respublica

Cable news-no opposing views

About a month ago I wrote at the end of a post on cable news ratings that of the three cable networks, Fox News most often had guests presenting both sides of political issues while CNN and MSNBC did not. Today I saw that I am not the only one who's noticed this.

Today an article appeared which quoted a spokesman for Bernie Sanders who said the same thing. "Briahna Joy Gray — the press secretary for the Sanders presidential campaign in 2020 — shouted out Fox News for, in her opinion, being more ideologically diverse than its competitors.

“Fox News is more inclined to have a leftist on than MSNBC and CNN,” Gray said. “It usually has a liberal on its panels that I think is representative of what liberalism is, for better or for worse. As opposed to the CNN, MSNBC shows, which tend to have a never Trump Republican, which is just this anomalous thing, which is basically just a neoliberal Democrat at this point. And you don’t get the kind of spice and engagement that you get when you watch Fox News.”

While there are many liberal Fox News haters out there doing their best to denigrate the network, I'd guess they don't watch all 3 networks very much to see that Fox isn't afraid to have a second point of view.

The latest cable news ratings

I find this fascinating not only for the breakdown in how many viewers watch each of the 3 cable networks, but the headline seems weird.

Cable News Ratings Wednesday May 4: MSNBC Nearly Doubles CNN Across Prime Time — Even Without Maddow

I guess this is shocking, but the actual numbers come with this: Fox News continued its long-held dominance as the most-watched network in cable news.The distance between the three networks was on stark display, particularly across prime time on Wednesday night. CNN brought in an average of 654,000 total viewers, while MSNBC did almost double that with an average of 1.27 million total viewers. Fox News more than doubled MSNBC with a total of 2.82 million total viewers across prime time

I guess the fact that CNN is rapidly losing ground among news viewers is quite surprising. It isn't surprising that Fox News is still way ahead in viewership. Many people won't like this and have all kinds of reasons why this is, mostly partisan. Each week day we make a practice of watching each of the cable networks at some point during the day but we never, ever watch prime time cable news. Talk about rampant partisanship on each one.

The main point to note is that of the three, Fox News programs almost always has experts/guests/partisans with different opinions/views. The other two networks do not. Like Fox or not, at least you get a counterpoint.

The entire ratings list is here and is quite interesting.

Three Dollars!

This week we've received 3 papers as normal, however one of the three we do not subscribe to. We have not gotten the Wall Street Journal and instead have been treated to the Belleville News Democrat. Let me tell you, the News Democrat is no Wall Street Journal it isn't even a Post-Dispatch. This is the poorest excuse for a daily paper ever and I just noticed the price is 3 dollars! I mean, come on, it weighs about the same as a piece of Kleenex. That is the same price as the New York Times, a paper filled with news. For 3 bucks there should be actual local news beyond high school sports. They don't even bother much with letters to the editor or local goings-on as they used to.

I do not understand how they stay in business or even bother.

President's speech

Tonight is the State of the Union speech by President Biden. The world is not the way he expected it to be when he and his staff began working on it. I can't imagine not tuning in to listen and can't imagine knowing how to respond to every awful thing going on in Ukraine.

But what bugs the heck out of me is watching the news. Every single cable network is guessing what he'll say, critiquing it one way or the other. If some or all of them have received an advance copy, I wish that would stop. Let the media hear it as we will and not have a list of pros and cons ready the minute he finishes. Let us ponder it ourselves before being bombarded with cable network experts within minutes. That goes for all the cable networks who this morning are already starting to parse his not yet given speech.

Nothing but news watching

Ever since the battle for Ukraine began late last week we have been sitting in front of the TV almost constantly when nothing else needed doing. The first day we watched all 3 of the cable news channels, alternating now and then to see how each reported. What stood out to me was the rare day when there was nothing political in any of the broadcasts. Everything was based on what was happening, who was doing what, the history of the country and Russia's interest in it. Many very knowledgeable experts we don't see often were brought in to give background.

This was the case on all 3 channels and pretty much continues today. The one guy I became amazed with was an unknown before Thursday, at least to me. Trey Yingst. He was reporting from the middle of the capital city of Kyiv and stayed there all day and into the late night and early morning hours of the next day. He was always there no matter when and I began to wonder how he could do without sleep. And it was getting more and more dangerous.

In any event it was news reporting as it should be. After a couple of days a bit of US politics started creeping in to all channels, but it is still rare and refreshing.

