The liberal—left is disintegrating before our very eyes.а What a revelation!
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First, they lose the second presidential election in a row; then control of Congress.

Fume.а Moan.а Hysteria.а Cries of cheating fill the air.
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Nowа they're losing control of controlling the news.а

Barbarians overwhelming the gates: The blogs.а Right wing talk radio.а Successful fair and balanced cable news.а

Fume. Moan.а Hysteria.а Cries of regulating the "other" fill the air.
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The latest to spout is eminent black columnist William Raspberry, worried that
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The in—your—face right—wing partisanship that marks Fox News Channel's news broadcasts is having two dangerous effects.

The first is that the popularity of the approach —— Fox is clobbering its direct competition (CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, etc.) —— leads other cable broadcasters to mimic it, which in turn debases the quality of the news available to that segment of the TV audience.

Got that?а By definition, "fair and balanced" it is unfair and unbalanced; it is partisanly right wing since now a long suppressed opinion is heard.а And even scarier, Fox is the most popular news broadcast on cable, thereforeа the quality of news is debased.а Wow!
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But wait!а Raspberry's fear of competition becomes more twisted
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The second, far more dangerous, effect is that it threatens to destroy public confidence in all news.
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...So why would I consider Fox such a generalized threat? Because I think the plan is not so much to convince the public that its particular view is correct but rather to sell the notion that what FNC presents is just another set of biases, no worse (and for some, a good deal better) than the biases that routinely drive the presentation of the news on ABC, CBS or NBC —— and, by extension, the major newspapers.

For the Foxidation process to work, it isn't necessary to convince Americans that the verbal ruffians who give FNC its crackle have a corner on the truth —— only that all of us in the news business are grinding our partisan axes all the time and that none of us deserves to be taken seriously as seekers of truth.

E—e—ek! Fair and balanced Fox has finally exposed that most MSMs——whether print or electronic——are biased; partisan even.аа And to think most people previously thought Raspberry and friends preached objectively from Olympic heights, carefully sifting through all available evidence to arrive at a carefully objective, factually thought out opinion.
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But it has been generally accepted that the mainstream media at least try to get it right —— even when they too grudgingly acknowledge their errors after the fact.
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Uh, no it hasn't been generally accepted.а Cynicism about the media is long standing and deep. Dan Rather accepted his errors?а Not!

What worries me is that journalism could become a battlefield of warring biases: I'll sock it to your guy, your party or your position on a public issue, and you'll sock it to mine. And we'll both believe we've done a good day's work. Come to think of it, a review of the stories on Social Security suggests that it is already happening to some extent. And one result is that you are less sure than you ought to be as to what the truth about Social Security really is.

Yep, where once the battlefield was relatively calm as the dominant (think liberal—left) guy socked the seemingly weak guy in a skewed competition the weak guy finally got some heavy gloves.а And is socking back.а Effectively.а And suddenly, on such sacred issues as the one right——oops, correct——truth of Social Security, isn't so certain.а How frightening.
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All the liberals have been forced to share that Olympian mountain with others to find the truth(s).а And liberals certainly don't share well.
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As Raspberry so inelegantly, so fearfully concludes
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Still, I'm worried that what is happening in that sandbox may wind up polluting the entire schoolyard. And no one, including the big kids of traditional journalism, seems sure what to do about it.
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In other words, diversity of opinion is pollution. So much for the libs belief in democracy.а In freedom of speech, press.
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Ethel C. Fenigаа 4 19 05