O'Reilly on 14 percent of poll respondents who think Fox News is "mostly liberal": "Those people are in crackhouses"

That was hilarious!!

Who could possibly think Fox is mostly liberal?? There has to be something wrong with that poll.

Bill-O telling it like it is.

Agreed. This IS hilarious!! Billo just laughed at both faux being liberal AND at it being fair and balanced. Wow. Along with boss limbaugh lumping faux in with conservative media in his sunday morning date with chris wallace, maybe some wingnuts will finally remove the wool from their eyes.

I doubt that it will make them any more rational or any less likely to swallow any of what faux feeds them, but it would be nice for them to recognize what faux is : a GOP talking point platform. The next step for wingnuts anonymous will then be to recognize the lies and misinformation spouted daily.

Well, well….I wasn’t wrong.

On yesterday’s Fox O’Reilly Factor show O’Reilly revealed the results of a Pew Research Center survey of Fox viewers. Apparently 33% of Fox viewers are actually Democrats – confirming my theory (see below) that many opponents of Fox watch it, and that any claims (explicit or implicit) that high ratings give credence to Fox’s warped political views are nonsense.

Interestingly, O’Reilly reported only the Democrat numbers. By doing so, he gave (deliberately, I imagine) the impression that the remaining 64% are those supportive of Fox views. Of course, like most of what Fox opines, that is rubbish. Suspecting that many of the 64% were likely to be Independents who are as appalled at Fox’s malignancy as any Democrat, I checked the Pew report.

It turns out that Independents make up 22%, Others 6% and, hilariously, Republicans only 39%. In other words, 61% of Fox viewers are people highly unlikely to watch Fox for its “truths” about the political debate. That’s more than the half I earlier surmised.

O’Reilly quickly recognised that this was going to be difficult to explain away. So he spent much of the programme on a revisionist explanation of what sort of a channel Fox really is. It turns out it’s an “entertainment” channel, not one apparently devoted to serious presentation of issues. And to make that palatable to those who thought that Fox was ever serious, it turns out that the other cables are only entertainment channels too. According to Fox no-one does serious political reporting and discussion. .

Brilliant! Fox gets to save its bacon (or thinks it does) by pretending the other cables are pigs too. Vintage Fox.

Here’s what I said earlier:

It always amuses me when Fox and its followers play the ratings card.

The fundamental mistake they make is that they have no way of knowing the political persuasion of Fox viewers. Unlike other TV news channels (we'll leave talkback radio out of it, shall we?), Fox is a politically-polarising organisation that blatantly and absurdly represents one of the poles. Other channels do not do this. Other channels also do not manipulate, distort, misrepresent and malign. Fox does; and this makes it different.

Many rightwing loons will watch Fox to have their prejudices and bigotry fed. But Fox attracts another and undoubtedly very large group. This group (of which I am one) consists of leftwingers and moderates who watch Fox with the fascination of a hare watching a snake.

The Fox method is a rivetting study in perverted "journalism". And this perversion provokes rage, disbelief and fascination. Like me, there is no sympathy among this group for what Fox is saying - quite the reverse. But there is a certain perverse pleasure in watching a snake.

Now, Fox's advertisers could not care less who watches Fox. So the total of Fox's 5 million viewers or whatever it is legitimately goes towards pleasing them. But it is ludicrous for Fox to say that this number represents support for Fox's views. I would be vastly surprised if half did.

For me, Fox is a comic opera populated with sopranos all singing out of tune. It is nauseatingly attractive.

I think some people are just f***ing with them.

O'Reilly on 14 percent of poll respondents who think Fox News is "mostly liberal": "Those people are in crackhouses"

I actually agree with Bill'O. LOL!