FoxNews

Ron Brownstein notes of Fox News "the network has a large audience, at least some of whom may be open to Democratic arguments." That's clearly true. And, indeed, progrssives have every reason to want the opportunity to present their arguments in a persuasive manner to the Fox News audience. The problem, though, is that this can't be done because Fox News is run by the people who run Fox News.

As I well recall from my appearances on the Hugh Hewitt showing, appearing on hack-controlled media outlets is not an effective method of persuading the audience. The rules are rigged. A debate organized and run by a Republican Party propaganda outlet is not, in practice, going to provide the opportunity for Democrats to persuade Fox-loving conservatives anymore than appearing on Hannity and Colmes contributes to the creation of a balanced and vigorous public sphere. Television is especially tricky for providing the illusion of unmediated reality while, in fact, allowing a thousand different kinds of mediation. Thinking that you can beat television professionals whose job is to make you look bad on a television network that they control is just hubris. Nobody's that smart. Nobody's that clever. Nobody beats the producers.

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Comments

"Nobody beats the producers."

I might bet on Barney Frank, if you gave me points.

Posted by: Bill Gardner on March 16, 2007 11:29 AM

But Alan Colmes will stick up for us during his 5 minutes on the Hannity hour! We will get some mighty balanced coverage here.

Posted by: trifecta on March 16, 2007 11:32 AM

Nobody beats the producers.

And even if you do beat them, they get to play tomorrow, and you don't.

Posted by: SomeCallMeTim on March 16, 2007 11:34 AM

Nobody beats the producers.

I did once. I went to work on 'em with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch. I got medieval on their asses.

Posted by: strannix on March 16, 2007 11:43 AM

Ditto on the Barney Frank remark, for he can just be devastating when in a debate if you've watched him on Bill Maher. I don't believe that Dems should completely abandon Fox, but quite frankly only the best debaters need apply because as Matt has said the game is rigged. Going on Fox is like playing Duke (man I'm happy they lost) at home, you know they start off with about 6-8 point advantage just because of the refs.

Posted by: Derrick on March 16, 2007 11:49 AM

Theoretically, maybe it's possible to have an appearance on Fox News that scores points. But the object of cancelling the Nevada debate was to win a war, not just a single battle. The goal is to delegitimize Fox as anything but a propaganda outlet, and even if a given appearance may help the Dems somewhat, it's counterproductive in that it gives Fox a legitimacy it doesn't deserve.

Posted by: Steve on March 16, 2007 11:58 AM

The issue is not smart and clever. They control the microphones. They control the cameras. They control the crawl on the bottom of the screen, they control the editing software, they pick the panel that tells the audience what to think before during and after. You can't win when the deck is stacked no matter how good a player you are. Why is this so hard to understand?

PS- to see how this works, WaPo.com had a Q&A today with a Bush I justice department appointee who according to his own biography "served in the presidential transition of President George W. Bush." You know how the Post identified him? As acting Attorney General under Clinton. You just can't win if the other guy cheats.

Posted by: bloix on March 16, 2007 12:08 PM

Does Fox News really have a large audience??? I'm guessing maybe 2 or 3 million viewers during primetime (correct me if this is way off), spread across the country, of which about 5 to 10% may be open to progressive ideas??? It seems to me there are much better ways to reach that relatively small number of voters dispersed across states, congressional districts, etc...

Posted by: Carlos on March 16, 2007 12:10 PM

Re the Fascist News Channel

The depravity of the fascist news channel has been shown this week on the Schmuckity and Colmes program where they have launched a smear campaign against Al Gore over his movie on climate change. They have put on denialists and listed other denialists, all of whom are creatures of Exxon and other entities with a vested interest in the status quo (see Chris Mooneys' book, the RWOS).

Posted by: SLC on March 16, 2007 12:10 PM

Actually I just looked it up, the average primetime audience for Fox News during 2005 was just 1.5 million viewers.

Posted by: Carlos on March 16, 2007 12:14 PM

There ought to be an alternative medium which would reach substantial portions of the Fox audience. Many of them have concerns which we share: jobs, education, health care.

Maybe just showing that we have real nuts-and-bolts solutions to these problems and are not just engaging in holier-than-thou, feel-good posturing "for the children" would help.

