Cal Thomas: Other media "trying to copy" Fox's use of "big-lipped blondes" and "trailer trash"
On Fox News Watch, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas stated that other media outlets are "trying to copy" Fox News by "doing more tabloid, more big-lipped blondes," but "[t]here's only so much of that trailer-trash pie to go around."
On the June 17 edition of Fox News' Fox News Watch, syndicated columnist Cal Thomas stated that other media outlets are "trying to copy Fox" by "doing more tabloid, more big-lipped blondes," but "[t]here's only so much of that trailer-trash pie to go around." Amid laughter from the panel, Thomas concluded: "And you got to get out there and do the serious stuff once in a while."
Thomas's remarks about Fox, which were first noted by the weblog Crooks and Liars, occurred during a panel discussion with host Eric Burns and media writer Neal Gabler about a management shake-up at rival news channel MSNBC.
From the June 17 edition of Fox News Watch:
BURNS: "Quick Take" headline number two: "New Assignment for Abrams." M -- MSNBC -- I can't say it either -- show host and NBC legal correspondent Dan Abrams is getting a new job. He gives up his MSNBC talk show and becomes an MSNBC executive, second in command at the network. OK, it sounds like an inside story, Neal. But -- but usually show hosts, low-rated show hosts, aren't promoted to management.
GABLER: Yes, that's right.
BURNS: And maybe it's another indication of -- of the way MSNBC has struggled to find an identity.
GABLER: Well, they certainly have struggled. But here's what I found interesting: Abrams said, "I'm going to bring more exciting treatment of the news. It's going to be less sober." And just once --
BURNS: Just what we need.
GABLER: -- just once, I would like to hear some guy who takes over a network say, "You want to know something? I am going to make the news more exhaustive. I am going to make it more nuanced. I am going to make it better." Will anyone ever say that in the history of news?
THOMAS: You touched on the important thing: the loss of identity. All of them are trying to copy Fox now, to be honest. They wanted -- many of them are doing more tabloid, more big-lipped blondes, and all this kind of stuff. There's only so much of that trailer-trash pie to go around.
[laughter]
THOMAS: And you got to -- you've got to get out there and do the serious stuff once in a while.
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If I'm not careful in reading this, it almost makes me think that at FOX News, they know they're doing garbage/tabloid journalism..
Instead of the goings ons of the hollywood glitterati, they pass the gas for the administration..
no style and distorted substance..
Alienate your audience. Nice.
BTW, y'all should check out the "blondes" hyperlink above, if you haven't already - hilarious.
Good ol' Cal wound up being named "Worst Person" by KO last night because of these remarks. Congratulations, Fox. You've now alienated your own viewer base - not just your favorite progressive "punching bags" - in an attempt to insult the other news channels, especially MSNBC. So, MSNBC made an unorthodox move. We'll see how that turns out, although I am encouraged by Dan Abrams' decision to use KO's success as a starting point.
like them or not, fox has a successful formula for what makes a 24/7 newschannel, for now. back when cnn started all this, the public craved more news and in depth reporting as all there was then, basically, were the evening newscasts. as more competitors entered the market, news overload set in and people's tastes shifted to more tabloid, slam-bang graphics and selacious infotainment. but if msnbc becomes sloppy seconds and a fox rip-off, maybe the pendulum will swing back to more substantive programming. let's hope so. thomas did tell it like it is, even poking fun at his network. just look at fox's primetime lineup with hannity/colmes and o'reilly. if it's not a screaming, shouting, punditfest they are afraid people will tune out. i have a long time ago.
they are an ENTERTAINMENT channel,pretending to do news but the problem is, unlike the Daily Show they take themselves way to seriously.
Blond-after-blind-after-blond-after-blond. From the E.D. Hill in the morning until Greta Van Susteren at night! They've got so many blonds (big lipped Lauri Dhue among them) that I don't know how the Fox News executives can tell them apart. Somebody calls in sick? Call a blond. Somebody goes on maternity leave. Call a blond.
In fact, beneath Cal Thomas' show black, I'll bet you he's a blond!!!!!!
I meant shoe black!
The "big lipped blonds" are the "PIE" that's being served up.
But served up to WHOM? Why, to FOX's audience, of course, and there's only so much "pie" to go around. In other words, FOX already has the target audience pinned down and placated with blondes and lips and fluff and tabloid garbage.
So, who ARE this FOX audience, limited and thus futile for "copycats" to go after? TRAILER PARK TRASH. That's how Cal views FOX's target audience, for whom the PIE is served up daily.
What a refreshing and honest admission!!
You were bang-on right in revealing just how far Faux News will go to in pandering to an audience of the weak-minded, the vulnerable and the easily-led by way of about the closest we "morally superior Americans" (where have we heard THAT before, boys and girls?) will likely have to K.R.M.'s Page Three soft-porn pinups back in Great Britain (as in the Sun and News of the World) and Australia (as in the mass-circulation tabloids of News Corporation).
Come to think of it, "Dirty" is an ideal adjective for K.R.M. when it comes to his mental state. Especially when you consider where such may be suggestive of coprophilia (in the sense of a fondness for obscene and indecent materials) or an otherwise unhealthy interest in the tasteless and indecent for the sake of "winning of hearts and minds."
Even if it requires the likes of manipulation, distortion, or (in extreme cases) staging stories outright, even to the point of fabricating "evidence" for the sake of "the big lie" mentality as is the heart of Faux editorial policy. That, and disguising the fact of possibly receiving secret subsidies from His Fraudulency's Great Within.
Cons like blondes? I guess that's why I like brunettes better, in general. They tend to be more down to Earth and natural. I guess cons want faux hair and boobs to go with their faux news.
