Inside FOX "News" on Election Night

Photo from source, B&C

Cable news has become, at least on the surface, a highly partisan affair, at least for two out of three of the major channels. CNN--long ago christened the "Clinton News Network" by conservatives, has never been overtly partisan by most objective standards. But MSNBC has of late moved into overtly liberal programming, if only in its two prime time news commentary shows, Countdown with Keith Olbermann and The Rachel Maddow Show.

How "left wing" the rest of MSNBC really is, depends upon your political leanings, of course. To this observer, the heat given to MSNBC for those two shows kind of proves how liberal the rest of the programming isn't. But one thing is certain, FOX "News" holds down the conservatively slanted news like nobody else. Despite their "fair and balanced" motto, their leanings are evident in their commentary shows (Hannity & Colmes, Hannity's America, The O'Reilly Factor), in their business show, and in most of the rest of their programming. For evidence of that, you could just watch and see for yourself, or check out sites like Newshounds or MediaMatters. The channel's rightward tilt is chronicled on both sites exhaustively, with detailed transcripts, screen shots and video.

But as I said, evidence isn't really necessary if you have eyes, ears and a brain. So people like me, who enjoy needling FOX "News" were kind of hoping that Barack Obama's victory a week ago, would leave their anchors with their mouths agape. There was some fun to be had, with Karl Rove telling viewers that John McCain had to win Ohio, moments before Ohio was called for Obama. But the big head-exploding scene only exists in the funny video from Real Time with Bill Maher. And sure, you could tell they weren't having a party, but all-in-all, they took it pretty well.

And you know what? They'll probably do pretty well in an Obamified United States. They were born during the Clinton years, and made their mark as part of the "opposition party." And they're likely to do it again. I cringe at the thought of the nitpicky minutiae they'll delve into for the next (dare I hope eight?) years. But think about how they thrived railing against liberals when hardly any were in power!

MSNBC has a slightly different challenge. The bulk of their lineup does not depend upon who is in office. Keith Olbermann only ramped up his anti-Bush administration rhetoric in the last couple of years, so he can go back to what he used to do. His show--prior to election season--was a terrific hodge-podge of news stories and oddball items that weren't covered elsewhere. He'll do that again. And Rachel Maddow is really going to surprise people. She's had a radio show for years, and her specialty is looking at news from a different angle, scraping the underbelly, and digging deeper into stories. I think they'll be just fine.

So while the ratings will likely go down for all of cable news for a while, I'm betting that they all do just fine, with FOX "News" still getting three million or so conservatives every night, and CNN and MSNBC fighting for second place. FOX will get pumped chasing silly stories about their latest faux outrage, and Olbermann will have fun ridiculing them.

[Excerpt]

A Blue Era Dawns at Fox News

Maybe it did all come down to Ohio—again. At least that's what it felt like at the Fox News Channel studios on Election Night.

Brit Hume, FNC's droll political anchor and D.C. managing editor, and Karl Rove, infamous Republican operative, left their anchor seats for a standup in front of FNC's giant touch screen. At 9:18 p.m., in the middle of Rove's deconstruction of precinct data, Hume broke in: “Guess what, Karl? The state of Ohio has gone to Barack Obama. . .”

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