Overview - Neoconservative Media

The rise of neoconservativism over the last 20 years or so has bought with it an entirely new phenomenon—Far-Right media outlets. In itself, this is not new. Forums for every worldview on earth have always been easily available, even before the Internet. During the Cold War every large American city had newsstands where Pravda and the International Socialist review were displayed next to the Wall Street Journal. Most broadcast and print news agencies leaned somewhat to either the Left or Right, in some cases considerably. But even the most partisan of these would devote most of their content to journalism—broadly based and reliable information on current events reported as objectively as possible—and reserve their opinions for Editorial pages. Mainly it was former, not the latter, that the American public sought.

Today, all this has changed.

In the early 90's a whole new breed of news outlets appeared. Discarding the traditional emphasis on journalism, these offer content designed for direct appeal to the moral outrage and populist views of one sector—U.S. conservatives. News coverage is restricted to issues that are of interest to this group only, and the more controversial the details, the more coverage they get. Opinion sections comprise much larger percentages of content and are increasingly dependent on inflammatory subjects. In 1996 this trend moved into the broadcast realm with the launching of Fox News—America’s first major cable news outlet with a strictly ideological charter.

This was soon followed by the exponential growth in the popularity of talk shows, of which Fox has been a primary purveyor. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Medved, and a myriad of other "hot talk" programs offered strident, and even confrontational programming on subjects chosen strictly for their appeal to the moral outrage and populism of Far-Right audiences. Few of these shows make any attempt to properly document their claims. But because they provide an outlet for the rage and fear of their audiences—who increasingly believe themselves to be marginalized - none is ever required of them. Networks like Fox News have brought the popularity of this type of programming to an all time high.

Of course there are, and always have been equivalents on the Left. Air America for instance, provides similar opinion and commentary driven programming as do a number of periodicals. The nationally syndicated Tom Lyckas show frequently takes a liberal perspective on issues, and he is every bit as inflammatory and downright abusive as Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage. But this kind of programming is increasingly being dominated by the Right.

For every talk show like Air America there are literally dozens like Rush Limbaugh's, and these typically enjoy much larger circulations. Populist controversy simply isn't as popular with Moderates and liberals as actual information. Conservatives of course, deny all this and have long claimed of pervasive "liberal bias" in the media—a perception that drives the popularity of Fox News and other Far-Right outlets. But these claims have never been defended with anything other than isolated anecdotes—few of which even involve independent verification of their details. No well characterized scientific study of nationwide media reporting has ever found any statistically significant bias in either coverage or reporting.

Liberal or not, the popularity of media outlets is driven by the priorities and perceptions of the viewing public. Neilson ratings reveal much about this. As of this writing, Fox News is the Number One cable news network in America, leading CNN and MSNBC by significant margins. Yet according to figures that Nielson does not typically release to the public, CNN actually has some 20 percent more viewers on average than Fox. The reason is that their ratings are based not on number of viewers, buttotal viewer hours watched.

Neilson's primary customers are potential advertisers seeking information about prospective markets for their products and services. These are mainly interested in how often their advertisements will be in front of prospective customers, so they prefer the former metrics to the latter. To provide this information, Neilson's rating method weights viewers who watch any given channel for long periods more heavily than those who don't. This is both revealing. The average CNN viewer is mainly interested in reliable, to-the-point information about world events. Typically, he/she will tune in just long enough to get this and then leave. They are also less likely to depend exclusively on only one source of information, and CNN is just one of many resources they depend on for this. Intentionally or not, this guarantees a balance of perspectives and independent verification of reporting.

By contrast, the average Fox News viewer mainly seeks shared ideology rather than details, or even accuracy, and will tune in for hours at a time to Fox's talk show and populist opinion programming simply because it resonates with them. Since reliable information is less important to such viewers, they are less likely to seek independent verification of what they hear, particularly if they believe that the "liberal media" controls every other outlet.

The result is that Fox News viewers are more likely to rely exclusively on them for their news and avoid other sources of information. This, combined with the emotional appeal of their extended commentary programming, leads to very long viewing times and higher ratings, despite fewer numbers. Many of my friends and family members are regular Fox devotees. It is commonplace during visits to find Fox News on continually in the background—often for hours at a time and even during meals. When asked why they prefer them to other news sources, virtually without exception all have said that it's because they are "sick of the liberal media"—not a single one has ever indicated to me that they prefer Fox because they've found them to be a more reliable source of information, or even that this is a priority.