"Neocon movement unravels as Fox News ratings plummet to 12 year low"

[applegrove]

Neocon movement unravels as Fox News ratings plummet to 12 year low

Posted by Frank Florio at the Stabley Times

http://www.stableytimes.com/news/neocon-movement-unravels-as-fox-news-ratings-plummet-to-12-year-low/1278/

"SNIP.........................................


Obama’s victory in 2008 gave Fox News the ammunition it needed for a ratings bonanza: the republican party had already spread accusations that Obama was secretly a Muslim, or secretly a socialist, or secretly born in Kenya. And while there was never any evidence of any of these accusations, Fox drove them home every day in the name of keeping and growing its conservative audience. People tend to watch more news when bad things are happening (think 9/11), and so long as Fox could help its white small town viewers feasting on their own fears that there had to be something secretly ungainly about a black president, ratings remained high. Fox claimed it was the only news outlet telling the truth about Obama, and many of its viewers refused to believe any news report unless it came from Fox itself. Obama’s rise was Fox’s gain.

For this reason, some suspected that Rupert Murdoch, an Australian who created the Fox News not out of political conviction but instead out of the (ultimately correct) assumption that conservatives could be driven to watch a defiantly conservative news network whether its negative claims about democrats and liberals were realistic or truthful, might be secretly rooting for Obama to win reelection. If conservatives lived in a state of constant fear during his first term, then they’d be in a state of outright panic if he won an unchecked second go-round. During the 2012 election Fox’s claims about Obama grew more absurd by the day, and ratings continued to climb. But after he won, those ratings began to fall. Two months later, they’re at a historical low. There are a few explanations as to where all those viewers wandered off to…

While MSNBC has gained in the ratings of late, conservative Fox viewers are the last people likely to have shifted to there. CNN hasn’t gained in the ratings at all, which means Fox viewers are
increasingly watching no television news at all. The drop is too quick and too severe to be blamed on the slow and steady overall shift to internet based news, which means that Fox viewers are simply giving up on the news altogether. Part of that could be that, having seen the fairly moderate Obama in action for long enough now, they’ve come to realize that the outlandish accusations by Fox were mere manipulation. Now spurned by the only news network they thought they could believe in, they’ve tuned out altogether. Others may still hold outrageous fears about the imaginary version of Obama which Fox created, but having accepted the fact that he’ll be in office for another four years, have simply lost enthusiasm. In either case, they’re no longer tuned into Fox and this no longer inundated with the constant panic inducing misrepresentations of the news. And without that to drive them, the Bush-era neoconservative movement, which always relied on disinformative news in order to drive its agenda, is set to unravel. Fox still has a large audience and, if anything, it’ll steer its reporting even more extremist in an attempt to lock in the viewers it has left. But elections are won by majorities, not by extremists, and if the sudden fall of Fox News becomes a permanent trend, could leave the increasingly neoconservative republican party without enough supporters to successfully continue down its current path.


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[southernyankeebelle]

1. We can only pray the demise of Fox is around the corner.

[lib2DaBone]

2. Maybe this is good news?

12 years later.. I think the majority of the population has had their fill of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

People are waking up.. starting to ask questions... how could a building free-fall into a perfeclty controlled footprint demolition?

The PTB do not like people who ask questions.

[Kingofalldems]

3. K and R for all the Steve Doocy fans

[Flashmann]

4. Fox viewers are increasingly watching no television news at all.

According to 1,maybe 2 studies released over the past year,that automatically makes them more informed....

[Puzzledtraveller]

5. Neocon and Con not being the same means if anything

the neocon movment is becoming more stridently conservative and finding Fox too "neocon" thus tuning out. This actually is not a good indicator for a demise of conservative viewpoints. More likely they are only becoming more entrenched.