Lawrence Solomon: Why Fox News is still clobbering the media competition

Posted by: privatefinancetips in BLOG, Marketing Mar 27, 2016

On just about any day’s the entire year, year in year out, Fox News draws more viewers than CNN. More than MSNBC. Often, Fox News draws a lot more than each of them combined. Even though many major media are in decline, losing audience due to competition from social networking and new media, Fox News keeps setting records.

We are seeing a flight to quality. Non-Fox news fares poorly because it’s mediocre – timid, politically biased and untrustworthy. Fox fares mainly because it’s meritorious – unafraid, politically balanced and trusted, as advertised. Unlike its competitors within the U.S. or, for instance, in Canada, Fox doesn’t distort world events through a politically correct lens; it brings events into focus with expert commentary and news-breaking reportage, and it is rewarded with viewers’ trust.

A nationwide Suffolk University/USA Today poll last month, like those who work in previous years by Pew Research Center yet others, sums it up. When asked, “What TV news or commentary source can you trust the most?,” Americans chose Fox over third-place finisher CNN by greater than a two-to-one margin, plus they chose Fox over fourth-place finisher CBS by greater than a three-to-one margin. The second-place finisher? Tellingly, the most common response in the poll by people who didn’t choose Fox was “Undecided.” When Fox doesn’t spring to mind as the most trustworthy source, not one other news source sticks out: The responders just shrug, typically replying with some variation of “I have no idea.”

Fox News won plaudits – for its aggressive questioning of Republicans.

Also tellingly, MSNBC, which many pundits think about a left-wing counterpart to Fox, has little credibility with the public, arriving near the bottom, just in front of Comedy Central like a trusted news source.

The recent debates for the Republican and Democratic nominations show why viewers place their trust in Fox for impartial coverage. Fox News won plaudits all around, including from liberal commentators, because of its aggressive questioning of Republicans that zeroed in on their vulnerabilities. Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, so resented Fox’s Megyn Kelly he made her departure a condition of his participation in a subsequent debate (Fox refused Trump’s request, resulting in his withdrawal).

The other networks, in contrast, received mixed reviews for their questioning of the candidates, specially when it came to pressing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton on her behalf many scandals: her role in Libya’s Benghazi affair, which led to the death of the American ambassador; allegations that she used her position as secretary of state to obtain tens of millions of dollars on her family as well as for their Clinton Foundation; and her possible indictment on criminal charges on her failure to use a secure email server, which is thought to have compromised the lives of agents in the field. In the seven Democratic debates up to now, neither Democratic candidate received a single question about their approval of late-term abortion, which the bulk of american citizens oppose.

The Democratic Party, realizing it would face a grilling by Fox moderators, denied them their requests for hosting a debate. Understanding that the other news networks would pull their punches, the Democrats gave them all hosting opportunities. The MSNBC Democratic debate was this type of love-fest that moderator Rachel Maddow followed it by hugging the contestants.

Why do so many believe that Fox provides biased, right-wing news coverage? For one thing, that’s what they hear from Fox’s competitors, who are almost entirely on the left of the political spectrum, and identify positions right of these – including positions in the middle – to be right wing. For another, Fox does tilt conservative in its opinion shows, most notably in Sean Hannity’s 10 p.m. slot, which serves little but steak for an overwhelmingly conservative audience.

But Fox’s other prime-time opinion hosts show no partisan political bias, consistently interviewing leading Democrats as well as leading Republicans. Greta Van Susteren, the 7 p.m. host, is a liberal, while Fox’s biggest ratings draws, Bill O’Reilly at 8 p.m. and Megyn Kelly at 9 p.m., are both independents. Chris Wallace, the host of Fox News Sunday, is a registered Democrat.

As for Fox’s hard-news coverage, that’s all upright the center, and unparalleled, too, in the investigative journalism. People who simply want the reality, without any spin, no matter their political leanings, have nowhere else to visit. That explains why more Democrats and Independents – not just Republicans – watch Fox than watch any of the other news networks.

LawrenceSolomon@nextcity.com