Reddit reviews The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News-and Divided a Country

Both CNN and MSNBC also employ Republicans involved in active campaigns. CNN employed Corey Lewandowski and MSNBC employed Joe Scarborough while both were actively involved in advising Donald Trump's campaign, for example. Roger Ailes and other senior-level FNC staff are also partisan Republicans who have been active in politics. You can write lists forever.

I think there are two important distinctions to make: the "news room" coverage of each type of agency, where objectivity and investigative journalism are valued, and the editorializing type content. The news rooms of all major media companies are generally either center-left or completely non-partisan (even Fox News). The point where they differ is in the editorial content, morning shows, talking head babbling and all that. The Fox News website is also very, very, very, very low on journalistic standards and objectively-evaluated content.

The point I was making, if allowed to expand a little bit on the subject, is that it is relatively very rare to find unmoderated representation of Democrats or liberals on Fox News, while Republicans are often given both talking-head representation but also editorial control on several forums at CNN and MSNBC. Fox News also has a coherent policy of taking management-defined talking points that come from the exec-level strategy (all Republican partisans) which is then propagated across its different channels, differing shows, and website. This comes from upper management and often has an explicit partisan objective. This is not an academic-level source, but I recommend this book if you're interested in learning more about how Fox News functioned under Ailes. I will grant that the slant of both CNN and MSNBC editorials tends to the left, but they do not function as partisan organs the same way Fox does.

MSNBC and CNN have a center or center-left editorial perspective, but in generally they cover Republicans more favorably than Fox covers Democrats as partisanship is concerned. You don't have to trust my opinion. There are plenty of objective studies that show Fox has a more partisan slant in its day-to-day coverage than the other two major cable networks and that even CNN and MSNBC have coverage tendencies that often support Republicans as well as democrats. There are also lots of studies that supposed "left-wing" or "right-wing" news rooms are actually quite centrist.

Here is an interesting one relating an objective study of agenda-setting and television coverage during the 04 campaign. This shows the discrepancy in coverage of Trump/Clinton campaign rallies between the three over the summer. This is an interesting one, shows the disparity among coverage around two specific issues (Hillary's pneumonia and Trump's improper use of Trump Organization funds) that broke at the same time. This study, also from 2004, shows a breakdown of the sources and methods each media company uses which gives an interesting and often-unexpected result.

I'm not trying to beat a partisan drum. I do vote liberal, but I really don't care for any of the three networks. Can you honestly say you've taken the time to look at this issue objectively?

I think they really have begun to drink the kool-aid they'd been serving their viewers for decades.

Ailes biography by Gabriel Sherman reveals a propaganda mill, but they seemed to recognize then what narratives were useful and how they differed from reality.

Now? They have a handful of sane people and the rest are so fucking far out of orbit that they make the Fox News of the Bush era look quaint.

Nice save. For those interested, there's a fairly new book out all about Roger Ailes.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Loudest-Voice-Room-News--/dp/0812992857

The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News--and Divided a Country

There was a really good book that came out a few months ago. It's on my list:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Loudest-Voice-Room-News/dp/0812992857

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