As much as I find the Obama Administration's kerfuffle with Fox News to be reasonably diverting, I'm not sure there's a lot to see here: I've said before (and long ago) what I think of Fox, and it's basically the same complaint of dressing up opinion and commentary as news. But knowing that - and even as the Administration has, deciding to challenge it - I'm not sure anyone's answered the "what now" question.
Because it's not, really, that Fox is dominated by opinion journalism; it's that they've succeeded with it, and that success is warping the entire field of 24 hour news. Say what (nice things, I suppose) you will about Rachel Maddow... that's not news, either. And generally, Keith Olbermann isn't much more. MSNBC, which has been the favorite "what about them" excuse of conservatives trying to defend Fox, has been playing catch up for years with the more successful operations at CNN and Fox, and they've decided, clearly, when you can't beat it... join them. Let the shouting commence.
And it seems fair to observe, too, at least no one is pretending that Fox is brilliantly objective as a news organization. It's a measure of the playing field we now work on that no one, no one sane anyway, can essentially deny that Fox is where conservatives get information, because, clearly, it tells the stories in ways that reflect conservative views and ideals. As I always try to remind people at times like this, Fox has nt shown an ability to break hard news; it's reporting coverage is generally thin, and its reporters rarely reflect great skills at getting the substance of a story... but they're great for finding opinions about the news of the day.
I think the problem here is much the problem we're dealing with in talking about healthcare: if the profit motive is going to be our bottom line, if you have to have good ratings and better ad sales to be viable... then Fox is right; you do the things that get ratings. And you get ratings with controversy, drama, and a sense of conflict. You do not get ratings armed with facts, figures, and often depressing information about conditions in places that may not, really, have a good outcome anywhere in the near future. Look! A silver balloon! If we can't let news be unprofitable, if we can't be less concerned with ad sales and more concerned with information... then, no, we're not going to get good news coverage. We will get shouting, and name calling, and Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity. And blaming Fox, or calling them the "worst example" doesn't change the bigger problem - what they exemplify... is what's working.
And so, yet again, I find myself less than thrilled with the Obama folks, not because I think they're tilting at a losing windmill... but because they don't, really, have any interest in trying to change the status quo. Making Fox News the enemy suits their political agenda; "exposing" Fox as conservative (really? can you expose something so nakedly obvious?) is easy headlines... but no real payoff. Fox gets to be just what it is, the Obama folks get an easy scapegoat... and we get less and less served by good news outlets. Who's losing here? And who, really, is being outfoxed?
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