Ratings Versus Accuracy

This really isn't surprising, and I'll explain why.

Fox News Channel has been the top-rated cable news network for a long time, but until this month it was only for double-digit months.

Well it’s now official – FNC is number one in April for the 100th consecutive month.

The streak began in January 2002, when FNC became the most watched cable news channel in prime time and total day in total viewers, surpassing industry leader CNN. It hasn’t looked back.

And while it hasn’t looked back, the look hasn’t changed very much at all. While CNN and MSNBC have undergone major changes, prime time looks just about how it did back in January 2002. Bill O’Reilly was there, Greta Van Susteren came one month later. Sean Hannity was there (although he shared a show for most of the time with Alan Colmes). Shepard Smith has been the lead news anchor since then as well. It goes without saying how incredibly rare to see the sustained success of this fairly untouched group.

In reading this, I'm reminded of Christopher Nolan's film "The Prestige". There is a scene in that film where Micheal Caine's character describes how a great magic trick is done.

He describes how that audience is set up, how they are distracted, and finally how the magician concludes his trickery to make the audience believe what they have seen is real. Fox"News" is a perfect example of this.

I have said this multiple times and it is no less true even today. Higher ratings in no way equal accurate reportage. This is something that is touted by Bill O'Reilly on a virtual daily basis. And make no mistake, Fox's water-carriers abound. I honestly feel sorry for them in most cases, but I also know that magic and trickery can easily seduce.

Fox"News" is successful primarily because of the consumerist nature of most Americans - we thrive off of entertainment, scandal, and things that shock our senses. I must admit that I watch Fox"News" throughout the evening, but not because I see it as a source of information, but to monitor and evaluate it's ability to take a story ( or create one ) and mold it into this twisted visage in order to frighten the average viewer.

From the start of the broadcast day until the final "live" hour of transmission, you can literally see how the conservative point of view is folded into literally every program. Anyone should be able to see this, but this certainly isn't the case.

One can't but marvel at the audacity and unblushing dishonesty of Fox executives and employees. I say this, because it's further proof that greed ( whether for money or power ) is such a motivating force in this country. On any given day, you can literally see how various Fox"News" personalities are attempting to gain just an inch of spotlight by saying and doing things that would make them appear to be the greater "magician" on the network.

As television viewers, we seek the programing that is going to hold our interest. The same can be said of news networks. And while it's true that MSNBC has more liberal opinion programs in primetime, they certainly know how to separate their hard news programs from them. CNN, in my opinion, is a peculiar creature that tries too hard to be all hard news and ends up looking like an abject fool - especially since they hired Erick Erickson.

Fox"News" is always going to draw a crowd because they are the car wreck on the side of the interstate that we have to crane our necks to see as we drive past. We stare in shock and wonder at what we see, but then we move on. Out of the millions that do watch, I often wonder how many of those people are watching for the same reasons that I am. I wonder how long they are watching. Are they watching an entire program? Did they stop just long enough to hear Sean Hannity call Obama a terrorist sympathizer? Or did they leave the television on all night just to have some background noise and ended up falling asleep when the Ambien kicked in?

Fox"News" is a magician - but not a particularly good one - since most of us have figured out how they do their tricks. It's just a shame that people keep going back to see their act. It's like it's so bad that it's become comical.

Consumerism And The Dreams Of Christmas

Here's a piece that I wrote a few years ago about one of the things that I don't like about Christmas.

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The mere mention of Christmas brings out the worst of the rabid consumer in us. Sales, price markdowns, clearance, early-bird specials, late-night hours, stocking- stuffers, no payments until the first of the year, blah blah blah blah fuck it.

Having worked three Christmas seasons at the mall in Bowling Green, Kentucky, I maintain a constant fear and loathing for the holiday shopper. Not so much fear, but more of an elevated sense of danger whenever they are within my field of vision. You don't have to work at a specific shop to know a hardcore Christmas-sale maniac when you see one. At first, you may have an odd sense of wonderment and awe seeing them in action. Coupons at the ready, tattered sales circular in their sweaty palms, bits of crackers and assorted Christmas treat crumbs clinging to whatever Cosby sweater that they have had since last year. These folks are much more than meets the untrained eye.

At first, they seem congenial and perhaps a little too enamoured with the whole 'spirit' of the holidays. Occasionally seen prancing around with smiling faces while sifting through the latest line of sweat-shop assembled fleece pull-overs at Old Navy, these people are not to be trifled with at all.

I've seen grandmothers and church deacons enflamed to near blasphemous rages when they aren't able to find the newest Britney Spears CD or tacky dress from Hot Topic that says 'doesn't play well with others'. I've seen women literally push disabled people through the doors of Best Buy just so they can be number 12 in line at the check-out counter simply because they need to get to Cracker Barrel before 11am and have fresh spiced apples and fried okra to keep their stamina going. And you'll see a lot more than that.

