Standing Ovation: Hanna's Non-stop news

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Hanna's Non-stop news

" for each Democrat that watches Fox News there are eighteen Republicans, and for every Republican who watches MSNBC there are six Democrats."

At the beginning of page 47, Ken Auletta is talking about how cable has grown more partisan. Auletta uses these stats from TiVo to show that Republicans favor Fox News and Democrats favor MSNBC. It goes on saying how Fox News's ratings are higher than CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC combined.

I think this stat is important because it tells us that despite what cable news wants us to believe, it is extraordinarily partisan. Because of it being so partisan is greatly affects our views on politics and can greatly influence what we put on the ballot.

I think that I was drawn to this passage because I have always grown up watching Fox News. My parents have always gone to Fox over any other cable news. I didn't really see Fox as something different, I just thought it was "another news channel," but these stats have showed me that it really is very partisan and that someone needs to have a nonpartisan just the facts news station.

2 comments:

lindsaybrown11November 17, 2010 at 8:57 AM
I really think that the partisan news has gotten out of control as well. My family NEVER whatches Fox news because they are full on democrats. When we would go to visit my great grandmother, she would always watch Fox. It would literally turn into a family fight because my grandmother and mother insisted she would be "brain-washed" even more by these republicans. I agree that we need a news channel that will have just facts no opinion, it sure would help my family. It would be hard to do though because i doubt there are any reporters who don't have an opinion. I think that would be almost impossible for them to do, takign away opinions is hard.
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taylor.thetfordNovember 17, 2010 at 8:59 AM
I also never thought about the news being partisan and appealing to different political parties. After hearing this I am a little shocked, but not completely surprised that news stations would appeal to different political parties. I grew up around my parents watching both Fox and MSNBC. They aren't that interested in politics like others but what they hear on the news does influence there vote greatly. Although I agree that there should be a non partisan view on news that is strictly the facts and no bias point of view, I think that that is somewhat of an unrealistic ideal. There are always going to be people with strong opinions around politics that could make news be bias or just simply fiction. In order to make one party seem better than another or make another party look bad, I think that news is often swayed and just simple rumors are shown to the populous as hard fact. Everything is just simply becoming a somewhat "dirty" popularity constest amoung political parties and now news, just trying to gain the people's attention and votes, by any means necessary.
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Welcome!

Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Standing Ovation”! The title of this blog refers to the audience of active readers we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), we encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?

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