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Fox News: 83 Consecutive Months At #1
Here’s a little something to make the mindless Fox haters cry:
FNC has been the most-watched cable news channel for 83 consecutive months in both Total Day and prime time.
FNC was #3 in prime time and #4 in total day in all of basic cable. Fox News also retained the most viewership, post-election (Nov 4 vs. Nov. 5 – 30.) In Total day, FNC held 33% of its viewers, compared with 24% for MSNBC and 18% for CNN. In prime time, FNC retained 23% of viewers, MSNBC retained 19% and CNN held on to 10% of its Election Day audience.
Fox has also kept more of its viewers than the other networks — post election. Fox News is the best news channel on television. They have the best programming, the best talent, and the best coverage. All the crap about Fox being a “right wing network” is total BS.
The Pew Research Center’s Project For Excellence in Journalism released a study in October that clearly showed Fox News to be the most fair and balanced network — while MSNBC was the least.
-Chris Jones
Video: Obama Shocked That The Military Prefers Fox News
Obama should really get out more often. The only people who don’t watch Fox News are the far-left people he runs around with.
Alan Colmes Explains Fox News To Liberals
Alan Colmes has a great piece on his blog about why liberals are completely wrong to demonize Fox News. He wrote it in response to the shrill protests coming from the liberal blogs about Clinton guru Howard Wolfson being hired by Fox News.
Often quoted is a four-year-old poll that claims that only 7 percent of Fox viewers supported John Kerry, while 88 percent were for Bush. That’s the argument? Other, more thorough studies show very different results. Mediamark research shows that only 38% of FOX viewers self-identify as conservatives. Pew Research has numbers that fall somewhere in-between citing a survey that shows Republicans outnumber Democrats by two-to-one (43% to 21%) among the core FOX News Channel audience
But even if the 88%-7% figures were a true reflection of the FOX News viewership (and J$ explains why it isn’t), one would think that progressives would welcome the opportunity to change the paradigm and welcome any move by FOX to live up to its “Fair and Balanced” mantra. I am often renounced by the same liberal blogophere of which I am a part (even on this, my own, site, as free speech reigns) simply for being a part of a news organization some progressives disdain. So they’d rather just cede the ground, have no one on the left appear on the channel, and then continue to bash it. When I criticized Democrats for not participating in a FOX News debate, I was especially excoriated by Kos and others on the left, accused of being a mouthpiece for my FOX bosses…
I’ve found that most people who hate Fox News have never actually watched it. They simply hate FNC because their favorite liberal blog tells them to. Fox unquestionably had the fairest coverage during the primaries. They were the only channel that played it right down the middle. The other channels, MSNBC in particular was pretty much just an extension of the Obama campaign. They continue to be his unofficial media arm for all intents and purposes, and its disgusting.
Gawker Attacks The Fox Flack
I didn’t have a chance to read Gawker’s response yesterday to the NY Time’s latest Fox News hit piece, because I was busy writing my own response.
Several bloggers e-mailed me the link to Gawker’s article and many of them were quite incredulous that I had not read it. They were right, I should have read it. While the underlying premise of the piece is totally wrong, it’s a very entertaining article and I laughed my a*s off while reading it.
Gawker trains its sites on chief FNC flack, Irena Briganti, who Gawker labels “a mouthpiece of Fox boss Roger Ailes.” Her official title is Vice President of media relations.
According to Gawker and testimony from a terribly frightened news media, Irena wields a “bloody hatchet” the likes of which the world has never seen–not even Gawker.
The notorious gossip site goes on to list some of her most offensive and unfair statements over the years to those who’ve dared to criticize Fox.
Here’s the list of her “all time hits”as Gawker calls them:
- When Anderson Cooper chided Fox for running with a false report of Obama going to a Muslim school, Briganti responded with, “Yet another cry for attention by the Paris Hilton of television news, Anderson Cooper.”
- Briganti attributed Keith Olbermann’s attacks on Bill O’Reilly to his “personal demons, and said “In the meantime, we hope he enjoys his paranoid view from the bottom of the ratings ladder and wish him well on his inevitable trip to oblivion.”
- When Christiane Amanpour said CNN and Fox were intimidated by the Bush administration and practiced self-censorship in the run-up to the Iraq war, Briganti responded, “Given the choice, it’s better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda.”
