. Transparency” to remove the burka covering up his original birth certificate, grade school records, college records, university records, law practice clients, passport(s), and things of that nature. We know less about the background of this president than any other in history and all the MSM outlets are afraid to dig into it. What happened to investigative reporting? Something has changed. Prior to this president I could bank on the MSM to dig up the presidential dirt. It actually seemed to intensify from Watergate onward through Bill Clinton and GW Bush but then vanished all of a sudden when Obama came on the scene. Why? WTF?
All media plan together. The owners of ALL of the media are very right wing thinkers. The fact that some are assigned to control the left side and center of the spectrum is very clever, otherwise people might figure out it’s like Pravda was, a mechanism of control.
A secondary purpose is to put good citizens who really share common values, at each others’ throats. So sad because it is clear from the posts it is working quite well.
Dave, the reason FOX doesn’t do as you suggest — it’s not in the script.
evanmjones,
“Do you honestly think that you are better off if all your friends go bust? Think again”
Ah, but isn’t it all about relative wealth, how well off you are compared to your neighbours/peers? The poorest members of modern Western economies are as rich as Cresos compared to the elite of the middle ages, yet for some reason, the elite still felt elite, and todays poor still feel poor.
RE: Khwarizmi (01:23:57)
“That’s just one reason why I can’t celebrate an increase in Fox News ratings.”
What is? Is Murdoch too factual for you?
tj (10:29:53) :
All media plan together. The owners of ALL of the media are very right wing thinkers>>
Clearly you haven’t met any of them.
davidmhoffer (12:31:17) :
“Clearly you haven’t met any of them.”
Ted Turner is right wing? Clearly you’re not on planet Earth.
sartec (12:54:21) :
davidmhoffer (12:31:17) :
“Clearly you haven’t met any of them.”
Ted Turner is right wing? Clearly you’re not on planet Earth>>
Uhm… that was my point. But then “tj” also accused Obama of being a conservative earlier, so what ever his definition of “liberal” “conservative” and “right wing” is, I don’t think it reflects the consensus definition.
Aww gee. I backed up one of my own arguments with the word “consensus”. I have to go wash myself. I may never be clean again.
OK. If you believe what they say , some are not right wing. However, if you follow their actions and their associates and who they “go to meeting” with then you will understand who they really are. If you follow the money you will understand.
Also right wing and left wing as most average people think of it, are contrived positions to keep good people arguing and not paying attention to the actions that are going on around themselves. Obama said he would end the Iraq War? (Talk) Did he? (Action)
I haven’t met any of them, DMH, but the information is available if you choose to access it.
davidmhoffer
Sorry Dave, I’m royally confused now.
tj
Obama said he would end the Iraq War? (Talk) Did he? (Action)
I haven’t met any of them, DMH, but the information is available if you choose to access it.>>
Uhm… he said he would start pulling troops out, and he has… which makes him neither right wing nor left. If you say he didn’t do what he said he was going to do you are just calling him a liar.
I don’t have to “access” it, I’ve met and done business with several. You are talking through your hat.
Ah, but isn’t it all about relative wealth, how well off you are compared to your neighbours/peers? The poorest members of modern Western economies are as rich as Cresos compared to the elite of the middle ages, yet for some reason, the elite still felt elite, and today’s poor still feel poor.
I hear you. It’s amazing how folks with all of their needs met (and then some) must insist on making themselves feel badly off.
And it’s worse than a blunder. It’s a crime. Well, a sin, anyway.
The sin of Class Envy, which has got to be the winner of the Stupidest Sin award. (But indulged in religiously by rubes, boobs, flatheads, suckers, and idiots the world over. Particularly if they hold advanced degrees.)
I, for one, refuse to cheat myself out of contentment and happiness, and I encourage others to do the same.
evanmjones (20:18:52) : “The sin of Class Envy, which has got to be the winner of the Stupidest Sin award. (But indulged in religiously by rubes, boobs, flatheads, suckers, and idiots the world over…”
You left out politicians ….. oh no you didn’t, I see you did mention rubes, boobs, flatheads and idiots (but you did leave out theives).
evanmjones (20:18:52): ” It’s amazing how folks with all of their needs met (and then some) must insist on making themselves feel badly off.”
During a discussion with my neighbor regarding the unjust nature of the progressive income tax system in the US, I stumbled upon the real reason for your statement above. I was arguing that it was unethical to tax one person at 35% of income and another at 15% just because one had more money than the other. My neighbor said it shouldn’t matter because the person with the higher income and higher tax rate still had much more money left over after taxes. So there was the source of the envy, not how much one made but how much one had left over. As you said, even when these folks have all of their needs met, they still envy those that have more left over. So my point of agrument is now “why should you be jealous of how much someone else has left over if your leftovers are adequate for you”. I have never been presented with a good rebuttal to that.
Tom,
You have found a lynch pin indeed. Envy, jealousy, the green monster is at the heart of your query. The answer may lie in the nature of competition. And a political prejudice against hierarchy. The socialist/communist mindset desires fiscal and material equality. Every person has only what is needed. No person is seen as “winning” any more than another. Yet this is a mindset that relies on party and military hierarchy to sustain itself. Thus the military chain of command, and layers of party bosses. All are equal except those who are not.
