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November 19, 2003

Fox at the Bar

My new pal Rob and I have been having drinks every night this week. We meet at his hotel and swap stories. This and last evening, we have been forced to watch Fox News at the only TV in the joint. It's horrid.

Now I'm the guy who gave up watching network news when Peter Jennings replaced Max Robinson. I was a News Hour devotee until the duo split up, then I went semi-regular. By the time Cokie Roberts, Charlene Hunter-Gault and David Gergen left, there was no reason for me to watch. Which only left Brian Lamb and Charlie Rose to shoulder all the weight of TV. Now for a short time, especially while I spent time on the road I was a junkie of CNBC, specifically Squawk Box which I still watch whenever I'm on the East Coast, and Kudlow & Kramer which I watch whenever I'm too broke to watch Spectravision and there's no good book or blogging to do.

So sitting for 15 minutes in front of Fox News, especially these two nights with this wall to wall coverage of Gay Marriages and the End of America as we Know It and the Arrest of Michael Jackson and the End of America as we Know It, has been painfully unbearable. I understand what Fox does. It makes you sick and unnerved. It's the mentally upscale equivalent of the local news that leads with blood, instead Fox leads with moral outrage. Outrage sells better than Fear. While that may give the average info consumer a bit of smug satisfaction as compared to the local news, it still turns my stomach, even after two martinis.

Posted by mbowen at November 19, 2003 09:50 PM

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