Thank God for Fox News!

There are five ways that people will probably react to this title:

One – “I agree. Thank God for Fox News!

Two – “What? You’ve got to be kidding me. Fox News just spews conservative lies!

Three – “Fox News is ok, but isn’t thanking God for them going a little overboard?”

Four – “Why would you thank God for Fox News? These cable news channels are all the same.”

Five – “What is Fox News?”

Ok, fair enough. Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but let me explain why I thank God for Fox News.

I have always found that the best place to start is at the beginning.

Prior to, and during, World War II, people got their news from local newspapers and local radio stations. The reporting of “news” was very localized and independent.

After World War II, in 1948, the three major television networks (NBC, CBS and ABC) began broadcasting. They all had their “nightly news” shows that were 30 minutes long. Take away the advertising time, and they had 20 minutes to report the news of the day. This was challenging, and broadcasters had to decide what news made the cut and what news didn’t. This was the beginning of the power of the network news media based on their selective viewpoints and selective dissemination of the news.

Then in 1980 a new news media showed up on our TVs…, a 24 hour news channel on cable TV, called CNN. CNN had a completely different problem. Their challenge was not trying to decide what news made the cut and what news didn’t. Their problem was finding enough news to fill its broadcast day (remember this for later). Early on, CNN was not much of a factor in the news world, because not many people had cable TV. The network news shows still ruled the day.

The cable TV audience, of course, continued to grow, and CNN flourished, unchallenged, until 1996.

In 1996, the Fox News Channel and MSNBC were launched to complete with CNN.

As of today, Fox News has become, by far, the number one cable news channel, followed by MSNBC, with CNN bringing up the rear. Quite a distant rear, actually. During prime time news broadcasts, the three major networks still have the most viewers, by a margin of about 4 to 1 over cable news, so what they choose to present as “the news” is still pretty influential.

Ok, this is all well and good, but why do I thank God for Fox News?

Here are some good and typical examples/reason:

The other day, three gentlemen were released, after years in captivity, from North Korea, and brought home by our Secretary of State, thanks to the efforts and policies of President Trump. One network, Fox News, covered the story from beginning to end, pretty extensively. One other network made a brief mention of the story, and all of the other networks felt this was not newsworthy at all, and did not even give it a mention.

The day after the three hostages were released, Fox News reported that our forces in Iraq managed to capture five top level ISIS commanders. A story, again, that reflects positively on President Trump, and his policies regarding ISIS. NONE of the other networks felt this story was newsworthy enough to even mention it. All of the other news was soooo much more important that this story did not even deserve 10 seconds of their time. CNN and MSNBC have 24 hours of time to fill! Really? Not even 10 seconds?!

These are just two recent examples, but believe me, stuff like this goes on every day, 365 days a year. You can say what you want about Fox News, but at the very least, they aren’t withholding the news for some reason.

This is why I say “Thank God for Fox News!”

Fox News’ motto is, “Fair and balanced. We report, you decide.” I like that. If Fox News didn’t exist, I wouldn’t even have the chance to decide how I felt about certain things or events because I wouldn’t even know about them in the first place.  Like the old saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Are these examples of a media bias that exists in much of our mainstream media? I’m just reporting, you decide.

Again, “Thank God for Fox News!”