Friday, July 01, 2011

Not Figuring Out the Lesson from Roger Ailes and Fox News

When Democrats and their allies need an Emmanuel Goldstein, they choose Fox News.

But the same media Moguls who wonder why Fox's rating are continually high:



Are the same people who spend their time (and millions) angering a potential audience.

Let me explain:

Gawker (and mediagazer  thread) has an article out showing how Roger Ailes, Fox News Chair, came up with the idea during the Nixon Administration.

Let me quote

"The memo—called, simply enough, "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News"— is included in a 318-page cache of documents detailing Ailes' work for both the Nixon and George H.W. Bush administrations that we obtained from the Nixon and Bush presidential libraries. Through his firms REA Productions and Ailes Communications, Inc., Ailes served as paid consultant to both presidents in the 1970s and 1990s, offering detailed and shrewd advice ranging from what ties to wear to how to keep the pressure up on Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the first Gulf War.

"The documents—drawn mostly from the papers of Nixon chief of staff and felon H.R. Haldeman and Bush chief of staff John Sununu—reveal Ailes to be a tireless television producer and joyful propagandist. He was a forceful advocate for the power of television to shape the political narrative, and he reveled in the minutiae constructing political spectacles—stage-managing, for instance, the lighting of the White House Christmas tree with painstaking care. He frequently floated ideas for creating staged events and strategies for manipulating the mainstream media into favorable coverage, and used his contacts at the networks to sniff out the emergence of threatening narratives and offer advice on how to snuff them out—warning Bush, for example, to lay off the golf as war in the Middle East approached because journalists were starting to talk..."

Or simply put: How dare the GOP use tactics that Democrats have been using since the Kennedy Administration?!"

And the reason why GQ, Esquire and Vanity Fair all fail in political Journalism, they never speak truth to power when a Democrat is in office.

All the reporters (including Newsweek and Time) want a replay of Camelot with a Zombie Jack Kennedy instead of treating politicians as human beings, they set liberals "above the G-ds,"  (yes, the Hitchhiker guide to the Galaxy link is relevant).

And the many voters and activists who vote against the Democrats? Where can their views be heard? 

Last year, I tested 60 Minutes, a staple in news reporting on how well the play the middle of the field.  They didn't, they erred Left. 

What Mr. Ailes did was market to a news audience who was not catered to whatsoever. 

And now the rest of the Media is screaming at Fox News.  Rather then scream, why haven't the tried to steal their audience away? That requires work on understanding the audience.  Not going to happen. 

It's why Ian Masters at KPFK is always confused whatever Republicans do things, he is not a reporter but a partisan. A reporter would work to understand how and why people vote and believe the way they do without demonizing them.  Ian Masters is an idiot for not trying.  Well, that's why he is at KPFK and not making money on TV.

So if you're spending multi-millions on consultants trying to figure out how Fox News gets their ratings, I'll save you some funds:

Appeal to the news audience that does not vote for Democrats or the Left.

That is all.  But for news organisations other then Fox, understanding other Americans is soooooo confusing!

My question: Why do you think Fox news is successful?

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