‘News’ it or lose it, FOX

Geof wollerman
gwollerm@mscd.edu

   Note: This critique of FOX News is designed to point out its shortcomings, in the hopes that one day the FCC will force them to put quotes around the word “News.”
   Is anyone else physically compelled and unable to resist watching FOX News? Come on, don’t be ashamed — just let it out. You’ll feel better; trust me. For instance: I am not ashamed to admit that I recently sat down and watched the late-night lineup — four hours of it. This brief analysis is a result of that harrowing self-flagellation. Remember as you read: in the wrong hands a little news can be a dangerous thing.
   My reasoning behind watching FOX News is similar to my reasoning behind watching the show “Cops”: I like laughing at the stupidity of our criminals, not admiring the effectiveness of our police. In other words, my attraction to FOX News is not about its journalistic integrity, but rather the ridiculousness of its pundits. Watching it is like sniffing a bad stench, or rubbernecking an accident on Interstate 25— I can’t not do it.
   FOX’s late-night bloc began with the asinine “Your World with Neil Cavuto” and ended with the false gravity of Brit Hume’s “Special Report.” In between were the contentions of “Hannity & Colmes,” Greta Van Susteren’s determinedly skeptical “On The Record,” and the infamous “bloviations” of Bill O’Reilly. A    “FOX News Alert” anchorwoman, Donna Fiducia, interrupted every so often with important updates, and the Terror Alert level was, of course, elevated. I knew I was witnessing a particularly eventful night of garbage. Packed with triviality, they were hours I’m likely to miss—and yet hours I’ll never forget.
   Cavuto’s topics for the night were the civil war in Iraq, cash settlements for 9/11 detainees, market analysts’ impressions of Google and a liberal civil rights activist who supports Wal-Mart. After quickly deciding, along with three experts, that the emerging civil war in Iraq was not really a civil war at all,    Cavuto answered some mail and then moved into a segment that began with the question “Are SUVs making a comeback?” The answer? Yes. Despite rising gasoline prices, SUV sales are climbing. Phew. For a minute there I thought we were all going to have to bail Detroit out—again. Way to go, heedless consumers!
   The next segment was about Larry Paige and Sergey Brin, the owners of Google, and how the market is reacting to their success. It was titled “Young    People Who Strike It Rich: Do We Want Them To Fail?” The experts were the Silicon Valley chief for Forbes; a staff writer for Forbes; and—you guessed it—Steve Forbes. There was so much concentrated, unbiased financial wisdom on my television that my head nearly split trying to comprehend its potential.    Luckily, a commercial break came on and I was saved from my dangerous introspection.
   I don’t want to talk too much about commercials, because they are what they are, but it’s clear that FOX News’ ads are aimed at an audience that is conservative, aging, rich, impotent and afraid. In all of the spots, fear was the most prevalent emotion—fear of disaster, of disease, of failure—and I came back from the break visibly shaken.
   Back in the studio, I was thrust into the story of a 9/11 detainee who was about to be awarded, according to Cavuto, “300,000 of your tax dollars” for wrongful detention at the hands of federal investigators. A criminal defense attorney argued the government shouldn’t reimburse suspected terrorists, and offered some interesting remarks. He said the man “supposedly is innocent; however, he had a criminal record. He was a check writer, a credit card forger—basically a no good.” Yeah! Who writes checks these days, anyway? Lock him up!
   The highlight of the show was when Cavuto discovered that former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young—who was on the show to explain that Americans should be grateful for Wal-Mart—was actually being paid by Wal-Mart. “What’s to stop me, then, Ambassador,” Cavuto asked, “from saying ‘Well, he’s on the dole?’” Ambassador Young smiled and said, “Well, I mean, everybody is.” To which Cavuto simply responded, “Good point,” and the conversation moved on. I was shocked. Ambassador Young closed the segment with the suggestion that “we’ve got to make capitalism work for the poor, and I think we can learn a lot from Wal-Mart on that.” Truly spoken like a man on the dole.
   When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was that my capacity for FOX News had been exhausted. I only survived the night, I believe, because I’ve been called upon to lead FOX News viewers out of the error of their ways, and I hope one day we might all wake up to a world of television that is fair, balanced and FOX-free. A world, that is, without Cavuto.