Today's Wall Street Journal has a half page color ad in section B, that claims CNN is partisan, citing a pew research center for the People & the Press poll.
Here on the left, Fox and CNN don't look very different, especially the way its anchors, presumably guided by their producers, bring in right wingers to show the "other side" when there is no legitimate other side.
As far as Fox being balanced. Imagine the empty scales of justice. They're balanced. Now, imagine exactly five pounds of shit deposited on each side of the scale. Again-- balance. That's the kind of balance Fox has. And the clearest example of the source of the visual material-- the shit-- that I'm talking about, you don't have to go any further than Bill O'Reilly, or, for that matter, CNN's Glen Beck.
And no, the FOX ad does NOT provide any link to the PEW reference they refer to.
Any bets this doesn't show up on CNN?
Seriously though. Fox has a relatively new business channel that this ad is probably hoping to pull viewers toward. I mean, they can't possibly be serious, or think anyone will believe that they actually ARE balanced-- except for the koolaid drinkers who buy the lie.
Update: It looks like Fox got its stats from this Pew Poll, which reported:
The general public has become more Democratic since 2006, and this is reflected in the audiences for leading TV news outlets. The audiences for CNN and MSNBC, which were heavily Democratic two years ago, have become even more so: fully 51% of CNN's regular viewers are Democrats while only 18% are Republicans. MSNBC's audience makeup is similar - 45% of regular viewers of MSNBC are Democrats, 18% are Republicans.
The regular audience for nightly network news also is now about two-to-one Democratic (45% vs. 22% Republican). In 2006, 40% of the regular viewers of nightly network news were Democrats compared with 28% who were Republicans.
So, we might note that all the other networks reflect the predominance of Democrats. Fox, is the outlier with almost twice as many Repubican viewers as the average network-- it is top heavy with a disproportionate percentage compared to their representation in the population. Bottom line, FOx is where the right wingnuts flock, like moths to a flame.
