Fox News and talk radio – an epiphany
There’s a new article on FiveThirtyEight called “Did Talk Radio Kill Conservatism?” It was interesting overall but here’s the bit that jumped out at me:
FOX News is unusual television, really, in that almost all the stimulation is verbal, and almost all of it occurs at the same staccato pacing as radio. You could take tonight’s broadcast of Hannity & Colmes or the Factor and put it directly on radio and you’d lose almost nothing (not coincidentally, Hannity and O’Reilly also have highly-rated radio programs). That wouldn’t really work for Countdown, which has higher production values, and where the pacing is more irregular. It certainly wouldn’t work for the Situation Room — or moving in a different direction, the Daily Show.
I’ve never been able to watch Fox News for more than 5 minutes at a time; it has always seemed very grating and busy to me and I’ve never quite pinned down why. To be fair, I don’t really like MSNBC or CNN either. I’m not a big fan of any TV news, or even most audio-only news. I get most of my news from reading the Internet. But when I read the above paragraph, it really clicked why I almost cringe when I watch Fox News.
