Why does Fox News enjoy better ratings than CNN and MSNBC?
Fox has better ratings because there is no other channel where a Republican can go for news and get through a half hour without throwing up their hands in disgust and amazement. When you have a single choice that is in better alignment with half the market, competing against an array of a half dozen or more channels (not to mention other media like web sites and print media), it's not hard to capture a big audience.The questioner almost certainly believes that conservative political philosophy is itself selfish and hate filled. I suspect they don't spend a lot of time watching Fox News, but that is my suspicion only. If they could work not from some particular single quote by a guest interviewee, but that a transcript of a news broadcast, and point out the selfish, manipulative and hate-filled parts, I would be glad to respond. No channel is telling lies. Working media professionals try to be objective. But they see the world through their own political philosophies. The editors and writers and owners of NBC, ABC, CNN, CBS, The Washington Post and the New York Times can all jump up and down and go red in the face and swear that they are not partisan. All I would ask is for anyone to make me believe that if you took all those people and made them into a voting precinct, they would have given the House of Representatives to the Republicans in 2010. If you believe that they would not have, as I believe they would not have, then they are not representative of the voters and just simply see the world differently.If anyone is having trouble believing that I'm serious, pick a transcript from a newscast, or the front page of one of those two newspapers from any given day, and I will walk you through the significant number of judgments that I see based on the political views of the media. Of course I'd be glad to do the same with Fox. My point isn't that anyone is good or bad. My point is that philosophy informs perception.
Is the one common trait among liberals that they are all uninformed?
The way I see it there are 4 groups that make up the vast majority of liberals. They all seem to be lacking in some form of intelligence. 1) The low IQ group- Obama won high school drop outs by a 2-1 margin. While there may be some intelligent people in that group presumably all of the lowest IQ people struggle the most in school. They are lacking raw intelligence. 2) Young students- Another one of Obama's strongest groups. They may have higher IQs but lack the education to know how to use their intelligence. 3) The academics- The one group liberals can point to to show their party isn't completely made up of morons. But an academic is very different from an intellectual. Academics are typically very specialized and know very little outside of their field and they almost always have little to no life experience. I would also argue that they generally have lower intelligence than people who just get a 4 year degree. Truly brilliant people (Einstein, Bobby Fischer, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs) usually struggle in school and frequently drop out. People who go on to pursue higher degrees instead of going out and looking for a job, typically do so because they feel they don't have enough to be successful without it. 4) People who don't speak English- Almost always vote democrat. They may be intelligent and even have education and life experience, but the fact that they struggle to understand the news affects their ability to understand politics.
Are voters rational holders of ideas or are they just told what to think by the media when they vote?
I would argue that, for the most part, neither is the case. A voter who takes in multiple different sources of news from different viewpoints has access to all of the viewpoints presented, and is much more likely to make a more rational decision. One who relies upon a single source (e.g. FOX News for a conservative voter, MSNBC for a liberal voter) is less likely to do so. The latter probably outnumber the former, but I wouldn't describe them as being "told what to think by the media"; rather, I think that they are voters who seek out the media sources who tell them only things that confirm their existing belief system.There are a couple of other elements in this equation, one unknown variable and one fixed constant. The unknown variable in this equation is the question of how much the range of information available is constricted by the financial interests of media corporations. Just as we saw the range of musical variety (at least in the mainstream of music consumption) narrow dramatically after the wave of broadcast consolidations (ClearChannel, etc.), it would be logical to think that some of the same is going on in light of news-media consolidations. None of the mainstream media sources are small companies, and they can be expected to have biases based upon the interests of a larger corporation; the internet has spawned a lot of independent sources, but they tend to be agenda-driven and of equally (and probably more) questionable reliability than the mainstream sources. So one could argue that the voters are being "told how to think" by the media by default of the limits placed on information dispersal, but how to measure that restriction of information is anybody's guess.The fixed constant: regardless of how voters are conditioned to vote by the sources they choose, their two main voting options are still two parties that are more alike than they are different, both constrained by corporate influence that limits the impact of any given vote (or thousands of them) to elicit change.