However, the advent of online shopping has reduced a great deal of the 'need' to shop at malls. But, for some reason, these people are insane enough to do it year after year. Knowing that children and grandchildren will be a crying, snotty-nosed mess even before they get to Bed Bath and Beyond. My question is, why do they still do it?

The answer, though hard to process, is quite simple. It's a sport to them. The suburbanite Olympics. This inherent need, this desire to compete against the neighbors on the other end of the cul-de-sac. It's bragging rights for the next 12 months when you were there, on the front lines, credit card at the ready, and you managed to score the very last boxed set of Sex In The City. Even more so when you can tell your aunt that you actually ripped that very copy from the clutches of a slightly over-weight woman with a bad perm and a sweat-shirt that said 'shop till you drop' on the front; her sagging breasts tugging at the O's in 'shop' and 'drop' making them protrude in a way that makes your husband stare in horror.

These people train all year, in silence, for this one day of coffee fueled consumer excess that is commonly known as Black Friday.

Christmas club accounts are drained in late October in preparation. Family pets begin to whimper when mom watches TV and sees an advertisement for Macy's and she leaps to her feet, screaming in delight. Baby's cry. Husbands, daughters, and sons fear sitting at the same table during dinner. It's that one time of the year when, in an adrenaline fueled orgy of spending, a woman would gladly tear another person's arms off and drink the blood that flows from the tattered stumps if she heard the words 'sold out'.

Not to sound sexist, but it is, in fact, a woman's competition. Just walk around any mall, in any city, on any day between the Friday after Thanksgiving until two days before Christmas, and you'll see more men carrying purses than you would at a drag-show. It's as if there was an alternate universe inside shopping centers that triggered a reversal of sexual and cultural norms. Men who prided themselves on their masculinity are brow-beaten by their spouses. It's truly a sight to behold. There is only one place of solice for these men in a situation such as this:

The restrooms.

It's not an uncommon sight to see the most obnoxious of the male species looking into the mirror in one of these public restrooms, convincing himself to just hold out for two more hours. Then maybe, just maybe, he can go home. And, if that doesn't work, they'll bide their time and wait until their respective spouses track them down. They will gladly take a verbal lashing rather than have to tolerate their wife's bickering while being shoved and pulled through the crowd at Ambercrombie and Fitch.

It's not all bad though, depending on your particular point-of-view.

For me, shopping online is the way to go. The only reason I go to the mall this time of year is to see these people in action. Mass consumption can take its toll on people and create monsters of many. I've never understood it, but always been fascinated with it. My only hope is, that as I grow older, I won't feel the desire to compete with them. And, I don't see that happening.

Shopping at home in your pajamas while sipping on a rum-and-coke is definitely preferable to swimming through a mass of sweaty bodies that continuously hover around the food-court while trying to buy that one last item.

And hearing N'Sync's version of Holy Jolly Christmas blaring 6 times an hours isn't exactly soothing either

Thy Clearance Bin Overfloweth

It's no suprise to those that understand the nature of conservative book publishers, the NYT Bestseller List and the closely guarded "List of Top Purchasers" that the market has literally been flooded with Sarah Palin's* book. But have you seen the suggested retail price on this.

It's almost $30!

Likely sensing that the average consumer, Palin fanatic or not, wouldn't be so willing to pay such an exhorbonent amount for what amounts to nothing more than 400 pages of "stop making fun of me!" material.



And it's not just conservative publications that are practically giving it away ( as they do with literally every right-wing ream of paper that is churned out ) large retailers are in a price-matching war to get rid of their stock.

Walmart.com dropped price from list price of $28.99 to $10, then to $9 and below as other retailers matched it. On October 15, Walmart.com began offering preorders of Going Rogue, along with nine other new book releases, for $10. After Amazon.com reportedly matched the price, Walmart.com "str[uck] back, slashing its prices to $9" [AOL Daily Finance, 10/16/09]. Amazon also dropped its price to $9 [Buzzflash.com, 10/19/09]. Target.com joined in the price war, prompting Walmart.com to drop its price further [The New Yorker, 11/9/09]. By November 5, Walmart.com was selling the book for $8.98, Target.com was selling it for $8.99, and Amazon was selling it for $9. The respective retailers were still selling the book at those prices as of November 16. All three retailers give the book's list price as $28.99.

More from Media Matters.

There likely isn't anything overtly special about this book, other than it was written in such a short period of time and has the entirity of the conservative movement in such an uproar that even saying the title causes twitchy genuflection and paranoia that Beck or Limbaugh may be monitoring what is being said.

