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A creative blog by Jim Kalin on The Whole 9

Novelist Jim Kalin lives in Los Angeles, writes a monthly column for Amateur Wrestling News, and has traded in his speargun for a banjo. His wife and son sing harmony.

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FOX SNOOZE

August 29, 2008
3 Comments (see all)

I watched FOX news the morning Barack Obama announced that his running mate would be Delaware senator Joe Biden. I would read later that day about the decision in the Los Angeles Times and learn more about it on CNN, but I was most interested in how FOX –the Mad Magazine of news programs — would charge out of the gate with the announcement.

Their immediate reaction was somewhat limp and puzzling, and I suspect FOX strategy was based on who they believe their target audience is. There were no sound bites from Senator Biden’s past speeches that blared contradiction, and none of the jowly commentators mentioned suspect senate voting records, supposed plagiarizing, or committees that Hard-luck Joe had participated in.

Instead of revealing something with gasp-appeal and clout, FOX harped on Joe Biden’s 1.3 million dollar house!

1.3 million dollars!!!

This reminded me of that scene in the first Austin Powers movie when the villain Dr. Evil, finally awake after being cryogenically frozen since the sixties, decides to hold the world ransom for… one million dollars! He mistakenly believes it’s a lot of money, but his advisors assure him that he has undershot way too much.

I live in California, and even though it’s true that the average house price here is the nation’s highest, 1.3 million dollars in America’s heartland and the Midwest still won’t get you a pad in the Rockefeller’s neighborhood, but that’s how FOX treated their scoop when revealing the worth of the ‘Biden Compound’ (FOX did conveniently neglect to mention John McCain’s 13 houses and the Bush family’s fortune.)

FOX decision-makers must know something about their audience. After all, it’s a highly successful network. And that’s what bothers me; that so many average people, probably good-intentioned people, working people, choose to be duped and fed dribble.

I guess FOX selected the perfect name for their network.

In The American Heritage Dictionary;
fox (foks) 1. To trick or fool by ingenuity or cunning; outwit. 2. To baffle or confuse.

So, with the Republican announcement that Alaska governor Sarah Palin will team up with McCain, who do you think will win the presidential election?

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  1. theroadhome

    At the expense of sounding like a bitch-session I’d like to add my ten cents, which is only worth about 3 cents in the current economy.

    I’ve always figured FOX was an acronym: For Overzealous Xenophobes. Makes sense to me. The fact they have to barrage their viewers with the mantra of ‘Fair and Balanced’ stands as an argument that they aren’t. I used to watch Fox news, I did. Why not? They were entertaining. At a time when news was a snooze they were creating a circus-like format, complete with clowns. I got suspicious when I was watching coverage of the 2000 election, and lost count of how many times the news-head reminded his audience of how “just” and “fair” and “unbiased” Katherine Harris was, just as she climbed in front of the screen and announced her decision that the tallies would remain as they were and there would be no further examination into voting improprieties…yeah, we now know how just and fair and unbiased she was.

    I was living in New York at the time the twin towers fell. The city was breathing lightly, figuratively and literally, with each passing moment, in the hope there would be more survivors. And there he was, this glory-seeking moron, this shill, barely qualified to bark for a whorehouse (ask me how I really feel), at the top of his lungs claiming that “you heard it hear first on FOX”…yessiree….you heard it hear first that there were surviving firemen and others in the basement remains of one of the towers. They knew this because some random woman approached him and told him she received a call on her cell from her husband who was one of the trapped…they didn’t bother to check, or even look the woman in the eye to see if she was crazed. No, no…ratings were more important, the infamy of spewing sensational news (true or otherwise) was far more important…yeah, maybe not. Hearts sank. At a time when responsibility should have been premium for a grieving city and nation, Fox chose ratings. ‘Click’, that was the sound of the TV being turned off and away from all the fair and balanced reporting. Perhaps their motto should be “all the news for anyone who’ll believe it”.

  2. theredhead

    What can you expect from a news station that employs Geraldo Rivera?

  3. Hernando Conwi

    I’m a xenophobe…and I’m an immigrant! :-)

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