I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a while. Those are so good, that frankly, someone have them bronzed and placed in the lobby at Fox. You just don’t hear zingers that good everyday. Clearly, Irena Briganti can pretty well neuter any FNC critic with a single sentence.
The guy who wrote the Gawker piece is named Hamilton Nolan and he used to write for PR Week. He admits that he’s still bitter about his failed attempt to write a profile of Briganti a couple of years ago. He tried to get quotes from people who’d previosly been carved up by Briganti, but most were too fearful to talk. Incredibly, one person he asked immediately called Briganti and told her about the article he was writing.
When I worked at PRWeek a couple of years ago, I tried to write a profile of Briganti. This, after several people who had dealt with her assured me that she was the single meanest flack in the entire media world (which is true). I sent emails out to a list of people in the media that Briganti had publicly insulted. And what happened? Some turned me down, citing fear of her. Some didn’t respond, out of fear. And one, in what I still consider to be the biggest bitch move I ever saw as a reporter, ran straight to Irena, telling her that a PRWeek reporter was out to smear her. This—from a reporter who had already been publicly smeared by Briganti—is akin to the kid whose response to being bullied is to grovel and try to please the bully further.
Briganti expertly strung me along for months, promising interviews in the near future and then pushing back the date continuously. Eventually the profile fell apart and never got written. She’s good at what she does. She is still quite willing to offer negative tidbits about her competitors to this day.
I recommend everyone read the entire Gawker piece as it’s quite entertaining. I think the bottom line here is that Irena Briganti is the best PR Flack in the business and it irritates the hell out of everyone that she works at Fox. If you look closely you’ll notice a trend when it comes to Fox News. They tend to have the best of everything. The best news coverage, the best anchors, the best ratings, and of course the best PR department. Oh yeah, they also have the best Bill O’Reilly–sorry MSNBC.
The media becomes more dishonest and corrupt with every passing year, and trying to damage Fox News has practically become an Olympic sport. Kudos to Roger Ailes for having the right good sense to hire someone who doesn’t take any sh*t.
The liberal media is about as vicious a beast as anything you’re likely to come across in life. They love personal attacks and they don’t take prisoners. Which is why I find it particularly amusing that a lone Fox News flack has “got’em on the run,” to borrow a line from the President.
If anything, Irena deserves a raise.
-Chris Jones
Clinton Advisor Howard Wolfson Joins Fox News
Hillary Clinton’s top political guru, Howard Wolfson, is joining the Fox News channel as a democratic analyst according to the Washington Post.
Wolfson said this about his new job:
“Fox has the largest audience in cable television — many of its viewers are independents who will help decide the next election,” said Wolfson of his decision. “It’s critically important for strong progressives to be talking to and offering analysis to that audience.”
Fox now has Karl Rove, Lanny Davis, and now Howard Wolfson. All the best talent ends up at Fox because they’re the only ones not shilling for Obama 24/7.
NY Times Writes Hit Piece About Fox News Defending Itself From Hit Pieces
The NY Times has yet another hit piece on Fox News this morning. This time it’s a hit piece about Fox News defending itself from hit pieces. For some reason David Carr thinks it’s inappropriate for Fox News to strike back hard when they’re smeared.
He accuses the network of using underhanded and nefarious tactics to hit back at critics and smear merchants. Considering that Fox News is pretty much attacked daily, the need for a good media relations department is obvious.
FNC has been #1 in cable news for years, and critics of every stripe have tried a variety of “kitchen sink” strategies to damage the network. So when someone like Mr. Carr writes a propaganda piece teeming with lies and innuendo about the cable channel, I’m surprised that he’s surprised they take swift action.
Among the many complaints in Mr. Carr’s latest article about Fox News is that journalists who write critical pieces are blacklisted and shut-out of future access to the network. However, since many in the “mainstream media” love to call Fox News “Fixed News” or “Fake News,” why would they care if they get access?
Many of the television-beat reporters I called had horror stories, but few were willing to be quoted. In the last several years, reporters from The Associated Press, several large newspapers and various trade publications have said they were shut out from getting their calls returned because of stories they had written. Editors do not want to hear why your calls are not being returned, they just want you to fix the problem, or perhaps they will fix it by finding someone else to do your job.
According to many newspapers across the country, rival cable channels, and that hack Olbermann, FNC is merely a mouthpiece for the Bush administration that only puts out fake stories. So it would seem to me that being blacklisted from Fox News would be a godsend to all the “real” journalists out there.
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