Time critic blames FOX News for Olbermann’s whacky behavior

posted at 6:20 pm on October 6, 2006 by Ian
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Hat tip to Rich Noyes at Newsbusters, who writes:

In an article posted Friday on Time.com, the magazine’s critic James Poniewozik suggests the Fox News Channel, which he sees as tilted to the right, is also responsible for the multi-minute rants that MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has lately been emitting. Time also dismisses the idea that the rest of the mainstream media (presumably including itself) is tilted to the left, with Poniewozik parenthetically noting that “the MSM really slant toward the institutional, establishmentarian center, which is a bias as dangerous as any other.”

James Poniewozik, the Time critic, writes this about FOX News:

Even with its ratings down, Fox remains the network against which competitors define themselves. And not just news competitors. After Bill Clinton got off an on-camera harangue against Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace, for an aggressive line of questioning about his administration’s anti-terror efforts, the New York Times reported that prominent Democrats, from Howard Dean to Paul Begala, had begun an open campaign of attacking Fox as a covert Republican shill….

So is Fox a covert Republican shill? Shill, yes, sometimes. Its opinion shows blatantly tilt right. The news plays straighter, though as I write I’m looking at a Fox News chyron that reads, “If Rumsfeld left amid criticism, would America be at risk?” Covert, not so much. The network famously calls itself “fair and balanced,” but “fair and balancing” would be a better description: Roger Ailes repeatedly describes his news network as a counterweight, on the right, to the rest of the news media. His argument that nearly every other mainstream media outlet slants left is self-serving and mostly wrong. (The MSM really slant toward the institutional, establishmentarian center, which is a bias as dangerous as any other.) But while “fair and balanced” may be propaganda, it doesn’t seem to be fooling anyone. Conservatives see Fox as a comfortable haven for their worldview; their opponents pretty much agree. The balance here is that Fox winks just as broadly to both sides.

It’s quite obvious to tell Poniewozik is a liberal. No, not because he writes for Time magazine or the fact that he won’t admit that the MSM has liberal bias. It’s because he has to blame others for the behavior of Krazy Keith.

I expect to see more about this from Olbermann Watch.

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