That must be why cons like CBS so much, because they can get so much faux news from that company. CBS must get all their info from faux, because all the "news" they report on is faux. It's just told to you by "down to Earth and natural" reporters, so you believe it. Funny how the libs will fall for anything told to them by a brunette, but consider the same news told by a blonde to be a lie.
this is so true and so great it has been said. We all know the networks are Fox wannabes and lick the boots of the administration and droll over the conservatives. We also know that when not drolling they are breathlessly reporting on the usual National Enquirer or trailer trash garbage. all the while, real news gets less and less.
Faux News blond obsession is equally clear in their endless stories of pretty, young blondes that have been murdered or gone missing. A woman of color is clearly of no account to these people. Their resources are rallied only in defense of attractive Aryans.
Kinda' reminds me of another 'news' venue that operated out of Europe in th 1930's.
No secret made of which lives are more valuable to the rightys.Kidnapping and rape? Yawn.
A blond cheerleader from the south??Fly the Fauxporters down pronto!
I saw Non Sannity a while back talking about one of the Fauxnews missing girls of the month.Going over the gory details, talking with a family member or friend of the girls. Hannity gets to the part about her school achievements, what a great friend she was, etc., when the guest mentions that she was a Christian.
Hannity just got this pained look on his mug, "She was a Christian? Oh no!"
The generous part of me wants to think he was just adding another facet to this missing person that spoke about her good character.
The other part of me had to think, "if a little Jewish, Muslim, orAtheist girl was raped, kidnapped and killed, would you sleep better?"
just asking.
Using his patented, sure–fire gesticulations, Grecian Formula’s® “Nature–Boy” Cal Thomas proved once again the American hillbilly’s lascivious underpinnings. With his favorably skewed penchant for “more big-lipped blondes,” the caterpillar–browed Cal squintly lamented about the dearth of “trailer trash pie to go around.” This seemingly self-astute observation belies Thomas’ Thomas Pynchon–like cravings for [the] classical Hootchie Cootchie. To paraphrase his persistent clamoring, Cal Thomas needs “to get out there and do the serious stuff once in a while.” What a schmuck.
I take offense to people who use the term "trailer trash". I grew up in a trailer park. Most of us were good hardworking folk or elderly on fixed incomes. A trailer is just another form of low-income housing for the struggling masses.
The REAL trash lives in penthouses, Georgetown condos, and the White House. You want to see human garbage? Go look in the mansions. The people who are making billions off human suffering, who hire all the suburban white trash Eichmanns to sell their evil on their tv shows every day.
Leave the trailer folk alone. They're good people. Bad people tend to have lots more money.
I have to agree. That was an example of class snobbery. As A. Whitney Brown once said, "...just because a man likes to drink his liquor out of a jelly jar, that don't mean he's a bigot."
both Trailer and Rich White are Republican Voters.
I understand your point, but you have to understand the DYNAMIC.
The Wealthy Elite -- GW Bush's "base" -- is just TOO SMALL to ensure any electoral viability. They can't WIN with only the top 10% wealthy voting.
This means that a large percentage of REGULAR FOLK have to be tricked into voting AGAINST THEIR OWN BEST INTERESTS. How can people be convinced to vote GOP and cut their own throats? To lose their jobs, lose health care coverage, inherit a huge debt, lose their rights to privacy, lose protections in the workplace, to lose their kids to a pointless war, and a thousand other measures that cheapen their lives?
FOX is the answer. A combination of BLONDES and hype, of false "patriotism" and outrage at selective groups (the poor, blacks, uppity women, egghead intellectuals, Hollywood), of appeals to manliness (warmaking) and GOD! ESPECIALLY.
It's a multi-faceted attack which FOX (and the rightwing) employ to bamboozle ordinary folks into thinking that the GOP should be voted in.
And, Lordy! So far, it WORKS. Dumbass crackers can be depended upon to vote for the guy who will alter the laws to allow the factory upstream to go ahead and pollute the creek. The Dumbass cracker's KIDS will come down with 18 kinds of cancer, but that won't be the ISSUE the GOP spoonfed them. Instead, the Dumbass cracker will vote GOP because the GOP candidate assured him that guys will NOT be allowed to marry other guys! The vote ... and the resulting cancer ... are assured. And the Dumbass cracker won't make the connection.
So, FOX has one job: Make people vote AGAINST their own best interests. It may be God and abortion and gays, or it might be WAR and flags and commies, but whatever is necessary, it will be provided.
These people MUST be convinced to vote to cut their own throats.
With that said, how come in just about every episode of COPS they go to the trailer parks instead of Pennsylvania Ave? And who's the fat guy with no shirt?
IN case he's gone, I'll tell you-
Trailer people don't have very good lawyers.
they don't have secret service.
and they don't sign the cops paycheck.
I'm not saying there aren't some baddies in the Winnebarrio,but I bet their crimes don't cost the rest of us nearly as much as the perps in the suits and ties.
is your average American, and I'd bet statistically conservative.
I never pay much attention to what this guy says. I did notice that cal thomas is rather creepy looking. I think he looks like that guy in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that captured little kids with a net. Call me a bastard, but I think that guy is just too hideous looking to be taken seriously.
Cal Thomas' mad visage is indeed hard to take, but long before he was on television the opinions he expressed in our nation's newspapers made my flesh crawl. The sad part is that lately he has almost seemed reasonable because his fellows (e.g. Ann Coulter) are so despicable
Imagine if he said "big-lipped blacks."
Cal Thomas, far left lunatic, attacks Fox News.