All,

What is most disturbing to me about this whole incident involving Shirley Sherrod is how quickly the administration and other news organizations seemingly bought into the Fox News/Right-wing talking points on this without doing even a cursory investigation of whether they were accurate or not.  That to me is the real problem here; Fox News has an inordinate amount of influence inside the Beltway and inside the newsrooms of other - more legitimate - news organizations.  Yes, Fox News (I like calling them "Faux News" or "Fox Noise" myself) is clearly not a legitimate news organization in the sense that they don't seem to practice actual journalism, but keep in mind they speak to a particular - and increasingly smaller - segment of the population; the great majority of people do not pay them much attention.  More people still watch Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer on a typical weekday evening than watch Fox News' highest rated shows on their best night.  Sorry Lillie, but as much as I would like you to be correct, Fox News isn't likely to go away anytime soon, either.  They are making a profit for News Corp and serve their targeted niche; even Glenn Beck, whom some advertisers have abandoned, hasn't had too much of a problem finding others to replace them.  The most effective way to attack Fox News is to pressure their advertisers to drop the network as a whole.

But it bothers me greatly that because Fox News has been so profitable, despite the relatively small number of people who watch them, they have impacted how other news organizations, and apparently how the administration, acts in response.  They and their right-wing allies are terribly good at setting the agenda and impacting the frames used to discuss issues (we can thank Frank Luntz for that) among these opinion leaders.  If we are going to call out Fox News for their shoddy "journalism," we should also call out all the folks who breathlessly follow their lead on topics and frames, and a system that emphasizes audience share and profit over accuracy and public interest.

-Brad


Brad Gorham, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair, Communications
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications
Syracuse University
Office phone: 315-443-1950
Cell phone:  315-935-0144
website: http://facultynh.syr.edu/bwgorham/