Aaron Barnhart, the sage TV pundit of The Kansas City Star, sums up the cable game: "So here's the verdict on 10 years of the Fox News Channel. It passed up a complacent CNN and never looked back."
Barnhart takes the Associated Press to task for swallowing the spin of rivals. Such swallowing is to be expected, of course, sinc the MSM is rallying around Keith Olbermann, trying to boost him into Murrow-esque media sainthood. It probably won't work, because a) Olbermann is no saint, and because b) the MSM doesn't have the hagiographic power that it once had. However, AP is still going to give it the old college try, in the name of old-fashioned libeal solidarity. Here's Barnhart on AP's pro-MSNBC spin:
"'Slumping Fox News celebrating 1st decade,' was how The Associated Press headlined its story this week. Yes, ratings are down for the first time at Fox News Channel. And yes, some competitors have begun to sneak up. MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann actually crowed on his “Countdown” broadcast this week that he had beaten 'The O’Reilly Factor' for a full 15 minutes in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic."
Sums up Barnhart, nailing the wire service on its shillery: "It was a brazen bit of chest-thumping that made little sense."
And then Barnhart made an interesting admission, that should chill the blood of everyone at CNN: "For my money, when it comes to breaking news, Fox is my go-to channel. Time and again it has proven it can get on top of a story and wring maximum interest from it. Reese Schonfeld, the founding president of CNN, said it best: CNN’s anchors talk at you. Fox News talks to you."
Finally, Barnhart had some other points which are worth thinking about, for the next 10 years:
"Could someone beat Fox News at their own game? No. Could another channel come along in the next 10 years that takes a different approach to news, serves a different niche, and challenge Fox for supremacy in cable news? I suppose. But my feeling is, if it will happen anywhere, it will happen right here, on the Web. Getting your channel onto 80 million cable customers' lineups is hard, and expensive (just ask Rupert Murdoch; he bribed some operators to carry Fox News 10 years ago). But getting it out to your base via the Internet? Heck, folks are doing that already.
"This is how YouTube is a game-changer. Now we all watch video on the web. That means we could be only a year or two away from an all-video live news network emerging on the web. It might serve a progressive audience, or people addicted to global news, or some other niche in enough numbers to attract sponsors. Stay tuned."
Indeed. Stay tuned. And also, stay online.