Posted by: Duncan Kinder on March 16, 2007 12:29 PM

"Nobody beats the producers."

Only someone really smart, who sneaks up behind them and does something completely unexpected has a hope of outsmarting the producers. Politicians cannot do things that are completely unexpected because it is completely counter to what people look for in someone running for political office.

The only example I can think of where this worked is the Jon Stewart appearance on Crossfire, where he clearly took everyone in the room by total surprise. That works for Stewart because he's an entertainer who has no political aspirations AND was expected to be a lightweight by the producers and pundits on the show. There's not a single politician with the capabilities to both pull off that kind of sneak attack and still have their "seriousness" intact by the end of the exchange.

Posted by: NonyNony on March 16, 2007 12:34 PM

carlos--
interesting numbers. I wish it were smaller. What bothers me is seeing Fox news on in public venues. While I'm waiting to pick up my pizza at the pizza store. While I'm waiting at the hair-cutting joint. Those are the places where fox works its insidious evil.
They're also the places where it would be nice to be able to say to the pizza guy: "fox news? Wow, I didn't know you were one of those extreme right-wing radicals. I thought you were just an ordinary Reagan Republican. Why are you watching that far-right extremist hate-tv?"

The Nevada episode brings us a step closer to that day, i.e. when fox is deligitimated, when people no longer make the mistake of thinking it is a news outlet, and realize it is a propaganda outlet.

Posted by: Count Cant on March 16, 2007 12:34 PM

Tom Schaller used to hold his own during a weekly visit with a local Baltimore wingnut radio host.

The station stopped booking him.

Posted by: howie on March 16, 2007 12:47 PM

Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer have both been able to score solid points when I've seen them as guests on O'Reilly.

As a contrast, I remember a very intelligent professor of mine going up on O'Reilly and absolutely being swallowed by the wall of sound (also known as bullshit).

Bill Clinton is another guy that you have to work really hard to make look bad on camera.

Difficult, but not impossible to beat the Fox Producers.

Posted by: Dan K on March 16, 2007 01:02 PM

Matt-

Please refer me to the post where you discuss how Hewitt manipulated you, or write a new post. This is fascinating and I'd like more detail than you've presented here.

thanks,
r

Posted by: r on March 16, 2007 01:11 PM

“O’Reilly’s accusatory and hectoring interrogation of Al-Arian, filled with false statements and McCarthy-like smears,... the show resulted in a torrent of angry calls, including death threats against al-Arian, to USF.

Before firing him, USF placed Al-Arian on paid leave, saying his presence made the campus unsafe and pointing to an avalanche of hate mail and death threats.”

www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/19/bubba/

Personal safety and your job status should be considerations when deciding to be on Faux.

Posted by: BushYouth on March 16, 2007 02:29 PM

Don't forget about the time Phil Donahue owned O'Reilly. "Billy! Billy!"

Posted by: tc on March 16, 2007 02:55 PM

What about Zappa?

Posted by: Dave on March 16, 2007 03:09 PM

Matt's experience reminds me of when I was on the NBC Nightly News in January 2006. NBC invited me on to, as I understood it, discuss how Hollywood's liberal bias is costing it money (e.g., letting Mel Gibson pocket all the enormous profits of "The Passion of the Christ.") But when I watched the segment, it turned out that the theme was how much money Hollywood was making with "serious" liberal movies like "Syriana" (huh?). But, the funniest part was that they cut it to make it look like I was debating George Clooney, who is one of the handsomest and most likable men on earth, while I am, to put it mildly, not. Watching it, even I wanted to boo me and applaud for Clooney!

Posted by: Steve Sailer on March 16, 2007 03:18 PM

Sure you can't win. If someone lands a punch on O'Reilly it
will be edited out. Then there is the standard tactic of arguing
with the guest after they've left. The host can then smear the guest and mischaracterize the arguments. The host will get the last word, sometimes for weeks.
As an aside, I wish shows would note when a guest bails out
when they find out who they'll be opposing. I understand that
Coulter chickens out when she might face face someone who will punch back. I suspect other conservatine bullies do the same.

Posted by: jimbo on March 16, 2007 03:50 PM

Well, there's always the odd case, like Clinton's smackdown of Wallace, B. Frank as mentioned before, and, though it wasn't on Fox, Jon Stewart on Cross Fire comes to mind.