As for me, I'm not about to buy this at any cost. Although, I do plan on doing my own personal review of it. I'm going to simply wait for it to hit my library next week or just pluck it from the give-away bin at my local Goodwill. It's probably not even worth stealing.

Adventures In Gimmick Marketing

While Twitter, Facebook, and countless online message-boards and chat-rooms were taking up way too much bandwidth talking about Kanye West and Taylor Swift, it was the reactions of some that have proved the catalyst for this particular piece.

Here is what is being postulated – it was all staged.

As highly contrived, nearly complete preposterousness, as that seems to me, let’s run with this paper-thin thesis for a moment and take stock at what this all means.

The one question to ask is this - who benefits?

Certainly all interested parties, most notably Kanye, will benefit from the ensuing press that will pour through the internet, traditional print media, and radio, but that’s pretty much where it ends. People will talk about it for a few news cycles and then something else will happen and folks move on.

While it is being argued by some of the more rabid fans of the pop-music genre that this will have a direct effect on sales of not only West’s catalog of music, but Beyonce and Swifts as well, one has to question the overall effect of this sales bump. Are we talking about such a boost in sales of tracks ( both online and in standard retail outlets ) that it will rocket all three of the artists involved simultaneously upward on the Soundscan charts that the likelihood of one of them reaching #1 exponentially increases? Hardly. Although events like this do have a direct effect on sales of portions of the artist’s catalog, it’s likely to be nothing more than a modest gain at best.

And as it’s being argued this was all a set-up, who was actually in on it? If it was all three, then Taylor Swift and Beyonce would had to had known that they were going to win their respective awards. Does this violate some unwritten rule regarding the sealing of the ballots? Likely not, as this is a far cry from the Academy Awards. Furthermore, the ability for anyone in the pop-music field to keep their mouth shut about a gimmick like this is somewhat suspect. Had this actually been a preplanned stunt, it surely would have leaked just hours before the program.

But what if it was just Kanye, then what does that say about how much MTV cares for Taylor Swift? Even though she comes from the country genre, they are walking a pretty thin line. As country music begins to sound more and more like pop, and more artists like Taylor Swift are crossing over to such an extent that MTV is willing to recognize them, how will this play out for MTV. It’s no secret that MTV is a towering giant in the music industry, and can pretty much do whatever they want, so long as it doesn’t hurt their bottom line. But alienating an entire cross-section of the consumer market just so you can make fun of Taylor Swift on live TV doesn’t sound like a good business plan to me.

The only way to look at this is from the standpoint that MTV benefits more than any of the parties involved.

But what are the repercussions?

Kanye isn’t expanding his fanbase by any means by acting like a spoiled child. He already has a solid following that will defend him against virtually any and everything. But even those fans won’t be around for long. Consumers are quite fickle. Once they see something that is a little bit brighter or shinier or bigger and louder, they will slowly start to push Kanye West away.

And this is the point that some fans of pop music don’t seem to realize. Legacy is what matters to people like Kanye West.

While he is, at this particular moment in time, safe in the arms of the MTV machine, it won’t be long until even they grow weary of him. If we continue to operate under the assumption that Kanye West’s behavior on the VMAs was staged, we have to ask the question – how much of the rest of his appearances are staged? Are all the blog postings, interviews, tirades during live performances, and temper-tantrums caught on tape staged as well? And if so, to what extent is this affecting him mentally? Has Kanye West lost the ability to discern between his real self and his corporately funded self? Have consumers lost that ability to tell the real Kanye from the bizarro world Kanye? Did they ever, and do they even care?

What A Wonderful Way To Say Merry Christmas

Ah, yes, consumerism.

What better way to celebrate the holidays than to buy, buy, buy.

But, what if you want to show the world that you aren't just a consumer, but that you say Merry Christmas and the remainder of the Holidays spanning November to January can just fuck-off? Well, get yourself a "We Say Merry Christmas" bumper sticker.



How can you get one? Why, all you have to do is buy a copy of Bill O'Reilly's latest book that tries to convince you that he is, in fact, just one of the "folks".

Nevermind the fact that this appears to be nothing more than an expanded version of Culture Warrior and Who's Looking Out For You, you get a sticker with it!

But, that's not all you can get. Bill still peddles crap through the rest of the year too.

T-Shirts, sweat-shirts, coffee mugs, golf balls, door-mats, hats, and whatever else Bill can find space enough on to slap another label that means absolutely nothing to anyone but him.

Thank O'Reilly, for turning Merry Christmas from a festive, happy, greeting into a shrill battle-cry for people who drink Ensure for lunch and actually believe golf is a spectators sport.

As a side-note, Jason Links has pointed out:

....O'Reilly's book A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity (which we remind you is an anagram for "Shameful, Bona-Fide Hypocrite" )....

HAPPY FUCKING HOLIDAYS!!!!