Thursday, March 25, 2010

Fox "News"

Over the years I’ve been scolded for not paying more attention to what “the other side” is saying. My reply has been that when I already know that somebody  else’s logic is based on what I consider highly dubious premises, there’s nothing to be gained by letting it consume my time. For this reason I don’t read the Wall Street Journal, don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh and don’t tune into Fox TV.

Lately I’ve backslid occasionally on the latter during commercial breaks on MSNBC. Last night I snuck in a bit of the Sean Hannity show with four others on his the panel. One of them was Juan Williams who I had heard in the past on CNN’s Crossfire. He came across as a reasonable sort who I would describe as centrist, but others might think was a bit to the left. I was surprised when he went to Fox because he didn’t seem the type.

I knew that Hannity used to have a fellow named Alan Colmes on his show who served as the house left winger and who I would describe as a “Mortimer Snerd” type. What little he said was widely, and it seemed justifiably, ignored.  When I saw Williams on the show, curiosity got the better of me and kept me tuned in a couple of minutes past MSNBC’s return to regular programming. I forget what the subject was because I was more interested in the format of the proceedings, but he was trying to say something that couldn’t be completed in a dozen or so words. He was never able to get even that far without one of the other four intruding in what appeared to be a counter clockwise pattern, cutting him off.

As one who watches Chris Mathews on Hardball I know the difficulty a guest can sometimes have answering a question he thinks he has been asked. To begin, he takes a deep breath only to find that the question was longer than he thought. But at least Chris is a one on one guy. In fact I’ve heard him take on two with the ease of a stevedore bouncer evicting two drunks. He doesn’t need three people to take turns interrupting a lone victim. Unlike the fellow being muzzled on Fox, who obviously doesn’t toe the party line, Mathews interrupts people of all political persuasions. He’s what can be called an equal opportunity interrupter.

My experiment with Fox has confirmed my expectations. As a source of information it leaves a lot to be desired. The silver lining is that while the chance of learning anything is next to nil it can be good for an occasional laugh. 

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