Biased Media Coverage Taking Its Toll On Ratings

Why is the mainstream liberal media in the United States losing its ratings among the population? Is it because of the obvious biased slant they use to report the news?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK_O-JI-Dpo]YouTube - This Is How Main Stream Media Covered the Anti-Tax Tea Parties[/ame]

You just know it has to be killing the folks at CNN and MSNBC that Fox News has completely overwhelmed them in the ratings. In fact, the combined number of viewers of both of those networks still doesn't match that of Fox News. Could it be that the public is sick of the fawning coverage given to the Obama administration by most of the mainstream media and look to Fox News for providing more balanced stories? That is something that the MSN people just can't confess. So what is their excuse for the ratings dominance by Fox News? CNN co-founder, Reese Schonfeld, provides a laughably lame excuse in the Huffington Post. First he presents an accurate but painful picture (from his POV) of the cable news ratings:

Nine years ago, when Fox News sprinted past CNN to become America's number one news network, I attributed its ratings gains to the election of George Bush and the triumph of Fox-watching conservatives. I figured conservatives would be savoring their victory while liberals were averting their eyes in disgust. For the next eight years, I measured political sentiment in the United States by comparing the size of the FoxNews audience with the combined size of the CNN/MSNBC audience. In this space, I even predicted, with reasonable accuracy, the percent by which Barack Obama won the election based on the split in the news audience.

Now, seven months after Barack Obama's victory, CNN's ratings have gone down the drain. From May of last year to May of this year, CNN lost 22% of its total primetime audience. MSNBC was down 2%, while Fox News was up 24%. In the key advertising demographic (25-54), Fox was up 31%, CNN was down 37% and MSNBC was down 26%. In hard numbers, Fox had 109,000 more viewers than last year while CNN lost 113,000. CNN averaged fewer than 200,000 25-54 viewers in primetime. Even MSNBC averaged more viewers than that.

And yet more painful ratings facts reported by Schonfeld:

Total day was nearly as bad, with Fox up 24% and CNN down 7%. MSNBC was down 2% in total viewing. Fox is beating CNN almost two-to-one in most categories.

FoxNews beat MSNBC and CNN combined with 2.071 million total viewers, and had nine of the top ten cable news shows. Fox also grew by 70% in the 25-54 demographic in primetime over last year.

Wait wait,

You aren't trying to say that Fox news is unbiased, are you? They are the most biased POS ever.

Of course, there are no unbiased news sources.

Originally Posted by Psilo

Wait wait,

You aren't trying to say that Fox news is unbiased, are you? They are the most biased POS ever.

Of course, there are no unbiased news sources.

I'm not denying that Fox is more conservative than liberal, but apparently the majority of people trust their news coverage over CNN and MSNBC combined. The statistics speak for themselves.

Oh okay. That makes more sense.

People are stupid. It seems that your average joe can't identify loaded words and biased journalism. It does seem that, for the most part, Obama's hype is dieing. I'm not surprised that this is giving Fox news a jump.

It's good that there is some diversity in perspective I guess, even if it's all plenty biased, each in their own way. It's good that one is covering issues others aren't, that's for sure. IDK i gave up on the news a long time ago.

I just came across a story where a bunch of Fox news investigators were fired for not killing a story the network wanted killed, it all went to court and basically the verdict was it is not illegal to present known falsity in the news. GREAT. and i'm sure this is the same for all the news networks...

this is an interesting issue and a revealing story about how media/government/corporations work together to exploit the public, btw.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1pKlnhvg0]YouTube - Monsanto & Cancer Milk: FOX NEWS KILLS STORY & FIRES Reporters.[/ame]

What I find most intriguing is that the minority in the media represents the majority of viewers. The liberal media has the loudest voice because they have more stations to spread their propaganda and make it appear as though their viewpoints are representative of the entire nation, but the smaller voice is the one that's getting most of the attention.

Originally Posted by Shadow

What I find most intriguing is that the minority in the media represents the majority of viewers. The liberal media has the loudest voice because they have more stations to spread their propaganda and make it appear as though their viewpoints are representative of the entire nation, but the smaller voice is the one that's getting more attention now.

yes, and it seems it's been a quick change over the past year that Fox's viewers and ratings have jumped, if I understood that article correctly. which would mean there's a dynamic disillusionment going on in regards to liberal propaganda, which is a very good thing. i mean, i personally am probably way more liberal than not, but i hate being politically labeled "a liberal".

and i think disillusionment to political liberal propaganda/biases etc is both great and important. perhaps after having been disillusioned to conservative BS with Bush and now disillusionment to liberal BS with Obama, we'll start to get somewhere.

I don't watch television news anymore. I get all my info from good ol google.

Was there ever a time when the news wasn't biased? These threads of yours are getting to be quite irritating. If every little thing about the US bothers you so much then why don't you just leave?

Originally Posted by Nocturne

Was there ever a time when the news wasn't biased? These threads of yours are getting to be quite irritating. If every little thing about the US bothers you so much then why don't you just leave?

The trends in bias-ness are interesting and revealing, to say the least. If you have nothing to add to discussion, from whatever perspective, than why do you bother commenting?