General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: i don't think we fully appreciate the power of foxnews. [View all]farmbo
(3,121 posts)... they win because the remaining media (print, electronic, and social) cant resist letting FOX set the agenda for their own reporting. For some reason, they just go along to get along.
There are a host of reasons for this phenomenon. At present, the GOP controls all congressional committees and can gin up all manner of scandals (think: Benghazi), which the media somehow feels compelled to report breathlessly as news.
Then, theres our runaway experiment in social media, which was quickly and thoroughly commandeered by the Red Menace with an occupation army of click farms and troll factories. Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley Dandys at Facebook, Google, and Twitter, who we mortals assumed would protect the integrity of those forums, were too busy monetizing those clicks and trolls to protect their own sorry arses, let alone protect we the people from a tsunami of USDA Choice Bullshit leading up to election day.
Finally, and saddest of all, it was CNN, MSNBC and the mainstream electronic media that awarded TRump several Billions of free campaign media, and normalized Trump on the national stage. Fox News sold Trump to the 25% of diehard middle Americans who are the Fox viewing audience. The Corporate Idiots in the MSM did the rest.
The OP makes a good point about the inherent dangers to the RW media apparatus in this country, but FOX News will not be our undoing.
As Lincoln mused in 1864 when someone expressed doubts about a Northern victory, ... there was always just enough virtue in this republic to save it; sometimes none to spare, but still enough to meet the emergency.