There’s an interesting cultural phenomenon underway over the obvious point-of-view journalism kid on the block, Fox News. I cringe every time I hear or read of somebody from the mainstream press moan and complain about Fox News, because they’re playing right into the hands of those fighting a cultural war against liberalism in the country.

The latest is Ted Turner. In a speech at the NATPE conference in Las Vegas yesterday — and reported by Broadcasting and Cable — he called Fox a propaganda tool of the Bush administration and indirectly compared Fox News Channel’s popularity to Adolf Hitler’s popular election to run Germany before World War II.

Having once worked the conservative side of the media street, I can tell you this is bullshit in its purest form, and it’s hurting the cause of liberalism more than people on the left realize. Fox doesn’t have to go on the air and claim red state ground in the culture war, because liberals are doing it for them. Every time someone from the left opens a critical mouth and points it at Fox, it validates Fox’s mission. Every time someone from a mainstream press outlet does the same, it validates the widely-held belief by red-staters that the press is liberal. The great have and have-not divide in the country is exacerbated by this constant harping about Fox not playing by the rules. Such complaining may galvanize support from the left, but look what happened in the last election. If the left wants to win, it must reinvent itself, not continue clumsily bouncing down a path to nothingness.

Look, folks. There never was anything such as objectivity, and you can’t argue for fairness unless you define what that means. And once you enter that arena, tit gives way to tat, and the tail-chasing begins in earnest. For every example the left can give of Fox working on behalf of the current White House, the right can make similar claims about the mainstream press and the Clinton administration. The press is not objective. The press is not “fair.” There isn’t any such thing, so let’s just drop all the bickering and get on with doing our jobs.

The biggest loser in all of this is the common man, that which used to make up the core of the party of the Democrats. But perhaps that’s supposed to be the case. I keep hoping for the day when a new political party emerges, one that my father would’ve been proud to support. As the left continues to fight this useless battle, that seems more likely every day.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2005 at 9:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.