But when it comes to athletics, all sense of equality is thrown out. Obviously only one athlete can win a singles competition. One is found “better” or to have excelled more than the rest. This one is praised and given a trophy and perqs – thus having more “leftovers” than the rest. These leftovers are acceptable apparently because they are won by brawn and not brain. It’s okay for party members, military, and athletes to dwell in hierarchies stuffed with leftovers. If your leftovers come from a place other than the approved list, you are a thief or con artist and thus subject to envy.
On the spiritual level here’s a problem. If matter does not matter, then why rail against those who have it? One’s deeds define the soul – not the lack or accumulation of matter.
evanmjones +
Economics:
When a country doesn’t manufacture much of anything anymore it generally loses it wealth, period. When your population gets close to the capacity of the land to support it you lose those exports.
When your getting your behind kicked in world trade you DO NOT go to your enemies with favored nation trade agreements.
Nor do you keep fining and taxing your companies over environmental issues when they are working to clean up.
Bullets and bombs wasted on idiotic religious killing crusades are worse than throwing money away to buy foreign oil. Plus 4,400 US soldiers lost their lives in Iraq alone, with 35,000 wounded. Another possible 1 million coalition, contractor and civilian lives were lost. Over a string of absolute LIES.
Some of you need to take a look at somebody the chronic loser Bush failed to… because Iraq was his focus from day one.
Foreclosure Phil Gramm, former republican senator and lobbyist
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/am_credit_mother_jones_nyt.php?page=all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm%E2%80%93Leach%E2%80%93Bliley_Act
The Republicans you defend are among the arsonists who burned down our national home, and yes, economically-financially Clinton was also responsible. But the Republicans combine the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to stoke the fire that consumes America.
Personally, I never vote for, nor defend either side because they manufacture need for global governance.
History:
Had real change been implemented way back world status gaps would look much different. Imagine that predatory capitalism had been replaced with something like worker cooperatives… CEO type leadership commanding salaries 400 times that of the average worker wouldn’t be needed, nor would cooperatives likely need nor elect to utilize lobbyists. The robber barons’ days need to be ended and replaced with something good… they are why this world remains so volatile.
[SNIP! Oh, forget it! If you want to fight the Iraq War over again, for heaven’s sake do it elsewhere. ~ Evan]
davidmhoffer TJ was correct, and was not “talking through his hat” as you so disparagingly claimed.
===================
“I will promise you this:
That if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president it is the first thing I will do.
I will get our troops home.
We WILL bring an end to this war.
You can take that to the bank”
-Obama, Oct 27, 2007
====================
But don’t take my word for it:
[SNIP! Oh, forget it! If you want to fight the Iraq War over again, for heaven’s sake do it elsewhere. ~ Evan]
Sorry for that Evan. I thought it fair to compare the lies promoted by “experts” on AGW to those promoted by “experts” on WMD, but I understand the topic is media preferences on a climate blog, not perceptions management by networks, and I will therefore desist.
Sartec asked if Murdoch was “too factual: for me in response to a referenced statement demonstrating that this was not the case.
My preference is for no television.
cheers.
[REPLY – Okay. And I concede this is a somewhat more political thread than normal. The point is well taken that experts can and often do go badly astray (sometimes the error is reasonable, sometimes not). ~ Evan]
Quoting: Henry chance (10:57:07) :
“Resident Obama…”
Commenting:
Good one, Henry!
I shall ignore the Iraq nonsense, but address the rest.
Imagine that predatory capitalism had been replaced with something like worker cooperatives…
I tried that, but I shuddered too much.
CEO type leadership commanding salaries 400 times that of the average worker wouldn’t be needed, nor would cooperatives likely need nor elect to utilize lobbyists. The robber barons’ days need to be ended and replaced with something good… they are why this world remains so volatile.
Enforced by whom?
And if companies without CEO-type leadership can out-compete the others, fine. They are free to go and do that. You seem to believe that wealth is just sort of lying around waiting to be picked up and that those nasty CEOs are grabbing an unfair share. But wealth is created. And much of the actual value results from effective organization and direction rather than merely from production itself. That sort of talent is rare, extraordinarily valuable, and does not perform tricks on command. That’s what Lenin utterly failed to grasp.
Or to put it another way, it usually doesn’t matter how good the weapons are if the general is lousy. At any given point, some CEOs (the Orren Boyles of the world) are undeserving. But whatever they are paying Hank Reardon, it’s not enough.
Furthermore, do you imagine that tycoons just pile up their money and sleep on it for a bed? They hire and consume. And what is left is invested in others that hire and consume.
When a country doesn’t manufacture much of anything anymore it generally loses it wealth, period.
So much for the US, Western Europe, and the Information Age in general. I think you need to reexamine this premise.
And no, I am not particularly worried that our jobs no longer mostly consist of mindlessly banging things together.