Do you believe that minorities that support Trump suffer from low self-esteem?
I truly believe that Trump’s minority supporters, like his majority supporters, suffer from a character deficit, and an almost incredible level of ignorance, which is not surprising, as like the President, they get most of their information from Fox News.Research has shown, not only is the typical Fox viewer misinformed, to an even greater degree they are uninformed. Add to that their thoroughly unjustified trust in the demonstrably unqualified, and even crooked characters who are paid to deliver a continuous stream of mean spirited gibberish, and you have all the ingredients for installing the worst, most utterly unqualified, and moronic, disgusting creatures to ever sit in the Oval Office.
Why does anyone take FOX News the slightest bit seriously?
I suspect it has to do with the fact that Fox News report and say things Republicans want to hear, to make themselves feel better. Things like: -"Nothing will ever come close to Ted Kennedy meeting with the KGB in order to beat Ronald Reagan in 1984," Gutfeld said on his show July 15. "It was a quid pro quo. You help the Dems. We help the USSR. If it worked, we would still have the USSR.""50 percent of murders in Texas have been linked to illegal aliens."— Gavin McInnes on Monday, June 22nd, 2015 in a broadcast of "The Greg Gutfeld Show""Most polls show foreign nations have lower regard for the U.S. now than they did before Obama’s time."— Gretchen Carlson on Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015 in a "Gretchen's Take" on The Real StoryDemocratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich "apparently was assassinated at 4 in the morning, having given WikiLeaks something like 53,000 emails and 17,000 attachments. ... It turns out, it wasn’t the Russians.""During the (Benghazi) attack, a stand-down order was given, and our troops were told to change their clothes four times."— Sean Hannity on Tuesday, June 28th, 2016 in comments on his Fox News program"The 90 percent statistic of supporting background checks, that's been debunked."— Laura Ingraham on Sunday, January 3rd, 2016 in on "Fox News Sunday"The president said he’s going to bring in 250,000 (Syrian and Iraqi) refugees into this country."— Sean Hannity on Monday, October 19th, 2015 in a segment of Fox News' "Hannity""The word progressive ... was created as a substitute for ‘communist’."— Jon Voight on Tuesday, October 20th, 2015 in an interview with "Cigar Aficianado""In countries where there are higher, more strict gun laws, there is more gun violence."— Eric Bolling on Thursday, August 27th, 2015 in a broadcast of "The Five" on Fox News"Almost 95 percent of all (Planned Parenthood) pregnancy services were abortions."— Sandra Smith on Tuesday, July 28th, 2015 in an interview with Mike Huckabee"We don’t have a (military) reserve force if something happens."— Joe Theismann on Thursday, July 9th, 2015 in a discussion on "Outnumbered"[1] [2]Footnotes[1] Is NYC mayor de Blasio responsible for uptick in murders and more subway delays?[2] Fox News Viewers Uninformed, NPR Listeners Not, Poll Suggests
Media Bias: Is an un-biased news source important to a democracy?
Bias is not only about facts, it is about the context in which it is presented.You can never (!), in any news source, provide the entire context (even if you had a 24h only-fact-based-news channel and good intentions):For example every bombing in Israel has its roots in the current conflict, which has its roots in the creation of Israel, which has its roots in the Holocaust, which has its roots.... (you get the idea)On the other hand voters are supposed to make very important decisions. That's why they need facts and context, in the short time of the day in which they can interact with media.So yes: Good news sources are essential to democracy. What is a good news source? I'd say a news-source with well trained journalists, which have the intrinsic motivation and possibilities to gather the least biased information they can find and present them in a comprehensive manner. This news-source presents points and counterpoints before drawing conclusions and marks any kind of interpretation as such.So: What are the Facts?