Fighting Demons Is The Best Fight. Creating Demons, Even Better.
Fighting Demons Is The Best Fight. Creating Demons, Even Better - All Made Easy By Right To Free Speech
It was a moment of hilarity. Tired from long week of flying, I sank into my couch and turned on the TV. Scrolling through my emails I forgot to change the channel when O’Reilly Factor came on, after the usually watchable Shepard Smith. I find the intellectual fraud in the program infuriating, but today it turned entertaining.
Bill was ranting about “war on Easter”. Another faux enemy that faux news made up after their “war on Christmas” won them enough publicity, viewers, and advertising dollars. And this is the brilliant strategy of Faux News. Make up a fake enemy, convince the viewers that they were already feeling threatened by it, and then launch a jihad against it. Be a self-appointed custodian of American virtues and values (not much different from the sleazy mullah’s I despised when growing up in Pakistan).
In today’s episode Bill went a bit further, declaring that he had “won” against the “war on Christmas”, citing some inconsequential example of an advertiser that refused to support a media outfit that chose the more PC term ‘holidays’ versus Christmas. Bill’s statements often remind me of what the famous corporate raider Carl Icahn said about the well-known hedge fund manager, Bill Ackerman. “I can’t tell if he’s the most arrogant person in the world, or the most sanctimonious”.
Tonight’s program reminded me of another O’Reilly episode I watched many years ago. Fox News found out some professor in a school in Colorado who believed that 9/11 was an inside job. Fox News jumped on the story and made it mainstream. Absent this, no reasonable person would have paid much attention to this fringe conspiracy theorist, the type of whom are frequently (thankfully) ignored by most (at least thinking) people. But this was a prime opportunity for Fox to feed off the insecurities and paranoia of many of their viewers, who are frequently misinformed, thanks in no small part to Fox itself.
Fox is a great lesson in how to tweak a business model, partly by finding out what will click with the target audience, and partly by selling them a product they never knew they needed (a bit like iPad), and make a great deal of money in the process. The only problem is the lack of truth in advertising. Fox’s catch phrase “fair and balanced” is comically antithetical to what they actually do in practice. For other businesses, truth-in-advertising laws would often prevent that. Maybe it’s time we start thinking of broadening these laws. Yes, media outlets like Fox will rail against it, and cite the right to free speech. But then any business can make any claim and mislead the consumer, all in the name of free speech.
It was a moment of hilarity. Tired from long week of flying, I sank into my couch and turned on the TV. Scrolling through my emails I forgot to change the channel when O’Reilly Factor came on, after the usually watchable Shepard Smith. I find the intellectual fraud in the program infuriating, but today it turned entertaining.
Bill was ranting about “war on Easter”. Another faux enemy that faux news made up after their “war on Christmas” won them enough publicity, viewers, and advertising dollars. And this is the brilliant strategy of Faux News. Make up a fake enemy, convince the viewers that they were already feeling threatened by it, and then launch a jihad against it. Be a self-appointed custodian of American virtues and values (not much different from the sleazy mullah’s I despised when growing up in Pakistan).
In today’s episode Bill went a bit further, declaring that he had “won” against the “war on Christmas”, citing some inconsequential example of an advertiser that refused to support a media outfit that chose the more PC term ‘holidays’ versus Christmas. Bill’s statements often remind me of what the famous corporate raider Carl Icahn said about the well-known hedge fund manager, Bill Ackerman. “I can’t tell if he’s the most arrogant person in the world, or the most sanctimonious”.
Tonight’s program reminded me of another O’Reilly episode I watched many years ago. Fox News found out some professor in a school in Colorado who believed that 9/11 was an inside job. Fox News jumped on the story and made it mainstream. Absent this, no reasonable person would have paid much attention to this fringe conspiracy theorist, the type of whom are frequently (thankfully) ignored by most (at least thinking) people. But this was a prime opportunity for Fox to feed off the insecurities and paranoia of many of their viewers, who are frequently misinformed, thanks in no small part to Fox itself.
Fox is a great lesson in how to tweak a business model, partly by finding out what will click with the target audience, and partly by selling them a product they never knew they needed (a bit like iPad), and make a great deal of money in the process. The only problem is the lack of truth in advertising. Fox’s catch phrase “fair and balanced” is comically antithetical to what they actually do in practice. For other businesses, truth-in-advertising laws would often prevent that. Maybe it’s time we start thinking of broadening these laws. Yes, media outlets like Fox will rail against it, and cite the right to free speech. But then any business can make any claim and mislead the consumer, all in the name of free speech.
posted by madinmanhattan | 6:02 PM
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