Paper deliveries explained

I've mentioned a number of times how weird our daily newspaper delivery has been. Some days none, other days 8, still others maybe one but the wrong one. The delivery time of day has changed by the day. We've chalked it up to the lack of delivery people. It does get frustrating not knowing if they'd come or not or when.

Today we received an explanation letter with our papers and this helps our understanding. This is pretty much what we thought was going on.

"Good Morning!"

"While we strive for the best possible service for all customers, our delivery times may vary and some special deliveries might be put on hold during this transition period. Our current contractors are working long hours to ensure everyone receives their newspapers. Due to an unprecedented nation-wide shortage of available workers, we are struggling to find newspaper carriers and have many available routes."

"Our routes are a great way to make extra money delivering papers in your neighborhood each morning. We currently have a couple of opportunities available on this route and in your area."

Thank you for being a valued customer,

Eric Freeman Distribution manager.

 

This is one old fashioned word

I was reading a news column this morning and halfway through the writer stopped me with the use of the word "athwart". Now I don't know about anyone else, but the definition of this rarely used word escaped me. The sentence said in part, "too often it has stood athwart history."

I looked up athwart. And the definition given kind of made me laugh because I just can't imagine most of us using the word. The most general definition is "side to side". "From one side to another, across." "a long counter thrown athwart the entrance."

"The stars which shoot athwart the night.""after it enters the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane is predicted to advance athwart to the Texas coastline."

I mean, who says stuff like this? In any event I stopped reading and moved on to something else. So my best guess as to what the writer was indicating was, the group changed their opinions from one thing to another too often.

WGN America revisited

Some time back I posted about the new prime time news news network WGN America which promoted itself as news as news and not news with bias. When we remember, we tune in and have found it to be a relief. It's almost relaxing to watch a news network that has no arguing or obvious, vehement bias.

It may take awhile for this to catch on since we've been accustomed for so long to hear mostly one sided programming. Or, news with follow-up editorializing by the hosts.

The one thing I wish was different and that is the time they are on the air. The begin at 5 pm and go until 10 each night. We do a lot of our news watching during the day and tend to forget about it during prime time.

Conserve and protect

With this arctic freeze and snow we've had this week, it goes without saying the local news stations will be all over it with information we need. There are stories about how to keep your pipes from freezing or how to deal with pipes which froze. How to stay warm by being slightly cold to conserve energy. If you have one of those furnaces that exhausts out an outside wall, watch for condensation causing freezing and then carbon monoxide. Then there are the stories on the safest way to drive on covered roads-stay home if possible.

Lots of information. But. Have you ever gone to their websites as they ask us to for more complete information? Whether it's a story link on Facebook or a link on the actual web page they are 100 percent impossible to read due to constantly moving, flickering, jumping around, ads. Start reading a story such as "How long will we have to conserve energy this week?" KSDK. Good grief it's not just annoying to try and read, but impossible. There are moving ads on the sides, ads which start up one paragraph in, ads all over and all moving.

Often an ad covers up the story which is advertising themselves. Like, hey, I'm already here, just stop this.

It's all of them. FOX2 Now, KMOV, KSDK, and channels from every city and national news outlet. They have become unreadable.

A British Journalist beats our own to the story

As I was saying in the post below, we need more real journalists to ferret out the vaccine roll-outs and ask the hard questions. The Daily Mail gives us one good option to get us vaccinated.

"A top epidemiologist who advised President Biden's transition team on the Coronavirus pandemic is calling for the US to alter its vaccination plan in the face of a potential 'hurricane' surge in coronavirus infections in the coming weeks. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday to outline the changes he said need to be made with the vaccine rollout.  He said the US should prioritize giving as many people as possible their first of two doses of the vaccine, instead of holding back a certain amount of shots for second doses."

"As of Sunday, 31 million vaccine doses have been administered in the US, out of nearly 50 million delivered to states. Less than eight percent of the US population has gotten one dose, and just 1.7 percent has received both."  States are holding back much of their vaccines, saving them for the second dose.

I say good on Michael Osterholm, at least someone is asking the questions, finding some answers and coming up with an alternative plan of action.

President Biden said his administration would not hold back the vaccines, but unfortunately that is what the individual states are doing and may explain in part the baffling paradox of low rates of shots administered compared to doses distributed even as states report they are running out of doses.

This really has to change. Now someone please find out what is going on in Madison County Illinois.