Hewitt's even tougher (cause he's smarter) than most of the Fox guys.

But in any case, the part of the Fox audience that is open to a Democratic argument will happily click their clickers to the Democratic debate on another channel. It's not like watching Fox means you can't watch anything else.

Posted by: lewp on March 16, 2007 04:50 PM

I think the biggest mistake people make when they gone on Faux News is not challenging the premise of the question or falling for a false choice trap. Hannity is always asking "Do you still beat your wife" type questions or "Answer this - A or B" - when there are other alternates --- and the moderate/progressive stammers away trying to answer when they should confront Hannity about the fallacy of his premise (thus educating the audience) or the ridiculousness of the answers he allows you to select from - thus "maybe" making the audience think for a change.

Posted by: Robert on March 16, 2007 04:57 PM

Fox News (and Hewitt, Medved, et al) is not news. It is entertainment.
The way it entertains its rightwing audience is by
haranging, interrupting, straw-man-ing, and cutting away from any guest who is anything but an a--kisser.
It isn't supposed to be a conversation. Today's rightwing
has nothing left but anger.

Posted by: Jack on March 16, 2007 05:09 PM

Count Cant:

Sure it would be great if it were smaller, but 1.5 million is just 1/2 of 1% of the U.S. population. Considering that nearly all are far-right partisans, it's really not an audience that Democrats need to reach.

I do agree with you about Fox in public venues, which is exactly why Democrats need to show that it is not a legitimate news organization, which will lead even more people to discount that garbage for what it is.

Posted by: Carlos on March 16, 2007 07:25 PM

You can beat them, but you need to have the experience and skills.

Steve Colbert beat CNN's Crossfire hosts and basically shut down that stupid show.

Posted by: Garuda on March 16, 2007 07:56 PM

I meant Jon Stewart, not Colbert...and now I see somebody beat me to it...

Posted by: Garuda on March 16, 2007 07:57 PM

The original post expresses very well how folk who are not left of centre feel about public broadcasting (the BBC and ABC) in the UK and Australia.

Posted by: Lorenzo on March 17, 2007 12:55 AM

Robert: I totally agree about the questions. Hannity's other trick is to pull a quote from someone on the left, either a real quote from a minor figure or an out-of-context quote from a major one, and challenge his guest to disavow it. This is a win-win for him -- either the lefty doesn't avow it, thereby implying agreement; or he does, thus showing Hannity as being right .

The only person I heard beating him at this (and this sadly includes Mr. Yglesias) was Robert Kennedy Jr., who actually did point out how stupid his questions were.

Posted by: Jon Parker on March 17, 2007 06:29 AM

I've seen Barney get flusterd by Fox. Cavuto (maybe someone else) pressed him on taxes until he finally got him to say something like stealing from the rich was not right and that an upper income tax braket limit might be 40%.

I don't know the inner workings of FOX at all, but it seems to me that, like al-Manar, have an active set of very smart people who are framing issues for them. People who know how to press an attack.

My favorite is Bill O'Reilly on Letterman asking Dave, "Do you want to win in Iraq - it's a simple question."

Unless you are brilliant on your feet - and Dave did a good job, even if it was more form than substance, it is hard to disarm such ludicrous questions, unless you know them in advance.

Posted by: Amicus on March 17, 2007 06:50 AM

I'm guessing none of you actually watches FNC. If you did, you'd know that John Edwards refusal to have the Dem debate on Fox is pure political posturing for the Kosmonaut wingers. Fox is good enough for Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton to have appeared on it recently. Charles Rangel appears on Fox regularly; other articulate Dems are paid contributers (e.g., Susan Estrich).

Now, all of a sudden, Dems can't have a live debate among themselves without the nefarious Fox producers making them look bad?

Posted by: Dave on March 17, 2007 03:07 PM

The clue train rushed by Dave and he didn't even know it.

Posted by: Reality Man on March 18, 2007 02:29 AM

The point of staying away from Fox for the debate is two-fold -- one, delegitimize Fox, and two, keep non-fox-partisans from being exposed to Fox after just "tuning in to watch the debate".

Neither of those are undermined by going on Fox to debate points, though obviously your odds of winning that debate are low.

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